Empire in Black and Gold sota-1

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Thalric considered that. Matters were delicately poised, but he could not risk being heavy-handed. ‘No,’ he decided. ‘If Stenwold’s people see where we’re looking, then we’ll as good as have told them what’s going on. Unless we hear that he’s taking action we’ll remain discreet.’

  He regarded Godran. The man was regular army but he had served in the Twelve-Year War alongside the Rekef Outlander. He was reliable.

  ‘Your men are ready to move in force?’

  ‘Every one of them,’ Godran confirmed. ‘They’ve been kicking their heels for a while now, and they’re keen to see a fight.’

  ‘I’m not sure “fight” is the best word for it,’ said Thalric. ‘We’ve both seen how things lie. It will be butchery.’

  Godran shrugged. The thought did not bother him. He was, Thalric considered, a good servant of the Empire.

  Does it bother me, myself? His instant reaction, that of course it did not, rang hollow.

  Let me be honest. It does not matter whether I like the idea or not. The Empire commands.

  Che screamed, pure grief and loss exploding in her, searing out all other feelings she had ever felt. As Achaeos landed she was already charging him with sword drawn. She almost had him, too, but he twisted past her blade at the last moment, grappling with her face-to-face and shouting at her. The blood in her ears was so thunderous she heard not a word he said. She fought and fought, and it took both his hands to keep her blade from him, and then she punched him in the jaw, just as she had with Thalric, sending him reeling.

  And she stood over him and her face was murder.

  ‘Che!’ he yelled. ‘Look!’

  Instinct made her follow the pointing finger. The sword fell from her suddenly nerveless grip.

  There was a body there. There was a pale arrow slanting up from it. The body was. .

  For a moment it swam before her eyes, but it was not Totho’s. The face, the form, the clothes, the sword. It was a slender, wicked-looking blade, not Totho’s Collegium piece or even a borrowed Wasp weapon.

  It was the body of a Spider-kinden woman, of middle years at least, although it was as hard to tell with that race as it was with the Moths. She stared glassily at the sky and the set expression remaining on her face was, horribly, the resolute one she had seen on Totho’s own so often.

  ‘The spy?’ She had seen Bolwyn’s face blur in that very same way. There could be no doubt. ‘Hammer and tongs! You. . you knew. How did you know, Achaeos?’ She thought it must be his magic, until his racked expression betrayed him.

  ‘You. . did know, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh I knew. It’s just. . I haven’t been honest with you — in one way.’

  She felt only confusion. ‘In what way?’

  ‘After we passed the Darakyon. . which was when I knew that I. . I truly loved you.’ When I admitted it to myself, he added inwardly. ‘Then I knew Totho was my rival. He hated me and it was easy to see. So I. . I wanted to discredit him.’

  ‘Your rival?’ For a moment she simply did not understand. ‘You mean for me? Totho?’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Achaeos confirmed, and memories were tugging at her, giving her the belated suspicion that he was right, and that she had been told in terms clear enough, had she wanted to listen.

  ‘I went through his pack one night. He was off on watch and I am good at not being seen. I found. . a letter.’

  She still could make no sense of this, and so he went over to the Spider’s body and searched until he found it. Mutely, he passed it to her, and she folded it open and read.

  Dear Cheerwell,

  Please forgive me. I had always thought that I was a man of courage but I suppose this shows otherwise. You must remember, when you think of me, that I have fought for you. I came all the way to Myna for you. Even though they all did, do not forget that I was among them. I shed Wasp blood there in the palace, and it was for you.

  I wish I had more I could give you. I have tried to give you all I have, but I understand why you do not wish to take it. I have no prospects. My blood will make sure that I will never rise to high rank or be a great man. I have no grace, either. I have always been the worst of us, the most unfinished.

  I have loved you since those classes we shared at the Great College, and my cowardice is such that I have never said it. It seems so long now. I have lived with this burden. To be sent away is only a relief.

  I still love you and I hope you will think of me fondly. I will continue helping your uncle’s cause. By the time you read this I will be by Salma’s side, on the way to Tark. I’m sure we will see each other, some time again. Do not be angry with Khenice for letting me leave unheralded. By the time you read this I shall be long departed. It is better that way, though it may be the coward’s way. It is the only way I can bear.

  Please forgive me for this last cowardice, this letter. I have not the heart to tell it to your face.

  Yours

  T.

  ‘When I read it at first, I thought he had changed his mind,’ Achaeos said carefully. ‘I thought he had decided not to go. But later it seemed strange that he would keep this letter. And of course, they had been talking at Myna about the spy, the face-changing spy, and my people, too, know of that old order. And slowly I began to wonder, what if that letter had been left, and then found by another? What if your friend had gone, but his shoes had been filled so quickly that nobody realized. I cannot even remember when the Mynan woman left us, the guide. She made no ceremony of it, but I had thought that was simply their way, sullen people that they are. But if she had found that note, and seen her chance, then we would never have realized that Totho had gone. Instead we would only have thought that our Mynan guide had turned back for home. .’

  ‘You couldn’t have known,’ she said. ‘Not just from that. You couldn’t have been sure.’

  ‘But there were two other things that made me sure. Where was his crossbow weapon? But, of course, if he was who I suspected he now was, then he could no more manage a crossbow than I could. But most of all, I saw the way he was holding you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He. . She was holding you so I couldn’t shoot her, so that if I loosed a shot, I would hit you instead. The man who wrote that letter would never have done that.’

  Che just stared at the letter, and tears rose unbidden. Her lip trembled.

  ‘I. . am sorry,’ the Moth said awkwardly, ‘I have not served you well.’

  She realized that she could hate him for this. She could make the absent Totho a martyr, the man she would have been with, if not for Achaeos. This was hanging as an option in her mind, and its sole purpose was to cover the shameful way that she had treated Totho before he left.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered, and held out her arms to him, and Achaeos held her tightly as she wept.

  Magic was concentration, and the pain was savage and sharp. She dared not even touch the arrow. Scylis — Scyla as she truly was — had lost all of her masks when it drove into her, and she fell to the ground in nothing but her own body, all her disguises breached. In that moment of shock and agony it took all she possessed just to play dead.

  When the Moth came over to her, she thought he would finish her off, but he had been more interested in that cursed letter than in making sure. She had lain there, dressed as her own corpse, and let him rifle her possessions and go back, so that the two of them could act out their little drama together. But it had given her time.

  She had been hurt before, though never this badly. There were tricks, of the mind and of magic, to stave off the pain, to lock it away. The sands of her time were running out, because the Moth was no fool and sooner or later he would make sure.

  It was a wretched effort, and yet it nearly killed her more surely than did the arrow. The force of will required made the arrowhead grate and contort inside her, but she rolled over, as the two of them stood embracing, and she cast off her skin behind her. Had they looked, had either of them even glanced just then, th
ey would have seen two dead Scylas, and the game would have been up.

  She shuddered, realizing she had no strength left for magic, but there was still the Art, the innate heritage of her people. She seldom called on it, with all the tools already at her disposal, and yet she had spent her due time in earnest meditation all those years ago, when even she had once been young.

  She now called upon that Art that so many of the elder races owned, and felt herself fade and blend, the light sliding off her, the shadows cloaking her, the colours of the earth and the stones embracing her. It was a hunter’s Art, for ambush or sudden strike, but here and now its camouflage was her one weak chance at life. When they finally had eyes for anything other than each other, they looked over and saw only one corpse.

  It could still have failed. If he had taken the time to cut her throat with his dagger then he would have found the flesh beneath his blade parting like mist. He was true to his kinden, though. He came with his bow and stood over her body, and he sent an arrow through that illusory forehead and into the ground. Just to be sure, as he must be thinking.

  After they had gone, she stirred herself from hiding, feeling the shaft that was buried in her stab and grate. So much, she thought, for turning them against the Moth-kinden. She had killed the Fly, Marre, just to keep the Moths out of this fight, and so to strip Stenwold down to no more than the tattered remains of Scuto’s people. It had been easy, given her skills, to slip to and fro, and never have one of them wonder where solid, stupid Totho really was. It should have been a simple matter for her to kill the old man’s niece. Then Totho would have come back weeping to Stenwold with the terrible news, and the Moths would reap the blame.

  She did not know, as she pushed herself to her feet, if she would last through this. The best of her training was deployed in keeping the pain at bay, but it was still a long walk to Helleron.

  But if she reached Helleron, if her blood lasted that long, then she would find Thalric and she would enjoy what last revenge she could. For Stenwold now had the Wasp’s secret. He had admitted as much, and she believed him. She would let Thalric know that his enemies were onto him. She would make sure that Stenwold’s little pack of clowns would have a reception waiting for them, when they made their move.

  They made their camp without fire, as they had for two nights, the two who were sleeping tucked close together by necessity, and the one who was left on watch shivering the hours out.

  When Totho had caught them up, his explanations had been scant, and Salma had not pressed him further. From the Dragonfly’s expression he had guessed more than was admitted by Totho, and possibly the whole of the story. Salma had good eyes, Totho knew. He saw many things.

  They were closing on Tark now, less than a tenday away. They had been keeping thus far to the well-used road but they had begun to encounter travellers with disturbing stories. There were soldiers ahead, soldiers that the better-travelled identified as imperial Wasps, who were turning the wayfarers back. Others, arriving from Tark, had seen dust on the horizon from a vast horde cutting across the Dryclaw. One Fly trader, tacitly a carrier of illicit goods, had been treading the same paths when he had seen them, and was able to give them a better account. A whole Wasp host was on the move, men marching along with Fly and Wasp airborne scouts, automotives, pack animals and war engines. They had Scorpion guides, an entire clan of them, leading them the best ways through the desert.

  Until they had this eyewitness testimony, Stenwold’s speculations had not seemed entirely real. Now it was unclear whether they would reach Tark before or after the Wasp army, or maybe at the same time. Certainly the enemy outriders were already on the road ahead of them, isolating the city.

  ‘But Tark is an Ant city-state,’ Totho had protested. ‘Ants fight. It’s what they do best. To try to take their city is madness.’

  Salma had just shaken his head. ‘The Wasps have run into Ant-kinden before. Near the Commonweal borders there’s an Ant city, Maynes, which the Wasps seized and used as their staging post to attack us. The Wasps have ways of defeating even Ant-kinden.’

  The next day’s close put them within sight of Wasp soldiers. Half a dozen of them had staked out a bridge and were obviously ready to challenge anyone wanting to cross. They took turns to glide up into the air, circling lazily.

  Skrill sucked her breath through her teeth. ‘You, Beetle-boy,’ she said. It was what she had taken to calling Totho. ‘You’re not the flying kind, I’ll wager, but can you swim?’ ‘A little. Not a whole river’s width.’ ‘Can you swim it if you hold on to something?’

  He nodded dumbly.

  ‘These here, they’re to stop reinforcements, goods, supplies getting through, not people. His Lordship here’s got wings. He can pick a slice of the river and fly, and water’s nothing to stop me. This is the most fordable point of the river, though, and I know that ’cos this is where they put the bridge. So if we’re crossing, or if you’re crossing, it’s here. Got me?’

  Totho and she put together a makeshift raft, big enough to float their packs across, with his legs providing the motive power.

  ‘Now, I’ll shadow you across the river,’ she said. ‘Your Lordship, you can meet us on the far side.’

  Salma nodded, and swung into the air with his sword drawn, disappearing overhead.

  Totho had no night vision whatsoever. The Wasps had a fire lit in the bowl of a metal shield laid on the bridge, though, and torches burning at either end. The night was chill and the guards had pulled into the bridge’s centre and the burning shield to take up the warmth.

  He crept to the edge, balancing the raft across his shoulders. He had stripped to his waist, and his boots hung across his neck by their laces. Skrill flitted past him, a shapeless, cloaked ghost, still fully clad, but although he could hear the water ahead of him, he heard no splash.

  He lowered himself into the river gently. The raft bobbed but rose again, and he began to push it out, feeling the sluggish current begin to manhandle him towards and under the bridge. He could not see Skrill, and it was too dark to try. Only the fires of the Wasps gave out any light at all.

  The river bed fell away from under his feet and he began to kick awkwardly, splashing a little but trying to keep his feet below the surface. The bridge was now passing smoothly overhead and he could hear the murmuring voices of the Wasp guards. He was doing his best to keep a straight course but the insistent current was pulling him out from under the bridge’s shadow now. By the time he was halfway across the stream he was in the open. The red light of the fire crackled above him, but little of it got as far as the water.

  The opposite shore was getting close. He could not yet see it but the sound of the water rippling alongside it told him enough. He risked a glance over his shoulder.

  There was a Wasp at the bridge railing, staring down into the water. To Totho it seemed the man’s eyes were full on him, and it could only be a moment before he noticed the bulky shape moving in the water.

  Then the soldier clapped a hand to his neck irritably, as if stung by some small insect. He turned to make some comment to his fellows, then abruptly his legs gave way under him and he collapsed.

  Totho turned his gaze away and concentrated on gaining the far shore. Skrill loomed before him, removing a long pipe from her lips and stowing it away in her cloak. By some trick of her Art she was actually standing on the water, rolling with the swell like a sailor on the deck of a ship.

  As he reached the far shore and she quickly helped him lift the raft and packs clear of the water, Totho looked back. The Wasps had noticed their fallen comrade but their attention, as airborne soldiers themselves, was now fixed on the skies, Three of them were lifting off, swords drawn, hunting in high circles over the bridge.

  From then on the road before them was clear all the way to Tark, and Totho could only hope that the others were having as smooth a journey.

  When Che had finished telling their story there was a stunned quiet for a moment.

  ‘Totho?�
� Stenwold said at last, feeling hollow.

  ‘We have to assume he’s now with Salma, like his letter says. So when you hear from Tark, you’ll hear from him. We have to assume that.’

  ‘What alternative do we have?’ Stenwold agreed.

  ‘The lad’ll be fine,’ Scuto said. ‘Look at you all. Why the long faces?’ He leapt to his feet with a whoop. ‘Don’t you see it?’ he shouted. ‘We’re clear of the spy! Now you can tell us what’s going on, and we can sort it out. They’ve had us in a lock today. Now we’ll have them right back, right, chief?’

  ‘But I failed,’ Achaeos said. ‘The Skryres will only wait.’

  Stenwold looked up at him, an odd light in his eyes. ‘And I have just what they’re waiting for,’ he said. Achaeos cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘It’s time to open everyone’s eyes,’ said the Beetle. He looked across the ragged band that was all that was left of his operation in Helleron. ‘Achaeos,’ he began.

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘When I’m done talking, you’ll want to get back to Tharn by the quickest way possible and tell them what I plan. I hope it will be enough to tip the balance.’

  He stood before them now just like a lecturer at the Great College. The sight brought a fond but painful echo of familiarity to Che and Tynisa both.

  ‘The Wasps are not here to attack Helleron — not yet,’ Stenwold continued. ‘They are attacking a much greater target. They are attacking the Lowlands as a whole. We’re all guilty of thinking like Lowlanders, not like Imperials. We were seeing the war city by city, because we know the Lowlands is divided. They see the war as a whole, because they fear the Lowlands becoming united. Scuto, tell me now about the Iron Road.’

  ‘What do you want to know, chief?’

  ‘When will the first train run?’

  ‘In a tenday, give or take.’

  ‘But when will it be ready to run? When will the track be laid, the engine ready?’

  ‘The engine’s ready now,’ Scuto said, mystified. ‘Pride, she’s called, and a beautiful piece of engineering. She’ll run as soon as the last track’s in place.’