‘Bee-kinden traders bring it from the north, sailing down the coast,’ she explained. Her voice was husky for a woman’s.
‘Naturally,’ Thalric acknowledged, wiping his fingers fastidiously. ‘Now, Daklan, why not sit down and tell me just who your friends are and exactly how we stand.’ At the man’s bristling glance he added, ‘I’m not your enemy, and if you’ve heard anything about me it is that my underlings prosper, if they do well by me. I don’t care for petty politics within the Empire or within the Rekef. That’s why I’m Outlander branch, and I hope you’ll be of my mind for as long as you work with me. If you have some prize you hope to see from this operation, then I’ll help you towards it if you serve me well. But I have a bad history with uncooperative subordinates.’ He smiled, though the thought was painful, ‘I’ll make that clear to you now.’
Daklan took a moment to think through this, and then sat down, resting an arm on the table. It was not an entirely relaxed position, not for a Wasp whose hands were weapons at need. Thalric decided to overlook it.
‘Major Thalric, if we’ve started badly then I apologize,’ Daklan said, not sounding overly contrite. ‘This is Lieutenant Haroc, my aide and intelligencer.’ Daklan made a vague gesture towards the scribe. ‘And this here is our secret weapon. Her name is Lorica.’
Thalric nodded to the halfbreed woman. ‘What’s your heritage, Lorica?’ he asked her.
‘My father was a local, sir. My mother was Wasp-kinden. A slave bought from the Spiders, I understand.’
He nodded, digesting this. ‘And you can.?’ Because there was only one reason that a halfbreed would be here, at this council.
‘The Ancestor Art has given me a link to the minds of the Vekken, sir, yes. I can hear them, and speak to them — not that they will acknowledge me.’
‘But they are very used to their privacy,’ Daklan said. ‘And much of what they say is not one to one, but one individual proclaiming to many. And Lorica can hear it, so in negotiations it’s of great use to us.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Thalric acknowledged. ‘So what has been negotiated?’
‘The usual preliminaries. A mutual recognition of power. A similarity of aims. They know that we are intent on taking Tark, and they approve. They have had their own designs on Collegium, and we approve. They want Sarn, but they know Sarn and Collegium stand together now, and it irks them.’ Daklan smiled. ‘May I take it, Major Thalric, that you are here to make the proposal to them?’
‘You think they are ready to accept?’
‘More than ready. They’ve not forgotten how Collegium defeated them before.’
‘As I understand it,’ Thalric noted, ‘Collegium simply held them off long enough for Sarnesh forces to reinforce, no?’
He looked to Lorica for a response and she said, ‘That is not how they see it, Major. They feel it as a defeat, and keenly so, because Collegium is a place of soft scholars, in their eyes, and they are soldiers.’
‘And yet it happened. ’ Thalric frowned, a new thought presenting itself. ‘Are we sure that, once this operation commences, these people will be able to capture Collegium? It would not serve the Empire if they failed.’ He corrected himself. ‘It would serve the Empire, by weakening both cities, but it would not serve them as well as breaking Collegium’s walls and scattering its people.’
‘It is simply a matter of time, Major Thalric, and of preparedness,’ Daklan explained. ‘The Vekken forces have had a long time to consider that defeat, and learn from it.’
‘I suppose even Ants can innovate,’ Thalric said, ‘given sufficient incentive.’
‘You can be sure that they have a plan, sir,’ Lorica confirmed. ‘Taking Collegium has become their prime civic ambition.’ She said it sourly, and he guessed that the civic pride of Vek was something far from her own heart. Halfbreeds were even less welcome amongst Ants than elsewhere.
‘Well, then,’ Thalric said, ‘let us go and make our bid. You can arrange an audience with the Royal Court?’
‘Tomorrow evening at the latest,’ Daklan confirmed. ‘It would not surprise me if they will be marching east in three days’ time.’
Oh, it was a difficult enough time to be a Rekef lieutenant. The Fly-kinden te Berro was finding his race’s gift for survival becoming strained. Rekef captains tended to have their own followers, their own networks and operations to fall back on. Sergeants and agents were considered just tools, seldom important enough to make the death-lists of those on high. Lieutenants, on the other hand, seemed to have the worst of both worlds.
He had been working in the west-Empire these last few years, even in the borderlands during the preparation for the Lowlands invasion. He had straddled the line, with his diminutive stride, something between Outlander and Inlander. He had hoped to be useful enough to all, and not too vitally useful to any. That line had since become impossible to walk.
All these years he had been General Reiner’s man. It had seemed the safest bet. It had got him his lieutenant’s bars, some good appointments, neither too dangerous nor too dull. Then things had started going subtly awry. An intelligent man with an inquiring mind, he soon realized that the problem lay within the Rekef itself. The secret service was honing its knives, but its eyes were turned inwards. Two cells of agents that te Berro had worked with had been wiped out by men that should have been their allies. General Reiner was now fighting a war, and that war was not against Lowlanders or Commonwealers but against elements of the Rekef itself.
Then there had been Myna, that gloriously bloody excursion undertaken by Major Thalric, another of Reiner’s men. Te Berro’s name had been commended in the reports. He had been very proud at the time, but not so long after he had realized that his time was up. The clock of his career in the Rekef had struck, and he was a dead man unless he slid down the pendulum soon and made his goodbyes. He was suddenly a somebody, and Reiner’s enemies were using his name in pointed ways. He made his researches and his plans, and determined that General Reiner was not in the best position, just now, that there were other men with more promise that a Fly-kinden agent could cling to.
Even before he had been briefing Thalric in the Cloud-farer, he had made his contacts, put out tentative feelers. He had got in touch with the agents of General Maxin, Reiner’s chief competitor, and offered to defect.
Te Berro was an experienced agent, a useful man, and besides, he had a lot to say about Reiner’s people and their operations. He had spent almost a tenday talking to his new friends, until his narrow throat was hoarse with it, and they had written down every word. At the end, knowing that he had nothing left to give, he had cast himself on their mercy.
‘Let me serve you,’ he had begged Maxin’s people. ‘Make use of me, for anything.’ But do not cast me away. Do not make of me just one more vanished name from the Rekef books.
Whether it was this particular mission they had in mind, or whether his breadth of experience recommended him for it, he would never know. A day later they had packed him off to Helleron with his orders, and the implicit understanding that it was his success in this venture that would determine his ultimate longevity.
He had been at pains to show how professional he was. They had told him to recruit agents and he had done so, reviving old contacts with ease to pluck four capable mercenaries from the city’s stews and bring them to this private room in a good Fly-kinden taverna. His only problem was in the nature of his instructions and, seeing their hard, professional faces regarding him, he felt that they might tear him apart, or merely laugh at him. They must not laugh, at this. It had been impressed on him that, no matter how bizarre the task seemed, it was in deadly earnest. A great deal hung on his small efforts here.
‘These are your orders and I make no apologies for them. They come from the capital itself, from the very palace, so make what you will of them.’ Te Berro shrugged, hands spread. ‘In Collegium, kept in a certain private collection, there is this item. A box, no more than six inches to a side. Unopenable, or at lea
st you are apparently advised not to open it. A box worked with intricate carvings, vine-patterns and abstract foliage. No better description is provided, but unmistakable, or so they assure me. Given the location and the expertise required this is judged no matter for the regular army. Moreover, by the time you arrive the city may be in some considerable distress, so that your skills may well be tested simply in gaining access. So the Empire calls on you, as freelancers.’
‘Mercenaries,’ said Gaved. ‘Let’s wear no flags we’re not entitled to.’ He was the only Wasp-kinden amongst them and his skill in hunting fugitives had won him an uneasy separation from the Empire, so long as he would always come when they called him. The sting-burn above one eyebrow puckered his expression into a suspicious squint.
‘Whatever,’ te Berro conceded. ‘I have bartered for swift transport to take you to Collegium. The more enterprising gangs of Helleron have realized that the Iron Road is alive and well, so you can be in Collegium in under a tenday.’
‘Takes the fun out of the job, but whatever.’ The speaker, Kori, had a broad face that held a smile easily. He was Fly-kinden like te Berro, but a barrel-chested, wide-shouldered specimen. He was a treasure-hunter, a raider equally of ruins and of collections such as their current target. Like Gaved and the other two he had a reputation, and no qualms about taking imperial coin.
‘Phin?’ te Berro asked, and the Moth-kinden woman nodded sullenly. Her name was Eriphinea and she had been part of the Rekef operation in Helleron for some time, an outcast from her own people. What her crime had been she had never disclosed, but she was an assassin by training and more than happy to kill her own kin.
‘And you?’ te Berro asked of the final hunter. ‘It’s not quite your line, I realize, but I’ve read of your skills and achievements. You’d be an asset.’
The man he addressed was Spider-kinden, middle-aged and lean, with a deeply lined face — or that was what te Berro and the others now saw. His eyes narrowed, considering the proposition.
‘Master Scylis?’ te Berro pressed.
‘It sounds diverting,’ said Scylis — or Scyla, as she truly was. The name was no more genuine than the face she wore for them, but in dealing with the Empire a masculine visage gave her more of an edge. ‘I have some business of my own in that direction, Lieutenant, so while I am there, I may as well help recover your trinket for you.’ Scyla appeared elaborately casual but, inside, her mind was working feverishly because the description of the artefact that te Berro had given her rang bells. She now recalled stories and histories she had read decades back when she was still in training: in training as a spy, in training as a face-shifting magician.
Te Berro looked them over. Stocky, blocky Kori in his hardwearing canvas garb, a grappling hook hanging from his belt as the symbol of his trade; Gaved, scarred and lantern-jawed, leanly muscled beneath his long coat; Phin the Moth in her plain robes, grey-skinned and white-eyed, dark hair bound back; and Scylis, an ageless Spider in nondescript traveller’s clothes with a rapier at his side.
‘For recovery of that box, nine hundred Imperials each, or else the equivalent in Helleron Centrals.’ He saw appreciation of that sum register on all their faces save Scylis’s. ‘I wish you luck,’ he concluded. ‘If it’s worth that much, I suspect you’re going to need it.’
‘Have you ever seen a sight so splendid?’ The speaker was an officer in dark plate-mail, a helmet cupped under her arm, her greying hair stark against skin that gleamed like obsidian. From atop the gatehouse in Vek’s wall it was indeed a remarkable sight. Soldiers in perfect order trooped past in their hundreds, shields gleaming on their backs. They marched proudly as if they could march all day, which they could. Some small detachments of cavalry rode up and down this great column on either side, horsemen in light armour who would scout and run messages beyond the reach of the Ants’ mind-speech.
Thalric watched critically, his keen eyes seeing strengths, but weaknesses as well. The might of an Ant-kinden army was the steel of its infantry. Taken against their peers they were undoubtedly the best soldiers in the world. That infantry comprised seven out of every ten fighting men of their army, where a Wasp force would have had no more than three of ten as heavy fighters. He watched units of scouts in leather armour pass, and he could guess the use of a scout that could report, silently, as soon as he had spotted his target. He saw also a few squads of Fly-kinden, forty or so men and women in all, but they were the only non-locals in the force.
Now the wall shook slightly as the first of the automo-tives went through. A few were war-juggernauts, heavily armoured battle machines armed with firethrowers and other anti-infantry weapons, but most were siege automotives for assaulting Collegium’s walls. With a harsh metal clattering a pair of orthopters rattled overhead, followed by a handful more. Other than that the air above was clear, and that was what seemed so remarkable. When an imperial army was on the march the sky was alive with men, animals and machines.
Out in the bay the Vekken navy was starting to move as well, the vessels coursing lazily out past the wall. There were big supply barges, iron-plated armourclads packed with soldiers, together with a single metal-hulled flagship twice the length of the others and armed with vast trebuchets. The docks of Collegium were hardly protected by the city’s own sea-wall, and so the Vekken hoped for a quick advance by landing their marines on the wharves.
‘It’s magnificent, Tactician,’ Thalric confirmed. Beside him, Daklan nodded appreciatively and added, ‘We’re looking forward to seeing the army in action.’
The old woman gave them an unfriendly look. ‘It has not been decided that you will accompany the army, though Vek thanks you for your assistance and your encouragement.’ Her name was Akalia, and she made no secret of the fact that she looked down on Wasps and indeed anyone else not Ant-kinden and native-born to Vek.
‘But, Tactician. ’ Daklan said hastily, ‘we have our own superiors to satisfy. They will want to know when Collegium has met its deserved fate.’
‘Do you doubt us?’ Akalia asked. ‘Only the armies of Sarn have kept us from crushing that pack of scholars long ago. We have your assurance that your own armies will intervene to ensure Sarn cannot freely aid its allies, so that should be enough for you.’
Daklan exchanged glances with Thalric. A few paces away, Lieutenant Haroc was waiting with his tablet poised to record anything of importance that might be said here. In Thalric’s opinion Akalia was right, and there was no need for him to witness firsthand the death of Collegium. Or perhaps it was just that he did not want to see the waste of such a place in the necessary cause of fulfilling the Emperor’s ambition. Daklan was keen to be present for the culmination of his work here in Vek, though. He was keen for Thalric to see it too, no doubt as a help towards his own commendation.
‘Tactician,’ Daklan pressed again, ‘imagine yourself in our place. I have no doubt that this mighty force can level the walls of Collegium within days, but if I were to present myself to my superior officers and tell them that I had not seen the fact with my own eyes, they would punish me for failing in my duty, and rightly so.’
Akalia considered this, or rather, Thalric realized, she discussed it with other Ant officers across the city. At last she nodded briefly. ‘Very well, your delegation shall accompany us, and it will do your people good to see the Ants of Vek in action.’
Thalric left them then, realizing Daklan would stay to butter up the tactician a little more. It was remarkable how susceptible these people were to the most shallow flattery. He guessed it was because they were used only to absolute sincerity from their own kind. Thalric found himself so easily bored by them, which was an ironic thought. Perhaps he could only feel at ease around those as deceitful as himself.
He came down the stairs within the wall, emerging into its shadow. He was feeling depressed about what must now happen, and he wished that there was some other way, for Collegium was a hard-grown flower that would not flourish again once uprooted. If the Empire could have wo
n its surrender then the world would have been richer.
But he could see how this was needed, for the hotbed of radical ideas in Collegium was just too dangerous to allow to go unchecked.
‘Major.’ A hoarse whisper. He looked about and saw Lorica lurking against the wall. The halfbreed translator beckoned him over, and he went, cautiously.
‘What is it?’ he asked her.
‘You’ve a reputation for being good to your subordinates, Major?’
‘Only if they do as they’re supposed to,’ Thalric told her. ‘Why? What do you want?’
Lorica smiled. ‘I want to give you a warning, Major.’
Thalric felt a familiar feeling rise within him. What does this remind me of? His mind returned to Myna, with Rekef orders setting him at the throat of his own people. He felt faintly sick even at the thought. ‘Warn me about what?’ he asked her.
‘Lieutenant Haroc, Major.’
‘Haroc? What is there to say about Haroc?’
Almost theatrically, Lorica glanced about her and back up the stairs, making sure they were not observed. ‘You should know, sir. it means nothing, I’m sure, but you should know: he has been with Major Daklan a very long time, and he’s no scribe. His writing is poor, he has others transcribe it instead. He comes from a different branch of the service.’
‘What branch is that?’ Thalric asked.
‘Your guess, Major, but I wouldn’t trust him.’ She was looking earnestly into his face. ‘I’m no fool, Major, and I know that, when the Vekken campaign’s done, there’ll be no use for me here. Daklan will soon cast me off. He might even throw me to the soldiers here. They’d love to have a halfbreed woman to abuse. You can change that, Major.’
‘Yes, I can,’ he agreed. He looked at her, trying to see beyond the bloodline. She should not be unattractive, he supposed, but the mixture of her heritage was stamped on every feature, nothing quite as it should be. Still, it did not diminish her usefulness nor, he now supposed, her loyalty.
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