An expression of shock crossed Rauth’s face in the very moment before Thalric, with the very last of his reserves, ran him through. The sword’s tip grated on armour first, but found its way between the metal plates, biting through the leather backing and deep into Rauth’s body. For the third time, Thalric felt the sword hilt slip from his fingers. He dropped to his knees, trying to even out his breathing, and it was a good many seconds before he turned round.
Freigen was lying face down with an arrow in his back, while the diminutive te Berro sat ten yards away at the far end of the balcony, calmly unstringing his bow. It had been, Thalric was forced to admit, an admirable shot.
He stood up at last, feeling a little strength return to him, and reclaimed his own sword from the first man he had stabbed. The Fly-kinden looked up with a diffident smile as Thalric approached to thank him.
‘Don’t mention it,’ te Berro said. ‘All suspicions confirmed now, of course. So, what about Ulther?’
‘I should do it,’ said Thalric.
‘Forgive me, but you don’t look in any shape for that.’
Thalric let out a harsh laugh: he felt about a hundred years old at this moment. ‘I don’t expect you to understand or approve, but I owe it to him to do it myself.’
‘Your operation, your choice,’ te Berro confirmed. ‘He’s in his harem, waiting to hear the news from his victorious assassins.’
Thalric nodded, still gathering his strength like an officer marshalling wavering soldiers. He wiped his blade off on dead Freigen’s back, and carefully sheathed it. No sense in alarming the servants as he went on his way to murder their master.
Chyses’ two men had remained in the storeroom to guard their retreat, in case anyone sought to bar it against them. Chyses himself had taken the rest where his map led, up stairs and through dim corridors lit only by the slanting moon. He carried a mineral-oil lighter which he struck up only when the map proved impossible to decipher in the gloom, and he led them with a kind of blind confidence.
Achaeos knew, though, even before they came to the large hallway, that Chyses was not entirely sure where they were.
The room itself quite obviously took him aback. The ceiling was two storeys high, with a grand flight of stone-faced steps taking up half the floor space. Chyses hissed to himself and took the map out again. Tisamon and Tynisa stood waiting a few paces to either side.
‘I think . . .’ Chyses said, trying to get the map angled towards moonlight. The windows were so high up on the wall behind them that their light slanted directly to the far end of the room, rippling up the stairs. Irritably, he struck up the lamp again, and tried to unpuzzle the map by its pale flame.
‘Let me see.’ Totho came forward, balancing the crossbow in one hand. Chyses jerked the map irritably away from him – and at that very moment a Wasp soldier appeared at the top of the stairs.
He did not run for help. Instead he started down the steps towards them with an angry cry. Later, Tynisa guessed that all he had seen were Totho and Chyses. She and Tisamon, silent and still in the darkness, had escaped his notice.
She was a pace towards the guard, still unseen, when Totho let fly with the crossbow. The first bolt, by sheer luck, caught the man in the shoulder. He lost his footing on the stairs and clattered back onto them with a yell. The second shot, following hard on the first, shattered into pieces against the steps, while the third took him in mid-chest as he sat up, a perfect target-range hit, slamming him down again and cutting short his cry of warning.
There was no immediate uproar from around them, but they knew it would soon be coming. ‘Which way, Chyses?’ hissed Tisamon, and perhaps the threat implicit in his voice brought the man’s judgment into focus, because he was now pointing back into the hallway they had just exited.
‘Next door along,’ he told them. ‘Stairs down, should be.’
Tisamon was already past him and gone. Totho was still fumbling fresh bolts into the wooden magazine atop his bow. ‘Come on,’ Tynisa urged him, and then she realized that Toran Awe, was not following them.
‘What—?’
‘I will speak to them when they come,’ the Grasshopper said calmly. ‘I will send them the wrong way. After all, I am militia. I am supposed to be here.’
Tynisa gave her a quick nod, and then followed Totho along the hall.
This time Chyses was right, or at least his map was. The plain stone stairs took them into the earth again, and to another hallway with small doors to one side. Totho was already bustling towards one with the autoclef, a spiny device about a foot long which he fed into the keyhole and then adjusted. As it click-clicked to itself within the lock, Totho gritted his teeth and continued to play with it, cycling through various combinations of teeth in search of the one that would move the tumblers. It did not look like a high-standard lock but something workaday and easily made. It should not be taking this long, surely.
Finally, it clicked, and the door pulled open as he removed the autoclef. Inside were two ragged Fly-kinden men, blinking sleepily up at them.
‘Who are these?’ one of them demanded of the other, but Tynisa just pointed to one side.
‘Go. Get out and don’t ask questions,’ she said and, still not quite believing their good fortune, they fled.
They found three locals in the other cells, and then two empty ones. There was no sign of Salma or Che.
‘Kymene’s cell lies deeper than this,’ Chyses announced. ‘We have to move on.’
‘What about our friends?’ Tynisa demanded, and he shrugged.
‘We don’t know where they are. We do know where Kymene is and that’s all we know.’ The locals they had rescued had already vanished in the opposite direction.
There was a gasp from along the corridor, and they saw two servants standing there, having just come up from some deeper level. They immediately turned to flee and Tisamon was on them like an arrow, charging down the hall towards them.
‘No!’ Chyses yelled, and then the servants were rebounding at the far end of the hall, as a soldier suddenly appeared there. In an instant his hand was outstretched, energy crackling from it. Tisamon dropped to his knees, skidding along the smooth flags of the floor, and the bolt of fire lanced over his head even as he rammed his claw forward, taking the man in the side and then again across the throat as he fell.
They could hear a disturbance on the floor above, but seeming to get fainter as they listened. Tynisa hoped Toran Awe would be successful in her subterfuge and keep them running, and that the Grasshopper would not suffer for it.
‘Downwards,’ Chyses hissed, and two turns later he at last found a stairway for them. By now Tynisa had lost all track of whether they were above or below the storeroom through which they had entered, but just as she was deciding that Chyses had lost the way again, Achaeos spoke from her elbow.
‘This is it,’ he said. ‘We’re getting closer.’
His face, grey and white-eyed, was unreadable.
Chyses was moving faster now, informed constantly by the sounds from above that their sands of opportunity were running out. He took less care now, he was almost running headlong. Tynisa and Tisamon could keep up with him, but she knew that Totho was clumping along increasingly far at the rear. Achaeos could be anywhere. She lost track of him from moment to moment.
Then, ahead of them, a door burst open and Wasp soldiers came out.
Chyses hit the first one head on. He could not have stopped if he had wanted to. He had a long dagger drawn and, as the two of them went over, he was already stabbing at the man savagely. The second man clear of the door tried to back away, almost tripping over Chyses and then righting himself with a flash of his wings. In that moment Tynisa was on him. Her first lunge merely scraped on his armour, giving him a chance to drag his shortsword clear of its scabbard. But before he could thrust it into her she was over his guard, the point of her rapier entering under his ribs and pressing forward until only inches of the blade could be seen between flesh and hilt. He sta
bbed at her anyway, even as his legs gave way, but she twisted out of the blade’s path easily, pushing down on his shoulder to yank her sword free.
She turned to find Tisamon had felled two more, Wasps without armour, and was lunging at another who was trying to back away from the doorway. The vicious claw slashed the man across the chest, but shallowly, and then a bolt of Wasp-sting energy lashed out to char the facing wall, making Tisamon duck sideways out of view. Tynisa made to lunge through the doorway past him but, while she was still thinking it, Achaeos put in a brief appearance, crouching low and already releasing his bowstring as she saw him. There was a cry from inside, and she and Tisamon went sweeping into the room in the next moment.
Instantly Tisamon was brought up short, snapping himself back into a defensive stance with his claw raised high to confront some great menace. She pushed past him, running her blade into the adversary whose chest Tisamon had already slashed so that he sprawled back across a great table.
There was a last Wasp there, at the far end of the room, and she registered his widening glance. There was an arrow in him, the shaft shuddering as he tried to remain standing. He had his hand held out towards her and, had he not been a Wasp, she might have thought it a gesture of supplication.
Tynisa froze: he was too far to take a run at. While she hesitated, another arrow seemed to flower magically beside the first, and a gush of blood burst from his lips. The Wasp fell back against the wall and slid to the ground.
That was it. There were no more of them. It came to her afterwards that, aside from the first two soldiers, the rest had not been in armour, had in fact been dressed in civilian clothes.
Tisamon was now advancing down the length of the table’s far side, and at last she saw what had so startled him. The carapace of a gigantic praying mantis hung on wires, looming over the table. Tisamon stared up at it and then, with an angry sound, he vaulted onto the table, scattering papers, and sliced through the wires with three swift blows. In a moment the macabre display was tumbling down, chitin plates bouncing and cracking.
Tynisa saw that the table had some kind of map on it, and papers as well, closely written with numbers. She swept up as many of them as she could grab and folded them, stuffed them into her tunic. Stenwold will like these, she had decided.
Chyses was in the doorway with his bloodied dagger. ‘We’re wasting time,’ he insisted.
‘You led us here,’ she replied sharply. ‘Now lead us where we’re supposed to be.’
Thalric did what he could with the wound. Ten years’ worth of field surgery in yet more friendless places than this came to his aid. The Scorpion’s claws had punched straight through his copperweave mail, leaving two jagged circles of broken links. He wondered, if he had not been wearing it, whether he might have lost his arm at the shoulder.
He took a moment, out of sight of the world, and even of te Berro, just to sag against a wall and close his eyes. It had been a rough night and the worst was still to come. Already he could hear running feet and he had left a pretty pattern of bodies in the garden and on the upper tier. Let them come flooding upwards. Let them start their search there on the terrace itself, or stare up at the skies for aerial assassins. He was already heading in the opposite direction.
Yes, quite. It seemed his whole career had reversed direction recently. He could not quite disentangle the pain in his shoulder from the feeling of defeat and despair that attended his mission. It should not have to be like this, a man turning on his friend, but Thalric was above all a loyal servant of the Empire.
He was also a loyal servant of the Rekef and, if he strained his imagination just far enough, he could justify to himself that the two were the same thing.
He had run ragged his reserves of strength in that fight, so his sword would be his first resort now. Using the Art-made sting of his people – which had become the symbol of their conquest in the eyes of the conquered – was draining on one’s physical reserves.
He knew he could have let te Berro and his agents deal with Ulther, but that would have been one betrayal further than he was willing to go. If things went badly, if Ulther had more sycophants to deploy, or even managed to kill him personally, then perhaps there would be some balance restored in that. He pushed himself away from the wall with a groan, and started off on his way to Ulther’s harem. The thought that he might encounter Ulther in the throes of the old man’s passions drew an involuntary, horrified laugh from him.
The servants he passed flinched away from him at the sight of his grim expression or his bloodied shoulder. There was a great deal of commotion on the upper floors that Thalric passed through like a ghost, and as he descended the stairs it was like going underwater, suddenly so quiet, but with a pressure in his head he knew was bred of doubt and guilt.
There were half a dozen guards in a sentry post near the cells, but Tisamon was running ahead of the pack now, and Tynisa got there just in time to put her rapier in the back of one who was trying to put distance between himself and the Mantis. Inside the sentry room Tisamon stood behind a table strewn with cards and small coins and the floor was scattered with bodies, like some Collegium woodcut depicting the evils of gambling. Despite her willing involvement in the venture the sight brought home to her just how much blood had been shed that night, and how much might yet be spilled.
Chyses joined them then, and Totho barrelled past him and began clicking away at the first locked door, not with the cumbersome autoclef but with a set of keys taken from one of the slain guards.
‘No, further on,’ the Mynan directed. ‘She’s down that way.’
‘We’ll do this my way,’ Totho told him patiently. ‘I’m not here for your leader.’
Chyses bared his teeth and Tynisa saw his knuckles whiten about his dagger hilt. She moved to stand beside Totho, where the Mynan could see her intent. At the same time, and somewhat to her surprise, she found herself seeking out Achaeos.
The Moth gave her a small head-shake. ‘Further in,’ was all he would say. Totho hunched his shoulders against the revelation and sprung the first door open. Inside there was a shabby-looking Soldier Beetle-kinden, a greying, careworn-looking man.
‘Out,’ Chyses told him. ‘Out and get yourself a weapon from the guard room there.’ The prisoner paused only a moment and then went to obey.
Without saying anything at all, Tisamon went to the foot of the stairs they had descended and waited. Tynisa knew that his instinct was right. There would be more soldiers coming soon. Their luck had held so far but the imperial garrison in Myna was large, and all within easy reach of the palace. As soon as someone realized just what was going on then they wouldn’t be able to move for armed Wasps. She cast a glance at Tisamon, seeing how they were working together like a pair of hands now, just like before. She could hardly believe it. Before tonight is out I shall shock you, father. You cannot ignore me forever.
Totho was working feverishly on the fifth door now, and meanwhile they were accumulating more ragged, determined looking Mynan men and women, weighing Wasp swords and daggers in their hands and waiting for further orders.
These had been a warrior people, Tynisa recalled, before the conquest. Not so belligerent as Ant-kinden or the Wasps themselves, but fighting to defend their own was ingrained in them. Just as well, because they’re going to need it.
They had reached the end of this row of cells but the corridor continued, and Chyses was already hurrying down it. They all heard his shout of ‘You’re here!’ and then he was running back towards them.
‘I’ve found her!’ he declared. ‘Come on, man, hurry!’
A woman’s voice from down the corridor called, ‘Chyses, watch out!’ and almost as the words echoed the first bolt of energy crackled past. Totho dropped to one knee and worked the crossbow’s lever furiously, emptying the weapon as another sting-bolt exploded against the wall beside him, scorching his cheek. One of the Wasp soldiers ahead of them went down before Totho’s barrage, but the way ahead was dark and he was not a
good shot by nature. A second soldier had ducked behind his companion, and was now crouched flat against a wall. Tynisa dragged Totho into the shelter of one of the cells as he fumbled for another magazine.
‘You’re not a soldier,’ she reminded him, but then there was the hiss of another bolt of energy zipping past the doorway, and she heard Chyses curse.
She tensed, because she knew, in spite of herself, that Tisamon was about to rush the man, and that she would go too, to back him up. Even with that thought there came a cry from where the soldier was, and the sound of a scuffle, metal ringing on metal. Tisamon dashed past their doorway and Tynisa followed suit but it was over before either of them got there. The soldier lay face down with an arrow in his back and several jagged wounds elsewhere, and Achaeos was standing over him, trembling. He held a dagger in his hand, his arm steeped in blood to the elbow. His offhand palm was wet with his own and he had a split lip, and from that Tynisa could reconstruct the past moments. Achaeos had crept up in the dark for a shot, but it had not been as sure as he hoped, and the wounded man had charged him. She wondered whether this was the first time he had killed a man close to.
‘Good work,’ Tisamon nodded, and the Moth nodded back wordlessly. Something twisted in Tynisa then, because that simple commendation from him was more than she had ever received.
‘Kymene!’ Chyses exclaimed, and Tynisa realized that behind the bars of the one open-fronted cell, in the shadows, stood a woman who was watching them keenly. As she stepped into the light, Tynisa was struck by the instant calming effect she seemed to exert on the Mynans there, each and every one of them.
Empire in Black and Gold Page 40
