‘Major Thalric—’
Thalric, mouth still
half-full, held up a hand. ‘This honey is very good. Where does it come from?’
he asked the halfbreed woman, still chewing.
‘Bee-kinden traders
bring it from the north, sailing down the coast,’ she explained. Her voice was
husky for a woman’s.
‘Naturally,’ Thalric
acknowledged, wiping his fingers fastidiously. ‘Now, Daklan, why not sit down
and tell me just who your friends are and exactly how we stand.’ At the man’s
bristling glance he added, ‘I’m not your enemy, and if you’ve heard anything
about me it is that my underlings prosper, if they do well by me. I don’t care
for petty politics within the Empire or within the Rekef. That’s why I’m
Outlander branch, and I hope you’ll be of my mind for as long as you work with
me. If you have some prize you hope to see from this operation, then I’ll help
you towards it if you serve me well. But I have a bad history with
uncooperative subordinates.’ He smiled, though the thought was painful, ‘I’ll
make that clear to you now.’
Daklan took a moment to
think through this, and then sat down, resting an arm on the table. It was not
an entirely relaxed position, not for a Wasp whose hands were weapons at need.
Thalric decided to overlook it.
‘Major Thalric, if we’ve
started badly then I apologize,’ Daklan said, not sounding overly contrite.
‘This is Lieutenant Haroc, my aide and intelligencer.’ Daklan made a vague
gesture towards the scribe. ‘And this here is our secret weapon. Her name is
Lorica.’
Thalric nodded to the
halfbreed woman. ‘What’s your heritage, Lorica?’ he asked her.
‘My father was a local,
sir. My mother was Wasp-kinden. A slave bought from the Spiders, I understand.’
He nodded, digesting
this. ‘And you can . . . ?’ Because there was only one reason that a halfbreed
would be here, at this council.
‘The Ancestor Art has
given me a link to the minds of the Vekken, sir, yes. I can hear them, and
speak to them – not that they will acknowledge me.’
‘But they are very used
to their privacy,’ Daklan said. ‘And much of what they say is not one to one,
but one individual proclaiming to many. And Lorica can hear it, so in
negotiations it’s of great use to us.’
‘I’m sure it is,’
Thalric acknowledged. ‘So what has been negotiated?’
‘The usual
preliminaries. A mutual recognition of power. A similarity of aims. They know
that we are intent on taking Tark, and they approve. They have had their own
designs on Collegium, and we approve. They want Sarn, but they know Sarn and
Collegium stand together now, and it irks them.’ Daklan smiled. ‘May I take it,
Major Thalric, that you are here to make the proposal to them?’
‘You think they are
ready to accept?’
‘More than ready.
They’ve not forgotten how Collegium defeated them before.’
‘As I understand it,’
Thalric noted, ‘Collegium simply held them off long enough for Sarnesh forces
to reinforce, no?’
He looked to Lorica for
a response and she said, ‘That is not how they see it, Major. They feel it as a
defeat, and keenly so, because Collegium is a place of soft scholars, in their
eyes, and they are soldiers.’
‘And yet it happened . .
.’ Thalric frowned, a new thought presenting itself. ‘Are we sure that, once
this operation commences, these people
will
be able
to capture Collegium? It would not serve the Empire if they failed.’ He
corrected himself. ‘It would serve the Empire, by weakening both cities, but it
would not serve them as well as breaking Collegium’s walls and scattering its
people.’
‘It is simply a matter
of time, Major Thalric, and of preparedness,’ Daklan explained. ‘The Vekken
forces have had a long time to consider that defeat, and learn from it.’
‘I suppose even Ants can
innovate,’ Thalric said, ‘given sufficient incentive.’
‘You can be sure that
they have a plan, sir,’ Lorica confirmed. ‘Taking Collegium has become their
prime civic ambition.’ She said it sourly, and he guessed that the civic pride
of Vek was something far from her own heart. Halfbreeds were even less welcome
amongst Ants than elsewhere.
‘Well, then,’ Thalric
said, ‘let us go and make our bid. You can arrange an audience with the Royal
Court?’
‘Tomorrow evening at the
latest,’ Daklan confirmed. ‘It would not surprise me if they will be marching
east in three days’ time.’
Oh, it was a difficult
enough time to be a Rekef lieutenant. The Fly-kinden te Berro was finding his
race’s gift for survival becoming strained. Rekef captains tended to have their
own followers, their own networks and operations to fall back on. Sergeants and
agents were considered just tools, seldom important enough to make the
death-lists of those on high. Lieutenants, on the other hand, seemed to have
the worst of both worlds.
He had been working in
the west-Empire these last few years, even in the borderlands during the
preparation for the Lowlands invasion. He had straddled the line, with his
diminutive stride, something between Outlander and Inlander. He had hoped to be
useful enough to all, and not too vitally useful to any. That line had since
become impossible to walk.
All these years he had
been General Reiner’s man. It had seemed the safest bet. It had got him his
lieutenant’s bars, some good appointments, neither too dangerous nor too dull.
Then things had started going subtly awry. An intelligent man with an inquiring
mind, he soon realized that the problem lay within the Rekef itself. The secret
service was honing its knives, but its eyes were turned inwards. Two cells of
agents that te Berro had worked with had been wiped out by men that should have
been their allies. General Reiner was now fighting a war, and that war was not
against Lowlanders or Commonwealers but against elements of the Rekef itself.
Then there had been
Myna, that gloriously bloody excursion undertaken by Major Thalric, another of
Reiner’s men. Te Berro’s name had been commended in the reports. He had been
very proud at the time, but not so long after he had realized that his time was
up. The clock of his career in the Rekef had struck, and he was a dead man
unless he slid down the pendulum soon and made his goodbyes. He was suddenly a
somebody
, and Reiner’s enemies were using his name in
pointed ways. He made his researches and his plans, and determined that General
Reiner was not in the best position, just now, that there were other men with
more promise that a Fly-kinden agent could cling to.
Even before he had been
briefing Thalric in the
Cloud-farer
, he had made his
contacts, put out tentative feelers. He had got in touch with the agents of
General Maxin, Reiner’s chief competitor, and offered to defect.
Te Berro was an
experienced agent, a useful man, and besides, he had a lot to say about
Reiner’s people and their operations. He had spent almost a tenday talking to
his new friends, until his narrow throat was hoarse with it, and they had
written down every word. At the end, knowing that he had nothing left to give,
he had cast himself on their mercy.
‘Let me serve you,’ he
had begged Maxin’s people. ‘Make use of me, for anything.’
But
do not cast me away. Do not make of me just one more vanished name from the
Rekef books.
Whether it was this
particular mission they had in mind, or whether his breadth of experience
recommended him for it, he would never know. A day later they had packed him
off to Helleron with his orders, and the implicit understanding that it was his
success in this venture that would determine his ultimate longevity.
He had been at pains to
show how professional he was. They had told him to recruit agents and he had
done so, reviving old contacts with ease to pluck four capable mercenaries from
the city’s stews and bring them to this private room in a good Fly-kinden
taverna. His only problem was in the nature of his instructions and, seeing
their hard, professional faces regarding him, he felt that they might tear him
apart, or merely laugh at him. They must not laugh, at this. It had been
impressed on him that, no matter how bizarre the task seemed, it was in deadly
earnest. A great deal hung on his small efforts here.
‘These are your orders
and I make no apologies for them. They come from the capital itself, from the
very palace, so make what you will of them.’ Te Berro shrugged, hands spread.
‘In Collegium, kept in a certain private collection, there is this item. A box,
no more than six inches to a side. Unopenable, or at least you are apparently
advised not to open it. A box worked with intricate carvings, vine-patterns and
abstract foliage. No better description is provided, but unmistakable, or so
they assure me. Given the location and the expertise required this is judged no
matter for the regular army. Moreover, by the time you arrive the city may be in
some considerable distress, so that your skills may well be tested simply in
gaining access. So the Empire calls on you, as freelancers.’
‘Mercenaries,’ said
Gaved. ‘Let’s wear no flags we’re not entitled to.’ He was the only Wasp-kinden
amongst them and his skill in hunting fugitives had won him an uneasy
separation from the Empire, so long as he would always come when they called
him. The sting-burn above one eyebrow puckered his expression into a suspicious
squint.
‘Whatever,’ te Berro
conceded. ‘I have bartered for swift transport to take you to Collegium. The
more enterprising gangs of Helleron have realized that the Iron Road is alive
and well, so you can be in Collegium in under a tenday.’
‘Takes the fun out of
the job, but whatever.’ The speaker, Kori, had a broad face that held a smile
easily. He was Fly-kinden like te Berro, but a barrel-chested, wide-shouldered
specimen. He was a treasure-hunter, a raider equally of ruins and of
collections such as their current target. Like Gaved and the other two he had a
reputation, and no qualms about taking imperial coin.
‘Phin?’ te Berro asked,
and the Moth-kinden woman nodded sullenly. Her name was Eriphinea and she had
been part of the Rekef operation in Helleron for some time, an outcast from her
own people. What her crime had been she had never disclosed, but she was an
assassin by training and more than happy to kill her own kin.
‘And you?’ te Berro
asked of the final hunter. ‘It’s not quite your line, I realize, but I’ve read
of your skills and achievements. You’d be an asset.’
The man he addressed was
Spider-kinden, middle-aged and lean, with a deeply lined face – or that was
what te Berro and the others now saw. His eyes narrowed, considering the
proposition.
‘Master Scylis?’ te
Berro pressed.
‘It sounds diverting,’
said Scylis – or Scyla, as she truly was. The name was no more genuine than the
face she wore for them, but in dealing with the Empire a masculine visage gave
her more of an edge. ‘I have some business of my own in that direction, Lieutenant,
so while I am there, I may as well help recover your trinket for you.’ Scyla
appeared elaborately casual but, inside, her mind was working feverishly
because the description of the artefact that te Berro had given her rang bells.
She now recalled stories and histories she had read decades back when she was
still in training: in training as a spy, in training as a face-shifting
magician.
Te Berro looked them
over. Stocky, blocky Kori in his hardwearing canvas garb, a grappling hook
hanging from his belt as the symbol of his trade; Gaved, scarred and
lantern-jawed, leanly muscled beneath his long coat; Phin the Moth in her plain
robes, grey-skinned and white-eyed, dark hair bound back; and Scylis, an
ageless Spider in nondescript traveller’s clothes with a rapier at his side.
‘For recovery of that
box, nine hundred Imperials each, or else the equivalent in Helleron Centrals.’
He saw appreciation of that sum register on all their faces save Scylis’s. ‘I
wish you luck,’ he concluded. ‘If it’s worth that much, I suspect you’re going
to need it.’
‘Have you ever seen a
sight so splendid?’ The speaker was an officer in dark plate-mail, a helmet
cupped under her arm, her greying hair stark against skin that gleamed like
obsidian. From atop the gatehouse in Vek’s wall it was indeed a remarkable
sight. Soldiers in perfect order trooped past in their hundreds, shields
gleaming on their backs. They marched proudly as if they could march all day,
which they could. Some small detachments of cavalry rode up and down this great
column on either side, horsemen in light armour who would scout and run
messages beyond the reach of the Ants’ mind-speech.
Thalric watched
critically, his keen eyes seeing strengths, but weaknesses as well. The might
of an Ant-kinden army was the steel of its infantry. Taken against their peers
they were undoubtedly the best soldiers in the world. That infantry comprised
seven out of every ten fighting men of their army, where a Wasp force would
have had no more than three of ten as heavy fighters. He watched units of
scouts in leather armour pass, and he could guess the use of a scout that could
report, silently, as soon as he had spotted his target. He saw also a few
squads of Fly-kinden, forty or so men and women in all, but they were the only
non-locals in the force.
Now the wall shook
slightly as the first of the automo-tives went through. A few were
war-juggernauts, heavily armoured battle machines armed with firethrowers and
other anti-infantry weapons, but most were siege automotives for assaulting
Collegium’s walls. With a harsh metal clattering a pair of orthopters rattled
overhead, followed by a handful more. Other than that the air above was clear,
and that was what seemed so remarkable. When an imperial army was on the march
the sky was alive with men, animals and machines.
Out in the bay the
Vekken navy was starting to move as well, the vessels coursing lazily out past
the wall. There were big supply barges, iron-plated armourclads packed with
soldiers, together with a single metal-hulled flagship twice the length of the
others and armed with vast trebuchets. The docks of Collegium were hardly
protected by the city’s own sea-wall, and so the Vekken hoped for a quick
advance by landing their marines on the wharves.