Empire in Black and Gold

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘The door, if you please,’ she said, as though all of this were her own plan and she had been expecting them. Totho hurried up with the keys and then, when none of these would fit, starting scratching away with his autoclef. Tisamon returned down the corridor to take up his post by the guard room, and Tynisa knew it would not be long before they heard the sounds of further fighting there.

  ‘Who are these people?’ Kymene asked Chyses.

  ‘Foreigners,’ he explained. ‘They’re here after two of their own.’

  ‘Then we owe them a debt for their aid,’ she said, and just then Totho opened the gate in the bars with a cry of triumph. As Kymene stepped out like a queen entering her kingdom, Tynisa decided that the woman could be no more than a year or two her senior.

  She heard awed whispers from some of the freed prisoners. ‘The Maid,’ and ‘The Maid of Myna,’ they murmured.

  ‘Whom do you seek?’ Kymene asked her.

  ‘A Dragonfly man and a Beetle-kinden girl.’

  ‘A brown-skinned girl with dyed pale hair?’

  ‘You’ve seen her!’ Totho exclaimed instantly. ‘Where—?’

  ‘I don’t know which cell is hers, but when they lead her back to it, they always take her that way,’ Kymene explained. ‘Chyses, you must stay and guide them.’

  There was no argument from Chyses now as he bowed the head to his leader. Kymene laid a hand on his shoulder in thanks.

  ‘Show me how you intend to leave this place,’ she said, and he had the map out ready in an instant. She studied it for a moment, marked the route. ‘I will take these,’ she indicated the freed prisoners, ‘and I will meet you on the outside. Be quick.’

  If it had not been for the injured shoulder troubling him, if it had not been for the spectre of his confrontation with Ulther looming large, Thalric reassured himself, he would not have slipped as he did.

  He was on his way to the harem, making the best speed he could without actually running. Ahead of him he saw some servants scattering at his approach, but he was used to that by now. Only a moment later, but far later than it should have, did the realization strike him. Servants with swords drawn? And these people had been dirty and ragged, not wearing the plain dark tunics that Ulther dressed his menials in. He swung round instantly, but they had already closed in and a hand grasped his collar. There was a sudden point of pain at his throat.

  He was about to fight, to summon his energies for a final retributive sting, but the angle of the blade changed slightly, putting the razor edge against his flesh, and he felt a little blood welling up there, and he remained still.

  They came up to him then, a half-dozen grimy Mynan locals holding Wasp swords and daggers like the very piece at his throat. Some soldier’s diligence in keeping his kit in good order was now about to make an end to him.

  He craned around, and his captor pushed him back against the wall, the blade cutting a little with the movement.

  He found himself staring right into the face of Kymene and his heart went cold with it. She was unmistakable, the Maid of Myna. Caged, she had seemed too great for that space to contain. Here she was free like an impatient beast that had never lost the ways of the wild. She put him in mind of a great green hunting beetle, as large as a horse, that had once been brought to a gladiatorial match. Even pitted against mounted soldiers with spears, the monster had made a bloody accounting of itself, raising its great mandibles to the crowd and cowing them to silence.

  ‘I know you,’ she said softly. ‘You’re – don’t tell me – Thalric. Captain Thalric, is it not? The political.’

  ‘Your memory does you credit,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘I’m sure you remember me,’ she said with a wicked smile. ‘It seems you’ve been in the wars, Captain Thalric. Or did you have an accident cleaning your crossbow?’

  ‘It’s been a busy night,’ he confirmed. Her eyes held his, and he felt as though they were unravelling his mind, his entire past, piece by piece.

  ‘It’s liable to get busier before dawn,’ she promised. ‘Where are you bound, Captain, all bandaged up like that? The infirmary’s the other way, they tell me.’

  He tried a smile and found it came quite easily despite her, or even because of her. ‘I’m going to kill Governor Ulther,’ he said, and he knew she could see, in his eyes, that it was no less than the truth.

  He had surprised her, though, and he treasured that moment, even though the blade wavered against his skin. She might be the Maid of Myna, but she did not know everything.

  ‘The Bloat? You’re going to kill the Bloat?’ she asked, and it was a moment before that name made a connection.

  ‘If you’ll let me,’ he said mildly, and watched his words ripple through her supporters, now a dozen in number. They were all staring at him, blankly or wonderingly.

  ‘Captain Thalric, hero of the revolution, is it?’ Kymene said slowly. ‘Perhaps one good deed to balance out all the bad ones?’

  He gave her a thin, bleak smile.

  ‘Or is it just Wasp politics, like your little sideshow earlier?’ she prompted.

  ‘We take our politics seriously.’

  The blade was gone from his throat, so suddenly that for a second he thought she must have rammed it home. ‘I don’t care whether it’s politics or paid, whether he slept with your woman or muddied your name, or whether you just want to see what colour his fat liver is. I give you your life, Captain Thalric. Now let’s see what you do with it.’

  And with that she was off, her supporters dashing after her, leaving Thalric fingering the shallow graze on his neck.

  There was a pressure building above them, they knew. It was composed of a large number of Wasps who, for now at least, were on the wrong trail, but would realize their error soon enough. As they left Kymene and her guard, their pace quickened and quickened. They had done everything save what they had come to do. The last sands were teetering in the hourglass.

  ‘There!’ Totho said, for there were more doors, more cells ahead. There were more guards, too. A pair of them had come out into the corridor, Wasps in light striped armour. One of them was so astounded by the sight bearing down on them that he just gaped, but the other one cried the alarm.

  Tynisa was on them even with the release of their first sting, and she felt the heat of the blast wash past her face. He had not drawn his sword, that man, falling back on Wasp-Art to save him, and she made him pay for that by slipping her blade around the side of his armour plates. The other man had a sword ready but, as he tried to use it against her, Chyses had slammed into him and the two of them grappled fiercely on the ground. Tynisa was about to finish the fight for him, but Totho’s warning shout made her start back. A third man had come out by the same way, and this one was something more. He wore heavy armour of the sort called sentinel-mail, with plate and chain all over that her blade would not pierce, and a helm that left only a slit for the wearer’s eyes. For all that metal weight he came out fast, and he had a long-shafted glaive in his hands, its swordhead lunging towards her. He almost took her, too. She misjudged the weapon’s reach, and what had seemed a safe distance brought the weapon’s point dancing right before her eyes the next moment, so that she had to fall backwards to avoid it.

  She heard the harsh ratchet of Totho’s crossbow, and saw the man twist at the next moment. One bolt stuck in, hanging limply from the chain mail, but two rebounded back from the man’s curved shoulder-guard and helm.

  There were other guards following behind him now, a pair of them emerging to pause and stare in shock at the fight. The sentinel drew back his glaive to spit her, and she scuttled back across the floor, seeing one of Achaeos’s arrows break across the man’s breastplate.

  Tisamon!

  But Tisamon was behind them, still covering their retreat.

  The sentinel had now stepped right over Chyses and his opponent, driving for her with the polearm. Tynisa stepped aside and lunged, trying for his throat or else the eyeslit, but he swayed back and her blade be
nt dangerously against his gorget. Then the haft of the polearm slammed her into the wall, driven with all the strength of a man who has lived in such armour for many years.

  Chyses meanwhile had finished his man, but was caught between the sentinel’s back and the two new soldiers. They were in some quick debate, though, and even despite her bruised ribs Tynisa wondered why they were not attacking. Chyses took his chance, and lunged at the sentinel from behind, slamming his dagger into him with all the strength he possessed. It bit into the chain mail beneath the backplate and must have done some work because a muffled roar rose from within the helm.

  Then Chyses suddenly had the iron-shod butt of the glaive across his jaw. He spun back against the wall, leaving his dagger in place, and Tynisa jabbed forward again. She got her opponent’s throat, but there was chain mail even there, and leather beneath it. Her sword bit and then bowed, but she put all her strength into it with a desperate shout.

  The blade skidded from the mail and she slammed into the man himself. The sharp curves of her own sword’s guard scored a line across her face below one eye and the sentinel fell back against the corridor wall, driving Chyses’ dagger inches deeper into the small of his back.

  And then she saw the two soldiers come to a decision at last as they drew blades and headed off in the opposite direction, towards the cells.

  They were going to kill the prisoners, and she knew without doubt that those same prisoners must be Salma and Che.

  The sentinel roared and hurled her away with the shaft of his glaive as he struggled back from the wall.

  Tisamon! she thought again, but there was no Tisamon. There was only her.

  He tried to tell the first soldiers he saw that there were slaves loose, prisoners freed. The men backed away from him, staring at his face and his bloody tunic, enough to make him wonder what rumours had been spread about him to anticipate his demise. They would not even stop to listen to him. Deeper in, there were guards who tried to bar his way, heedless of his warnings. He stared them down. He did not need to summon up the name of the Rekef, for te Berro’s agents had done their work well. He was known. It would be a loyal soldier that barred the Rekef’s path and it seemed that Ulther himself no longer inspired such loyalty. The barriers that the governor had put up parted before Thalric: the guards continued staring straight ahead as though he was not there. He hurried on towards the harem.

  And it was a harem: the word used amongst the servants and soldiers was not just hyperbole. Ulther had adopted his design and intent from the decadent excesses of the Spiderlands: a large, many-alcoved room at the deep heart of the palace, windowless and lit only by the leaping flames of sconces. The alcoves and the outer edges of the room were strewn with cushions providing the only resting place for the score or so of women Ulther had summoned there. Among them were the slaves that Thalric had seen before, Hreya included, and there were others, of whatever kinden had taken the old man’s eye over the last few years: Spiders and Ant-kinden, Wasp and Grasshopper, even a sullen-looking Dragonfly maid, for Ulther had a roving and acquisitive taste.

  He had made this place a Wasp place, even so. Here, amongst the shadows and the lounging women, against the pillared buttress looming dimly at the far wall, he had installed another carved throne as rich as the one in the great hall above. Enthroned, the governor of Myna reclined there and waited. He did not seem surprised when Thalric appeared at his arched doorway, rather than one of his assassins.

  Thalric gazed across the assembled beauties, and then towards Ulther, whose reproachful gaze seemed to indicate that there was yet one beauty missing. There was an absence shaped like Grief in Chains, and it stood between them.

  ‘Captain Thalric,’ Ulther said, taking his time over the words, shaping the consonants with care. ‘You seem to have undergone some recent reversals. A difficult night, perhaps?’

  ‘I’ve had better.’ Thalric took a few steps in, looking only at Ulther, but sensing the women draw back at the sight of the blood and the bared sword.

  ‘What’s this about, old friend?’ Ulther inquired.

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Oh no, none of that. It’s a little late to get coy, isn’t it?’ The big old man shifted himself on the throne, and only then did Thalric see through the gloom that there was a blade laid across his knees, something narrow and wicked looking. ‘You dealt with Rauth and the others, I assume? All of them? A shoulder wound’s a light enough price, for so many dead men.’

  ‘They were amateurs.’

  ‘I suppose they were. And why, you ask, did I have to send them?’

  ‘Because your love of your appetites has become greater than your love of the Empire,’ said Thalric, stopping far enough from Ulther that he would have a chance to duck if the old man loosed his sting.

  ‘No, because you forced me to it. You made me gather them and give those orders. You know it, Thalric, so why? Not because you needed the Butterfly dancer. You wanted this, then? You’re tired of my friendship? Was I not a good friend to you?’

  ‘The Empire, Ulther. Always the Empire.’

  ‘Oh but nobody thinks like that!’ the old man snapped. ‘You think the generals think like that? You think the Emperor does? We drive the Empire like a plough over earth, Thalric, and we do it so we may reap the harvest. You will not find a man out there who serves the Empire simply for the Empire’s sake and no other.’

  ‘But you will find one here,’ said Thalric sadly.

  Ulther’s lip curled as if dismissing the notion. ‘You may say so, Thalric, but I see your plan, nonetheless.’

  ‘What plan is that?’

  ‘What a show for the locals, eh? The governor and his old friend shed each other’s blood, and over a woman! I’m sure your Rekef friends will ensure the story is spread.’

  Thalric just shook his head, but Ulther chuckled indulgently.

  ‘No false modesty, old friend. If you’d just cut my throat they’d smell the infighting all across this city, the wretches. Have me removed by decree and it weakens the Empire’s colours here in Myna. The locals are desperate for any excuse to dig up their armour and wave their swords. But now . . . now it’s personal. Is that what you wanted? Wave my head at the crowds to show that you won’t be crossed, even by old Ulther? Show them that we’re a bunch of hard lads even with our own kind? As if you and I would fall out over a woman, old friend.’ Ulther’s eyes pinned him. ‘When did they make you Rekef Inlander, anyway?’

  ‘I was Outlander, and I’ll be so again, as soon as I can – but for now . . .’ Thalric managed a one-shouldered shrug. ‘I don’t need excuses, Ulther. You’re guilty of what they say you are. The reason I haven’t cut your throat while you slept is that I owe you this much. This much and no more.’

  ‘So . . .’ The old man levered himself up out of the chair, and the women drew back again, sensing the blood of the near future like a taint in the air. ‘You’ll secure yourself a nice promotion, old friend. See, I always was good for your career. Back to the Rekef Outlander? Don’t fool yourself. Now they’ve taken you in, you won’t look back. They won’t let you. You’re one of them now.’

  Thalric said nothing, waited. Ulther held his blade to the light, let the fluid firelight shift across its length. It was not the army’s short straight blade but a rapier, as much a Spider design as the room.

  ‘You look tired, Thalric. Perhaps you came for an execution. To put an old man out of his misery?’ Ulther mused. ‘If that’s so then I’ve a disappointment for you. I was an Arms-Brother myself. I remember the moves. Care to share a pass or two with me, for old time’s sake.’

  ‘If you kill me it will make no difference,’ Thalric said softly. ‘You’re finished here. You know that.’

  Ulther’s gaze swept the harem’s contours, symbolizing all he had built. ‘So be it,’ he said, and dropped into a ready stance. Thalric did the same, feeling the pull of his wound, trying to calculate, in that uncertain light, for the extra length of Ulther’s blade.

>   He waited. He was in no hurry just then, so Ulther would have to come to him.

  Ulther obliged. With surprising speed he came forward, and the point of his sword was flicking out, drawing a narrow line across Thalric’s chest, scraping on the copper-weave even as Thalric danced back. In an instant Ulther had brought the point up, feigning at Thalric’s face. His hand was quick, his footwork less so. When Thalric bounded past him and lunged, Ulther’s retreat was hurried, awkward. Thalric harried him across the harem floor, hoping to pin him against the far wall, where his shorter blade would finally tell. He took it too fast and his shoulder shot fire through him, pulling him back halfway across. Ulther got to his distance again, eyes narrow. All expression had left his face, making it a jowly, hanging mask.

  He barked out something wordless and lunged, moving from Arms-Brother style to something more suited to a rapier, some Spider duellist business, arm straight out before him. Thalric gave ground fast, the rapier’s point dancing like a gnat before him, and Ulther matched his pace, his wrist dancing like a younger man’s, his body lumbering to catch up. Then Thalric sidestepped, let the sword’s point past him and stabbed.

  He had made a clumsy job of it, signalled it too clearly to his opponent. Ulther had a chance to slip out of the way, but his momentum carried him close past the blade, a long gash tearing his fine clothes and bloodying the bulge of his flank. He gave an inarticulate yell and whipped the rapier across Thalric’s face.

  It was only the flat of the blade in that wild move, but it was so unexpected, so far from any school of duelling, that it connected. Thalric found himself on the floor, half from his failed evasion and half from sheer pain. He blinked. He had both eyes still, but one was gumming with blood from a gash across his brow that must continue across his cheek. Ulther was barrelling down on him with blade extended, and he scrabbled aside, slashing the old man across the leg as he slid out of the way. Another shallow wound, and bloody. All skill and art between them had fallen aside. Ulther was old and angry. Thalric was devastatingly tired.