All officers, report your strengths and position, came the tactician’s call.
Here we go, Parops decided, and relayed back that he had eight hundred and sixty-two men under his command, and that he now was at Forty-fifth-Seventh.
And he waited for the call. His tension was clear to his men even if his words had been kept silent from them. They began cocking their crossbows, taking up their shields.
Commander Parops, came the call, and this time it was the King.
Your Majesty, Parops replied, almost breathless with anticipation.
I must issue two commands today that are unthinkable, came the voice of the city’s ruler. I tell you this so that you do not think you have mistaken what you will hear. No monarch of our kind should ever be forced to give such orders.
Your Majesty? Parops queried uncertainly. We are all ready to die for you. With the exception of Nero it was no more than the truth.
I know you are, but I will not have it. Commander Parops, you are ordered to take those men currently in your command to the west gate, and leave the city by that route. Then break through the Wasp cordon and-
Your Majesty? Parops broke in, agonized. You cannot mean it.
These are your orders! snapped the voice in his head. He was seeing shock on the faces of his soldiers now, and realized that the King was making sure that some of them, at least, would hear what they must do. Break through the cordon. The Wasps are not expecting it. Leave our city. Find somewhere else for yourself and your men. And when the time is right, Parops, whether it be you and your men, or your children or their children, reclaim our city from the invader. That is the task I give to you. That is your order. There is no more than that.
A great silence had fallen over the city of Tark. It was not any of the normal silences of an Ant city going about its day-to-day business. It was a silence born of loss and shock. In its resounding, thunderous absence one could hear the faint echoes of ten thousand squandered lives.
Half the Royal Court buildings were covered in char, the stone beneath cracked and riven by the sheer heat of the incendiaries. The gates had been staved in during the last reaches of the fighting, splintered by a ram borne by six great Mole Cricket-kinden. The ram-bearers had all died in the attempt, or immediately after it, and their colossal bodies had only just been removed. Not one of their kind was left living in the Wasp army. Every one had given its sad life for the taking of this city.
Before the gates stood two dozen Ant-kinden, still wearing their armour. Their hands and their scabbards were empty. They stood in precise ranks, watching. They were all of the Tarkesh royal staff that remained. It seemed likely that they would be executed, but it was less likely that they cared very much, at this point.
It was Colonel Carvoc who now approached them, with a guard of a hundred light and medium infantry. His face, seeing those defeated men and women, held no sympathy, nor even much triumph. The day did not belong to the Fourth Army, the glorious Barbs. The day belonged to science, and that left a sour taste in the mouth.
He signalled to his men, who remained as wordless as the Ants themselves. One of the light airborne stood forwards and saluted him, carrying a cloth-wrapped lance in his off-hand.
As Carvoc nodded to him the man’s wings flared, and he launched into the air, tracing a graceful curve up onto the roof of the Royal Court. There had been no insignia kept there, no emblem or banner to be cast down, so the soldier was forced to hunt across the rooftop, to the gathering silence of the men below, before he found a crack in the stonework that would fit his ambitions. With a decisive gesture he jammed the lance’s pointed ferrule in, forcing it down until it was firmly rammed in, lodging deep in the substance of the Tarkesh heart. Then he loosed the cords, and the wind caught the cloth, streaming it out in a billowing gust of black and gold.
The city of Tark had fallen to the Empire after only five days of bombardment.
The Wasps then took control with a firm hand born of long experience. They appointed their deputies amongst the conquered people, giving their orders and leaving the delegation of them to the Ant-kinden mindlink, so that by speaking to a single Ant they could effectively command the whole city. Drephos and General Alder were able to walk through the streets of the conquered city, watching the disarmed inhabitants set to clearing the ruins of their own homes. They worked in silence, and both men felt the shocked quiet that filled the space between their minds: How could it have come to this?
‘I must confess, I do not trust this silence,’ Alder remarked. He had an honour guard of a dozen sentinels, implacable in their heavy plate armour.
‘That is because you do not understand Ant-kinden, General,’ Drephos told him.
‘And you do?’
‘I make an effort to know who my machines are to be used against, so that I can better direct that use. They have come to the conclusion for now that to resist the Empire is only to invite greater wrack, so they surrender.’
‘They’ll rebel in time, then.’
‘Every subordinate always does, when given the opportunity,’ Drephos said airily, and then qualified it. ‘Except for the Bee-kinden. They don’t seem to have the knack.’
‘And that squad that got away.’ Alder shook his head, his plan having not provided for that. Eight hundred men suddenly breaking from the west gate and running his blockade — which, needless to say, had not been expecting any assault and broke almost instantly. He had himself been there to witness the tail end of the fighting and the Ant soldiers making their orderly retreat from their own city, flanked by nailbowmen and heavy crossbows. The pursuing airborne had been cut to pieces, and he had realized that he could not spare more men to go after them just as the Royal Court was being cracked open. So he had reinforced the western perimeter and waited for them to make their vengeful return to attempt to break the siege, but they had not come back. They had simply gone. ‘Did they run?’ he wondered aloud. ‘Did their nerve break, at the end?’
‘It was done by design, General. I am sure of that,’ Drephos said. ‘You’ve not seen the last of them.’
Alder nodded gloomily. ‘Do you believe it about their ruler?’ he asked. ‘Again, I don’t trust it. All these Ants look the same to me.’
‘I believe it implicitly, because it is the only way the matter could reasonably be accomplished,’ Drephos said. ‘While he was King, no matter what order he had just given, his people would still be waiting for his word. They would never lay down their arms. They would always think that some further move could be made in the game.’
‘Game?’ Alder surveyed the dead Wasp soldiers that were, one by one, being hauled from before the palace gates. ‘This is a game for you, is it?’
‘For all of us, General, and you can’t say you didn’t know the stakes. No, the King had to go, and he knew it.’
‘So he killed himself, or had his generals kill him,’ Alder said tiredly. He had read the report. The first Wasp soldiers had burst into the tunnels beneath the Tarkesh throne room to find their King slain. The tacticians of Tark had been waiting there peaceably, accepting their fate. They had been put to death, of course. There was no sense inviting further trouble by letting them live.
‘I’ve sent a messenger for the Supply corps,’ Alder added. ‘The administrators, the Auxillian militia, the garrison and the slavers — they’ll all be here in a day, perhaps two.’
‘And for you the conquest goes on?’ Drephos asked him.
‘I have orders to move west,’ Alder confirmed. ‘There are two Fly-kinden communities to take into the Empire but I’m not anticipating a fight there. Then my information is that there is another Ant city-state offshore, and some Mantis savages in the woods that we can root out.’
‘I wish you luck with it, General.’
Alder frowned at the halfbreed. ‘And where will you be, Colonel-Auxillian, that you’re wishing me luck?’
‘I have arranged a transfer to the Seventh for myself and my people, General. I have given you
the tools to unpick an Ant city, but the Seventh is yet to be thus supplied. They are listed to march on Sarn eventually and, besides, their more immediate destination is of interest to me.’
Alder shrugged, one-shouldered. ‘If you have wheedled such orders, then so be it.’ He glowered at the artificer briefly. ‘I don’t like you, Drephos. You’re a worm, and don’t think I don’t know how much you hate us.’
Within the shadow of his cowl, Drephos smiled thinly. ‘But.?’
‘But you have accomplished a great deal here,’ Alder admitted reluctantly. ‘I shall note it in my report.’
‘You’re too kind,’ Drephos said. ‘If you do not mind, General, I will return to the camp. I have business to take care of before I bid you a final farewell.’
A few fires were lit, well hidden in hollows to escape unfriendly eyes. They had marched a long way, far enough that they were long out of the reach of the Ant minds left in Tark. Parops and his men had thus no clue as to the fate of their city, but it seemed clear that it would be one of two results: either Tark would bow the knee or it would be overwritten on future maps by some Wasp name, a new town dug out of Tark’s ashes.
His men were as dispirited as he had ever seen soldiers be, and he shared their despondency. They were creatures of routine and loyalty, creatures of the city they were born in, conditioned to obedience there, knowing nothing but the will of Tark and its monarch. Now they were alone. Six hundred and seventy-one Tarkesh men and women out in the wilderness, on the road to Merro, with no idea of where they could go or what could be done next.
Between them, they had food for less than a tenday, even if carefully rationed. There were few of them with the ability to live off the land, since it had never been needed, and all of them had left family behind. Parops himself had abandoned his unfaithful mate whom he now missed beyond reason.
There seemed barely any point in continuing, and Par-ops found the burden of responsibility intolerable. Though ground down with misery, at least his soldiers could look to him for orders. He had never wanted this role. They had made him tower commander simply because he had a good head for logistics and it was considered a position where he could make the least trouble with his unconventional thinking. Now unconventional thoughts were all that could save them, and he could not seem to muster any.
‘How are you feeling?’ Nero came fluttering down beside him.
Parops gave him a look that was all the answer he needed.
‘No sign of any pursuit, anyway,’ the Fly said. ‘Got other things on their minds, I’ll bet. Any thought to what you’re going to do next?’
‘If I had a free hand,’ Parops said flatly, ‘I would lead my men back to Tark and attack the Wasp camp.’
‘Because that would be suicide,’ Nero said.
‘Exactly. But my last orders don’t allow that, so I have to think of something else.’
‘Well I’ve had a couple of thoughts if you’d like to borrow them,’ Nero offered.
‘Anything.’
‘Get your men to Collegium,’ Nero said. ‘I’ve got an influential friend there who’s dead set against the Empire. He’s on the — what do they call it? The Assembly.’
‘Collegium’s too far,’ Parops countered. ‘We cannot travel through most of the Lowlands in the hope that some friend of yours will take in six and a half hundred homeless Ant soldiers. Not to mention that if the Kessen see us tramping down the coast, they’ll wipe us out.’
Nero nodded. ‘I can see your point there. All right, Parops. I’ve been a good friend to you — or as good as I could be, yes?’
‘For a Fly-kinden, I suppose.’
‘High praise there. Right then, I’m going to suggest two courses of action, and you’ll not like either of them. All right? One of them is what I’m about to do, and the other one’s what you could do. You don’t have to, but I’m out of ideas if you don’t. First off, I’m going back.’
Parops stared at him. ‘You’re mad.’
‘It’s a loyalty thing, Parops. You should understand. Not to Tark, I admit: loyalty to my friends. I have always tried to be loyal to my friends. Because I travel a lot and have no certainties, and I never know when I’m going to need a friend, for a bed, for a meal, or to get me out of prison. And Stenwold and me, we go back twenty years.’
‘His two agents, or apprentices — the halfbreed and the other one?’
‘The Commonwealer, yes. I have to find out what happened to them. Probably they’re dead, but I have to know. Because Stenwold would want to know.’
‘They’ll catch you,’ Parops said. ‘You’ll end up a slave, or dead.’
‘They won’t catch me,’ Nero said, ‘because I’m not going skulking in like a thief. I’m just going to walk straight up to them: Nero the famous artist, perhaps you’ve heard of me? Happened to have a lot of black and yellow paint spare. Maybe you want a portrait. You know the stuff.’
‘They will kill you or enslave you,’ Parops said firmly.
‘You were going to kill me too, at one stage. I’m good at not being killed. I’ve done it all my life,’ Nero said. ‘I owe Stenwold, and he would want to know.’
Parops shook his head but found he did not have the strength to argue. ‘So what is your suggestion for us? Is it as mad as that one?’
‘Madder,’ Nero said, giving the first smile anyone there had seen for a long time. In a low voice he explained his plan, and men around them began raising their heads as Parops’s mind put out the information.
‘We cannot do that. It would be-’
‘Suicide?’
‘Worse. We’d be slaves. My people would never agree to it,’ Parops stated.
‘Wouldn’t they? There’s an Empire coming this way, with armies to spare, and you’ve got seven-hundred-odd highly trained Ant warriors. So who would turn you away?’
Parops just stared at him.
‘Will you at least think about it?’ Nero pressed.
There was a moment when Parops did not even see him, when he was concentrating simply on the interchange of ideas flashing between his men, their rapid, silent debate of the concept, of Nero’s plan.
‘We will attempt it,’ said Parops finally. ‘What do we have to lose?’
Twenty-Three
He swam in those dark reaches, those vast abyssal reaches that no light had ever touched. No stars there were, and no lamps. There was only the void and the rushing of the wind, or the sucking of the current that sought to draw him downwards.
He had fought free of those depths once already, and now he had no strength for any second struggle. There were monsters in those depths, trawling for ever through the vacant dark with their jaws agape. To fall between the needles of their teeth meant oblivion and surrender.
Not death, because all was death here.
In Collegium it had been the fashion, while he had been resident there, to paint death as a grey-skinned, balding Beetle man in plain robes, perhaps with a doctor’s bag but more often an artificer’s toolstrip and apron, like the man who came in, at the close of the day, to put out the lamps and still the workings of the machines.
Amongst his own people, death was a swift insect, gleaming black, its wings a blur — too fast to be outrun and too agile to be avoided, the unplumbed void in which he swam was but the depth of a single facet of its darkly jewelled eyes.
Amongst his own people they drew up short poems for a death, and carved its wings into the sides of tombs and cenotaphs, with head down and abdomen tapering towards the sky as it stooped towards its prey. They would paint death’s likeness as a shadow in the background, always in the upper right quarter of the scroll, when depicting some hero’s or great man’s last hours. In plays an actor, clad all in grey, would take the stage bearing a black-lacquered likeness of the insect, which he would make swoop or hover until the time came for it to alight.
He himself could not fly, for his wings would not spark to life. The void hung heavy on him and it clawed at him, howling for him. He
swam and struggled and fought, because a second’s stillness would see him whisked back to the monsters and the pit. He fought, but knew not why he fought. He had no memories, no thoughts, nothing but this haggard, desperate fight.
And there seemed, for the faintest moment, something hard and distant there in the void, some great presence diminished almost to a star-speck by its separation from him: an insect, but not the death insect. Four glittering wings and eyes that saw everything, all at once: the source of his Art and his tribe; the archetype of his people. He was a spirit lost and that creature was his destination — where he would rejoin the past and be with his ancestors.
And he struck out for it, knowing only that it was right to do so. But it was so far and the void still dragged at him, and that tiny gnat-speck of light was receding and receding.
And then gone.
And with that spark dead, he finally gave up. The fight left him and he swam no more but let the wind catch him and draw him down into darkness.
But there was a light again. Above him there was a light, and it was swelling and growing. A soft light, that was at once pure white and many colours. A light like bright sunlight reflected on a pale wall, and for that reason as he saw it he recalled the sun. He had forgotten that such a thing existed, but now the thought of that once familiar sun surrounded and filled him, and he swam again. He caught the cruel current off-guard and slipped from its grasp. He swam and swam, up towards that lambent ceiling, towards that great spread of light that held back the void.
And he raised his hand to touch it, and his fingers broke the surface.
And he opened his eyes.
For a long time he just stared, trying to make the shapes he saw conform. He was looking upwards and it seemed bright to him but not as bright as it might. The oil lamp in the corner of his vision was burning clearly, not drowned in sunlight. He saw a ceiling, a real ceiling, but it sloped madly away from him.
He wanted to ask what he was doing there, but he could not grasp why he should be anywhere.
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