‘Well, we’re still alive for now,’ Mordrec added, pragmatic as always. ‘What’ll it be? Make camp or make our move?’
‘Soul?’ Dal asked, and the Grasshopper seemed to materialize at his shoulder. ‘You know these places, yes?’
‘A little, from the war.’ Soul Je had been an Imperial Auxillian in the Twelve-year War, and not enjoyed it much.
‘The . . . locals, they might come for us at night?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘They can be reasoned with?’
‘They like their privacy, Dala.’
Ygor muscled in, then. ‘Looks like they’re around a third of our number.’ The skin over his eyes creased, where a man with eyebrows would have raised them. ‘Fight? Attack them overnight?’
‘Sounds like they’re inviting it,’ Dal agreed. ‘Which is why we won’t. There’ll be more of them, for sure. They wouldn’t have kept us hopping all day just to fail so badly now. We need to get clear of them. If we fight, we fight when and where I choose. Soul, I get the impression you can talk to our . . . hosts in here? You’ve done it before?’
The Grasshopper looked sour. ‘Wouldn’t say it worked well, but I’ve seen it done. I know a little of their speech.’
‘Then I have something for you to tell them.’
The brigands made camp, with plenty of eyes keeping watch towards the dimly glimpsed fires of their pursuers. By his own orders, it was only Dal Arche who allowed his gaze to turn the other way, watching Soul as he sat some way deeper into the cane forest. Dal had always had good eyes, even for one of his kind, and at last, an hour later, he saw Soul standing up. For a long while there was nothing more save that he could hear the distant murmur of the Grasshopper’s voice. But then there was a movement, and Dal realized that the Stick-kinden were here, or one of them at least. The newcomer was freakishly tall, standing a good two feet higher than Soul, who was as lofty as most of his kind. Beneath the shrouding cloak, Dal could make out broad shoulders, but there seemed to be little more substance to this creature, just a great gaunt scarecrow, two long-fingered hands moved, making patterns in the air, but Dal heard no voice other than Soul’s. The conversation, such as it was, went on for a long time, the Grasshopper giving soft replies to the signs that the Stick-kinden used. When Soul talked at length, Dal lost sight of the tall creature entirely: standing utterly still as it did, its Art cloaked it in shadows and led the eye astray. Only when it spoke with its hands did it attract the attention,
There could be dozens of the things all around us. Dal forced himself to keep calm. If that was so, there was little he could do about it.
At last, Soul Je came back, looking worn down by his negotiations.
‘Get everyone up,’ he said, and Dal quickly kicked the nearest half-dozen awake, and sent them grumbling and complaining to wake up others.
‘They’re going to kill us?’
‘They’re going to guide us through their lands,’ Soul replied. ‘Don’t ask why, because I don’t know. We’ve nothing they want. Perhaps they just like lost causes.’
‘Not lost yet,’ Dal decided.
‘One condition, though: blindfolds. Everyone must be blindfolded. They’ll kill anyone who so much as peeks. We’ll be passing through their heartland, Dala. Nobody’s ever seen it. They want to keep it that way.’
Dal nodded grimly, and began to pass the word along. It’s not going to work, he already knew. The temptation would be too great. Worse, it could be a trap. They might none of them come out of this alive. ‘You trust them, though.’
‘They’re not like us,’ Soul replied. ‘They don’t care about politics, they don’t pay taxes, they don’t want more land. They’re apart from it all.’ His voice sounded almost wistful. ‘If they didn’t like us, then we’d be getting shot at right now, or we’d just never see them at all. They have no need of betrayal.’
Studying him now, Dal thought he saw why the Stick-kinden had been so compliant. Perhaps they had seen in Soul some little fragment of their own nature.
By that time the bandits were all awake, though not happy about it, and even less happy once they were told to blindfold themselves. Mordrec tied together every rope and cord he could lay his hands on, supplemented with torn cloaks and tunics after they ran out. Soon everyone was holding on to a section of of his makeshift lead, the brigands making a long, untidy string of baffled and angry people. Beyond the forest edge, the Salmae camp was waking up too, hearing the disturbance and no doubt expecting the brigands to make a break into the open under cover of darkness.
Of course, that break never came, so the followers of the Salmae milled about and watched intently for hours, as the bandits melted away into the heart of the cane forest.
Dal Arche had been expecting an eerie, almost mystical experience, but a couple of hundred brigands, all blindfolded and tied together and being led through a forest, made enough noise for the entire business to sound more like a particularly raucous troupe of travelling clowns. Not a moment passed without someone falling over, stumbling into the hard, ridged bole of a bamboo cane, or stepping on someone else’s foot. It should have been hilarious. Instead, Dal was on edge the whole time, thinking of what else those noises might be covering.
There would be those amongst his followers who could not bear not knowing, so they would find a moment to lift the blindfold, despite his strict instructions. They would regret it, too; Dal was sure of that. He had a sense that all around them loomed the Stick-kinden: towering, angular and silent, staring with mute antipathy at these clumsy intruders, their hands stayed only by their anonymity. There were occasional screams amidst that chaos of stumbling and complaining. They were brief, cut off even as they started, but they were unmistakable.
How long it took them to cross that forest of cane, he could not say. The enforced darkness seemed to blind him to the passage of time as much as it did to the stars and moon. Eventually, though, he became aware that he was no longer being tugged along, and all around him people were standing still.
‘Eyes open,’ he snapped, hoping he was right, and that this was not some cruel trick of their hosts. When he pulled the cloth from his eyes, though, he saw that the canes gave out only yards ahead, and open ground lay beyond.
He located Mordrec and tugged at his arm. ‘Make a count,’ he suggested, and the Wasp nodded. As he passed through the band, counting heads, Dal spotted Soul and Ygor, and felt a sudden rush of relief when he saw them still alive.
The Scorpion was already moving out into the open, crouching low and with his companion beast ranging ahead of him, its claws and tail raised threateningly. Dal moved towards him but, as he approached, Ygor raised a hand abruptly and dropped to one knee.
Dal crept up beside him, but he had spotted the problem before he could ask about it. There were campfires visible out there, quite a large band of people, perhaps the same size as the group they had left behind.
‘This is impossible. Nobody could be that far ahead of us.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘They must have a seer, a really good one, to be able to see in such detail.’
Ygor snorted, for he was Apt and didn’t believe in any of that. ‘They’ve got us to rights here, anyway,’ he replied. ‘I don’t reckon we’ll get back through the woods again, either.’
Mordrec and Soul Je joined them quietly. ‘We’re down thirty-seven,’ was the Wasp’s grim report.
Dal nodded. We would have lost more, had we turned and fought, though. He could not guarantee that, but it seemed overwhelmingly likely. Thirty-seven? Thirty-seven men and women who could not bear to stay blind in an unfamiliar place – and had that one last glimpse been worth it?
‘Soul, Ygor, scout them out,’ he ordered. ‘See how alert they are, their sentries, their preparations. We outnumber them and, even though they’re here, they might not be expecting an attack. We might get out of this yet.’
The Scorpion and the Grasshopper padded off into the darkness, with Ygor’s pet slinking along between
them. Dal sat back on his haunches, staring out at the campfires.
‘We’ve been in worse,’ Mordrec reminded him philosophically. ‘Remember the steppes, hmm?’
‘Oh, certainly,’ Dal agreed, feeling suddenly very tired. I’m just slightly on the wrong side of youth to be indulging in these all-night capers. ‘That double-cross at Mie Salve wasn’t much fun either.’
‘Only because of your bloody taste in women,’ Mordrec reminded him. ‘Matter of fact, the steppe business was women too.’
‘Well there’s no woman here now, Mord.’
‘There was Siriell,’ Mordrec suggested, impoliticly. At Dal’s responding glare he shrugged, setting the nailbow swaying on his shoulder. ‘I’m just saying.’
Dal was formulating a scathing reply, when he saw movement, and identified it a moment later as Soul and Ygor on their rapid return. The fools, they’ve been spotted, was his instant thought.
Without being told, Mordrec was heading back into the canes to rouse the others.
‘Report,’ Dal snapped angrily, but Ygor was grinning broadly.
‘You’ll love it,’ the Scorpion promised. ‘You’ll kiss me for it.’
‘What, Ygor?’
‘It’s the raiding party. Our raiding party.’
Dal stared at him dumbly, then looked to Soul for confirmation.
‘It’s true,’ the Grasshopper confirmed. ‘We spoke with that Spider, Avaris. They got lost. Been wandering around for a day or so trying to find us.’
‘Just shy of a hundred fighting men and women now, they’ve got,’ Ygor added with great satisfaction.
Dal weighed up the numbers in his head.
‘Come morning, we head south,’ he decided. ‘We move fast, and in one group. When we meet the Salmae, we fight. There’s nothing else for it. We’ll break through them, or break against them. We’ve reached the end of it.’
Thirty-Two
‘They’re now moving in force towards the border. This leader of theirs is a resourceful fellow, it seems,’ Lowre Cean remarked mildly.
Salme Elass was not in the mood for mildness. ‘I want him brought alive to Leose. I want him executed before his followers, for denying the order of the Commonweal.’
Lowre raised an eyebrow at her, for that. They were in full war council, with two dozen other nobles crammed into her grand campaigning tent this evening, so he said nothing, but she took him up on it nonetheless.
‘By taking these liberties, it is not me that these wretches defy,’ she snapped, ‘it is our entire society. In turning on their betters, they are traitors to the very Monarch.’
‘No doubt it is as you say,’ Lowre replied softly, but with a slight edge to his voice that made the others stir uncertainly.
Tynisa glanced at Alain, sitting beside her. He had his arms folded, head cocked to one side. Catching her gaze, he raised his eyebrows. We’d both rather be out getting things done, his look seemed to say, and when she grinned a little, he repaid her twice over. She felt something stir and leap within her. I’m winning.
‘They have greater numbers than us,’ Lowre continued after a pause. ‘Certainly more numbers than any force we could intercept them with before they reach Rhael. However, I suppose we must make the attempt, or they will doubtless return in even greater strength, and we will never be done. I want this business finished.’
‘As do we all,’ Elass confirmed.
Again, Lowre eyed her, but said nothing. Like an Imperial general, he had a map to hand, on which stones of various colours marked the last known positions of the brigands, and of their own forces. ‘Our chief aim is to place a force in their path that will suffice to delay them. We have limited numbers, however, who can move swiftly enough to cut them off. Also, if we put too strong a force in their way, they are likely to change their course once again. We must tempt them into a fight they believe they can win quickly. Once they are engaged, our remaining forces can catch them up and close the trap. This will necessitate everyone moving throughout the night. Our forces will thus not be best fit for a fight in the morning, but I see no alternative. For those who stand in the brigands’ path, things will go hard. If our main force is delayed for any reason, it might be the end of them.’
‘I will stand there,’ Tynisa declared flatly. She was no noblewoman, no member of the Commonweal hierarchy that Salme Elass was so devoted to, but nobody denied her a place here, and those nobles who had once looked askance at her when she danced or hunted now stayed out of her way. She had gained a reputation written in blood.
Lowre Cean winced but nodded, accepting the inevitable.
‘With your permission, my Princess?’
Tynisa looked around for the speaker, recognizing the voice of Isendter Whitehand, the Salmae’s champion. She caught Elass looking at the white-haired Mantis with concern, as though she wanted to refuse to let him go, but feared looking weak.
At last she nodded. ‘With my blessing,’ she said.
One by one the nobles spoke up, those who had been in the thick of the fighting already, those who had suffered burned villages or lessened revenues. Others pledged their servants, those who could ride swiftly enough to hold the pace. The pledges trickled in until Lowre Cean raised a thin hand.
‘Enough,’ he said. ‘That will be enough.’ He looked to Whitehand. ‘Isendter, I give you command over this business.’
Several of the nobles hovered on the brink of outrage that a mere servant should be given that honour. The calm, pale gaze of the Mantis-kinden soon silenced them. In that moment, Tynisa realized that Alain would not be coming, that she would make her stand without him there to admire her prowess. She glanced at him, and saw him frown at his mother. She will not let him fight, but how else will he grow strong? The thought crossed her mind that perhaps she would need to do something about Salme Elass, at some point – for Alain’s own good. How else could he become the man that Tynisa wished him to be?
As Lowre had decreed, they rode all through the night, and Whitehand set a punishing pace. Tynisa’s newfound skills were just sufficient to keep her on her mount, and at the back of the pack. The others, the nobles and their picked retinues, were better horsemen and women by far, but their skill had been learned over the years rather than dropped unearned on their shoulders.
Towards the dawn, she knew, Lowre would send a dragonfly rider, perhaps Alain himself, to scout out the whereabouts of the brigands. Their timing was tight. Too slow overnight and they might miss the bandit army entirely, or perhaps even run straight into them.
I would not mind if we did, Tynisa decided. It will save time. We will kill them all the sooner. That Whitehand’s little contingent would be outnumbered at least five to one was important only in giving her a greater opportunity to demonstrate her skill, and thus allow her to woo Alain on that much grander scale.
She had no idea of their progress, hanging on grimly at the rear, and the night passed in a series of swift rides across the countryside, interspersed with short breaks for the horses to be watered and fed. The Commonweal steeds had been bred for both speed and stamina, she could see: the Lowlands had nothing like them. Perhaps if Salma had used such beasts . . . but nothing was served by thinking of such things now.
When Whitehand called a halt, Tynisa did not realize that this was it, that they had already reached their goal, and were presumably ahead of the enemy. The sky was greying with pre-dawn towards the east, towards the Empire, and all around her the Commonwealers were dismounting, and tending their horses. They were a mixed band, and she had barely paid them any attention throughout the night’s journey. To her they were just ‘the nobles’, and she had dismissed them as such. Perhaps half of them were aristocracy in fact: graceful Dragonfly-kinden in glimmering armour of many colours, chitin and enamelled steel over mail and quilted cloth. They carried tall bows, long-hafted swords and short punch-blades, and Whitehand passed amongst them, singling out those whose steeds had lasted the journey best, setting them aside to fight on horseback
in the morning. The balance of the force was made up of the retainers that had been promised, men and women of Whitehand’s own station or below. Dragonflies mostly, but with some Grasshopper-kinden amongst them, and a lone Wasp.
Tynisa stared at him for a long while until, as though he was one of those clever pictures the Collegium mathematicians drew, that flipped from one image to another as the eye adjusted its perspective, finally he turned into someone she knew.
‘How long have you been with us?’ she demanded.
‘All the way,’ he replied. It was Gaved, whom she had not seen since she was his guest on the lakeshore.
‘You weren’t at the council.’
He shrugged. ‘I asked Prince Lowre if I could join you.’
‘I’m surprised he didn’t have you thrown out. I’m surprised he ever wants to see another of your people, after the war.’
‘Then perhaps you don’t understand him,’ he replied, maddeningly calm. ‘Sef asked me to see that you were all right.’
Tynisa narrowed her eyes, smelling the lie, and he made a curious gesture, of proffering his fists as though wanting her to guess which one held the stone in it. She realized it was the Wasp equivalent of holding up open hands to stave off a hostile reaction.
‘It was a request,’ he admitted, ‘but from Felipe Shah. He wanted to know that you were well, and that you stayed that way.’
She was suspicious at that. ‘Why would Felipe Shah even know you exist, Gaved?’
For a moment he just stared at her, but then he shrugged. ‘Man in my position, it’s good to let people know I’m useful.’
‘And you’re being paid, of course.’
‘Gratitude of princes.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, as princes go, Felipe’s word is better than most.’
Whitehand passed nearby. ‘I’ve set watches. Get what sleep you can.’
Sleep? Tynisa felt too fierce and full of fight to sleep, but a moment later some part of her had made its own calculation, and she knew that she would sleep undisturbed, and wake in an instant, fresh and spoiling for blood. Another gift she had not enjoyed a month ago.
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