Salute the Dark sota-4

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  He had been arguing for almost a tenday now. He had been arguing with men of other families, with the women of his own. The time was right to strike and suddenly they were turning away from war. The Wasp force garrisoned north of Seldis, now comprising most of the Eighth Army, made them uneasy.

  ‘Now is the time, only now!’ he had urged them. His agents were ready to ignite Solarno. The Sarnesh were marching. Collegium was bristling with siege engines. The Empire was fighting on all its borders. ‘Now!’ he had repeated.

  They had not seen his ‘now’. The matter was still being wrangled over, their endless circular arguments merely a blind for the political manoeuvres behind the scenes. Everyone wanted to be sure who would be on top, come the end of this.

  Teornis looked again at the news he had received, the grievous blow to his chances and his future.

  The Ants of Kes, that unassailable island city, were not sallying out to strike the Wasp supply lines, so as to do their bit for the salvation of the Lowlands, and the reason for the Imperial Second bypassing them was now clear. The Ants of Kes, after thorough consideration, had signed a mutual non-aggression pact with the Empire, and betrayed the Lowlands to the sword.

  ‘Now!’ he insisted still, but ‘now’ was fading into the past. If he could not capitalize on all he had worked for, then he would be lost, and so, he suspected, would everything else.

  Two days later and he was regretting it all. He had grasped the nettle and got stung. His kinden always placed such stock on self-control, and yet now his hands would not stop shaking. Teornis of the Aldanrael, Lord-Martial and warmonger, had been granted his wish.

  On this bright morning, before the sun’s heat became oppressive, the combined forces of seven of Seldis’ great families had marched north from the city’s walls with the aim of destroying the Wasp Empire’s holding force and severing the supply lines that were all that kept the Imperial Second on track towards Collegium. In this bold stroke, the Spiderlands would secure the entire southern coast against the Wasps, and from there it would be up to Collegium and Sarn to themselves defeat General Malkan and the Seventh Army. Even this strike had taken all of Teornis’ considerable powers of persuasion, all of the Aldanrael family’s political influence, and a great mass of Spider-kinden self-interest to produce.

  The Seldis force had been levied from a dozen different satrapies within the Spiderlands. As well as a core of Spider-kinden light infantry, drawn from the lesser families or the unfriended and the impoverished, it boasted a host of other kinden: Beetle artificers and heavy infantry with leadshotters and battle-automotives; red-skinned Fire-Ant crossbowmen in copperweave chainmail marching beside hulking Scorpion mercenaries who were bare-chested and carried great swords and axes over their shoulders; flights of Dragonfly-kinden glittering and dancing constantly in the still air. There were Fly-kinden archers and scouts by the hundred, Ant-infantry from far southern cities barely contemplated by the Lowlands, desert-dwelling Grass-hopper-kinden with spears and small circular shields, hairy and uncouth Tarantula-kinden that were supposedly the Spiders’ primitive cousins. This was a mighty host for any Spider Aristos to command. Intelligence informed them that they outnumbered the Wasp force waiting for them by almost three to one.

  While the army was settling into its blocks and ranks, Teornis had conference with his co-commanders. This was the price of war: his sovereignty was usurped. A half-dozen Spider-kinden and their aides eyed each other suspiciously and made endless suggestions about how the army should dispose itself.

  Teornis grew impatient. He had engineered this war and he therefore felt that it should be his to order. He himself argued for a swift attack, light infantry and cavalry on both wings sweeping forward whilst the heavy centre rumbled in to smash whatever defences the Wasps might put forth. They were cautious, and he was argued down. Their kinden was more suited to lying in wait, not charging forth. Teornis was putting his case for the third time, when a Fly messenger came hurtling into the tent.

  The Wasps were on the move. The Wasps were attacking.

  The Spiders could not believe their luck. Agreement suddenly flowered. Orders went out to the archery companies, the artillery, the airborne. The advancing Wasps would be destroyed by massed missile shot, then driven into the Dryclaw desert. Perhaps no foot-soldier would even need to bloody his blade.

  This was not my plan, was all Teornis could think now. He had wanted to attack: he could not be blamed for this. He clung to that excuse, for the scant good it could do him. Even now he was trying to rally his personal guard to retreat from the field, while retreat was still an option.

  It was that cursed weapon of Stenwold Maker’s. Teornis had tried to explain. He had even armed a company of his own Fire Ant-kinden with it, and they were now making a bloody accounting of themselves. The Wasps, though, possessed thousands of the things, whole airborne companies armed with them.

  The battle had begun at long range, as his peers had planned. Specifically it had begun at twenty yards further than the Spiderlands bows or crossbows could reach. As the artillery of both armies had traded shot with slogging patience, the snapbow bolts, fired from shoulder to shoulder, two-deep formations of Wasp infantry, simply flayed the front ranks of the Spider army, leaving them dead in their tracks. For what must have been less than a minute, but had seemed like forever, the Spider commanders had watched the vanguard of their soldiers disintegrate, an alchemical translation of soldiers into corpses that no magician could have matched.

  They were no fools, for all their division, and their orders had gone out as fast as the Fly-kinden could carry them. The Dragonfly airborne had launched into the air, either on their own wings or on the giant beasts they rode. The light archers and crossbowmen had been rushed forwards into range. The spider cavalry had scuttled into action with lance and fang while the automotives had thundered forth. The artillery had perfected its elevation and begun finding the ranges on the close-ranked Wasp lines.

  The Wasps were doing just the same thing, though: their own light airborne rose to meet the Dragonflies while their artillery had begun landing stones and leadshot and explosive grenades with devastating effect amidst the Seldis army. Their snapbowmen, though, had simply shot and shot again and, even when the Spiders denied them a massed target by sending their archers out in loose-knit skirmishing order, the Wasps had found their victims. Less than one in three of the Spiderlands archers even got into range before they died.

  There were still some parts of Teornis’ army holding, and he could not decide whether they were far more loyal than he deserved, or whether they simply did not realize how badly things were going. The Fire Ants had dug in with snapbows and repeating crossbows, and there were still some Dragonflies in the air. Meanwhile the Scorpions had actually got into close fighting, their monstrous swords and axes hacking a bloody wedge into the enemy. Despite all this, Teornis was tactician enough to see that the day was lost.

  ‘Get me to the coast,’ he urged his men. No Seldis for him, because Seldis was where the Wasps would go next and, besides, his own people would hardly be glad to see him right now.

  Still, where can we sail to? The reports received, in all their veiled language, had been plain enough. With the fires of the Felyal behind them, the Wasp army was tearing up the coast towards Collegium, not stopping for anything but travelling as fast as its motorized siege train would let it.

  Something snapped in him, just for a moment, and Teornis whipped his rapier from its scabbard and slashed it across all the papers and reports and maps he had been living with for the last two tendays, scattering them through the air like whirling insects, like cinders. His cry of rage and frustration brought his people running, but instantly he was composed again, his face making no admission that anything had happened.

  We will lose Collegium. Everything was for nothing if that Beetle city fell. The Lowlands would open to the Wasps like a virgin slave.

  Seventeen

  The guards came rushing out at him st
raight away, but Thalric had caught them just as much by surprise as he had General Reiner. Thalric knew his trade and had spotted the sections of wall they would manhandle away and come bursting through, almost falling over themselves in their shock. They were not Rekef, so had expected threats, justifications, a warning from him. If he had not started killing them as soon as they exposed themselves they would not have known what to do with him.

  He let his sting speak for him, striking them down even as they tried to pile into the room. He expected that they would kill him despite his efforts, but there were only four of them in the end. He had been a four-guard threat, in Reiner’s eyes. A moment later the other two from outside had crashed in, too late again, alerted only by the shouts of the first four. He killed them too before they quite understood.

  He fled to the balcony and paused there, waiting. He himself would have had guards posted either side of the balcony doorway, but Reiner had positioned himself there instead. Thalric’s exit was clear.

  There were no running footsteps, no shouts, no alarm.

  With the utmost care he stepped back into the room, eyes roving dispassionately between Reiner’s corpse and those of his guards. It was over so very quickly that no word had spread. Had nobody even heard? Where were the staff and soldiers of this palace, to come running at the sound of seven murders?

  The servants would normally be locals, so perhaps Reiner did not trust them. Perhaps he was right not to, given the reports Thalric had read in Tharn. As for the soldiers and other imperial officials who should be thronging up here, they were either off trying to crush a resistance that was already too great for them to get their fingers around or had already fallen victim to imperial politics. Looking down at the general’s thin face Thalric wondered whether Reiner had gone a little mad, at the end, backed into a self-made corner by mounting paranoia.

  There was a knock on the door and, motivated by a foreknowledge of who this would be, Thalric called, ‘Come in.’

  In came Colonel Latvoc, mouth already open to speak when he saw the wreckage. Thalric had a palm directed towards him but Latvoc made no move against him, just stared and stared. Something was melting behind his face, and it was his own future. The ship he had invested everything in, whose fortunes he had backed beyond all else and which he had clung to in the storm, was now sunk.

  He fell to his knees and a noise came from him: not a word, or anything that Thalric had ever heard uttered by anyone before – just a small, thin noise of pure grief. It seemed to Thalric that, in that same moment, Colonel Latvoc suffered more over the loss of his general than did Felise Mienn over the deaths of her children.

  Thalric felt no sympathy, finding again that he was a Rekef officer at heart. In the end he cared only for the Empire, and the Empire’s worst enemy, right now, was itself. It was men like Reiner and Latvoc here, yes, and Maxin and all the other conniving generals and colonels and governors who were tearing out pieces of the Empire for their own fiefdoms, behaving no better than the criminal gangs of Helleron. Even the Emperor himself, if he tolerated or encouraged such practices, was no longer exempt from Thalric’s contempt. Such a weight was suddenly lifted from his shoulders with that thought, for he had done something truly good for the Empire at last.

  He hardly even had to make the decision. His hand seemed to flash fire of its own accord, searing into Latvoc’s slack face and smashing him to the floor.

  Now he could go, his work here done. He went to the balcony and looked out across Myna, a city on the brink of uprising. In the circumstances, what should the good officer do?

  Or what should the turncoat Lowlands agent do? Or the sometime companion of Che Maker?

  That thought still rankled: he should not have left her. Worse, he should not even have put her in the situation. Che was in the hands of the resistance, that seemed certain, and they might already have killed her. They might, on the other hand, have believed her. Of course he, Thalric, had news now that the resistance would covet. How would the officers here cope now, now that the governor and his Rekef general master were both dead?

  It took him only a moment, poised there on the balcony’s brink, to see it: the Wasp garrison would lash out. They would see this as a political killing and they would retaliate blindly in the heavy-handed way that Latvoc had taught them. Without precise targets, they would bludgeon the whole city in their wrath. Myna was about to feel the whip, but the slaver might yet find the slave snatching the weapon from his hand.

  Wings flashing into life, he vaulted off the balcony, stepping out over the city. He would find the resistance. He would find Che. He owed her that much.

  They were within sight of Hokiak’s Exchange when Kymene signalled a halt. Che stumbled, blundering into Chyses’ back, and he cuffed her hard with a hiss of annoyance. She was pinned between two of the Mynan Red Flag dressed as civilians, cloaked and hooded as if against a blustery day.

  ‘Kymene?’ Che asked. Chyses glared at her, but he was just as uncertain.

  ‘Something has changed,’ Kymene said, though there was no obvious reason for the remark. She might as well have made the declaration after just sniffing the air. Still, the men with her took her seriously. Chyses carefully drew his blade from its sheath, hiding it along the line of his arm. Ahead of them, a squad of Wasp soldiers crossed the street, from alley to alley. To Che they seemed hurried and yet uncertain, dashing most of the way before dawdling for a moment, then dashing on.

  ‘We should go back,’ Chyses suggested. ‘Or send for more men.’ Che’s two guards were their only escort. Kymene was not a leader to hide behind walls, Che gathered, but it was a two-edged sword. Her followers loved her for her bravery in taking the self-same risks she asked of them, but of course the Wasps would give a great deal to catch her. Che understood from Chyses that there had been some close calls since Kymene’s release from the palace, attempts by Wasps and mercenary hunters both to recapture the resistance’s leader.

  Kymene gazed thoughtfully at the front of the Hokiak Exchange thoughtfully. Hokiak was more than capable of double-crossing her, and it would have been entirely in character. He would have done it differently, though: the trap would be elsewhere than his own den, and more subtle than sending a simple message that the very Thalric she wanted to see had just walked into the Exchange and given himself up.

  A trap of the Empire, then? She and Chyses had made what examination they could of the Exchange’s exterior. They were used to spotting ambushes after long years of setting them. If there were Wasp soldiers waiting to drop on to Hokiak’s Exchange then she saw no sign of it. Furthermore, she was sure that Hokiak kept a few eyes of his own out, and she knew for certain that those venal Wasps who used his services to bring in contraband ensured that he always had warning of any intended raids. There was the alternative, unlikely as it sounded, that Thalric was exactly what Che said he was, and therefore a useful man to talk to.

  But something is wrong. Not a simple betrayal, but my city has changed in some way.

  She would recognize Thalric, while her men would not. So she had to go in herself. Chyses was all for burning down the Exchange, with both Hokiak and Thalric inside it, but she wanted to see the man and speak with him.

  ‘He killed the Bloat, remember,’ she murmured.

  ‘Not for us, he didn’t,’ Chyses shot back, and that was true.

  ‘We go in,’ she said.

  He hissed in frustration, but he nodded in the end. They had not always been allies, the two of them, nor had he always been willing to take her orders. It was only after her capture that he had realized how much Myna needed her.

  They found Thalric playing a game of dice and counters with one of Hokiak’s followers. The old Scorpion himself was lurking at the bar of his back room, which was inhabited only by his men and by Thalric. Chyses went in first, the drawn knife still hidden by his cloak, peering suspiciously at every face in turn. Hokiak’s men, a half-dozen of them, watched him just as carefully in return.

 
There was a change, though, that went through them when Kymene entered. They were mostly locals and, though they had given their pledge to gold rather than city, they knew her. When she lowered her hood, the Maid of Myna, both beautiful and stern, their slouching arrogance straightened up into something more respectful.

  ‘You took your time.’ Hokiak came hobbling over towards them, immune to all that. Across the gaming table, Thalric’s eyes found Che’s own.

  ‘Tell me what you’re playing at, old man,’ Kymene said. ‘You said he was your prisoner.’

  ‘He ain’t going nowhere,’ Hokiak said. ‘As for games, what have you got? You been list’ning at all out there? It’s like the start of a sandstorm, just beginnin’ to blow. You hear that?’

  ‘What’s changed, Hokiak?’

  ‘He’ll tell you.’ The Scorpion chuckled. ‘Gryllis, how’s it going?’

  The voice of his Spider accomplice drifted in from the shop front. ‘Everything worth taking is boxed. The boys are moving it right now.’

  ‘Taking a trip?’ Kymene inquired. When the Scorpion just leered at her, she reached out and grabbed his collar, twisting it. His men moved, but uncertainly and without direction. In that moment it was clear, as it had not been before, that they would not attack Kymene even for their employer.

  ‘This city is like a keg of firepowder, and it’s just about ready for the match,’ Hokiak said casually, as though she did not have him by the throat. ‘I deal with all sorts here, you know that. I do good business with your lot and the Wasps, and with anyone. Ain’t no matter to me, so long as there’s business in it. I seen what’s coming, and I ain’t going to have no looters gettin’ their hands on my valuables. Just taking care, that’s all.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘Why now?’