Dragonfly Falling (80 page)

In the form of the
Shadow Box. The soul of the Darakyon.

‘So tell me,’ Stenwold
said, ‘why I should take the appalling risk of keeping you close, or even
keeping you alive.’

Thalric smiled,
reclining easily behind the table as though he were back in his own study. ‘You
should start thinking like a man of your profession, Master Maker, and not just
a Lowlander. I was a spymaster once. We both know the value of an enemy agent
turned.’

‘I couldn’t trust you.’

‘You have the craft to
weigh what I tell you. I can be of more value to you than ever your Spider girl
turncoat is.’

‘No, you cannot,’
Stenwold said flatly.

Thalric raised an
eyebrow. ‘Is it like that, then? Well then, do you want me to tell you about
her? The truth? You must be still wondering whether the subtle Spider has spun
a straight line?’

‘Thalric,’ Stenwold said
warningly, and found his hand at his sword-hilt, and the Wasp’s gaze followed
it.

‘I did not take you for
a killer of unarmed prisoners.’

‘You’re Wasp-kinden,’
Stenwold pointed out. ‘Therefore you’re never unarmed. What do you
want
, Thalric?’

Thalric stood up from
the table, a little of his casual ease sloughing off him. ‘I have been alone
before, and hunted, but never so much of both at once. There was always the
Empire. Now I find that the Empire I knew is a hollow egg. The insides are rotting
with factions and I, who have disdained them, have become a casualty of
politics. You believe, Stenwold, in something beyond yourself?’

‘I believe that it is
the duty of the strong to help the weak, and of men and women to live in peace
and to build together,’ the Beetle said, without even thinking. That was the
doctrine so much of Collegiate thought was based on.

‘I believe in the
Empire, but it did not bear the weight of my belief,’ Thalric said.

‘So you’re more imperial
than the Empire now, is that it?’ Stenwold shook his head. ‘I can’t see you as
such a thorough turncoat.’

‘I had my chance to die
for my beliefs, Master Maker,’ Thalric said with surprising emotion, ‘but when
they came for me, at the last, I fought them. I made my decision then. I can no
longer claim now to be a loyal son of the Empire, having failed to follow its
last command. I have to
live
, Maker, and you know as
well as I the fate that awaits an agent cut loose by either side. He falls,
Maker. He falls and is gone. So employ me, make use of me, while you still have
me.’

‘Sit down again,’
Stenwold said, and then, ‘Let’s talk.’

Thalric returned to the
table, glancing up at Arianna’s hostile gaze. ‘She would still see me dead, I
observe.’

‘Perhaps she has more
sense than I do,’ Stenwold said. ‘What do you know of the forces currently
marching on Sarn?’

Thalric raised his
eyebrows. ‘From what I recall, the Seventh had the honour set aside for it –
General Malkan’s Winged Furies. Malkan is the Empire’s youngest general, and
very ambitious.’

‘What is the Empire’s
attitude to taking prisoners after a field battle, Thalric?’

The question was
obviously not one the Wasp had expected. ‘It depends on the battle. A battle
against Ants would see few prisoners taken. If the fighting was bitter then the
soldiers may leave none alive to be taken, whether they have surrendered or
not.’

Stenwold found himself
gripping the table, imagining Che surrendering with hands out in supplication,
yet the swords still coming down.

‘So the Sarnesh have
lost a battle,’ Thalric mused. ‘Who did you have with them, Master Maker?’ When
Stenwold did not reply, he said, ‘Not your niece?’

There was no mockery in
his tone, so Stenwold nodded.

‘I am sorry,’ said
Thalric, and when the Beetle glared at him he continued, ‘She impressed me as a
woman of intelligence and resource.’ He seemed to brace himself before adding,
‘Do you want me to go and find her for you?’

‘You?’ Stenwold
demanded, puzzled.

‘With appropriate help,’
Thalric said, and it was clear that he was wrestling the idea into shape even
as he spoke. ‘I might be able to achieve it, for I am at least of the right
kinden, and among the thousands in Malkan’s army, I could appear just one more
foot soldier, one more of the light airborne.’

‘I must think,’ Stenwold
said, standing.

‘At least consider the
offer.’

‘I must think,’ the
Beetle repeated, and left the room. Arianna sent Thalric a last poisonous
glance before she followed.

No
more bad news, please. No more messengers.
Stenwold was still haunted by
the stricken look on Sperra’s face, when he had told her of Scuto’s death.
Home, now.
No more war business. No more shaking hands.
Home, was the plan. No more of the heavy marble halls of the Amphiophos. Home
and try to find a path to save Che.
Any path that does not
involve me placing trust in Thalric.
It might be that there was no such
alternative.
And how to keep him mine, once he is loose? If
the Empire would accept him back then he would betray me without a thought.

He stomped wearily down
the steps of the Amphiophos, hearing a ragged cheer as some late celebrants
recognized him.

‘This won’t go away,
will it?’ he said gloomily.

‘My kinden scheme all
their lives for such recognition,’ Arianna said.

His sharp glance left
her instantly contrite. ‘I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you want to hear.’

‘It’s what I am, though,
isn’t it,’ said Stenwold. ‘I’m as much of a web-spinner as Teornis. The
difference is that the people who get caught in my webs are my own. My own
friends, my kin.’

The frightened
expression appearing on her face had his hand to his sword instantly, turning
and drawing. He froze, then, hearing two or three people cry out in shock at
the bared steel.

‘So they’re still
calling you War Master,’ said that oh-so-familiar voice, that
twenty-years-familiar voice, and Stenwold sheathed his sword numbly, noting
that neither father nor daughter had so much as flinched at the threat of it.

He put out his hand,
noticing it tremble slightly, and clasped arm to arm with Tisamon, feeling the
man’s spines flex. ‘You’ve no idea how good it is to see you,’ he said.
I’ve missed having a mad killer by my side.
The thought
made him laugh out loud, and he went to embrace Tynisa like a true father. But
she took a step back, and then he noticed the sword and circle brooch she bore
– saw in her haggard features the cost of that honour.

‘Tynisa . . .’

‘I live,’ she told him
flatly.

‘The Mantis-kinden?’

‘I live,’ she said
again.

Stenwold felt Arianna
flinch at the thought.
A nation of Tisamons, how could that
ever work?

‘And Collegium is still
standing,’ Tisamon observed. ‘You Beetles will always surprise me.’

‘I am told,’ Stenwold
said, ‘that you are not entirely free of guilt in that.’

That dragged a smile
from Tynisa. ‘We didn’t know if Teornis would get here. We didn’t know if he
would even try.’

‘I am surprised,’
Tisamon admitted. ‘And at what cost is the city saved?’

Stenwold nodded. ‘At
least we are here to pay it. The Spider Aristos has saved Collegium, as much as
anyone has, and we cannot deny him that.’

‘The world,’ Tisamon
declared, ‘has turned upside down.’ His gaze sought out Arianna, recognizing
her for the first time beyond the College student’s robe. The claw was on his
arm, as simple as that.

Stenwold put a hand on
his shoulder as though he had not seen it, facing the man’s hostility head-on.
‘She has stood by me,’ he said. ‘She has saved my life and fought for my city,
and she could have betrayed or killed me at any time. She is’ –
Mine, she is mine –
‘loyal,’ he finished, at last. ‘And
she did warn us of the Vekken, and we put that time to good use.’

‘Trust comes slowly,’
Tisamon agreed as Arianna regarded him cautiously.

‘I see you didn’t trust
them enough to sail here with them,’ Stenwold observed.

‘As to that . . .’ Tisamon
looked sidelong at Tynisa, ‘we had other engagements.’

‘A little job to do,’
Tynisa confirmed. ‘We’ll know, soon enough, if it has worked.’

Haldred was a Wasp of
good family, a captain in the imperial army and a man whose preferred career
path would have placed him securely in the imperial city of Capitas all his
life. For a rising star in General Maxin’s retinue, however, there came some
tasks that could not be avoided. A great deal hung on this, he had been told,
and success in achieving it would be remembered. His name would be commented on
to the Emperor himself.

He had passed the camp
of the Fourth Army with a brief word to General Alder, and now he was flying
with his escort of soldiers over the scrubby terrain, looking for the camp of
the Spider-kinden. He had a mouth full of fine words for them, and a pouch full
of documents for alliance and mutual benefit. The Empire and the Spiderlands
were two giants only just met, and still testing each other’s strengths. This
was one of only two places where they could now see directly eye to eye. Given
a choice, Haldred would have preferred the city of Solarno, with all the
decadence of the Spiderlands ranged beside a vast and beautiful lake stretching
beyond the horizon, but instead he had been sent out here into the wilderness,
and he had to make do with what orders came his way.

Dusk was closing on him,
though, and he had yet to find the Spiders. It seemed impossible, in this
barren country, for two hundred men to hide so effectively, but he had been searching
for some time without success.

One of his men suddenly
called out something, pointing, and Haldred saw what could be a group of men
sheltering within a copse of trees. This must be them, he decided, and began to
descend.

He and his men landed
before the trees, and approached it cautiously. There was no fire alight, no
obvious splendour of tents. He stepped within the shadow of the branches, still
seeing nobody and nothing there.

‘I speak for the Wasp
Empire,’ he called out. ‘I have an embassy to the Spiderlands.’

‘Do you indeed?’ said a
voice softly, almost in his ear. He jumped back – looking up into a pale,
fierce face.

They were not
Spider-kinden, after all. He was in a different net altogether.

In his tent, General
Alder looked over the most recent numbers reported from his quartermasters by
lanternlight. The supply situation was growing desperate. The Scorpion-kinden
were slow in bringing supplies across the desert, and those caravans the
Wasp-kinden themselves sent out were plagued by bandits, who were most likely
the selfsame Scorpions.
Wretched barbarians
, Alder
sneered inwardly.
Give me the order and I’d have the lot of
them in shackles
. That order would not come in his lifetime, though,
because the Dryclaw desert offered nothing the Empire wanted save a right of
way, and even that meant just a quicker step than skirting it.

This interminable
waiting was death to a fighting man: each long day not knowing whether the next
day would see them finally march. His men had made their temporary night camp
when the cursed Spiders had first been sighted. They had been here ever since,
sending back to Tark for supplies over and over again. The soldiers were
restive, fighting amongst themselves, grown complacent. It was very bad for
discipline, but Alder was an army man to the core and he needed his precise
orders.

Now at last the imperial
emissary had arrived, that preening little puppet Haldred, and surely tomorrow
they would take the Merro road. His men meanwhile were out of all order,
growing fat and idle.

Major Maan had stepped
into the tent, saluting. ‘You sent for me, sir?’

‘Any sign of that
diplomat, Major?’

‘He must be staying with
the Spiders, sir,’ Maan reported, in a tone of voice that suggested envy. The
splendour of Teornis’s tent and servants, the womenfolk especially, had
impressed him.

The Spider had moved
around a lot, like any travelling noble, pitching his tent on hilltops and in
hollows, now within sight of the sea, now virtually overlooking the Wasp camp.
Alder did not trust him for a moment. ‘Where is he camped tonight, Major? What
have your scouts reported?’

‘I’ve had no word, sir.’

Alder had sighed. ‘Well
find me word, Major.’

Rather than ceding him
the privacy of his own tent, Maan simply sent a soldier off for a lieutenant of
the watch, and then sat down obtrusively while they waited. When the lieutenant
arrived it was a blessed relief.

‘Your scouts,
Lieutenant, have they reported on the Spider lord’s current dwelling?’ Maan
asked him.

‘They’ve not returned
yet, sir.’

Alder narrowed his eyes.
‘What, none of them?’

‘My squad has not
returned, sir,’ the lieutenant repeated implacably.

‘It’s no great matter,
Major, but when I ask a question I’d like an answer.’

Maan saluted and left
the tent, with the lieutenant in tow. A short while later he was back.

‘General, none of the
scouts has returned.’

Alder stood slowly.
‘What do you mean?’

‘No scouts have
returned, General,’ Maan said, tongue licking his lips nervously. ‘I’ll let you
know—’

‘But it’s dusk already,’
Alder remarked. He put his head out of his tent and then corrected himself.
‘It’s dark. You’re telling me that
none
of our
scouts is in?’

Maan gaped at him. ‘I .
. . I have spoken to at least half of the watch lieutenants . . .’

Alder just stared at him
and then went back inside his tent.

His swordbelt was
hanging to one side and he went over to it and drew the blade.