It would be the work of a moment to take up her dagger and put it through his ear. Forty years of life and learning brought to a certain point and then cut off.
Would he boast, she wondered, if he survived to see the morning? Would he tell his College peers of his prowess? Or that evil-eyed Mantis friend of his? She thought not, because even in so few days she had come to know Stenwold Maker.
With her bare feet she searched her discarded robe for the blade, feeling along the braided cord of her belt. The work of a moment to kill him, the work of another to slip from the window and vanish into the night. Thalric would be surprised but pleased.
But the dagger was not there. She narrowed her eyes so as to pick out her pale robe in the darkness. She knelt by it, feeling. She had shrugged the garment off for him, not in haste, measuring his reaction as she unfurled her bare skin piece by piece. She did not recall the weapon dropping away, so it must still be here.
She stopped, clutching the robe to her. She was suddenly afraid, but it was a moment before she could pin down the cause.
The door was ajar, just a sliver. The doors in this house were all kept ajar, she recalled. Of course they were. They were Beetle doors with complicated catches. She could never have opened them if they were fully shut. The locking mechanism, simple though it might be, would have baffled her.
As it would also baffle the Mantis, since they were similarly of the old Inapt strain who had been left behind by the revolution. Spider-kinden might bar their doors, or fasten them with hooks, but never some twisting turning thing like this device. And so the doors were all ajar, because of Stenwold’s household, and of her.
Knowing that, feeling across the floor for a blade that was not there, she abruptly knew. Standing, with the cool of the night on her skin, she looked across the room, seeing just a little in the faintest of moonlight from between the shutters. She and Stenwold were alone.
But he had been here and he had taken her knife. As tactfully and gracefully as that, because he was a Mantis and he did not trust her. She did not fear that he had broken her cover. It was all merely part of the loathing his kinden had for hers.
She saw now, in her mind, that gaunt shadow appearing in this room as she slept peacefully; his closed face, looking from Stenwold to her. He might have had his metal claw on his wrist. He could have killed her. She would not have known and she had not even woken. Instead, he had withdrawn. Stenwold’s misplaced respect had kept him from ending her, but he did not trust her. He had removed her blade.
Arianna felt a strange feeling of relief. This was not over Tisamon’s forbearance, she realized, but because she would not now stand over Stenwold’s sleeping form with that blade in her hand, having to make that choice. The emotion took her by surprise. Surely she would not hesitate, but . . . how the man spoke! He had been to so many places, seen so many things. Now he had come to what he considered was home but he was wrong. She could hear the words he left unsaid almost more clearly than those he actually spoke. He was an outsider in his own city. He had made himself someone apart. He was struggling to save something that had already shunned and snubbed him. Yet Collegium had such a broad palette of colours to it that he had never quite noticed how he was not a native any longer.
Not so different, after all, she thought. She had told the truth when she had said that the Spiderlands offered no home for her any more. She had fallen in the dance, as her whole family had, and with nobody to help them back up.
She examined her hands and then clenched them into fists, watching the needles of bone slide from her knuckles. The knife was better, but Mantids were not the only kinden that the Ancestor Art could arm.
Stenwold would die just as easily.
She stood over him and watched the rise and fall of his stomach, the total relaxation of expression. It struck her that she had never seen him before without a look of vague worry. Except last night, when he had drunk so much and she had taken her robe off her shoulder and let it fall in careful stages to the floor.
If she had the dagger, things might be different. With her hands, with her Art-drawn claws . . . She felt abruptly crippled by something, some hindering and atavistic feeling. If she had the dagger, or the orders, but just now she had neither.
Perhaps Thalric would prefer him captured and talking. The rationalization – and she knew it for one – calmed her. Thalric had a plan and she was sure this moment of reticence on her part would make no difference, in the end.
She carefully tucked herself under the sheet again, her back to him, feeling him shift slightly. After the cool of the air she let her back and feet rest against him, stealing his warmth. When he moved again she turned automatically, her hand moving across his chest. There were scars there. She had seen them. It was a strange life, that had made this man scholar and warrior both.
When he put his arm around her she felt, for one instant, trapped, and in the next, safe, before she recalled herself to her role. Whether it was her role or herself that reached out for him she could not have said.
Nine
General Alder woke as soon as the tent-flap was pushed aside. By long practice his one hand found the hilt of his sword.
‘General,’ came the hushed voice of one of his junior officers. ‘General?’
It was ridiculous. ‘Either you want me awake, soldier, in which case speak louder, or you don’t, in which case what in the Emperor’s name are you doing here?’
‘I’m sorry, General, it’s the Colonel-Auxillian.’
Drephos. There was only one Colonel-Auxillian in the army. ‘What does that motherless bastard want?’ Alder growled. It was pitch-dark within the tent, too dark for him to even see the man a few paces away. ‘What’s the hour?’
‘Two hours before midnight, General.’
‘And he wants to speak to me now? Can’t he sleep?’
‘I don’t know, General—’
‘Get out!’ Alder told the man. He sat up on his bed, a folding, metal-sprung thing they had made especially for him in the foundries of Corta. Drephos was a menace, he decided. The twisted little monster was taking his privileges too far.
Still, the man had a reputation, and it was a reputation for being right. Alder spat, and then dragged a tunic one-handed over his head and slung a cloak over his shoulders. Barefoot, he stepped out of his tent.
The camp had enough lights for him to see the cowled and robed form of Drephos standing some yards away. The agonized junior officer was hesitating nearby and, when Alder raised a hand to dismiss the man, Drephos’s voice floated towards him.
‘Don’t send him away just yet, General. I think you will have orders to issue before long.’
Alder stalked over to him. ‘What is it now?’ he demanded. ‘Your precious plan failed a day and a night ago.’
‘Did I admit its failure?’ Drephos enquired.
‘You didn’t have to.’
‘I did not, General, nor do I. Have your men gather for an attack. The moment is at hand.’
Alder stared at him, at the featureless shadow within the cowl. ‘Then—’
‘Tark’s walls are thicker to be sure, and of a stronger construction than I had thought, but the reagent has permeated the stone.’
‘And you know this?’
‘By the simplest expedient, General. I went and looked.’
Alder shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Darkness is a cloak to me, General, but a blindfold to my enemies. I simply walked up to the enemy’s walls and knew what I was looking for. In three hours, perhaps less, you will have your breach. I would therefore have your response standing by.’
‘A night assault?’ Which would be messy, Alder thought.
‘They’re bound to notice their walls coming down, General. Wait till morning and they’ll have barricades up. We must force the issue now. And while they’re busy fighting it out over the breach, in the darkness which will whittle away at their crossbows’ effectiveness, we can try to put a few more
holes in them. I’ve not been idle these last few days, and one of the leadshotters is now converted into a ram.’
‘Major Grigan mentioned as much. He was not pleased.’
A derisive noise emerged from within the cowl. ‘Major Grigan, of your precious engineers, is a dull-minded fool.’
‘Major Grigan is an imperial officer—’ Alder felt his temper rise.
‘He is a fool,’ Drephos repeated. ‘He should be over on their side of the walls, hampering them. I am ten times the artificer he would ever be even if he opened his eyes to the world mechanical. A fool, General, and you would best give me what I ask for if you wish this war won.’
At this late hour it was too much. Alder’s one hand clutched Drephos by the collar again, drawing the man up onto his toes. ‘You forget your place, Auxillian.’
The general felt Drephos’s left hand, gauntleted in steel, take his wrist and, with an appalling strength, remove it from its owner’s person. Still maintaining that grip, which was gentleness backed with the threat of crushing force, Drephos’s unseen face looked straight into his.
‘Judge me on this, General,’ he said. ‘Prepare for your assault. If the walls still stand, then do what you wish.’
Not half an hour had passed before Alder had his command staff woken and rushed to his tent: Colonel Carvoc for the camp; Colonel Edric for the assault; the majors, including the sullen Grigan; the Auxillian chiefs and other unit leaders.
‘We are going to attack,’ he informed them, seeing blank incomprehension on all sides. ‘Drephos assures me that the wall will be down shortly and I want to be ready for it.’
He saw Grigan’s lip curl at the name, but when he fixed the man with his gaze, the major dropped his eyes.
‘Colonel Edric.’
‘Yes, General.’
‘Get me all of your Hornets that are still able to fly. Back them with two wings of the light airborne and a wing of the Medium Elites. Go and organize them now.’
Edric saluted and ran from the tent.
‘Carvoc.’
‘Yes, General?’
‘I want three wings each of Lancers and Heavy Shield-men, and our Sentinels. Go now.’
When Carvoc had gone, a worried frown already appearing on his face, Alder turned to the Auxillian officers. Discounting the maverick Drephos there were two of any worthwhile rank. Anadus of Maynes was a ruddy-skinned Ant who was either the army’s swiftest dresser or slept in most of his armour: a solid, bitter man who detested the Empire and all it stood for. Alder knew all that, just as he knew that so long as the man’s city-state of Maynes, his family, his people, were all held hostage to his behaviour, that hatred would be turned on the Ants of Tark. Besides, Ants fought Ants. All the subject races had flaws, and that feuding was theirs.
Beside him was Czerig, a grey-haired Bee-kinden artificer from Szar. There was never any trouble from that direction, fortunately. The Bee-kinden were loyal to their own royal house and, since the Emperor had taken their queen from them and made her his concubine, they had served the Empire as patiently as if they were its born slaves.
‘Captain-Auxillian Anadus,’ Alder said, enjoying the dislike evident in the man’s eyes, ‘assuming Drephos is correct, your brigade gets to take the breach.’
Anadus’s eyes remained bleak. The worst danger, the greatest glory, a chance to kill Ants of a city not his own? Alder could only guess at the thoughts going on behind them. ‘Go and prepare your men, Captain. If there’s a breach I want it packed end to end with your Maynesh shields before the Tarkesh can fill it.’
‘It shall be so, General,’ said Anadus, his tone suggesting that he considered death in this other man’s war the only way out with honour for him and his men.
Which concept I have no concern with.
‘Captain-Auxillian Czerig.’
The old man looked up tiredly. Like all his kinden he was short, strong-shouldered, dark of skin.
‘Get the new ram Drephos has tinkered with ready for the gates. You know the one?’
Czerig nodded. He said nothing that was unnecessary, and when he spoke it was mostly about his trade.
‘Good. And I also want the Moles.’
Czerig pursed his lips.
‘What is it, Captain?’
‘They . . . are not happy.’ Czerig twisted, clearly less than delighted himself. ‘They say . . . they are not warriors, General.’
‘So what makes a warrior?’ Alder enquired. ‘If they have the ill luck not to be born Wasp-kinden, then they have this: they have armour, they have weapons and they are going to war. Tell them they’re all the warrior they need to be. I want them against some patch of the walls within a hundred yards of the breach – if it ever happens. So I can support the main assault. Is that clear?’
Czerig nodded glumly and saluted.
Awake. Totho’s eyes were abruptly wide in the darkness. It was not the sound, although there were sounds, but a shudder that had awakened him. He clung to his pallet because the floor was shaking.
People were running about in the hall outside. He was in Tark – that was it. Not in Collegium. Not Myna, which for some reason had come to him as a second guess. The Ants of Tark. The siege . . .
He stumbled up from the floor, feeling it twang again like a rope pulled taut. Part of him was desperate to believe he was still dreaming. He tripped over his discarded clothes on his way to the door and pulled it open. There were lamps outside, and he stared at them blearily: simple globes over gaslight, but one of the covers had fallen and smashed, leaving the naked flame guttering.
A squad of soldiers charged past him, heading for the outside. They were armed and armoured, but there was an uncharacteristically slipshod look to them: warriors who had harnessed in haste. He called after them, but not one of them looked back.
‘Totho, lad.’ The small figure of Nero almost tripped down the stairs, his wings flaring as he caught himself. He was wearing only a nightshirt. ‘What’s happening?’
Totho could only shake his head, and a moment later Nero was displaced by Parops, his chainmail hauberk hanging open at the back. Totho expected him to say this was no place for civilians, that they should go back to bed and let the army deal with it. Instead Parops hissed, ‘You’ve arms and armour? Put them on!’
‘Parops, what in blazes is going on?’ Nero demanded.
The Ant commander’s face was haunted. ‘The wall’s down.’
‘The what?’
‘The wall’s down,’ and the floor shook as he repeated himself. ‘It’s coming down right now, and the Wasps aren’t far behind.’
And then Parops was charging back upstairs, his loose armour flapping. Even as Totho watched, Salma bolted from his room, heading for the outside, his sword in his hand.
Nero shook his head. ‘I have a bow upstairs in my room,’ he remarked philosophically. ‘I think I shall go and string it.’ He left Totho gaping.
But gaping would solve nothing. Totho stumbled back into his room and wrestled on his leather work-coat: that would serve as armour better than his bare skin would. He had the repeating crossbow that Scuto had given him and he slung on his sword-baldric that had a bag of quarrel magazines hanging from it.
I am no soldier, he inwardly protested. But the Wasps would not care.
Totho blundered out into the hall again.
‘Hey, Beetle-boy? You fighting now?’
It was Skrill. She wore her metal scale vest and her bow and, to his surprise, she looked more frightened than he felt.
‘I suppose,’ he said uncertainly.
She clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll stick right with you then, Beetle-Boy. Whole world’s coming apart at the seams.’
And it was. Another shudder racked Parops’s tower, and Totho pushed his way to the door and flung it open.
Behind him, Skrill uttered something, some awed exclamation, but his ears were so crammed with the sound from outside that he heard not one word.
The wall was down. The wall bes
ide the tower had fallen and was still falling. Totho saw the stones of the lower reaches bulge and stretch like soft cheese, shrugging off the colossal weight of their higher-up brethren, so that to the left and right of the breach whole stretches of wall were bulging inwards or outwards as though pressed either way by a giant’s hand.
There were Ant soldiers running for the gaping breach, each man and woman falling into formation even as they ran, shields before them, locked rim over rim. The stones fell on them as they massed forwards.
There were other soldiers charging the breach from the outside. For a moment Totho could not work it out at all. The shields of the defenders were meeting the same locked rectangles of the attackers, and in the poor light of the moon he could see no difference between them. Ant against Ant, shortswords stabbing over shield-tops, second-rank crossbows shooting, almost close enough to touch, into the faces of the enemy, and all happening in silence: metal noises aplenty but not a cry, not an order yelled on either side. The battle line twisted and swayed over the breach, which widened and widened, dropping further stones that slammed gaps into the ranks of both sides.
The skies were full. He found himself dropping to one knee, a hand up to shield him. The skies were crowded tonight with a host of madmen out for blood. There were Wasp soldiers darting and passing there above, and the spear-wielding savages in their howling hosts. From the rooftops of nearby houses, from the ground and the still-standing wall, Ant crossbows were constantly spitting. As Totho’s wild gaze took in the archers, he saw that most were merely in tunics, others were near naked. They were citizens, off-duty soldiers, the elderly or children no more than thirteen straining to recock their bows by using both hands.
The skies were busy with more than just flying men. Even as Totho watched, a great dark shape cut through a formation of the Wasp light airborne, its powering wings sounding a metal clatter over all the rest. Totho saw the flash of nailbows from within and knew it must be a Tarkesh orthopter. More of the machines flapped, some loosing their weapons against the airborne while others were dropping explosives on attackers beyond the wall.
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