War Master's Gate (40 page)

‘Some deal they were brokering with the Mantids?’ Tynisa suggested.

He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Not a currency that’s any good around here though, certainly not at the time this boat must have come down. Your plan, Tynisa – it’s a fool’s
plan.’

‘We’re all fools anyway, so that works out well,’ she retorted, ‘but I’ll make Che the stakes of the wager.’ Her eyes shifted over to the hatch, past
Amnon’s shoulder. The sky was darkening already. ‘Mantis honour. Let’s hope
that
currency’s still good around here.’

She made as if to go, but Thalric caught her arm. For a moment he held her, just looking into her eyes, words rising in him and being thrust back down again. In the end, he could not bring
himself to thank her for what she was about to try, although it was a debt that weighed on him heavily.
After all, it doesn’t matter that we don’t like each other, so long as we
both love Che.

She nodded, and in that brief motion he saw that she understood. Then she was stepping carefully over to Amnon, the only one of them who did not know what the Commonweal gambit actually
entailed.

He knew Mantis-kinden, though, and after a few brief words she had him nodding agreement. ‘
I
will go, though,’ he put in.

Tynisa jabbed a thumb at the sword-and-circle brooch she wore. ‘This badge says
I
go.’ She stepped past him and hauled herself out into the square stretch of greying sky
that the hatch delineated, holding her sword high.

One arrow, right now, and the Commonweal trick hits the dirt
, thought Thalric. But perhaps that raised weapon signalled Tynisa’s intent, for no shaft feathered from the trees to
seek her out.

And the problem with the Commonweal trick is that it isn’t a trick at all. And surely those Mantids out there will have a few of those badges between them.

And, of course, you couldn’t solve all the world’s problems just by fighting a duel of champions. Not even the Mantis-kinden world worked like that. So Tynisa could buy Che a
slightly longer life, but they were all still intruders in the Mantis heartland. There was only so much some Mantis swordsman’s death could buy for them.

Or Tynisa’s life.
And Thalric was surprised to find that the prospect of Tisamon’s daughter getting her surely justified comeuppance did not delight him the way it once had.
I am running out of peers. I shouldn’t squander the few I have left.

‘Hear me!’ Tynisa called out. ‘Know me by the badge I wear. Are any of you bold enough to meet me?’

Thalric waited, still half-expecting that arrow, but then Amnon grunted, ‘Someone comes.’

A lone, lean figure stepped out into the clearing, and Thalric wondered if that same wariness – of a sudden and treacherous shot – had affected their enemy as well.
Even
Mantis-kinden must fear a bad death.
The woman who stepped forwards had a bow in one hand, but no arrow to it, and she looked up at Che curiously.

‘For entering our forests, you will die,’ the Nethyon declared, her voice clear and sharp. ‘And for being of our enemy’s kinden, you must die. For being of that kinden,
and
worse
, death is better than you deserve.’ She looked up at Tynisa fiercely. ‘And yet you bear the badge . . . I see Parosyal on you, halfbreed.’

‘I earned this on the island,’ Tynisa agreed. ‘I was accepted there. No words of yours can strip me of my right to bear the sword and circle.’

Thalric expected an angry response, but the Mantis woman’s shoulders sagged, and he could almost put the words into her mouth:
What is the world coming to?
For a long time she
just stood there, looking up at Tynisa, at the unforgivable adulteration of Mantis ways that she represented, and at the badge she also bore.

She would rather we had just shot her
, Thalric guessed.

‘Let it be at dawn,’ Tynisa declared, when it was plain that the woman was not going to say anything. ‘And I claim as trophy the Beetle woman your people have taken, she is the
victor’s prize. Not one drop of her blood must be shed, until we have fought.’ She said the words boldly, but Thalric was already trying to plan for her failure:
How can I get Che
out of this mess?
And, furthermore, he knew that Tynisa was fully aware he would be thinking just that.
So Mantis honour is a blade that only cuts one way, is it?

‘You speak of the great magician?’ the Mantis woman asked.

Tynisa hesitated, but Maure spoke up: ‘Yes! That is who we mean!’

‘We don’t have her,’ the Nethyen said slowly. ‘We are hunting her, and she may be killed, once she is found. If she is taken alive, we will kill her after we have killed
you, but I cannot guarantee that she is not already dead – or that she will not die soon. We know better than to take risks when hunting a magician.’

Tynisa remained very still, but Thalric could see the fingers of her off-hand clawing at the rotting wood of the hatch’s edge.

‘Let it be dawn, though,’ the Mantis woman finished. ‘Why not?’

Terastos let his attention flow out between the trees, trying to project all his senses, into hunting out his enemies. Night was drawing in – his advantage, for his eyes
were better than any Mantis-kinden’s – and he neither could see nor hear any suggestion that the Nethyen were close by. Nor did his paltry magic suggest it

‘Gone,’ he whispered for Helma Bartrer’s benefit. ‘Gone off after the Maker girl and the others.’

The Beetle woman shifted, in a single motion making a remarkable amount of noise. They were almost completely buried amid a stand of bracken, its fronds curling almost to man-height above them,
but every time Bartrer moved their entire hiding place shuddered as if the wind was at it.

‘Oh, they clearly know who’s important,’ the woman said acidly. ‘The Maker girl and her newfound heritage, yes. Not us.’

‘Thankfully,’ Terastos added. ‘Come full night, I’ll see what trail I can find. We can catch up with them . . . if they got away, that is.’

‘I have a feeling that Che Maker is quite safe. There was a purpose in her coming here. Not necessarily the purpose she assumed,’ Bartrer put in.

The Moth turned to her. ‘You’re well read, for a Collegiate.’

‘I’ve been studying the old ways since before you were born,’ Bartrer boasted. ‘And I might not understand what the Maker girl
is
now, or how she does it, but I
can read between the lines.’

‘And what is your scholarly conclusion?’ Terastos enquired somewhat archly.

‘Argastos
wants
her here.’

He turned to her, wide-eyed. ‘You think?’

‘I told you, I’ve read enough to know some scraps of history about this place. I only wish I’d got to visit here when there wasn’t a
war
going on to complicate
things. History books, yes, but a scholar can’t live off books forever. There was an Argastos once, and I believe that there is an Argastos still, somehow, some shadow of him.’

‘You’re a remarkable Beetle,’ he conceded.

‘Not as remarkable as Che Maker, it’s true,’ she allowed bitterly, ‘but I do my best.’ She rammed her dagger up under his ribcage with all the force she could
muster, right up to the hilt, so that what emerged from his lips was not a cry but only blood.

She struck two, three more times, and made a sorry mess of the task, too. She was, after all, an academic and not a habitual killer.

Then she wanted to retch, to cast aside the knife and retreat from her horrible handiwork, but she knew that time was of the essence.

‘Argastos,’ she said, for even though she possessed no power, she had still learned that names were power among the Inapt.
If I go through the motions well enough . . .?
‘Argastos, this is yours, this blood. I have no altar, no icon. Take his life, though. It is my gift to you. Argastos, I am weak. I am the last of my line, the dregs of a once proud lineage.
In times long past my family were loyal followers of your kinden. We were your servants and your slaves, Argastos, and that was our purpose and our place in the world. But we have lost our meaning,
generation on generation, and now I
know
I am just a weak and empty vessel, but
please
, there must be enough – some last spark of the old ways in me – that you can
hear my words. Argastos, I shed his blood, a
magician
’s blood, for you. Please, please, please let me in.’

Her head jerked up.
Was that . . .?
Had she heard some faint voice on the wind, something distant as a dream?

The night was coming on, though. It was time for dreams.

She stood up, hands still dripping with Terastos’s blood, and walked out from among the ferns.

And into another forest, another place.

I’ve had this conversation before, on a smaller scale.
Not a reference to Laszlo’s size, but here were Balkus and Sperra, freshly arrived from Princep
Salma, both complaining about exactly the same man.

‘What do you expect me to do?’ Stenwold asked them.

Balkus folded his arms. ‘I don’t know. Something. Thinking of what to do is supposed to be your strong point.’

Stenwold crossed to the window of his current office, staring out over his city, with special reference to the scars of the bombing, the conscripted soldiers below being taught battle formation,
the factories turning out Stormreader parts and new artillery for the walls.
This is what my home has become.

‘Seriously, Master Maker,’ Balkus persevered from behind him, ‘it’s an attack on Princep’s sovereignty, is what it is. He just about annexed us on behalf of Sarn.
You’ve got to
do
something.’

‘Why me?’

‘I can’t think who else that man might listen to,’ Sperra put in, speaking from around Balkus’s waist level.

Stenwold took a deep breath. ‘He is the military leader of my city’s foremost ally. He is dedicated to fighting the Wasps. What am I supposed to say? Do I tell him we’re not
his friends any more because of one girl?’

‘One what?’ Sperra and Balkus exclaimed almost together, high and low like two-part harmony.

For a moment Stenwold lost track of the present conversation. He had been making do with perilously little sleep this last tenday.
Not the girl this time, that was Laszlo.
‘For
just one city. Princep Salma. Do I call off the alliance?’

‘Threaten to do it,’ Sperra insisted.

‘And he’ll know I’m bluffing, and all I’ll achieve is to alienate the Sarnesh.’

‘Then
don’t
bluff!’ Balkus had his turn now.

At that, Stenwold turned round, sitting back on the windowsill. Something in his expression tapped the big Ant’s anger and drained it, leaving the man almost fearful.

‘It would be a bluff, because we cannot afford to do without Sarn,’ Stenwold said simply. ‘They cannot do without us, it’s true, but our need is mutual. It’s an
alliance, after all.’

‘But it’s wrong,’ Sperra said, sounding almost childlike.

‘We
need
to win this war, Sperra. We need to defeat the Empire, or what has it all been for? We need to . . . somehow we need to bring this to a close. I’m being frank with
you. Believe me, Sarn could go much further down that path, and I’d still back them. I have to.’ And good sense told him to stop there, but his mouth continued speaking. ‘And a
lot of people would ask whether Princep should not be expected to fight to defend its freedom.’

Balkus stared at him. ‘They came to my city and they turned my people into their soldiers, under their orders, at their command. How is that different from the Auxillians of the
Empire?’ And then, before Stenwold could riposte: ‘Maker, I thought we were friends. Is this it, then? Were we only ever just hirelings of yours? To be cast off when you don’t
need us?’

Of course not.

It’s not like that.

You’re not seeing the whole picture.

Balkus, just see sense for once. This is bigger than . . .

But Stenwold said none of those things; he just looked at Balkus and Sperra and said nothing at all, with no real idea of how cold and hostile his expression might have become. He saw Balkus
balling his fists, Balkus the Ant mercenary, with a sword at his belt and a nailbow slung over his shoulder.

But he knew Balkus. The Ant was no danger to him. They were friends, after all.

The Sarnesh renegade’s face twisted in some strangled expression obviously taught to him by living amongst other kinden. Then Sperra was tugging gently at his arm, her eyes regarding
Stenwold sadly.

‘Bye, War Master,’ she said. ‘We’ll leave you to your war.’ She did not even remind him of the time the Sarnesh had tortured her on his account. Not a word, not a
facial tic to recall it, and yet the thought might almost have leapt straight from her mind to his. And as for Balkus: the Ant had led Collegium’s own forces in the last war, had been a hero
to the people of Stenwold’s city.

But I don’t need them now. I need Tactician Milus and the Sarnesh.
So he simply watched them go, the two of them, and knew that he had betrayed them utterly, unreservedly.

Tactician, we have each considered your plans.

Milus waited, standing on the battlements of Sarn, whilst all about him a city was preparing for war. Not an army but a city. Every Ant-kinden became a warrior in time of need, and now the
artisans, the labourers, the merchants among his people were being kitted out with hauberk, crossbow and shortsword, forming a citizen militia to hold the walls and support the main army.

His mind was linked with the Royal Court, the King and the other tacticians, those who had given him oversight of the campaign against the Empire. That they were not instantly agreeing with him
was a point of concern, but he allowed them time. They had shown their faith in him when they appointed him. His was a rare mind for an Ant, able to chew over many problems at once, able to see
unusual solutions to difficult problems – and often to simplify those problems by tearing right through them where a lesser man might get mired in detail.