Empire in Black and Gold

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  They circled. Thalric had one eye sealed shut now. Ulther limped, but his narrow eyes were blazing with the fury of a trapped animal. The thought came to Thalric that he might lose this one, but it was a distant cold thought that barely touched him.

  Ulther slashed twice to drive him back, and Thalric caught the second blow on his sword, turned it, though the old man was stronger than he had thought, and made another lunge. It was a leaden move and Ulther got his offhand in the way, trying for a palm-parry but taking the blade’s keen edge across his forearm instead. At the same time he had drawn his rapier back to strike, but Thalric was within the point’s reach, and instead the ornate guard punched into his ribs, pushing the two of them apart again.

  Thalric knew it could not be long. Neither of them had the fight left in them. He was ceasing to care who won now. He just wanted it over.

  Ulther’s face was no longer the face of the man Thalric had known. He lunged, making his enemy stumble back, and then followed up the advance by making mad, random slashes, the narrow blade slicing the air before Thalric’s face, nicking his leg, the point dancing across his copper-weave with a ripping rattle. Thalric tried to capture the rapier with his own sword, to bind it aside and close, but the fury that was driving Ulther kept the slim blade darting and passing, never still. Thalric sensed rather than felt the wall behind him, made a clumsy dive aside and just remained on his feet, the rapier whacking across his armoured back like a whip. He could feel the blood flowing beneath the bandage on his shoulder. His breathing was raw and ragged.

  This is it. I’ve reached the end of it. I’ve no more left.

  He lunged. An offensive was now his only choice because his defence was killing him. He caught Ulther unprepared. The rapier speared over his shoulder and he rammed home with the shortsword, but he had misjudged the distance, had come too close. The crosspiece of the hilt dug into Ulther’s paunch, and the man roared and slammed his offhand, open-palmed, into Thalric’s chin.

  The world went dark for a second, spinning and wheeling about him, and he crashed to the floor. The sword bounced from his grip and, though stunned, he lunged for it, but Ulther tried to stamp on his hand, barely missed it, and then kicked the sword away. The old man’s breathing was thunderous as an engine, Thalric himself wheezed like an invalid. He was completely done and he lay at Ulther’s feet without the strength even to twist aside when the blow came.

  Ulther drew the rapier back to skewer him, and then stopped, staring down.

  ‘Oh Thalric, this is too bad,’ he said softly. ‘It should not end like this between us. It should not.’ He seemed sincere in his unhappiness, even in his victory. Then his face hardened and he drew the rapier back again. ‘But so it ends.’

  There was a flash that was so white it was dazzling to Thalric’s one good eye. He cringed away from it, covering his face. He should, he realized, be dead by now, yet no blade had found him.

  He opened the one eye that he could to a narrow slit. There was a murmur amongst the women but no sound of combat. With infinite reluctance he sat up, clutching his head. Then he saw Ulther. The great bulk of the governor of Myna lay face down within arm’s reach, and there was a charred hole burned into his back.

  Then there were hands on him. Thalric fought them off at first but then found them helping him to his feet.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ a woman’s voice was saying.

  ‘Me too.’ He focused on her at last. Hreya? It was Hreya. The look on her face was more caution than concern, as in a woman uncertain what she has gained or lost. His eyes again found the body of the governor, the charred star across the small of his back. He glanced at her and she nodded. Thalric found that he was leaning on her more than he wanted to, but could not quite muster the ability to stand on his own.

  ‘What now, Captain Thalric?’ she asked.

  He finally summoned his strength to him, all of it, all those reserves he almost never tapped, and stood alone, gently stepping away from her. The mound of Ulther’s body drew him inexorably and he was bitterly glad he had not been the man to strike the death-blow.

  ‘I have work yet to do,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Prisoners . . .’ The thought came to him then of his own prisoners. He could see so much more clearly with Ulther dead and gone. ‘Prisoners,’ he said again, and with Hreya watching, with all the women watching, he made his halting way out of the harem.

  Che’s hands were raw by now. She had thought that this would be so much easier. She had an education, after all.

  If her Art had not been able to banish the darkness for her then it would have been impossible. Even so, she was having to teach herself the craft of lockpicking from first principles. It was not something she had ever been called upon to do before.

  She had studied mechanics. She knew how a lock worked. This was not exactly a masterpiece, either, the shackles securing Salma’s arms. The Wasps always made solid, practical things.

  She had been working at it for hours now. The sun had gone down on her as she scratched and fiddled with it. The medical probe she had stolen, its end bent to catch the tumblers, was awkward in fingers gone numb with the interminable fumbling. She was constantly dropping it and having to find it again.

  She had three tumblers now where she reckoned they should be. There were only two left.

  ‘I think you had better hurry, if that’s possible,’ Salma murmured.

  ‘If you’re getting cramp again, you can sit down. I could use the break myself.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s an option.’

  She had heard nothing of what was going on outside, as her concentration on the stubborn thing had been all-consuming, but now she listened. There was something happening beyond their door and it sounded fierce. She heard cries of pain and the sound of blade on metal.

  ‘Please, Che. Any time now would be useful,’ Salma urged her. The first thought that came to her had been rescue, but clearly Salma was not anticipating anything good.

  She took up the pick and went at it again, fiddling and scratching, feeling out that fourth tumbler that was so stubborn. It was stiff: nothing a key could not turn, but her pick was a slim thing, scraping and sliding past the tumbler’s catch.

  ‘Che, hurry.’ Salma was as tense as a drawn bowstring. The sounds without were louder now, some voice roaring in rage and pain amid racing footsteps.

  She twisted the pick and felt it bend against the tumbler. If she kept up the pressure, she would either succeed or the pick would break. She must gamble everything on the quality of Wasp steel.

  There was a key in the door then, the hurried fumbling of a simple task done under great pressure. Concentrate! She wrenched at the pick, waiting for the dreaded snap. She pushed until her wrist ached.

  The door opened, pulled so hard it slammed against the wall outside. She started in shock and that extra twitch put the fourth tumbler in place. No time for the fifth.

  There was no fifth. She had miscounted at the start. The shackles fell from Salma in that instant, and his wings blazed to life before her startled face, the force of them knocking her back across the cell.

  His arms would be bloodless and numb, good for nothing, but he hit the soldier in the doorway with one shoulder, bearing the startled man over with the force of his charge. There was another man behind, also knocked out of the way. He had a sword but could not use it for fear of stabbing his fellow. Che ran at him, no war cry and no warning, and before he could put his sword between them she had hold of his sword arm and yanked at it with all her weight and strength.

  Tynisa tried to force her way past the sentinel, gripping the haft of the man’s glaive and pushing at him, but he shook her off contemptuously. Behind him the soldiers were opening one of the cell doors. She caught a brief glimpse of Totho coming closer with his crossbow raised, but he was not a great shot at the best of times, and the best of times were now long behind them. She thrust at the sentinel again with her rapier, scraping at his armour.

  Then Achaeos
was there. In truth she had forgotten about him. There had been no arrows for a while. He must have been gathering his courage.

  He came in around ceiling height, his wings sparking from the stones, and he dropped onto the sentinel’s shoulders, trying to stab through the eyeslit. The sentinel went berserk, swinging about like a beast, his glaive slashing left and right, up and down while Achaeos was trying desperately to hang on with one arm, his wings flashing in and out, the force of them wrenching at the man’s neck.

  And then he lost his grip, falling off, but he held on to the helm with one hand, dragging the sentinel’s head up and back. Tynisa darted forwards, with the glaive stabbing blindly out at her, but she vaulted it, one foot bending the haft as she used it for purchase, and the narrow tip of her sword punched up under his chin. The chain mail there stopped it for an instant, and then the rings gave way, and he cried out and fell backwards, as dead as she could make him.

  Beyond him . . . Tynisa’s heart leapt when she saw all was not lost. Salma and Che were there, but they were still fighting. Even as she took the sight in, she saw Salma cast down by his opponent and the man’s sword drawing back. Totho was beside her by then with a clear shot, and he cranked the crossbow’s lever twice. One bolt was lost in the darkness beyond but the second found its mark in the man’s ribs, sending him to his knees. Salma wrenched his sword off him at that point, and turned it against its owner, putting his whole weight behind it.

  By that point the other man was done as well. Che had been grappling with him, losing ground as she tried to hang on to his sword. Then there was a dagger in his side and Che finally got the sword off him, but held off from using it. The dagger whipped out and thrust in again, Achaeos’s white eyes and white teeth flashing in the gloom. Chyses was beside him at that point, reeling from the blow he had taken, but determined to do his part, and the two of them bore their enemy down and slew him.

  Tynisa ran in and virtually caught Che as the girl staggered backwards. She looked utterly exhausted, bruised and battered, but completely overjoyed. She embraced her foster-sister hard enough to make her ribs creak.

  ‘You came! Hammer and tongs, look at you! You came!’ Che released her hold as she saw, past Tynisa’s shoulder, the narrow-framed figure of Achaeos carefully cleaning the much-used blade of his dagger.

  ‘You . . .’ she said. There was a memory suddenly in the front of her mind: a dream she had swum through during the heliopter journey to Myna. There was a shock, a physical shock, as she met his featureless eyes – and she knew, outside reason, that he knew.

  Then Totho was at her elbow, and she hugged him too for good measure, not noticing his surprise at the embrace. Behind her, Salma was telling Tynisa how every part of him above the waist had cramp.

  ‘We have to leave,’ Chyses insisted. ‘We have to go, now.’

  They made their hurried way, the best pace that Che and Salma could keep up with, to the stairs leading up from the cells. There they found Tisamon.

  Tynisa spotted him first and, although she had known to find him there, she scuffed to a halt at the sight. He was positioned halfway up the stairs, gazing back down at them. The stairs themselves were visible only in uneven patches, and those were all slick with blood.

  The bodies of eleven Wasp soldiers lay there, perhaps more, and from the way they were laid out, most of them had arrived together as a squad. He must have leapt into the midst of them to deny them the use of their stings, and the few lying near the top of the stairs had taken wounds in their backs as they had scrabbled desperately to get away from their untouchable adversary.

  Or not quite untouchable. There was a thin line of red across Tisamon’s cheek, almost a twin to the mark on Tynisa’s own face, which had been made by the pointed guard of her own blade.

  ‘We’re . . . going now,’ Chyses told the Mantis, his voice catching a little at the sight of the carnage. Tisamon gave him a brief nod, and stood aside to let him lead the way.

  The entire palace was in the throes of chaos. Thalric kept blundering into guards and demanding to know what was going on, but very few of them gave him a coherent response. To credit all of them there were a dozen separate attacks underway, all in different parts of the palace. Soldiers and Auxillian militia were running everywhere and getting in each other’s way. If the Mynan resistance truly knew what was going on, he thought, and mounted an attack right now, they might actually force the Empire out of its own headquarters. As he passed on through, it was clear that there was far more confusion than actual conflict going on. Someone had clearly laid a few false trails, and his own activities of the night had hardly helped.

  He knew exactly where he was going. The cells. Cheerwell Maker and her Dragonfly friend. He had not even considered them at the time, when he had run into Kymene and her escapees. Those had just been locals and, more, he had been under the burden of what he had to do that night to Ulther. Now it was done, however, his perspective was coming back to him.

  And he almost ran into them. He heard the footsteps in time, though, and ducked back into a doorway, flattening himself against the wood and freezing, as instinctive to him as breathing after all his years in the field.

  They were a ragged crowd. Only one Mynan local and a grab-bag of others, even a Mantis-kinden with one of their ridiculous hingeing claws. And near the back was the Dragonfly-kinden male, and there, behind him, was Cheerwell Maker.

  They were off down the corridor and he raised an arm after them, feeling the Art-force of his sting stir in his palm and fingers. Cheerwell Maker had a broad back, a good target even in this light.

  It would be a shame not to continue his interrogation. A shame not to have one more conversation with her.

  It had been a long night, and he had to act now if he was going to seize this chance. There was a babble of voices in his head, though. He could hear Kymene’s voice: Perhaps one good deed to balance out all the bad ones? and there was Cheerwell herself asking what harm the Empire would suffer if she were freed.

  And he had told her that he would rather cut her throat there and then than stand the least chance of her impeding the Empire in any way. He remembered it clearly, after all of that weary night. He could hear his own flat words ringing in his ears.

  He was not the master of his own mind in that moment, as Che’s back retreated further down the corridor. The gates were thrown wide and anything could enter. Ulther’s last moments, both betrayer and betrayed. Aagen’s distaste with the torture implements . . .

  The Dragonfly noblewoman screaming, screaming, as he killed her children for the Empire.

  And then he told himself, he did not know whether he even had the strength in him to summon his Art. And he might yet recapture her, or even turn her, or find some use for her still alive. And a hundred other post-facto justifications.

  He felt physically ill. He did not know whether it was because the shield of his loyalty had been chipped, or because of the lesson all those voices had been reciting in his head.

  He reached for his Art, and felt his palm warm with it, and spark. It felt as though he were trying to lift a monstrous weight, to conjure the sting-fire into being, and all for the pittance reward of a dead Beetle girl. His breath caught with the strain of it.

  It had been a long night. He was allowed one error of judgment.

  He lowered his arm, and set off to find a bed to collapse into.

  Every step and they expected the host of the Empire to descend on them. Even when they reached the storeroom the commotion above had not ceased, but was working its determined way down towards them. They dropped back into the sewers as fast as they could. Achaeos went first, descending gratefully into the dark, and flitting far ahead, beyond the lamp that Chyses had rekindled. Totho and Che were left to help the hobbling Salma, whose breath hissed with pain at every step, from the cramp that was still running up and down through his back and arms. Tynisa stared at Tisamon. She knew he expected her to go first, that he would play rearguard. She stepped down
into the sewers but she was waiting for him when he followed, keeping pace with him, letting the others drift out of sight, out of earshot. Soon Tisamon lit his own lantern, a tiny low light that was enough to stop the dark defeating their eyes. It was as though the lamplight did not fall on her, though, for still Tisamon would not look at her, would not acknowledge her save that everything they did was linked, step for step, in a mutual understanding neither of them could deny.

  Where else can I confront you, if not this dead and buried place?

  It was time to force fate, to bring matters to a head.

  She waited until they were long gone from beneath the palace. She gave him that leeway. Then she stopped and waited.

  He had slowed even as she did so, that bond between them communicating, through her footsteps or her breathing, that something was wrong.

  ‘Tisamon,’ she began, and he had stopped, merely a grey shape and a black shadow.

  ‘We’ve put this off for too long,’ she told his back. ‘We have to talk, please, Tisamon, let’s talk.’

  She almost held her breath then. The only sounds were the water of the sewers, the faint skitter of the roaches beyond the lantern’s stretch.

  She thought she saw him shake his head, though she could not be sure. In the next moment he had started off again, as though she had said nothing.

  ‘Tisamon!’ she snapped. ‘Or Father. Would you prefer that?’

  She had stopped him, but she was running out of things to throw at his feet. Again he had paused, but it was only a moment. She had to run after him to avoid being left in the dark.

  She had just one missile left. She had saved it until the last because, once loosed, it could not be taken back.

  ‘Spite on you,’ she hissed, and the whisper that followed was her rapier clearing its scabbard. And yes, he knew that sound. It stopped and turned him far more sharply than any of her words had.

  ‘Look at me,’ she challenged, and he did. In the lantern’s uncertain light she could not name his expression, or even see if he had one. The claw buckled to his right hand and arm was now just a shadow amongst shadows.