And what a wretched place I’ve found. Sulvec was a major in the Rekef Inlander, by definition an ambitious man who fed his ambition any which way. This assignment would be the making of him: he would become Colonel Sulvec on his return, or not return at all. Like so many who climbed the Rekef ladder, his loyalty to the ideals of the Empire at large had been burned away by the duties he had been given. Now his loyalty was to his own advancement, in the sure knowledge that only the Rekef could reward him as he desired, and no other would punish him so hard if he failed.
And General Brugan met with me in person to give me this mission. Sulvec had been startled, at first, but he had long since ceased to question his assignments. It was not his place to act as moral arbiter. He was the hand of the Rekef, and that was all the sense of righteousness he needed.
He spared a thought for bumbling Hrathen, playing barbarian warlord with the Scorpion-kinden. He would do his work well enough, for he had been given the tools and he had just enough rough charisma to keep the savages pointed in the right direction. So much effort for such a little thing, Sulvec considered. There must have been simpler ways. He supposed that the Scorpion assault would serve other purposes, too, that perhaps the Empire might even genuinely want to assess the Many as shock troops, useful Auxillians for the future. We will probably have to kill Hrathen, though: he grows too fond of his role.
His third Rekef assignment had been to spy on a friend, to bring the man in and interrogate him about the Broken Sword cult. He had drunk himself into a stupor for a week, after that. Thenceforth, when the Rekef had sent him out for any task, he had been ready. Thenceforth, the lives of others had been just pieces to be moved or removed, as policy demanded.
He circled over the city, looking for the mark. His men had been ensconced in a farmhouse beyond the walls, sufficiently distant to avoid notice. The sky over Khanaphes was so clear, and he was the only human being in it. Nobody below would be looking up except his compatriots.
He saw the black and yellow flag singling out the roof of a large building. He made his swift descent, coming down on the roof’s edge, between two statues of Woodlouse-kinden. Seeing no watchers, he dropped down to the balcony below and slipped inside.
It was a mere two minutes later that he had them assembled: three Wasps and a Beetle-kinden, representing the Rekef Outlander’s presence in Khanaphes. A lean Wasp-kinden stepped forward, eyeing him with suspicion. ‘I’m Captain Marger. I’m in charge here.’
‘Are you indeed?’ Sulvec replied, handing over his sealed orders, which Marger accepted reluctantly. There was a moment’s pause before the man broke the seal, as though he was feeling out the future through the parchment. His shoulders rose and fell, and then he cracked the paper open. His eyes flicked over the few words there, checked the brief identifying sketch of Sulvec’s face, noted the signatory.
‘Says here we’re at your command, Major,’ Marger observed without inflection, handing back the paper. ‘You’ve got commands?’
‘I’m calling you out of cover, first,’ Sulvec told them. ‘From now you are no longer a diplomatic mission. You are soldiers of the Rekef. Now, who should I be giving orders to?’
Marger looked at the others, shrugged again, took a backwards step. The Beetle-kinden pushed forward and saluted. ‘Corolly Vastern, Captain-Auxillian,’ he rumbled. ‘This is Vollen, this is Gram. I’m ranking Rekef Inlander here. What’s going on?’
‘Where’s Major Thalric, first of all?’ Sulvec asked.
‘Diplomatic duties,’ Corolly said. ‘There was an attack on this embassy.’ One thick thumb indicated the broad bruise across his face. ‘He’s been in with the natives for hours now, but he got a message out to us, and it made interesting reading.’ The Beetle’s eyes were suspicious. ‘It’s being claimed that we’re attacking Khanaphes, sir. Using the local Scorpion-kinden.’
And how did that news outreach me? Sulvec already had his suspicions. ‘Consider it fact, Captain,’ he said. ‘We have one official duty left to perform in this building, and after that we resort to stealth procedures. We will soon not be welcome in this city.’
They exchanged glances, none of them happy about it, but none of them about to say so.
‘So what’s the one duty, sir?’ Corolly asked, expressionless.
Sulvec smiled like a knife. ‘Tell me, when’s Thalric expected back?’
Twenty-Seven
‘We’ve left it too late,’ Faighl observed, watching the idle movements of the camp around them. ‘We should have moved yesterday.’
Meyr said nothing for a long time. The Scorpions of the Many of Nem were just going about their normal evening business after another swift day’s travel. By Meyr’s guess they would be on Khanaphir territory before midday next morning. Farms would burn. The city would be readying its forces. And I have bought them a few days, if the message was passed on, and if they listened. It was a matter of supreme indifference to him, for he owed the Khanaphir nothing. He knew only that there was an Iron Glove presence within the city, and therefore the Glove should know of this development.
They had stayed on, accompanying the Scorpion horde, for that sole reason. He had wanted to gather as much information as he could, before they pulled out and made their exit. Now he was forced to agree with Faighl. They had left it too late.
It was not the Scorpions themselves, for nothing had changed in their restless, aggressive manner. They were quick, abrupt in their preparations, as they unfolded tents and unloaded their pack beasts or sharpened weapons. Some were training with crossbows, shooting at old shields propped on stones. The leadshotters that had sounded like practised thunder last night were still hitched in trains to the Imperial automotives. It was within the Imperial camp that the change was visible.
Meyr had seen the looks their halfbreed commander had been directing towards the Iron Glove. At first it had just been because the Glove was competition for whatever scheme the Empire had in mind. Then it had been because Meyr himself was a deserter, a runaway slave. Now it had boiled down, under the sun of the march, into something more concrete. The Empire would brook no interference here. Any outside influence would have to be excised from within the Many of Nem. Meyr understood that, yet he and the others had lingered. Lingered too long.
‘Gather everyone,’ Meyr instructed at last. ‘Armour and weapons.’
‘Will it do any good?’ Faighl asked him, as one of the others ran off to spread the word. ‘We’re only eight, so even if the Scorpions don’t get involved …’
Meyr shrugged massively, letting his pack slide off his shoulders with a scrape of metal. ‘What else is there?’ he asked. The thought of it was hard, that Faighl and the others would all die. He, Meyr, might also die, it seemed possible. The others would be dead for certain.
If we had only left yesterday? But he was not sure they would have been allowed to go. They had survived this long by moving as the Scorpions moved, by not raising a ripple against the current. To leave, or to be discovered in clandestine flight, would be seen only as an invitation to these violent people. It would be the excuse they were always waiting for, with outsiders, or even with their own.
He began to unpack his armour. It was a splendid suit. They had cast it for him specially to see if it could be done, to see if the principles underlying the Glove’s new mail could be scaled up in size to armour-plate a giant. His spade-nailed fingers began securing buckles as big as a normal man’s hand. Around him, with surreptitious professionalism, the other Iron Glove were putting on their own steel, breastplates and helms over reinforced leather. They were assembling snapbows and checking the weapons’ action. Meyr himself had a shield large enough to serve the Imperial leader as a coffin lid, and an axe that put the Scorpion halberds to shame.
‘Coming now,’ Faighl hissed the warning.
Meyr patiently buckled his greaves, sensing his people form a rough semicircle before him, weapons at the ready. He could feel, through the parched ground, the approach of the Imperia
l contingent, and he reckoned on about a dozen of them. The numbers would count only at the beginning, though, as they were about to light a spark in a firepowder keg.
He stood up, rising from amongst his followers, and saw the Imperials falter for a moment, just a moment, at the sight of this great dark-armoured monster. He had become a colossus of dark steel, a machine of destruction. He now saw that there were closer to fifteen Wasps, mostly dressed in Slave Corps uniforms, of bitter memory. They were lightly armoured, with the short Imperial stabbing swords and a few crossbows, and almost all of them had one hand free: Wasps never lacked for weapons. In their centre was the halfbreed, that bastard mix of Scorpion and Empire, who now gazed up at Meyr and put a smile onto his malformed jaw.
The forces were not so very uneven, after all. The Wasps had the advantage of numbers, whereas the Iron Glove equipped its adherents with more care. Scorpions all around them had stopped to watch, eager to see some blood shed before nightfall.
The Wasps were professional soldiers, veterans of battles and skirmishes and brawls. The Iron Glove handful was a mix of mercenaries and merchants, trained but not nearly so well blooded.
Meyr took a deep breath. ‘Ready bows,’ he instructed.
‘Behind and above!’ Faighl cried out, and even as she got the words out, Meyr felt something punch into the small of his back.
He felt a brief moment of warmth as the Wasp sting boiled away off the ridges of his armour. ‘Eyes front!’ he bellowed, for the fight was upon them.
Two of his people went down instantly, distracted by the Wasp stings from behind and then shot from the front. There were at least three Wasps on the ground in return, lanced through with snapbow bolts that cared nothing for armour. The halfbreed leader shouted out a command and then they were moving in close with their swords.
Faighl placed her back to Meyr’s, sniping up at one of the airborne Wasps and bringing him down with a single shot, trusting to the giant to guard her from the main assault. The Mole Cricket leant out over the heads of his followers, snapping his great axe forward with all the length and strength of his arm. The heavy head of it caught a Wasp slaver in the chest before the man even realized he was within Meyr’s reach. Ribs snapped like sticks and his suddenly limp body was swept sideways into the next man, living and dead tumbling over in a tangle of limbs.
A couple of the Iron Glove had got their shields in place before the Wasps hit them. One was a Solarnese artificer, a hammer in his other hand making a slaver’s helm ring before a sword jabbed up over the shield’s rim and caught the artificer in the throat. The other shieldman was a renegade Maynesh Ant, who held firm. His shortsword never ventured forth but he danced left and right with his shield, successfully holding off three Wasps as they tried to overrun him. When they pushed him back, Meyr’s thundering axe hacked into them, lopping the head clean off one man and forcing the other two to stumble back.
This will not last another minute: the unhappy knowledge came to Meyr with certainty. He had lost near half his people already. The Wasps were spreading out around them, while more were taking to the air. Flexibility and mobility had always been the Imperial way, in battle and in skirmish.
He felt Faighl die, the woman slamming against him, head rebounding from the small of his back. A moment was all he could spare to mourn her. He felt he had barely known her, although they had worked together for months. A sword-blow was turned by his legplates, a sting coursed across his shield.
The Ant-kinden before him reeled away. The halfbreed Imperial had hold of him, one clawed arm hooked over his shield. The other hand, empty, rose as if to stab down at the man’s exposed face, but then fire bloomed from it, snapping the Ant’s head back. Meyr roared and hacked at the enemy with his axe, but the halfbreed dived and rolled out of the way, and abruptly it was all over. They had now pulled away to form a circle out of his reach, and at his feet, Meyr saw his fellows.
The Wasps had killed them all in less than a minute. Faighl and the others, loyal servants of the Iron Glove, they had not stood a chance. Meyr glowered now at the Wasps, at their halfbreed leader. He saw more than that. He looked beyond them at the Scorpions, all lovingly fingering their spears and knives. The blood and the violence had been like food and drink to them.
With the bodies of his followers strewn at his feet, he met the gaze of the halfbreed. The man was smiling slightly, and Meyr tensed for a gesture, the smallest sign that would signal the attack.
Instead, the man grinned openly as he stepped back three paces, letting a Scorpion pass him to his left, and another to his right. All his men kept widening their half-circle, until it was the Many of Nem that Meyr faced, and not the Empire. The Scorpions all wore the same hateful smile as their half-caste cousin. Step by step they closed in on the giant, pausing just out of the reach of his axe.
So, we are weak, in their eyes. Meyr found, belatedly, that he despised them. They had signed themselves over to the Empire, and they did not even know it.
One of them hurled a spear, almost without warning. Meyr got his shield up, felt the strength of the missile rattle against the aviation steel. Something else, perhaps a hand-axe, rebounded from his pauldron, striking from behind.
They came for him then. Without a war cry, with nothing but a glitter of raised weapons, they descended like ravenous beasts.
‘I spit on you all,’ Meyr roared at them, and then let himself fall into the earth.
That night, around the fires, Jakal came to find Hrathen. She crouched beside him, one sharp elbow knocking aWasp slaver away and clearing a space. She did not spare the unseated man a glance.
‘You are very clever, Of-the-Empire,’ she began.
‘Am I?’ he said, carefully neutral. Her presence, suddenly so close, had fired his pulse a little. Is it that I genuinely admire her, or simply because I cannot have her? he asked himself.
‘Walk with me, great conqueror,’ she said, standing again. ‘We will talk of your deeds.’
It is because she challenges me, he thought. She cares nothing for rank, nothing for the Empire. She is the pure savage, and she would cut my throat in a moment – will do so, when I am no longer of use.
And the thought came back, And she would do the same with any other here, and so I am one of them. It was bittersweet, that thought. The Rekef in him jeered at it, but that part of him whose actions had seen him brought in for treason, that man understood. He launched himself to his feet and followed her off into the dark.
‘What would you hear of my deeds, O Warlord?’ he asked her, trying to match her tone. Away from the fires, he could not see her face clearly but he knew she was smiling.
‘I shall tell you of them. You are a cunning creature, Of-the-Empire. You knew that the giant would escape my people.’
He shrugged. ‘I was a slaver for the Empire. You learn about the Art of the lesser races. I knew that some of his kinden could walk within the earth.’
‘How do you ever keep them enslaved?’ she asked.
‘Many don’t have the Art. Most have kin that don’t. For every runaway, every act of rebellion, we punish those we still have.’ He spread his clawed hands. ‘That man bought his freedom with the blood of his people. He’s unusual. They’re clannish, the Mole Crickets, and most of them just offer their backs to the lash and get on with their work.’
She gave a brief laugh. ‘So your generosity gave the giant to my people.’
‘And if they had killed him, they’d have thanked me,’ Hrathen said. ‘And if we’d gone for him and he’d escaped, we’d look weak. Do you disapprove?’
‘No. I love cleverness. There are chieftains stronger than I, more skilled, more savage, but none is more clever, Of-the-Empire, remember that.’
‘Must you call me that?’ He surprised himself with the complaint. It was a weakness, to seek to avoid the name, but it jabbed him like a stone in his boot every time she used it. Perhaps it had surprised her, too, for she paused, appearing nothing but a darkness within the night. H
e sensed her staring back at him.
‘What else am I to call you? That is all you are, to me: you are the Empire’s halfbreed hand.’ She sat down, looking back at the fires, at the hasty tents of her people. ‘So tell me, Of-the-Empire, tell me of yourself – if there is more than that.’
He joined her carefully, within arm’s reach of her. Now that his eyes were growing used to the dark, he saw how the distant wash of the oil flames gave her pale skin the faintest touch of blue fire.
‘I was a slaver for a long time, working the Silk Road mostly,’ he said. ‘Then I was a Rekef man, keeping an eye on the slavers. It looked like that was all I’d ever be, travelling up and down the Dryclaw with the Scorpion-kinden—’
‘I know of them,’ she interrupted dismissively. ‘The tame ones, we call them.’
He digested that, nodding. ‘Then the war came,’ he continued. ‘War with the Lowlands. First strike was against an Ant city-state off the Silk Road, an army moving through the desert to get there. Throwing money at the Scorpions to act as guides. Suddenly I was important: the Rekef were leaning on me, wanting the Scorpions this place or that.’
‘And who did you betray?’ she asked, keen as a razor, enough to make him pause for one second, thinking: Is she Rekef? Is this the reckoning for me, here and now?
‘To run with your kinden, even the “tame ones”, one must live like you, share your values,’ he explained. ‘When the time came that they seized on the hand that fed them, I did not restrain them. Perhaps they could not have been restrained, anyway. Imperial supplies began disappearing. It was only a matter of time. If they hadn’t gone on to hatch this plan, I’d be on crossed pikes by now.’
‘Yes, this plan.’ After that she was silent for a long time and, although he opened his mouth to speak several times, he could not find the words.
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