War Master's Gate (Shadows of the Apt)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  And elsewhere: here was a stealthy half-Mantis killer stalking her . . . here was another Wasp – no, what was he—? – watching Tynisa’s fight without stepping in . . . there was the Empress, with Tisamon the revenant as her shield. And behind her, some others, making a crippled escape – but who was so important that the Empress herself would cover their escape?

  How do I know all this . . .?

  Then came to her a sublime understanding that allowed her to master all this mental clamour. She was in a place of magic, as perhaps so much more of the Lowlands had been once upon a time. She was a magician facing another magician, each with their cadre of loyal followers. She was waging a war the likes of which this land had not seen, perhaps, since the Revolution. She was fighting as a wizard fought.

  Chess, she realized. This was where chess came from, and the Tactician piece – or Arista, or Emperor, whatever name was given to it – so vulnerable and powerless, that was her. But of course the Tactician was not powerless, because she governed and controlled the other pieces.

  And the implication was plain: magicians did not care about the deaths of their pieces so long as they won; but the only pieces Che could advance were her friends.

  For a moment she fought against it, ready to let them act according to their own direction. But, of course, the Empress would not hesitate, and surely Che understood this, or must soon grasp it.

  And the halfbreed killer was getting close now.

  Che reached out and made her move.

  Amnon, stalking forwards, suddenly changed his course, coming upon Tynisa’s battle with the Wasp. Too close together for a snapbow shot, he broke in with his sword, no doubt assuming that the two of them could take the man, but Tynisa was already falling back, knowing only that she had to, until Che had drawn her to confront the halfbreed – Icnumon. His name is Icnumon.

  The man abandoned his bow in an instant, the paired blades sliding silent from their sheathes to meet Tynisa’s rapier. Now I leave her and must trust to her skill. Amnon and the big Wasp were circling, both slightly wounded, the big Beetle’s direct style a better match than Tynisa’s for the Wasp’s two gleaming axes. But that other man, the officer . . .

  Still watching, and his mind –

  Che touched his mind, and for a moment could name him Ostrec, Rekef man. And she would have passed on, save that . . . how is it that I can touch him at all? The axeman and Thalric were transparent to her; even Amnon was a shadow barely illuminated by the distant, fading glories of Khanaphes that had shaped him. Tynisa and Icnumon were both fierce fires: Inapt and therefore fitting tools for a magician. But this Ostrec . . .

  And she pressed, and Ostrec broke like an eggshell beneath her touch. Then she and the man behind that mask were standing looking at one another. He drew new veils, too swiftly and skilfully for her to find out who he was, but he was no Wasp. He was Inapt, he was an impostor, and she knew beyond question that Seda was not aware of it.

  If you are an enemy of the Empress, now is your moment. Her own voice sounded weak and timid in her mind, but he trembled when he heard it, as though some great warlord had spoken.

  She had a momentary awareness of Thalric, full of purpose, skirting the flanks of the battle. Seda, he is hunting Seda, but Che couldn’t be sure, and then he was gone.

  In her absence, Amnon had hacked the big Wasp across one hand, shattering bones and leaving an axe buried in the forest floor. Now the man was falling back, and Che could sense the Empress and her guardian waiting there. Amnon was faster, though. He hurled himself forwards, getting an elbow across the man’s jaw, and then the two of them had toppled over, crashing into the briars. The finish was brutal artistry, with Amnon pinning the man’s good arm, his own sword drawn back. Its descent was clean and final.

  The officer, the impostor, the not-Ostrec, just stared at him, then a moment later he had vanished into the woods, absenting himself from the skirmish entirely.

  Tynisa kept pressing Icnumon hard, keeping clear of those shorter blades that Che could virtually taste the poison on, but denying herself an opportunity for a telling blow. The man was good, but he was no great duellist, better suited to striking from the shadows and in the back. Che reached for his mind, but it was slippery and venomous, and she could not get a hold on it.

  Then he broke through Tynisa’s guard, sending her hopping back a handful of steps – Surely a feint? – but no, she was off-balance; one honed edge sliced a shallow line across her arming jacket as she dodged away. Che witnessed the Weaponsmaster’s mystery then, that perfect unison of sword and wielder. Even as Tynisa fought for balance, her arm was coming about, knocking her opponent’s lunge aside with her rapier’s curved guard and, though her quillons kept winding round, her weapon’s point was just hanging there between them, the long blade angling and angling to keep itself there so that Icnumon almost ran on to it, trying to follow her up. In that moment, when he had skidded and twisted to a halt to avoid being impaled, and both of his weapons were coming together to bind her sword aside, she lunged, arm snapping out straight to ram the point into his stomach, razoring through him halfway to the hilt and then out again in another smooth motion that left her well beyond his reach.

  Icnumon collapsed, shuddering but still silent, and Tynisa was already running back to support Amnon.

  Che sensed the very moment that Seda understood what was happening. Perhaps because she exercised such autocratic control over her subordinates in the world outside, the woman had come to this new form of battle moments too late. And now her forces were in disarray and fallen, and here came Amnon, led to her by Che’s firm governance, and only Tisamon stood between him and the end of an Imperial rule.

  Only Tisamon.

  Jons Escarrabin had been a Pioneer for many long years. He had cast in his lot with the Empire during the Twelve-year War, after a stint of fighting against it, because he recognized what winners looked like. He had not looked back since. A loner and an opportunist by nature, the life of a Pioneer suited him well, and being a servant of the Empire provided him with the latest toys – like his snapbow – and the opportunity to use them.

  But he had never been anywhere like this, even in the Commonweal. The forest around seemed bizarrely inconstant, nothing ever quite where it should be when he took a second look, and since they arrived they had been stalked by fleeting enemies, never quite seen but always sensed.

  Now those enemies had become a reality, though, and he was inching forwards with his snapbow levelled, trying to flank a skirmish that he could hear far too distantly and not pin down. I hope you’re doing your job, Gorrec. But he had a cold feeling that this clash was not one that could ever go well – not in this place.

  He was trying to follow a curving course so as to take the notional enemy in the back or the side, as Icnumon should be doing opposite him, but still he had encountered nobody, and the actual fighting seemed to have drifted away, leaving him seemingly the last man alive in this forest.

  This is ridiculous; pull yourself together. Just another Mantis forest. But he could not quite make himself believe it.

  He pushed onwards, because even the illusion of progress was better than nothing, his eyes scanning the dingy greyness of his surroundings for . . . anything, any sign of life. Show him a Sarnesh soldier right now, and he would be glad of it.

  And then there was a shadowy figure in the drifting fog that seemed to hang in rotting sheets in front of his eyes. Surely, there was someone there – or, no, perhaps two of them? His eyes ached from squinting, and he had a terror that, if he just loosed now at those nebulous forms, they would be gone and he would have no evidence that they had ever been.

  Keeping his eyes fixed firmly on them, and hardly daring to blink, he inched forwards, straining for any detail. For all he could be sure, he might have simply trodden in a grand circle. He could even now have a snapbow levelled on the Empress himself.

  No, too short and stocky for the Empress. He wasn’t sure about one of them, but the
other was more like a woman of his own kinden . . .

  A Beetle girl? Hadn’t the Empress been cursing some Beetle girl?

  Jons swallowed, and crept still closer, step by careful step, stalking the two women as painstakingly as he would hunt an animal.

  Tisamon was faster than Che could follow, each movement appreciable only in its aftermath. Amnon had discharged his snapbow even as he ran forwards, aiming straight at the ornate Mantis breastplate, but Tisamon was already moving, the bolt vanishing between the trees Che was thinking, No, the Empress! Shoot the Empress! But too late, for Tisamon had closed the gap between them, his bladed gauntlet lashing out with blurred speed – and it was over.

  She was so convinced of it, of the inevitability, that she could not even watch. She missed Amnon’s skidding to a stop, his sword catching the darting metal claw and knocking it aside, even managing a weak riposte that Tisamon swayed aside from. For a moment the two were poised, drawn back to just outside each other’s reach: the living Beetle – former First Soldier of Khanaphes – against the risen Mantis Weaponsmaster.

  Tisamon struck out, making nothing of the distance, his crooked blade driving down like an axe, but Amnon had read the move somehow – not Che’s doing, since she was neither fast nor fighter enough to help him – and twitched to one side, the weapon slicing at the sleeve of his buff coat but not quite drawing blood. His answering lunge met only air. They circled.

  Che saw the Empress, then. The woman had sidestepped the duel neatly, her eyes fixed on Amnon and her hand outstretched. Empress and magician, yes, but she was still a Wasp, and she could sting.

  Amnon had not noticed her, but with Che watching over him he did not need to. Without knowing why, he had ducked aside, breaking away from Tisamon and drawing the revenant almost into the bolt of gold fire the Empress had loosed He let the Mantis come to him, staying on the defensive, sacrificing his attack to keep Tisamon between him and Seda.

  And even as the Empress tried to find a clear line towards Amnon, Tynisa came rushing between the trees. Che sensed her sister’s loathing and rage that this thing was what the Empress had made of her father – nothing but a fighting puppet of blood and old armour. There were no words: the anticipated oaths and threats never came. Instead the girl drove straight for Seda.

  Tisamon was faster, taking a blow of Amnon’s blade that dented his mail, but placing himself between Tynisa and his mistress. Then the battle was truly joined and, incredibly, the risen Weaponsmaster was on the defensive, unable to press his advantage lest he let one or other of his enemies past him, dancing and whirling with inhuman speed, and yet giving ground an inch at a time, contending all at once with Amnon’s strength and long-honed experience, and with Tynisa’s speed and skill.

  The interplay of blades had been too fast for Che to follow from the first, and she knew Seda was experiencing the same. It was down to the skill of the three combatants now, as to who lived and who died.

  For a moment, she felt herself face Seda directly, each looking into the mind’s eye of the other. The bitter loathing there did not surprise her, but there was fear, too. In her innermost heart the Empress of all the Wasps feared this implacable girl from Collegium.

  Then Seda was backing off through the trees, retreating behind Tisamon’s fierce defence – but not yet defeated, for she had worked out some use for her magic that Che could not follow, some target . . .

  Then Che was dragged back to herself, the world wheeling around her, and Maure had crashed into her, knocking her to the ground.

  Che shook her head, unable to work out what was going on. The halfbreed was standing over her, blade extended, directed at . . .

  There was a man there, another Beetle-kinden, a stranger. She almost took him for some ghost of this place, but he had a snapbow and it was levelled at the two of them. It was plain that he would prefer to shoot her, but that he would take Maure if need be, and trust to his speed in reloading.

  Che tried to twist him, to deflect him, but she was rattled, and he was Apt. He had managed to walk like a ghost through her battle without her ever realizing he was there. A little magic will destroy him, she thought, for being Apt he would have no defence against it. Surely here, where the land was so fit for it, she could drive this man mad, force him to flee in fear, control his muscles, stop his heart?

  But she was frightened now, and the sudden disconnection had scattered her concentration. Maure was already trying something, she knew, but the other woman’s skills were with the dead, not the living. Even so, the snapbowman hesitated, as if for a moment he saw some familiar face before him, or perhaps nothing at all.

  The stingshot that struck him had been aimed hurriedly, catching him across one arm and spinning him about, but not knocking him down. The second came even as he tried to swing his weapon about, seeking this new adversary. Then Thalric had him – the searing bolt smashed the snapbow’s air battery and punched into the man’s chest, hurling him, already dead, from his feet.

  But he was hunting the Empress. She could not know whether Thalric had come back for her, or just become lost in the greyness, but she had a task for him now. ‘Thalric, follow me! The Empress, she’s . . .’ But what is she doing? Che cast her mind out again, fighting for a clear picture of what was going on. There was the furious mêlée between Amnon, Tynisa and Tisamon. There was the Empress, now barely in sight of it. There . . .

  The killer, Icnumon, that Tynisa had run through, had been bleeding his last out into the thirsty forest floor, but was not dead, not quite. A spark had remained in him, guttering and flickering with every moment.

  Seda had fanned it.

  Even as she watched the man haul himself unsteadily to his feet, Che was thinking wildly, Can that be done? as though the evidence of her own scrying was not enough. Blood still pumped from the wound Tynisa had given him, even more now than before, but there seemed an inexhaustible supply. And then Che understood: this was Mosquito-kinden magic run backwards, something that had surely not been achieved since before the Revolution, but more likely had never been done at all. If blood was power, so too power was blood. Seda was clawing up handfuls of the cold energy of this place and channelling it through the wretched Icnumon, her last remaining soldier still clinging to life. Now she had him on his feet, blades to hand . . . and a moment later he was running.

  For me? But, no, Seda was looking to her own defence. Tisamon was hard-pressed, and she was sending the revived assassin to settle matters there.

  ‘We have to go!’ Che could not just pick up Thalric like a game piece and move him towards the fight. She would have to lead him there. She dashed off into the forest, half running, half flying, without another word, knowing that he would follow, with Maure trailing behind them both.

  The skirmish ahead was as bright as a lantern in her mind compared to the ghostly trees which loomed and lurched suddenly out of the mist, so that she was constantly moments from running into them or being tripped by their roots. She could see the battle, feel each move of it: Tynisa’s straight-arm lunge that Tisamon stepped aside from, even as he caught Amnon’s descending blade with his claw and bound it aside, almost wrenching it from the Beetle’s grip. The answering sweep of the revenant’s blade sent both of his opponents a step back, and he whipped it up and lashed at Tynisa’s face, Che choked, already seeing the attack carving another brutal mark there, but Tynisa had fallen back before it, ducking so far that one knee was level with her chin. The seeking steel fell short, then was dragged back sharply to deflect Amnon’s next lunge, giving Tynisa a chance to find her balance again.

  But the other dead man, the tortured form of Icnumon, would be there at any moment. And beyond, Seda was out there but further and further away, joined by two more allies and shepherding them towards Argastos, and there . . .

  There was the spy, the impostor, and Che sensed a sour reek of doubt arising from him: a man who did not know what to do. Even as she pelted through the forest, she was crying out to him, Do what is rig
ht! This is your one chance!

  She was moving as fast as she could, but not fast enough, caught out by Seda’s vicious use of blood magic. Even so, the fighting ahead must have been visible to the mere eye, for Thalric had abruptly taken wing, hurling himself forwards far faster than she could.

  Icnumon was weaving his way through the trees, leaving a trail of impossibly still-gouting blood behind him, the poisoned blades in his hands just moments from striking. And Che had no choice. She reached out to grab Tynisa’s attention, showing her the threat, knowing that this distraction itself might be fatal.

  Tisamon’s scything blade cut at her neck but her rapier was there to catch it, and Tynisa pushed against it hard, sending the revenant a pace off his mark, and using the resistance provided to throw herself out of his reach . . . already turning as the ghastly near-corpse of Icnumon leapt towards her.

  Amnon did not hesitate, driving his blade in but reaching for Tisamon’s weapon arm as well. Briefly he had it, and tried to bear the slighter man down, but that slender armoured form was like iron, just as strong as Amnon was. For a moment they were locked together, and then Thalric dropped in, hand extended but denied a clear target.

  Tisamon spotted him, and that the dark helm snapped about in clear and murderous recognition, and he cast Amnon aside almost contemptuously. Thalric got one sting off, which vanished past the revenant’s mailed shoulder, and then the dead Mantis was rushing him. Plainly there were some enmities that had carried over quite readily into this new incarnation.