War Master's Gate (76 page)

And Morkaris asked, ‘What do you want, Fly? What do you want from the rest of us?’

Tomasso smiled slightly. ‘Nothing but what you make a living at. I need you to fight – fight the Wasps specifically. Does that sweeten the deal?’

Morkaris glanced back over the disparate mercenaries, his followers. No doubt his mind was working hard, trying to prise more options out of their situation, but in truth Tomasso wasn’t
sure there were any.

‘You want us to die for you,’ the Spider leader said bitterly.

‘Wouldn’t you rather die for
something
?’ Tomasso asked him.

Over the years, Ant tacticians had devoted much time to the unfolding of an army, the perfect elegance of thousands of soldiers moving as one, representing the highest
expression of Ant-kinden culture.

So it was that the Sarnesh came in sight of the Imperial Eighth Army towards evening, and began ordering themselves by pitching a cursory camp from which they could mobilize within moments,
assembling their artillery, arranging themselves in a widespread formation in case the Empire decided to bring its greatshotters to bear. It was a sight to make an Ant poet weep.

Tactician Milus was unmoved. The purest expression of the Ant way of life meant nothing to him unless he
won
.

It was entirely possible that the Wasps would have a go at any moment with their superior artillery – the Sarnesh were well within range. A lot depended on whether the Wasps wanted to
fight now at twilight, when nobody was at their best but when the Ant-kinden’s superior discipline and linked minds would add up to a significant advantage, or whether they would wait until
morning. It was a decision Milus was not happy leaving in the hands of the enemy, but he himself did not want to try an immediate attack. Therefore it would be the decision of General Roder
instead.

Lissart had known something about Roder, at least, and he would question her again after he retired to his tent. He had ordered her brought along for a number of reasons: she could advise on
anything unexpected the Empire might do, or she could even be used as a bargaining counter, perhaps. In the hidden darkness of Milus’s mind, where his fellows were not allowed, there was also
the reason that she made him feel better: a tame Imperial agent he could bully and intimidate, and yet a woman who possessed a quick, biting conversation that none of his kin was likely to reward
him with. And also expendable – useful but ultimately expendable. What more could a man ask for?

His commanders were reporting in, one by one, confirming their readiness, their part within the plan – whether that plan called for a battle now or tomorrow. Milus himself had obsessively
pored over the reports of the first clash between his people and the Eighth at the siege of Malkan’s Folly. There the Wasps had been securely dug in, and the Ants had tried their traditional
frontal assault against that well-defended position. Here, however, the Eighth had been marching to meet them, so would have only the most cursory fortifications. Here also, the Ants were ready to
disperse over an enormous area and come at the Wasps from all sides, giving no target for the Wasps to mass their superior artifice against . . . well, perhaps one target, but that was all part of
the plan. Attacking in open order like that would be suicide for any other kinden and, because he was not so trapped in the usual thinking of his kinden, Milus was still concerned about the rush of
casualties that his men would suffer when they did form up in the moments before they struck. Even with perfectly linked minds, it was a formidable piece of manoeuvring to get right, and there
would be an uncomfortably long period when the Ants were still not quite together, and yet were packed close enough for the Wasps to unleash everything they had.

But that was the plan, and he had no better one. If he was lucky, his distraction would draw a lot of Imperial attention and buy his soldiers a little more time, saving a few lives. Sarnesh
lives, of course.

There was one section of his army that would not be attacking in open order – because it lacked the hard discipline required for such niceties. They would go marching in shoulder to
shoulder – or as close to that as non-Ants could ever manage. They would form the centre of Milus’s attack. If he could have painted targets on them, he would have done so.

Tell me about Roder
, he had encouraged Lissart. And, with a little encouragement, she had. Was he a clever man? She wouldn’t say clever, precisely. Not a stupid man and
nobody’s fool. He was a solid planner of battles but not a man to rely on untested ingenuity. That had proved to be a strength when he had been fighting the Spiders at Seldis. It was a
fool’s game to try and out-weave Spider-kinden, after all – your clever plans would turn out to be part of their even more devious ones. Instead, he had trusted to the known
capabilities of his troops and his armaments, and beaten them on the field deftly and brutally, before moving to invest their city. He had left precious little room for all their vaunted plots and
trickery.

Milus could predict, therefore, that Roder would understand exactly how the Ants intended to come at him. And yet, at the same time, a tempting target for the Wasp artillery would not go
unheeded, for even if those close-grouped soldiers were not Sarnesh, they were still a threat. All those Mynans, all that rabble from Princep Salma, they would still kill Wasps if they got close to
them. Roder could not ignore them, therefore.

That they would die in their droves did not concern Milus. It was a battle, after all, and non-Sarnesh casualties did not overly worry him.

And there was one more thing he had learned from Lissart. Roder carried a grudge born from a narrowly failed assassination attempt outside Seldis.

Every Spider-kinden that Princep had vomited up for military service – and there were quite a few of them – would be positioned front and centre in that nice, tempting block of
miscellaneous infantry. Oh, probably Roder was too much the professional to let that sway him, but Milus lost nothing by offering such a bait.

By nightfall it appeared that Roder would be spending the hours of darkness digging in, putting up what makeshift fortifications he could. The scouts of both sides would have a busy night of it,
with Fly-kinden trying to dodge each other’s attention to get a good look at the enemy. The entire Sarnesh force would be sleeping in its armour, ready to wake at a moment’s notice, but
by then Milus reckoned he had the measure of his opponent. He told his commanders to move the artillery three hours before dawn, and to expect the Wasp engines to start pounding them an hour after
that.

History in the making
, Milus knew.
On such decisions rests the fate of Sarn and, by extension, all the Lowlands.

It was a shame – a predictable shame – that Collegium had not been able to hold out, but, if tomorrow’s battle gave him the opportunity, he would enjoy the gratitude on the
Collegiates’ faces when he came to their aid. Sarn had been following the Beetle lead meekly for far too long. It was now about time that they renegotiated the details of their
partnership.

They left Averic in an interrogation room – not strapped to the table, yet, but with his wrists chained to the wall above his head, his hands bound palm to palm to stifle
his sting.

He and Eujen had been marched under heavy escort across half the city to the district around the north gate, which was securely Wasp-held. Despite Imperial caution, there had been almost no
sound of fighting on the still night air – and what little he had noticed came from the wrong direction, presumably the ongoing squabble between the Wasps and their erstwhile allies.

He was detained in a counting house off the market square, which the Second Army had seized for its use – appropriated seeming too polite a phrase. He assumed that the paraphernalia of
interrogation that he had been left to ponder on had been installed recently. It seemed unlikely to have been a previous fixture.

They wanted him to reflect on all the ways they could persuade him, he knew. Even though he had never operated such machines himself, nor even watched another subjected to their mercies, he
still had a clearer idea than any Collegiate as to just what extent his interrogators would go to. The physiology he had learned here at the College further established his grounding in just how
much varied damage the human body could sustain.

But they had given him time. As a student of the College, solving intellectual problems was supposedly something he could do. So he stared at the table, at the rack of implements – none of
them exactly spotless, for he was not the first citizen to find himself at the sharp end of the Empire’s inquiries – and he considered his options.

After half an hour, by his best reckoning, an engineer came in to glance cursorily over the tools, while an officer came to look similarly over Averic. A captain, he noted. That told him
precisely how important or otherwise the Empire felt he was.

‘Well, now,’ the captain remarked, eyes studying Averic, assessing tolerances. ‘I’m going to ask you a set of questions, boy – once as you are now, and once on the
table. After that I’ll go and consider your answers, and then perhaps we’ll go over everything again and put the table to some use, just to ensure that there’s nothing
you’re holding back. But, then, I’d guess you already expected that, being what you are?’

‘To be honest I expected a debriefing,’ Averic said. His voice was steady, almost conversational.

The engineer stopped, a tool under his hand clicking metal on metal.

The captain’s face remained without expression. ‘Repeat.’

‘I apologize. I expected a debriefing, sir. I’ve been amongst the Beetles for a year, sir. Proper procedure is hard to hold on to.’

‘You expect me to believe that you’re on the books?’ The captain’s insignia marked him as Army Intelligence, but he could easily be Rekef Inlander as well.

‘My name is Averic, sir. You’ll find it there.’ Still so very steady, every breath measured carefully and his fear fought down. Because he might just live. Because they might
just leave him intact. Because it might be
true
.

They had approached him, when the Second had marched on Collegium the time before. First a Wasp woman, then a Beetle man, calling him one of their own, telling him that he had been sent into
Collegium under cover, the best sort of cover. He had believed himself a student but instead he had been intended as a spy.

They had told him the time had come to betray his fellows. He had believed them then. Perhaps he still did. Perhaps it was true.

He was unlikely to find out any other way than this.

His family, he had believed, were liberals who disagreed with the Empire’s belligerent relations with its neighbours. He had therefore been sent to Collegium to learn the Beetles’
ways, so that he could bring them back to the Empire.

Or else he had been sent to Collegium as an agent, living a lie all unknowingly, but the purpose was the same: to learn the Beetles’ ways and bring them back. The seeming and the real
danced about each other like Spider-kinden Aristoi, and he could not say which was true. For sure, he had turned aside from the Black and Gold when called on, but that bridge might not be burned.
He could yet live.
They might not torture me.

The captain’s face was still as blank as glass. ‘Why didn’t you come forward once we took the city?’

‘There wasn’t the chance, before this kicked off,’ he found himself saying. ‘And when it did, there was no chance of getting word out.’ A lie, an unbelievable lie.
‘So I did what I could, sir.’

A snort. ‘And what was that?’

‘I brought their leader to you, didn’t I, sir?’

The captain considered him like an anatomist regarding a cadaver. ‘Did you,’ he said without inflection. ‘Averic, is it? Well, perhaps we’ll get you to the table right
away, boy, just in case, mind. Because if you turn out to be trying to save your worthless hide by lying, I’m going to take it out of you a finger-joint at a time. You don’t mind, do
you, soldier? You don’t mind my going to make sure?’

Despite his position, Averic managed an awkward shrug. ‘I’d expect it, sir.’

A couple of soldiers marched in at the captain’s direction and, without complaint, Averic let them strap him to the table, his hands secured palm-down on the metal surface, where he would
burn only himself if he tried to sting.

Then they left him to his thoughts.

He thoughts were mostly,
Eujen, I’m sorry.

Eventually the captain came back, engineer and all, and stared at him, and Averic met his stare levelly, all his fear and regret pushed deep down. There was nothing more he could do for himself
now.

‘You,’ the captain told him, ‘are now going to have to answer more questions than
anyone
actually lying on the table.’ Responding to an irritable gesture, the
engineer began releasing him, a band at a time, grumbling under his breath. ‘Such as what the pits you’ve been doing all this time. And don’t give me that rot about your precious
cover. A spy that won’t break cover
ever
is no use to anyone.’ From the man’s disgusted tone, it seemed that Averic’s case was only reinforcing the man’s past
experience with agents. ‘For now, get yourself cleaned up. Get some food inside you. We can go over your sorry story in the morning.’

Something rang leaden in Averic’s heart, on hearing that.
So it’s true
, he thought numbly.
I was a spy after all. And my family: were they victims of this trick, too? Or
did they know? Perhaps my own family didn’t trust me enough, but let me come here still believing that I was merely seeking peace and understanding.

And that is what I found.

Small wonder, then, that I became what they intended me to feign.

He swung his legs over the side of the table, gripping his hands together to work the stiffness out of them.

They must have reckoned that weak, insipid Collegiate philosophy could never overcome my kinden’s love of Empire.