War Master's Gate (31 page)

Che saw immediately when the Sarnesh commander received a silent report from the scouts – the night attack, the death of Zerro – all of it writing itself on his face and being
overwritten by the customary Sarnesh stoicism.

‘Maker,’ he called, approaching. Sentius looked haggard, not at all the almost cheerful man who had briefed her when they entered the forest, but someone older and more ill-used,
someone who had fought hard and slept poorly since they had parted.

He stared at the two Mantids at bay, glancing from them to Che, and then to the Etheryen who had been fighting alongside him.

‘Surprised to see you still alive,’ he told Che. ‘I’ve lost more than one in three to . . . to these.’
And some to other causes, I’m sure
, Che
suspected, because it was there in the man’s face once you saw him in the right light. The forest did not like the Sarnesh any more than it liked the Wasps.

‘I challenge you,’ the Nethyen woman announced to Sentius, almost spitting in his face. ‘Fight me, coward.’ It was all she had left.

Sentius stared at her bleakly and everyone was still waiting for him to utter some response when a handful of his men loosed their crossbows, cutting the Nethyen pair down where they stood.

The Ant gazed about, at his soldiers, at the Etheryen. ‘This is war. We don’t piss about,’ he announced, almost to the forest itself as much as to anyone in particular.

Che held her breath, because surely this breached the ironclad Mantis code. Surely the Etheryen would revolt, would turn on their allies with bloodied steel?

But the Mantids just looked at the bodies, and at the Ant-kinden, and shuffled silently, and she felt exactly what they felt, as much as if she had been one of them – standing there on
ground they no longer recognized, their way of life suddenly brittle in their hands.
What is right?
It could hardly escape their notice that the bulk of the bodies all around them were of
their own kind.

That night, the Nethyen came.

With her blank eyes, which knew no darkness, Yraea watched them arrive: a dozen, then a score, then two score, filing solemnly through the trees with the Loquae at their head. The halfbreed
Pioneer gave a warning, and the Empress’s camp was quickly up and ready, but the Mantis-kinden gave no sign that anything was amiss, save that they surrounded the little band, quietly and
seemingly without threat.

The Moth watched the Imperials carefully – the Pioneers tense and unsure, with weapons to hand; the Red Watch man, Ostrec, taut as a wire, hands ready to sting or to strike
.
The
Empress’s bodyguard had already rallied round her, their steel claws extended, and at their head was Tisamon, the abomination of steel and spirit that the Empress was so proud of.
And
I’m sure he scares those poor Apt generals and officers, but my people were playing with magic when yours were still trying to light fires.

Closer by, the old man Gjegevey was watching her.
Does he suspect? What can he know?
She found that she, too, was on a knife-edge.
But it is too late for them to fight or flee. We
have them.

Tegrec appeared at her elbow then, anxious as usual. ‘What’s going on?’

For a moment she wanted to tell him, in the hope that his loyalty really was to Tharn now, and not to the Empire he claimed to have turned his back on. But hope was not a luxury that
circumstances allowed her.
I’m sorry, Tegrec.

The Loquae stepped forward and bowed before Seda. ‘Empress, you must come with us. Let these others stay here, but the forest calls for you.’

Yraea shifted uneasily, because that seemed too transparent, and she would prefer this moment to pass without an actual fight – the Empress’s people would lose, but there was too
much chance of Seda herself dying in some way that was no use to Yraea, or even of the Moth herself getting hurt.
Just do as I told you
, she thought, knowing that her words would echo in
the old Mantis’s head.

Seda was now speaking, as she glanced back at her followers.

‘Tisamon, Ostrec, Gjegevey,’ she decided. ‘The rest of you stay here and await my return.’

The Loquae made no complaint, and the Mantis-kinden parted, opening a ragged path forwards. Yraea saw doubt and confusion on the faces of those about to be left behind –
and they will
be waiting here until the forest claims them
. Then the Empress went striding through the Mantis throng as though they were indeed her subjects, and her select handful hurriedly followed.

Gjegevey came last, the old man shuffling slowly and leaning on his staff, as his wavering steps brought him close to the Moth.

‘It is not too, hm, late,’ he told her, in a hoarse whisper.

She blinked at him, momentarily fearful.
He knows? He can’t, or he’d have said something, done something . . .
With no ready answer, she merely ignored him, and as the
Mantis host began to filter off through the trees, she followed, slipping unseen from the camp, cloaked by magic and Art.

The old Mantis icons still stood in certain places of the forest, and Yraea knew that the Nethyen sometimes shed blood there after the fashion of the old ways. They had forgotten much of the
rituals that would give true power to such sacrifices, but the Moths forgot nothing. Yraea had made a study of them before setting out.
For one might wander forever in trying to find the way to
Argastos, even with his covert aid, but blood will open the gate.

There it was ahead of them, the place that the Empress was being led to. The icon was composed of a patchwork of rotting wood, a great mantis sculpture eight feet tall, with its crooked arms
outstretched for its next victim. The creatures of decay, and those that fed upon them, were busy about it, and the Nethyen would be constantly adding fresh wood to the feast. The idol lived
through its own corruption, and in that it was part of the forest itself.
Mantis magic is such a crude and single-minded pursuit, but sometimes one gains a little satisfaction in descending to
their level.

Now the Empress stood directly before the icon, and still she did not fear.
Is that Wasp arrogance or Wasp ignorance, I wonder?
To Yraea, the mood of the Nethyen was quite plain. They
were here for blood shed in the prescribed manner, and the forest had not seen a sacrifice such as this in a long time.
Let all your sweet power, Empress, become my weapon to put Argastos back
in his place.

‘You know why you are here.’ It was the voice of the Loquae.

‘Of course.’ Seda’s prompt response.

Yraea gathered herself, took a deep breath, and cried out, ‘Take them!’

There was a confusion of motion. Gjegevey was seized at once, incapable of offering harm even if he meant to. Two of the Nethyen staggered back from Ostrec, to Yraea’s surprise – and
she saw blood here, but none of it the Wasp’s. A circle had formed about Tisamon and Seda, and she saw that the Mantids’ old fear of magic – her own kinden’s eternal hook in
them – was working against her.

She spat out a word, fingers pointing towards the armoured form, and Tisamon fell still, shackled within his own steel.
Pathetic .

Seda herself watched it all with an utter, regal calm, not even deigning to notice Ostrec when the Red Watch officer moved up to put his back to hers.

‘Did you really think toys such as
this
were new?’ Yraea asked the Empress, moving to touch Tisamon’s breastplate. ‘Did you think any true magician would fear
them? Why do you think we had Mantis-kinden as our soldiers all those years, if such constructs of magic had been of use against our enemies?’

She knew that, magic aside, the Art contained within the Empress’s very hands was dangerous enough, but she wanted the Wasp girl to recognize her own hubris before the end. She wanted to
finally breach that reserve.
I want her to beg.

‘You have come far, for one of your kinden, but no further than this,’ Yraea told her. ‘You have discovered enough of the old ways to be useful to me, but no more.’

‘Oh, quiet,’ Seda told her. ‘Do what you must.’

Yraea drew a sharp breath, but realized that the words had not been meant for her. Hands were laid on her before she could evade them: Mantis hands, wrenching her arms back, holding her tight.
Her head whipped round to look for the Loquae. ‘You!’

‘I did all that was in my power to speak to my people,’ the old Mantis woman said sadly. ‘I told them to wait. I invoked the Masters of the Grey, our leaders since the dawn of
time. I told them what they must do.’

Yraea was hauled forwards towards the icon, seeing Seda’s slight smile pass her by. ‘Release me! You traitors! Servants of the Green, release me!’

‘They want more than you can offer,’ Seda’s light tones drifted over to her, whilst Tisamon stepped to her side, breaking Yraea’s chains in the instant that he moved.
‘And I have promised them so much more: Servants of the Green, Masters of the Black and Gold. This is a new world, Moth, and they do not understand it, and they do not like it. But one thing
they do understand is that your people abandoned them long ago, after the revolution. You left them simply to fade away.’

‘Lies!’ Yraea shrieked, but the Mantids were ignoring her, and a moment later she was within the arc of those wooden limbs, and they were bringing forwards stakes and mallet to
secure her.

‘No,’ she whispered. It had taken her that long for her to understand that the world had turned.

She looked round for the Loquae again, more than ready to beg, but the old Mantis herself had been seized by her own people.

‘I gave all that I had for your words,’ the Loquae stated flatly, without acrimony. ‘I told them that they must follow me, or cast me down. They have made their choice. I have
sought the future, seer, and I have found none. None for me, none for any of us. Let me die now.’

Yraea opened her mouth to call out, but then the first stake was rammed home into her palm and she screamed.

‘The blood of a magician,’ Seda pronounced. ‘Not as valuable as the blood of an empress, but enough to open the door for me and mine.

Yraea barely heard her, as the world before her shuddered and swam. Seda’s polite smile passed before her eyes; Gjegevey shaking his head miserably; Ostrec—

She saw Ostrec, but in that same moment she also saw beyond him.
Is that . . .? Does Seda know what that is that wears her colours? Might I be avenged, still?

And then pain, only pain.

To his credit, what with a hundred other pressing matters tugging at his elbow, Stenwold sat for twenty minutes and listened to the impassioned Fly’s complaint. Laszlo
told him everything, including many important facts about his Solarnese posting that Stenwold had only been able to infer from the Fly’s official report – as, apparently, had Milus.

Stenwold had never met this Lissart girl back then, for she had fled the Collegiate army before its clash with the Wasps. He did, however, vaguely recall a Fly woman who had accompanied
Tactician Milus when the Ant had come to Collegium, but no more than that.

And now Laszlo had finished his account, right down to Milus’s parting words, and was waiting expectantly for Stenwold Maker, the War Master of Collegium, to jump into an orthopter and go
and castigate the leader of the Sarnesh military. Because there was a girl that Laszlo was besotted with, who was now a Sarnesh prisoner.

The man’s a pirate. How can he be so naive?
But Stenwold had met the
Tidenfree
crew, after all, and realized that piracy was a great refuge of the innocent, in a curious
sort of way. It was a simple way of life made entirely from ignoring other peoples’ rules, and Laszlo’s only idea of authority was the avuncular hand of Tomasso and the necessity of a
ship’s routines.

I should never have sent him to Solarno.
But it had seemed harmless at the time – even a kind of reward. The proximity to the Spiderlands should have kept the Empire away.
Yet
another thing I didn’t see coming.

He found it surprisingly hard to say: ‘What do you expect me to do?’

‘Tell him to let her go,’ Laszlo replied earnestly.

‘I cannot
tell
the tactician anything. And he’s right – you know he’s right, and you’ve admitted it yourself. She’s an Imperial agent.’

‘Was.’ Laszlo scowled mutinously. ‘She left them.’

‘And then she left us and, again by your own admission, signed up with the Sarnesh under false pretences. And can you say with absolute certainty that the Empire did not send her there to
inveigle her way into the Sarnesh councils?’

He could see that Laszlo wanted to swear to that, but the Fly could not quite look him in the eye.

‘Mar’Maker,
please
,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m . . . afraid for her. That Milus, I don’t like him. He doesn’t care about anything except his own
city.’

‘Nor should he,’ Stenwold stated shortly. ‘Just as I must have the same single-minded devotion to mine. This war has become a chain of terrible things, Laszlo, and some of them
have been my doing, and there will be more to come.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The most I can do is sent him a message politely asking that this woman of yours be kept in once piece. If
she’s sensible, and if she’s clever, she can keep herself off the rack until the war’s ended, and then the Sarnesh will have no more use for her, and probably they’ll hand
her over. I can do no more.’

‘I’ll take the message myself,’ Laszlo declared.

‘You will not. I don’t need you stirring up trouble with our closest allies. I
need
the Sarnesh, and it doesn’t matter how unpleasant their leader may be. ‘
Stenwold stood up laboriously. ‘The war comes first, Laszlo, and what we ourselves want comes a distant second. You know that I’ve more cause to say it than most.’

The Fly nodded unhappily. ‘You’re for the docks now, are you?’

Stenwold mentally reviewed the many tasks that awaited him, and made exactly the sort of decision he had just advised against.
But they will not wait forever, and what would I seem, if I did
not say goodbye?