Dragonfly Falling (48 page)

‘They’re subtle, sir,’
Maan had warned, as if that explained everything.

And so here he was now,
General Alder of the Barbs, with his own retinue of two hundred Wasp soldiers
and, nearby, another five hundred of the light airborne ready to move in on his
signal if things got as ugly as he feared. He had Maan with him, for all the
good it would do, while behind him the main army was setting up temporary camp
under Carvoc’s command.

And ahead were the
Spiders. The ground here was hilly, and patchily wooded, and the Spider
commander or lord or whatever he might call himself had chosen a little dell to
pitch his tent in. It was barely a tent, by Alder’s standards, just a peaked
roof of silk held up on poles, tugged lightly in the wind. A small knot of
people were gathered beneath its shade, and the rest of the retinue were at
military attention, waiting for him in immaculate parade-ground fashion. It
was, he admitted, a clever piece of theatre.

At least half of them
were bronze-skinned Kessen Ants in gleaming chainmail and helms of like colour.
Their shields bore a device of abstract flourishes that Maan loudly informed
him was the crest of Seldis.

Some of the others were
Flies, and most of those seemed to be nobles or wealthy citizens, as richly
clad in felt and silks as many a magnate of the Consortium of the Honest.
Others there were Beetle-kinden soldiers with heavy crossbows. An honour guard
of a dozen hulking Scorpions, stripped to the waist, leant on swords almost as
high as they were. Then there were the Spiders themselves.

There were almost a
score of them, and they seemed all elegance and poise, each one regarding the
approaching Wasps with a slight and individual smile. If the Flies had been
dressed well, these were magnificent, and yet they trod a thin line between the
ornate and the excessive. They were, Alder had to admit, the very soul of
taste, wearing their fine silks and gold, their embroidered brocades and their
jewels, as though the garments were simply casually thrown on for no special
occasion. Himself an old soldier who had never cared for gaud and glitter,
Alder found himself momentarily dowdy, travel-stained and awkward, but he
thrust the thought away angrily.

It was clear to see who
the leader was, and to Alder’s surprise it was a male: a further victory for
Major Maan’s intelligence because Alder had been assured that they were always
led by their womenfolk. This particular Spider-kinden lord reclined languidly
in a solid-looking gilt chair, high-backed and fantastically carved. A couple
of young women of his own race sat at his feet, and the others stood around
him, not as a formal court, but in little groups and cliques. They were all
beautiful, men and women alike. Even the oldest amongst them possessed an
austere handsomeness, while the youngest glowed with the fruits of youth. Some
were pale, others tanned, and their hair was fair or red or dark, more varied
than most other kinden ever were, but all with the same ineffably delicate
sophistication about them.

The soldiers arrayed
behind the Spiders tensed slightly, waiting to see if the armed men coming
towards them meant mischief. Alder turned to his troops and signalled for them
to take their ease.

‘Major,’ he said. Maan
glanced from one Spider-kinden to the next, swallowing awkwardly.

‘Remarkable, General.
One does hear—’

‘Just listen, Major.
Only speak when I consult you.’ Alder went forward, with Maan dogging his
heels, followed by two sentinels for bodyguards and a scribe to make records.

The Spider leader stood
up as they approached. He looked younger than thirty years, and he wore a
crimson shirt with ballooning sleeves beneath a green jerkin filigreed in gold
thread, and loose-fitting dark breeches above knee-high boots that sported
silver spurs. He made a flourishing gesture of welcome that was part wave and
part bow, rings glittering on his fingers. His neat, dark beard made his smile
flash all the more.

‘Do I have the honour of
conversing with a general of the Wasps?’ he asked. ‘That is the title, is it
not?’

‘General Alder of the
Imperial Fourth Army, known as the Barbs,’ Alder replied, restraining an urge
to salute.

‘The Barbs? Charming. I am
the Lord-Martial Teornis of the Aldanrael and I am delighted to make your
acquaintance, General Alder.’

The second name meant,
Alder recalled from his briefing, that this man was of the Aristoi – from one
of their ever-feuding noble families. The name itself meant nothing to him
though, and he had no clue as to how the Aldanrael might rank in the grander
scheme of things.

A couple of the
well-dressed Flies came forward at this point, and Alder turned to them to
greet them formally, before seeing that they were bearing a flask of wine and a
large platter of honeyed meat, shredded and laid out like unreadable script.

Servants?
he wondered, noting their finery, and then,
slaves?
Major Maan had stressed how the Spiders had a thriving slave trade, but these
little attendants were more richly dressed than most Wasps of good family at
the imperial court.

He allowed a goblet to
be pressed into his hand, with that, his thumb feeling idly at the small gems
that encircled its stem.

‘You are here as an
embassy from the Spiderlands?’ Alder enquired, determined to regain the
initiative.

‘From Everis, Siennis
and Seldis, certainly,’ Teornis said, ‘but it would be somewhat presumptuous of
me to speak for the Spiderlands entire. Yes, General. We have been watching
your Empire with some approbation recently. Our agents have reported on your
conquest of Tark, and it seems you have done the impossible with embarrassing
ease.’

Alder allowed himself to
nod. ‘The Emperor commands and the Empire obeys, Lord . . . Martial,’ he said,
stumbling a little over the unfamiliar title.

Teornis permitted
himself a wry smile. ‘You are a military man, General. A direct man.’

‘I try to be. So I will
ask again, what is the purpose of your embassy?’

‘We are concerned,
General.’ Teornis signalled for a chair to be brought forwards for Alder and,
with that politeness accomplished, slouched back into his own. Alder decided
that standing would give him the advantage, but then changed his mind when he
saw how Teornis took his ease, and found to his embarrassment that it was
inexplicably too late to sit. He felt surrounded by an invisible net of
unfamiliar manners.

‘We have no quarrel with
your Empire,’ Teornis went on, regardless. ‘We wish you well, in fact, should
you decide to sack any other Ant-kinden cities. We are certain, from our
intelligence gathered, that you will make us better trading partners than the
Tarkesh ever did. I only wish to make sure you understand our position.’

Alder nodded. Matters
were falling at last into a recognizable pattern. ‘You want to be sure we’re
not coming for you and yours.’

‘Precisely, General.’

‘Well then that’s
simple,’ Alder said, now anxious to conclude the interview as quickly as
possible. ‘The Empire wishes the Spiderlands nothing but peace. Our business is
with the Lowlands only.’

‘Splendid.’ Teornis
smiled dazzlingly. ‘I thought as much, but our women back home insisted I put
together this expedition and talk to you about it directly.’

Alder allowed himself
the smallest answering smile. ‘I had expected to be dealing with a female of
your kind, Lord-Martial.’

‘They have better things
to do,’ said Teornis, ‘than play soldier.’ It was only later, much later, that
Alder recognized this as an insult. At the time Teornis’s tone and expression
suggested only one man joking with another. Then the Spider continued, ‘So I
anticipate Kes will be your next conquest.’ Alder glanced at the Ant soldiers
behind him, but Teornis waved his concerns away. ‘Mercenaries, General, worry
not. I am afraid we are a terrible influence on the young men and women of Kes.
They see, you understand, that even a servant of ours lives better than a lord
of theirs.’

It was hard to deny.
‘Then Kes it is,’ Alder admitted. ‘After we have secured Egel and Merro of
course. There will be no forays further southwards, never fear.’

But Teornis’s smile had
evaporated and a whole sea-change had blown across the entire Spider embassy,
as though sudden winter had rushed in off the coast. ‘Pardon my impudence,
General,’ Teornis said, ‘but you contradict yourself.’

Alder resisted the urge
to check that his men were still close behind. ‘How so?’ he asked.

‘Egel and Merro are not
part of the Lowlands. They are ours.’

Alder stared at him.
‘Not on my maps,’ he said.

‘Your maps aside,
General, both Egel and Merro have been holdings of the Spiderlands almost since
they were settled. Our own histories are very clear on that point.’

Alder risked a glance at
Major Maan, who interpreted that as a chance to speak. ‘I am afraid,’ he said
firmly, ‘that you are quite mistaken. Our agents have been informed by the very
occupants of those towns that they are Low-landers.’

And Teornis laughed at
him, not scornfully but so politely as to cut to the bone. ‘I am afraid that
your agents have fallen victim to one of the local Fly-kinden pastimes, which
is to playfully misdirect strange travellers. Let us hope that they did not
also purchase any priceless gems or talented slaves at bargain prices. I am
afraid that the Fly-kinden of these two towns, if indeed they are not simply
one town with two names, find it convenient to claim themselves as either
Lowlanders or subjects of my own people, depending on the asker. They are a
duplicitous and untrustworthy people, and no doubt we would best be rid of
them, but nonetheless they are our subjects. Any attempt to impose your
Empire’s rule over them would amount to a declaration of war. I am no great
strategist, but such a development would I think weaken your Empire’s
position.’

‘War, is it?’ Alder
growled.

‘I hope it need not come
to that. Perhaps you would provide us with your maps and we can then correct
them,’ suggested Teornis innocently.

‘You have a mere two
hundred men here, Lord-Martial. What do you think would happen if I decided I
should send a definite message back to your people?’

Teornis shrugged,
slinging a leg up over the arm of his chair. ‘Oh, you’d send them my head in a
box, no doubt, which is another reason I’m doing this thankless job and not,
say, my sister or my mother. And we would then have to muster our armies, which
is a tiresome enough proposal to make me glad that I would be dead by that
point. And then we would fight, I suppose.’

Alder narrowed his eyes.
‘Perhaps you should be more concerned, Lord-Martial. I have automotives here,
flying machines, artillery. Your people are Inapt. Will you bring bows and
arrows against us?’

Teornis’s smile
broadened. ‘It’s true,’ he replied, ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with a
crossbow, if someone should thrust such a distasteful object into my hands. We
do not trouble ourselves with all that greasy machine-fondling that some kinden
seem to find so irresistible. No, we have – how shall I put it? – people to do
that for us. We have plenty of Ant-kinden and Beetle-kinden hired with us, and
many more within our satrapies further south. The Empire is not the only one to
have subject peoples. Do not think, General, that we cannot field all that
clanking metal palaver if we need to.’

‘So your position is
clear,’ Alder said grimly.

‘It is, and it is one of
the open hand of friendship – or, as you are Wasps, the closed hand, I believe,
is more appropriate. We wish nothing but peace and trade with your mighty and
admirable Empire.’ Teornis sprang from his chair effortlessly to look Alder in
the eye. ‘But if your hand comes against Egel or Merro or any of our holdings,
then you and I, General, shall be at war, and nobody shall profit from that in
any way.’

Back in his camp, Alder
called his officers together and gave them the situation.

‘I think they’re
bluffing,’ he explained, but he saw from their faces he had few takers.

‘A war on two fronts
would be disastrous, sir,’ Carvoc said. ‘To take Kes we will need to
concentrate all our efforts.’

‘Even if we bypass the
Fly townships,’ one of his field majors remarked, ‘they could attack anyway,
cut our supply lines.’

‘And we just do not know
what they can field,’ Major Maan added. Teornis’ people seemed to have particularly
impressed him. ‘The Spiderlands are, we know, very large, and they could bring
in troops by sea—’

‘Yes, Major,’ Alder
interrupted heavily. Just this morning his world had been so simple. Now his
conversation with Teornis had struck it a severe blow and crazed it with far
too many complications. He was a soldier, not a diplomat, and he did not want
to be the man to go to war with an unmeasured enemy nation.

‘Send the fastest
messenger we have back to Asta,’ he said. ‘I need to know imperial policy on
this.’

And in the meantime the
Fourth Army would sit idle.

The
Cloudfarer
had reached Helleron through clement weather, but it was not the same city that
Totho remembered. Not that he remembered it fondly, but the city that came to
his mind instead was Myna, with Wasp soldiers and Auxillians everywhere on the
streets, and a hunted look in the eyes of the locals.

General Malkan had come
to meet them at the airfield in person, clasping Drephos’s gauntleted hand.
Filled with enthusiasm, he seemed barely older than Totho himself.

‘Colonel Drephos, a
pleasure,’ he said. ‘Since I heard you were expected here I have had clerks
taking stock of every foundry and factory in the city.’

‘Most kind, General,’
Drephos said. ‘Have my people arrived yet?’

‘And your machinery.
They all came in with the garrison force.’