War Master's Gate sota-9

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Then you or one of the other colonels will take over,’ Tynan briskly finished for him. ‘That’s why we have a chain of command.’ And, because Cherten was really starting to annoy him, he added, ‘And it’s not as if Mycella hasn’t had plenty of chances to do me harm.’

  He saw the colonel’s face tighten immediately, and then the other man skidded on a loose stone so that Tynan had to catch his arm. Cherten was indeed very, very bitter about the fact that there was someone closer to his commanding officer than he was. But, to be honest, if he got as close to me as Mycella is, he’d have to discipline himself for unsoldierly behaviour, Tynan reflected with a spark of amusement. And, Empress knew, amusement was something in as short supply as rations right now.

  Ahead of them, just moving out on to the crescent of stony beach, were Mycella and her people: her immaculately armoured bodyguard Jadis, a handful of her soldiers, and then a squad of burly Scorpions led by that emaciated mercenary adjutant of hers. Tynan himself had brought a half-dozen heavy infantry — who were finding the footing hard going — and there were a half-hundred of the Light Airborne atop the cliffs, ready to swoop down at need.

  The Second had been making dragging progress since the loss of the supply airship. Such a huge assemblage of soldiers needed constant resupply to keep moving, and their previous advance on Collegium had stripped the land of any worthwhile forage. Food, clean water and wine had been rationed instantly, but they had also lost several supply automotives to the Collegiate bombers and, at the best of times, keeping much in reserve was logistically impossible. He had naturally sent one of their faster orthopters back east with an urgent request for aid, but how long that would take to arrange was a matter of guesswork.

  And, of course, the Collegiates had not held off their attacks, although Major Oski had managed to get a creditable ground defence going, improvising all manner of artillery answers to the slow-flying bombers, so that further damage was at least being mitigated as much as possible.

  Then Mycella had come to him and told him she had something to show him.

  As always his thoughts, as he had looked on her, were mixed. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she was clever. Yes, the fact that they were lovers was by now common knowledge about the camp — though, to Tynan’s surprise, his standing amongst his soldiers aside from Colonel Cherten had only gone up. They viewed Mycella of the Aldanrael as their general’s conquest, for all that he suspected the Spider troops saw things quite the other way round.

  But she was a Spider, and there was a grain of truth in Cherten’s words. Could all this be an elaborate ploy? Yes. Could she be about to switch sides and declare for the Collegiates? Entirely possible. Could she lie to him with every word she spoke as they lay together? Of course.

  But they were co-commanders of a force that would destroy itself in civil strife the moment its two leaders turned their backs on one another. Never before had an Imperial army worked in partnership with another power. If sleeping with a beautiful woman is the price for that, I suppose I’ll just have to pay it. He gave another snort of stifled laughter, to more suspicious looks from Cherten. And solid rumour names him as Rekef, but then Rekef writ doesn’t run like it used to. And Imperial generals had always been a little proof against the Rekef whilst actually commanding their armies.

  His feet crunching on the gravel of the shore, he stared out at the grey breakers of the sea. ‘So what’s going on, Lady-Martial?’

  ‘A gift for you, General,’ she replied, flashing him a smile. She was almost girlish when she did so, for all that she was probably ten years his senior, and he was no young man. But the Inapt, they always seem able to stretch out their youth, whilst we spend ours all at once.

  Her Scorpion mercenaries had taken up station over to the left, the waves lapping their feet. Tynan sent his own infantry to the opposite side, so they could glower at each other.

  ‘Sir, a sail.’ Cherten pointed suddenly.

  Tynan squinted at the horizon, unhappily aware that his eyes were not the equal of the colonel’s. It took a count of ten before he could make out the little dark triangle, and by then Cherten was announcing more.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the general demanded.

  Mycella explained ‘I made the decision when we nearly lost the supply airship previously — when it came in that time just as the Collegiates were attacking. It was plain that supply was going to prove a weak spot, so I sent some orders back to Kes and Merro, demanding boats.’

  ‘I thought that you didn’t want to use boats,’ Tynan growled. After all, a grand Spider armada sent against Collegium had turned back because of some unspecified sea defences that had plainly shaken the Spiders very badly.

  ‘Believe me, if we had sailed up the coast like last time, we’d all be on the sea bottom by now,’ Mycella told him with some force. ‘But the Collegiates aren’t sinking every ship in the sea just for fear of us, and so. .’

  ‘That’s a fishing boat,’ Cherten declared disdainfully, as the closest vessel tacked for shore. The vessel did seem very small, Tynan had to agree.

  ‘To avoid notice, and to make a landing at a place like this, compromises had to be made,’ Mycella confirmed.

  ‘Are you telling me that we can resupply by sea,’ Tynan breathed.

  ‘We are about to do just that,’ she said. ‘I have a dozen such vessels out there, loaded high with whatever would survive the trip, that are just waiting for my word before finding a cove to beach in. And they will keep coming like this until the Collegiates work out what we’re up to and target them as enemies.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then they will be sunk without trace, and we will only realize it when they fail to turn up,’ she confirmed grimly.

  There was a scraping sound as the first boat arrived, and the crew jumped overboard to drag it up the beach.

  ‘Morkaris, get her unloaded,’ Mycella’s bodyguard snapped. The mercenary adjutant glared at him, but had his Scorpions move in the next moment, so Tynan signalled for the Light Airborne to come down and pitch in.

  We eat for another day, and then another. . and soon Collegium.

  Sixteen

  The Empress was unhappy, and that made her dangerous.

  They were well and truly separated from the Wasp forces now. Whilst the Imperial soldiers were doing their best to make violent contact with the Sarnesh, in support of the Nethyen, Seda was following a different path altogether. By Apt maps, Yraea knew, they should have been travelling the same road — the soldiers heading west to fight, Seda bound westward for the forest’s dark centre. Such are the limits of an Apt mind. For, of course, Seda’s true direction was inwards, and nothing so prosaic as to be found on a compass rose.

  In was not an easy direction to travel, though. In had its own defences.

  Argastos was willing the way open, Yraea realized, just as she knew that there had been visitors into his domain in recent memory. The forest itself, though, was resisting him, and so was the collective will of the Mantis-kinden. Had Seda somehow slipped in here alone, then perhaps she could have navigated her way unimpeded to Argastos’s very gate. Now the forest’s temper was up, outsiders were roaming its halls with bared steel and the Mantids were fighting. All the old doors that might have hung open had been barred shut. Those who wished to pass on into the heart of the wood must either follow the correct path or be very lucky — or luckless, like those Imperial scouts from the last war she had heard mention of.

  So far, luck had eluded the Empress. She had passed and re-passed, leading her followers over the same trails, seeking the invisible doorway into the deeper forest that she could plainly sense but yet not open. Such power within her, and yet she is ignorant. She does not understand how things are done.

  Yraea, however, understood all too well, for she needed to make her way into the forest’s heart, as well, to put Argastos back in his place. Old shade, you are grown too strong and too unruly, to have dared call out to this stupid Wasp girl. Your master
s must needs discipline you and remind you of your task.

  That carried with it an uncomfortable feeling, because Yraea had dreamt of Argastos only the night before — as a presence watching her, unseen, his mind like a thorn in her own. So old was he, he should be nothing more than a purpose now, with barely a shred of personality left. Yet what she had sensed had been all personality, something far more complete than any ghost had a right to be. Even the spectre of Tisamon, the Empress’s ridiculous bodyguard construct, was less whole than what she had sensed Argastos to be.

  I may have a fight on my hands, once I reach him. It was a daunting thought, for she would be on her own when she did so. The plan was swiftly falling away from anything envisaged by her masters back in Tharn.

  The Empress had halted, staring angrily at the surrounding forest and trying to sense how it was denying her. Crippled by her lack of learning, she kept just bludgeoning about the trees with her will. Yraea watched her contemptuously, though none of that registered on her face. Such a waste of strength, though! Well, all the more reason to deal with the woman soon.

  The others took this opportunity to rest their feet. The three Pioneers — big Wasp, Beetle and that dangerous-looking half-breed — took up watch, for this part of the forest was very much contested ground and there had been a few run-ins with the Etheryen. As for the rest, both the old Woodlouse and the Wasp magician Tegrec just collapsed, looking worn out. All this walking was not something they were used to, and the forest was heavy going. Can I spare either of them?Yraea considered. The old man was too loyal to Seda, surely, so he would definitely have to go. Tegrec was supposed to be of Tharn now, but he was still a Wasp. The whiff of the Empire still hung about him, and she found that she could not trust him, even though she quite liked him as a person. Of the rest, the Empress’s bodyguards and that Ostrec character, with his Red Watch badge, all of them would have to die.

  Especially Ostrec. Looking at him now, Yraea felt a strange shiver of uncertainty. She was well aware that Seda had sought out Wasps with some latent Inapt heritage as recruits for her Red Watch but, despite that, Ostrec seemed strange. Something about him did not quite match what Yraea thought she saw.

  Dead, she decided. I’m all for secrets, but let that one die with him.

  Tonight the Loquae and her Nethyen would come. They would even come as allies, so Seda would have no reason to suspect until it was too late. The forest would swallow Imperial ambitions, as it had swallowed so much else.

  With Zerro dead and their numbers diminished, the remaining Sarnesh were uneasy about simply pressing on, but Syale had news for them on that front as well. The Roach-kinden girl obviously intended to travel with them for a while, though plainly not out of any concern for her own safety.

  ‘There’s a fair body of your lot that I can guide you to. Sentius is with them.’ The direction she indicated seemed to be just about the same as they were already taking. To the unhappy Sarnesh this news was pure gold, though, and none of them was willing to question it, simply agreeing to accompany the girl and her Etheryen companions. Che, though, had misgivings, and made sure she was at Syale’s side to voice them.

  ‘I don’t understand how Sentius can be ahead of us,’ Che insisted. ‘He sent Zerro and the rest forwards as scouts, and we’ve been making good time ever since.’

  Syale’s glance at her was simple amusement. ‘Miss Maker, how far do you think you’ve come, exactly? And remember you let yourself follow the Ants’ lead. I had Commander Sentius following mine, and he was glad to have it. In this place, you’re better advised to walk round in circles than trust an Apt navigator.’

  Che nodded, thinking, Poor Zerro. The Fly had done his best, but he had never been treading the right paths. Unlike Syale herself, who seemed to be able to go precisely where she wanted. .

  ‘We’ve had to fight to get this far,’ she told the Roach. ‘The Nethyen, then the Wasps. . if not for their current strife, I think I’d be fighting the Etheryen Mantids as well. This forest is full of thorns for outsiders. A Mantis forest is a proverbially bad place to visit, and yet you. . I’d give a great deal to learn that knack you have of walking free here.’

  Syale flinched, disguising the moment with another smile, and Che realized that she had leant on the girl somehow — through some exercise of her power that she had not intended. She backed off a step, physically and symbolically, and sensed a degree of tension leach from the Roach-kinden.

  ‘You could not learn it,’ Syale declared simply. ‘I have — what would you Collegiates say? — diplomatic immunity. So long as I comport myself as a guest, they will not touch me. It’s a fragile thing, though. If I should lift a finger in this fight, my protection will evaporate like dew. I am like those little parasite animals that live in an ant’s nest or a wasp hive. There is a scent about me that says “I am of you” and so they overlook me, and leave me to go my own ways. But the moment I truly come to their notice by some misstep or misguided action, then, believe me, I shall become as mortal as you.’

  ‘And guiding the Sarnesh doesn’t count as that?’ Che pressed her.

  The girl matched her gaze, or tried to. ‘It hasn’t yet. My city is Princep Salma, Miss Maker, and the Wasps will destroy it if they can, because it opposes everything in their ideology, and because it lies there in their path. So I do what I can for my home and my people.’

  ‘As do I,’ Che added, feeling herself deliberately steer the conversation along the precise path she wanted. ‘But I must do more than simply aid the Sarnesh. The Empress is in these woods: you have heard me say it. She seeks. . a power.’

  ‘I know,’ Syale said, her voice hushed. She was suddenly just a very young girl putting a brave face on for the adults all around her.

  ‘Then you know I must get there first, and keep it from her. So with your “diplomatic immunity”, can you guide me there?’

  ‘The heart of the wood?’ Syale whispered. ‘That is a place I cannot go and still remain beneath the Mantids’ notice.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it is not a place they go — or not willingly. None of them, Etheryen or Nethyen. It is the pit that divides them, the stain in their minds. They avoid that place, and yet still it takes some of them, one or two every few years. And yet others who would search for it cannot come to it, no matter how much they try.’ She shook her head. ‘You can walk from one end of these woods to the other and never find that centre. Or you can head outwards and outwards, and find nowhere else. And the moment I should step off the track and seek the heart, Miss Maker, I would become something alien to the Mantids, and they would deal with me in the same way they deal with all their problems.’ She regarded Che for a long moment, as they proceeded carefully at the head of the column. ‘Although you, whatever it is you have made yourself, maybe you’re the one problem the Mantids have no idea how to deal with.’

  An hour of marching later, with the forest opening up somewhat around them — trees further spaced and undergrowth easier to trudge through — the Etheryen Mantids that Syale had brought along were abruptly accelerating, rushing ahead through the grey light that fought its way in from above, steel glinting in their hands. There was no mistaking that onrush: they were going into battle, without war cry or fanfare but no less determinedly for all that.

  The handful of Sarnesh came to some group decision a second later, and then they were running ahead too, crossbows and swords out, but barely a rustle from their mail. And Che was keeping pace with them, her own blade to hand.

  She could not have explained why. She had not quite formed the thought: I go to fight. Instead it was simply that those around her were speeding up, and some childish fear of being left behind whipped her on, hurrying her after those retreating backs.

  Tynisa passed her on one side, rapier drawn and dashing in pursuit as easily as if she had never been wounded, and Che appreciated again how she borrowed strength from the blade, that Weaponsmaster’s bond as plain to see as if it were a glowing web betw
een them.

  Thalric was shouting after her, but Che kept running, and ahead she heard the clatter of blades, and then the shadows of the forest resolved themselves into warriors of the Nethyen.

  There were nearly twenty — more than the Etheryen and the Sarnesh together — but nobody was holding back because of the odds. Arrows whispered through the leaves and she heard the clacking of Sarnesh crossbows. The fight fragmented almost immediately, individual Mantids breaking off to duel one on one, others plunging past to find their own opponents. The arena was evidently wider and more scattered than Che could take in, and yet some part of her was tracking it all, somehow, mapping out a battlefield in the clashes of steel and pinpoints of shed blood.

  Thalric arrived by her shoulder, and her hand shoved him hard, sending him against a tree with a yell, just as an arrow cut the air between them, urgent as a messenger. She caught a glimpse of his expression: angry, unnerved, shocked. Then she was moving again — not to bloody her blade but to remain at the heart of it. She could not fathom her own impulses, but some inner magician had arisen there, some ancient instinct she must surely have borrowed from the trees themselves.

  Ahead of her, two Mantis-kinden fought spear to spear, leaping and darting, still for a moment as they parted, then in again with their weapons spinning and lunging like living things, the wielders seeming almost an irrelevance. They looked interchangeable, but she could tell one for an Etheryen, the other for the enemy.

  Amnon charged past behind them, putting on a burst of speed and taking an archer by surprise, gashing the woman’s leg even as her wings ripped her out of his reach. Then a crossbow quarrel rammed itself into the Mantis woman’s ribs and she fell at the Khanaphir’s feet. A swift lunge finished her off, and the big man straightened, blade already up to guard himself and looking round for another target.

  Che just stood still and let her consciousness wash over, sensing them all distantly in some wholly new manner, never granted to her before. It was as though their very feet on the forest floor announced their presence, like the vibrations a spider feels from its victims in the web. The Mantids were bright, and she could see others, too — Terastos the Moth running between the trees, busy hands casting daggers at opportunistic targets, and Tynisa like oiled silk as she drove a Nethyen swordsman back. She could even find Maure clearly, for all the halfbreed woman was hanging far back along with Syale, keeping well away from the bloodshed. The Apt were far fainter, harder to read, harder even to see. The Sarnesh were simply an absence, but there was a certain aura to Amnon, a man who had dwelt close to old magic all his life without ever understanding it. Thalric, too, had a feel to him, as if touched by some hand. . touched by my hand? No — touched by mine and the Empress’s both. He had been Seda’s consort, after all, before he had abandoned the Empire forever.