Now she stood shaking slightly as one of the crew began to mop at the deck, swabbing the blood from it. Another man was heaving the bodies of slain pirates overboard, only five of them and one shot in the back. The dead crewmen were wrapped in canvas, gone from crew to silent passengers in a sharp moment.
‘Well, damn me but look at her,’ said her companion, moving up beside her. He had fled to the top of the wheelhouse once the pirates had attacked, but had taken a few shots with his bow from that vantage point. He was Fly-kinden, but a particularly unsavoury specimen of one, bald and coarse-featured and dressed in dark tunic and cloak like a stage-play assassin. Now he was staring at the approaching pilot whose aerobatics had apparently defeated the pirates’ fliers.
The pilot was a female Fly even smaller than himself, clad in an all-in-one garment of waxed cloth strapped across with various belts and bandoliers. She seemed very young, with a round, tanned face and smiling eyes, and Che envied the light way she moved across the deck.
There were other passengers aboard, but only one had come up on deck to help them fight. He was a tall, severe-looking Spider-kinden man, who gave the pilot a little nod of acknowledgement as she approached.
‘So,’ he said, with a bitter smile. ‘The Destiavel, is it?’
‘My ever generous-hearted employers, Sieur,’ the pilot confirmed, grinning at him. ‘And you are Sieur Miyalis of the Praevrael Concord, unless I mistake a face. Your cargo still safe in the lower hold, is it? A shame for you if they’d been taken by pirates. Not so much shame for them, though. A slave in Princep Exilla or a slave in Solarno, I see no difference.’
The Spider-kinden slaver narrowed his eyes. ‘Then I advise you not to meddle in the trade, little pilot,’ he snarled, and stalked away.
‘Superb,’ the Fly pilot said vaguely, before gazing brightly at Che. ‘Let’s see if I can piss you off too, just as quickly.’ She took a second look at the woman she was talking to. ‘You’re a foreigner – in fact you both are, by your dress.’ She pulled the chitin helmet from her head, unleashing an improbable cascade of chestnut hair. There came a low whistle from beside Che and the pilot fixed the bald man with an arch stare. ‘What’s wrong, Sieur? Is it your daughters I remind you of, or your grand-daughters?’
‘Nice, very nice,’ he replied sourly. ‘Well, lady aviatrix, my name is Nero, the artist.’ Che caught the moment’s pause as Nero recalled just how far they now were from his usual haunts where his reputation might carry some weight. ‘And this is Cheerwell Maker, a scholar of Collegium.’
‘Collygum?’ the pilot echoed, mangling the name somewhat. ‘Spider Satrapy, is that?’
‘Not within the Spiderlands at all, Madam Destiavel,’ Che informed her, whereupon the pilot looked suddenly interested.
‘You don’t say? Look, I’m not Destiavel – they’re just the house that pay my way so I can afford to keep my Esca Volenti in the air. The name’s Taki, and you’re well met. If you’ll tell me more about where you come from, I’ll stand you a drink on the Perambula when we touch land. Maybe even find you a place to stay. I take it you’re on business?’
‘Of a sort,’ Che admitted, conscious of how suspicious she sounded. Of course, their current business was not the sort to be discussed with just any stranger, but this Taki seemed their best chance of finding their feet quickly in Solarno, about which Che knew almost nothing.
‘How comes you’ve got a boy’s name then, Miss Taki?’ Nero asked, still looking a little stung by her earlier comment. It was true though, Che decided: he was old enough to be the girl’s father.
‘Well, old man, strictly speaking it’s te Schola Taki-Amre, but most people lose interest by the time I get through all that.’ She grinned, and Che had to admit that she was really very pretty.
‘Te Schola, is it?’ Nero replied, clearly nettled. ‘Well if it’s noble blood, I can’t compete with that.’
She looked at him strangely, and then grinned once more. ‘Sieur, such a name’s no rarity in Solarno. As for you, why, surely you can’t merely be known as “Nero” in whatever port you hail from? That would seem just dreadful.’ Her grin seemed to feed off his scowl. ‘When they came to Solarno, the ladies and lords of the Spider-kinden brought with them the chiefs of their servants to provide for them but, as we tell it, they had left their homes in more of a hurry than was wise, and so the chiefs were the only ones who made the journey. My grandmother assures me that we were all little ladies and lords of our own people back then, and only came with our own mistresses out of love. Take that how you will.’ Taki now leant on the rail, looking north to where a distant shadow on the horizon must surely be the coast of the Exalsee.
‘Where I come from we’re a bit choosier about who we give the honorifics to,’ Nero told her.
‘And do you merit one, Sieur Nero?’
He glowered at her and remained silent.
‘We have a lot to learn about Solarno,’ Che intervened. ‘In return you’d like to hear about my home, and Nero’s?’
‘Very much.’ Taki grinned up at her. ‘If you’re proposing a deal, Bella Cheerwell, you have my hand on it.’
Che took that hand, so much smaller than her own. ‘I must ask one thing first, though.’
‘Ask away.’
‘Have you… Are you familiar with the Wasp-kinden, or their Empire?’
Something tugged briefly at Taki’s expression. ‘Ah, them,’ she said, and there was suddenly a distance between her and Che. ‘I apologize but I hadn’t realized you were one of theirs.’ The next words seemed almost forced out of her: ‘If you’re an ambassador, I’ll point you towards the Corta. They can deal with you.’
Che chose her own words carefully. ‘I’m not “one of theirs”. In fact…’ It was the crucial moment, to trust or not to trust. ‘I am no friend of theirs at all.’
In Taki’s eyes the same caution was reflected. ‘Well then, Bella Cheerwell…’ the Fly said slowly, ‘perhaps we have something in common after all.’
Two
Two months before.
Back in Collegium Stenwold Maker had left Lineo Thadspar and the rest of the Assembly to continue the rebuilding of the city and begin a muster in earnest. War had finally come to Collegium and, though the Vekken enemy were gone, war remained. Collegium was raising troops for the very first time in its history: not a militia but an army. All of the newly formed merchant companies had dispatched recruiters through the little road-towns and satellite villages and these were now busy drumming up men and women willing to take the Assembly’s coin and wear a uniform. The uniforms, however, were likely to be somewhat mismatched. The Assembly had officially adopted the sword and book of the Prowess Forum, in white and gold, and made it a proud badge for the new military, but much of the actual equipment was windfall, and most of the companies had their own ideas about uniformity. Collegium suddenly had inherited a vast number of discarded Vekken mail hauberks, shortswords and crossbows that were barely used, and the Beetle-kinden were always a practical people.
Everyone realized that, come spring, all kinds of chaos would be breaking out, both north and east, and that was why this Sarnesh automotive was now out scouting the terrain. The passengers it carried were little more than an inconvenience.
Stenwold had certainly endured more comfortable journeys in his time, pressed in tight, as he was, between his two bodyguards and the automotive’s crew. Even with Balkus half disappeared into the turret so as to man the repeating ballista, and Tynisa practically squeezed into his armpit, he was still trying to unfold his charts. He finally spread the map as best he could, forcing Tynisa to take one corner herself, while he tried to put in his mind a picture of the conflicting powers: his city’s forces, his enemy and those he hoped would be his allies.
His pieces were all ranked ready for his move. Here was Tisamon, who had taken Stenwold aside and lectured him at length about the responsibility he had taken on: namely the Dragonfly-kinden woman, Felise Mienn. That in turn meant Tisamon had to r
ub shoulders with her Spider-kinden doctor, which meant more friction as Tisamon and his whole race loathed the man’s breed.
And it was more complicated yet, for Tisamon was the one person Stenwold could trust to look after the Wasp defector, Thalric, who was as murderous a piece of work as anyone could wish to have in custody. Then, on the other hand, Tisamon had no love of Arianna…
Arianna. Stenwold paused at the thought of her: a gem in a sky otherwise denuded of stars, but another defector. He sometimes recognized that look in Tisamon’s eyes that said, I am waiting to prove you wrong.
My friends are driving me insane, thought Stenwold gloomily, and forced himself to concentrate on the map.
There was a Wasp army, or most of one, positioned several miles east of Sarn, but it had not moved since the battle that the Sarnesh had brought against it, and subsequently lost after the deployment of some new Wasp secret weapon. The Sarnesh had inflicted sufficient casualties to cause the Wasps to fortify their position and dig in, while awaiting reinforcements. Information Stenwold received from his contacts in Helleron suggested that those reinforcements would come with the spring – which was likely to see more of death than new life at this rate. He was only thankful that the winter they were on the verge of was forecast to be harsher than the Lowlands normally endured. Certainly it would not be suitable for the movement of massed armies. Even the Wasp Empire stopped for winter.
There had also been a Wasp army of 30,000 advancing on Merro and Egel, further down the coast, but it had been stalled by 200 men belonging to the Spider Aristos Teornis, and then destroyed by the Mantis-kinden of Felyal. Teornis was at Collegium still, wanting to discuss strategy and brimming over with great ideas about how other people’s soldiers could be sent to their deaths, his own having mostly returned to their home ports. Yet another Spider that Tisamon will have to be kept clear of, Stenwold reflected glumly. Also at Collegium was Achaeos, lover of Stenwold’s niece, still recovering from the wounds he took at the Battle of the Rails, together with the Fly-kinden Sperra, who was tending to him. That made up the tally of Stenwold’s people, or so he had thought.
But the Fly-kinden messengers had changed all that: first Nero and then a sullen-faced girl called Chefre. On the strength of their news Stenwold was rushing north-by-east, as fast as a steam-engined automotive would take them.
Abruptly the automotive was slowing. Stenwold looked up from his charts, now crumpled and creased, almost indecipherable in the dim light inside the engine.
‘What is it?’
‘Men ahead, armed men,’ Balkus reported, from the turret, and Stenwold realized he must have mentally shared his visions and thoughts in silence with the Sarnesh driver, for all that Balkus was a renegade. ‘A camp, looks like.’
‘Imperial?’
‘Nothing of that,’ Balkus reassured him. ‘Still, no small number, either. Got someone coming forwards… now a pack of them, a dozen or so.’
Trapped sightless as he was within the automotive’s belly, Stenwold could only sit and fret until he heard the voice from outside.
‘We’ve been watching you for some while,’ someone called out in a Helleren accent. ‘Don’t think we ain’t got the tools to crack one of these things wide open. Better you say who you are, now.’
Stenwold pitched his voice to carry clearly. ‘It’s Stenwold Maker from Collegium. And you must be Salma’s people.’
There was a pause and then: ‘That we are. Come on over, you’re expected.’ The driver obediently followed them within the confines of the camp with the automotive, the tracks crunching and lurching over the uneven ground. Once the engine had stilled Stenwold reached up and unlatched the hatch, letting in a wash of glare from outside.
Tynisa stepped out first, hand ready on her rapier hilt, her movements as lithe and balanced as Mantis and Spider blood could make them. Stenwold followed at her nod of reassurance for, with Tisamon back home watching their prize defector, Tynisa had taken on responsibility for his safety as a trust of Mantis honour. Behind him he heard Balkus now twisting his bulky frame through the hatch, his nailbow clattering against armour-plating.
The camp was a ragged, temporary affair, composed of rough tents and lean-tos without pattern or order. Stenwold guessed that, at the first word of an imperial force heading this way, they could be gone without trace into the surrounding wasteland. There were plenty of convenient gullies and canyons out here in the drylands east of Sarn and, if someone knew the land well enough, they could hide out for ever. And Salma would have followers here who knew every shrub and grain of sand.
There were at least a hundred people in the camp, and Stenwold guessed that half that number again would currently be out scouting or hunting. They were a ragged mix, the lot of them: he spotted at least a dozen separate kinden and a fair crop of halfbreeds. They were all well armed and wearing leather or shell armour, with a few suits of chain. He even saw repainted imperial banded mail amongst them, and plenty of Wasp-made swords. They had been busy, it seemed.
In passing his eyes across them, one familiar gaze met his.
Salma.
The youth had changed so much that Stenwold barely recognized him. He had been reshaped in fire and blood: drained and thinned by injury, toughened by rough living, given gravitas by responsibility. In place of the casual finery he had affected in Collegium he wore a hauberk of studded leather that fell to his knees but was slit into four to let him move freely. He had a helm, too, of Ant-kinden make, also an Ant-made shortsword at his belt, and gripped an unstrung longbow in one hand like a staff. His face was gaunter, his eyes hollower, and there was dust powdered across his golden skin. On first sight he looked like a foreign warlord or brigand chief, savage and dangerous and exotic. So little about him recalled those College days.
‘Salma,’ Stenwold greeted him, and then, ‘Prince Salme Dien.’
‘Just Salma,’ replied the Dragonfly noble. As he stepped forwards, he clasped Stenwold’s hand confidently, and like an equal and not a student. ‘It’s been a while since Myna, Sten.’ His history since their parting was written on his face through bitter experience. His gaze passed on from Stenwold. ‘Tynisa,’ he said.
She was staring at him uncertainly. ‘Look at you,’ she said, ‘all grown up.’ She went to him, one hand held out as though she was not sure he was really there. A moment later her eyes flicked to the woman who stood just behind him, robed and hooded in dun cloth, yet whose skin shone through, whose face glittered with rainbows. An indefinable expression passed over Tynisa’s face, and she looked away.
‘Ah well,’ Stenwold heard her say very quietly.
Salma gazed at her for a moment, the silence dragging.
Stenwold opened his mouth a little, then closed it again. There was tension here he could not account for. He glanced at the rough-looking band of men and women that were the Dragonfly’s followers. ‘Nero told me some of what you’ve been through,’ he managed eventually.
‘He doesn’t know the half of it,’ Salma told him. Something, some dark memory, caught in his voice as he said it.
Are we not grave men of state now, Stenwold thought. As he was about to reply, a woman’s voice cried out in joy and Cheerwell was bundling between Salma’s people, rushing up to Stenwold and throwing her arms about him, sabotaging the dignity of the solemn situation utterly. When Stenwold had finally managed to peel her off him he saw that Salma was smiling. It was not the easy grin of his youth, but it was a start.
‘Uncle Sten, I’ve got something really, really important to show you,’ Che said excitedly.
‘Best save it for Collegium,’ Stenwold told her. ‘We’re close enough to the Wasp army here that I keep looking to the skies.’
‘You needn’t worry,’ Salma told him. ‘I have scouts watching for them, and my people know the land better than they do.’
‘Even so,’ Stenwold said. ‘When you get to my age, you try not to rely too much on anyone else’s information. Let’s get quickly back to Collegium
and then we can take stock.’
There was a shuffling amongst Salma’s followers and he said, ‘I won’t be going to Collegium with you, Sten.’
‘No?’ Stenwold watched him carefully.
‘I’m not your agent any more, or your student. I have other responsibilities.’
‘Towards…?’
‘There is a nomad-town of almost twenty-five hundred, people out there that needs me,’ Salma told him. ‘Currently it’s pitched up against the walls of Sarn, and the Sarnesh Queen is waiting for me to explain to her precisely why that is so, and what we want from her. More than that, I have almost a thousand fighting men who are gathered together only because of me.’
‘A thousand?’ Stenwold frowned. ‘I hadn’t heard… Who are they? What is this?’
‘What it is, Sten, is an army,’ Salma said. ‘And who they are depends on who you ask. Deserters, brigands, farmhands, tinkers, lapsed Way Brothers, more and more all the time. The one thing they have in common is that the Wasp Empire is their enemy.’
‘Well, then, the Empire is all of our enemies,’ Stenwold pointed out. ‘I don’t see…’
‘Many of them were slaves,’ Salma explained, leaving a moment’s pause for that statement to echo. ‘Many more are renegades. They trust me, and I am responsible for them. I have not gathered them just to hand them over to Sarn or Collegium as an expendable militia. They are my people, a people in their own right. I call them my New Mercers, but the name they see most often is the Lands-army. We will fight the Empire, Sten, but if the war is won, we will not just disband and return to burned-out farmhouses and servitude or punishment. That is what I will talk to the Queen of Sarn about, and what I will talk to you about, in due course, but… things are now different between us. No fault of yours, but events are in the way. I owe these people my service, just as a prince should.’
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