Salute the Dark (2 page)

Places

Organizations and things

Following his victory over the Sarnesh field army, General Malkan prepares to lead his army towards Sarn itself to destroy the military capability of the Lowlands. The
alliance of powers that Stenwold brokered at Sarn is still gathering its strength, so it falls to Salma’s Landsarmy to hinder the Wasp advance while the Lowlanders prepare.

Over the winter the Wasps have added the Spider city of Solarno to their Empire, and also the Moth hold of Tharn. However, careful manipulation by the Moth Skryres and their agent Xaraea has
ensured that Tegrec, the new governor of Tharn, is secretly sympathetic to their case, being a magician who has hidden his true nature from his kin.

Meanwhile the maverick artificer Drephos has been ordered to take his secret weapons to the city of Szar, whose Bee-kinden people are in open revolt after the death of their queen, whom the
Empire was holding as hostage for their continued servitude. However, amongst Drephos’ cadre is Kaszaat, a former citizen of Szar, and the lover of Stenwold’s former student
Totho.

The mission to recover the Shadow Box has failed after Tynisa, under the control of the Mosquito-kinden Uctebri, stabbed Achaeos, leaving him severely wounded. The box, meanwhile, has fallen
into Uctebri’s hands, and he has promised the Wasp Emperor that he will use the artefact to make Alvdan immortal. However, at the same time, Uctebri plots with the Emperor’s sister to
dethrone her brother and make her into an undying Empress.

Why do these things always come to plague us?

A fatuous thought for a man about to fight a war, but the war had not even begun and already Stenwold had seen too many people hurt – and hurt on his business too. The knot of horror he
had felt when they had brought Sperra out had not gone away. And now this.

Achaeos this time. Oh poor Che, my poor Che, to have come home to this.

And not just Che.

‘I am so very sorry,’ Stenwold said softly. He tried to put a hand on Tynisa’s shoulder, but she flinched away from it and would not let him.

‘It isn’t me you should be sorry for,’ she said. He had never seen his ward like this – Tynisa had gone through life without fear, the face and grace of her Spider
mother, the lethal skill of her Mantis father and a Collegium citizen’s implacable self-confidence. Now she was standing at the door of the College infirmary, afraid to go in, yet unwilling
to leave. The beds were not short of patients still recovering from injuries sustained in the Vekken siege. On one bed lay Achaeos, his eyes closed, grey skin gone so pale it was almost white. He
had yet to wake up, yet to speak. The College physicians would not commit themselves on whether he ever would.

By his bed sat Che, holding the ailing Moth-kinden’s hand. The sight of her clearly tore into Tynisa with a raw pain, yet she could not take her eyes away. Her sword had put Achaeos where
he was, though Stenwold had not needed her father’s protestations of magic to know that she could not have meant the man any harm. That itself was a tragedy, but Stenwold knew that it was the
injury to Tynisa’s foster-sister that cut deepest: the grief inflicted on Che, that marvel of innocence and foolishness, who would never again be quite the same.

Tynisa shuddered, and Stenwold as much as saw her think,
I have now severed her from me for always.

‘This war is not finished with its casualties,’ Stenwold murmured. He was thinking about Sperra again, his thoughts returning and returning to the moment when the Sarnesh soldiers
had brought out the little Fly-kinden’s tortured form. Sperra, who was walking now, even flying a little, but who would never forget what had been done to her.
And by her allies! We do not
even need the Wasps to maim us when we can harm ourselves.

‘Tynisa . . .’ he began.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t care what you want, Sten. I can’t go out there again. I’m not safe now. I don’t want to do it any more.’

‘Tisamon has explained to me what happened—’

‘My father has simply invented something to make himself feel better.’ She glared round at him. ‘Don’t tell me you believe it?’

‘I believe that he truly believes it, and he knows more about such things than I.’ Stenwold shrugged. ‘Tynisa, you’ve been to the shrine on Parosyal.’

‘That was different. They drugged me, and I saw . . . visions, hallucinations.’

He stared down at his hands. ‘I used to think the way you do, but I’ve now seen so much . . . There is more to life than just the things we can see. Achaeos would say the same, of
course.’

‘Much good it did him.’

‘Tynisa . . . will you come with me to the council?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Sten, but I can’t. I can’t trust myself any more. You’ll have to find someone else.’

He nodded slowly.
I can’t force her, for all that I need her.
Perhaps Tisamon would have more luck in persuading her. He spared one more look for his niece, Che, and then turned to
go.

So the ranks diminish
, he reflected sadly, yet the Lowlands was readying itself for battle. Sarn and Collegium and the Ancient League were summoning their allies. Stenwold needed every
agent he could get, and he was still short, but he could not make the numbers add up. Sperra was now lost to him, as was Achaeos, who could have proved so useful amongst his own people. Tynisa
would not fight, and he had not even asked Che to help him. His resources were growing fewer even as the Wasp armies massed.

He arrived at the council chamber early. Today was another war council and people were still calling him War Master since the siege. He was expecting to see old Lineo Thadspar turn up, and a
score or so of other Assemblers, each with their own schemes and advice. There would be Tisamon as well, standing at the back and saying nothing, with a look of disdain on his face . . . and
probably the Spider, Teornis . . .

Even as he thought the name the man himself came striding into the chamber, rubbing his hands briskly. He had chosen to wear a bone and leather cuirass over a red silk robe, while a cap of
chitin, adorned with the feathery fronds of moth antennae, made him look like some ancient warrior-mystic. Behind him came the diminutive form of the Fly-kinden pilot known as Taki, who had brought
Che home from her birthplace of Solarno, fleeing in the face of yet another Wasp conquest.

‘Master Maker,’ the Spider said, ‘times move faster than we do, I’m afraid.’

‘In what way?’

‘I’ve had news that calls me home, as swiftly as I can make the journey. I’ve arranged for an airship to take me and my retinue to Seldis.’

‘The Wasps?’

‘Camped outside our borders again, but this time it doesn’t look as though the Mantis-kinden will do our dirty work for us.’

‘You’ll fight, then? The Spider-kinden will fight?’

‘Impossible to say.’ Teornis smiled. ‘However, retinues and mercenaries are mustering at Seldis and Everis, and once they’re gathered there I can make use of them.
What’s the use of my being a Lord-Martial if I can’t lord it? Meanwhile, there’s more business afoot at Mavralis on the Exalsee, which is why I’m taking Taki here with me. I
fancy the Wasps could do with being jabbed in the rear.’

Stenwold nodded. ‘My reports seem to suggest that, with their occupation of Solarno, the Empire is becoming over-extended.’

Behind Teornis’ smile, something slipped aside to reveal for a moment the genuine tension within him. ‘My friend, we had better
hope
so, because if they aren’t, then
there’ll soon be a great deal of black and yellow all the way down the southern coast. It may all come down to the abilities of some Wasp clerk filing supply requisitions in Asta, Master
Maker. As you know, wars are fought by soldiers but won by logistics.’

‘And you’re happy to go with Teornis?’ Stenwold asked Taki.

‘Sieur Maker, remember I’ve served Spider-kinden all my life. I want to free my city, and the Spiders want my city free.’

‘There is another travelling companion that I shall be taking from your side, Master Maker. I trust you will have no objections,’ Teornis said.

Stenwold looked at him blankly. For some reason he thought,
Tynisa?
– perhaps because the girl so clearly wanted to go somewhere and find some purpose to take her away from her
guilt.

Teornis’ smile twitched. ‘I believe Master Nero wishes a return to Solarno. I had not realized that the city had so exercised its . . . charms on him.’

With that, Stenwold could not help glancing down at Taki and thinking, at first,
The old lecher
, and then,
I am in no position to judge!

‘What use he’ll be, I don’t know,’ Taki remarked. ‘I just hope he can keep up with me, is all. But, anyway, we’ve got him, so we’ll just have to make
some use of him.’

The other members of the war council now were filing in and taking their places, so Stenwold clasped hands with Teornis and then with the Fly girl.

‘Good fortune to you,’ he said.

‘Good fortune to all of us,’ Taki corrected him.

* * *

His stance was perfect for his blade: crouched a little, knees bent and balanced to move him forwards or back at the speed of his reflexes, not of his thoughts. His arm was not
straight like the arrow of a rapier duellist’s stance, but crooked in so that the claw blade ran almost down the line of his forearm, looking deceptively passive but ready to lash out and
draw back just like the killing arms of his people’s insect namesake. His offhand was held out, pointing forwards, spines flexing all down his arm to the elbow, ready to beat aside an attack
and thus create a gap into which his claw would strike.

He looked down the crooked line of his arm and claw. He looked at her.

Her stance was different in almost every particular, yet identical in its perfect poise, in its patience. She stood with one leg forwards and almost fully extended, the other bent beneath her;
her back straight. The sword, with its long hilt gripped in both hands, she held low and almost vertical: her entire being and energy focused on its leading edge, its diamond point.

They had not moved, either of them, for what must have been ten minutes, barely even a blink.

He wore his arming jacket of course, dark green padded cloth with his gold brooch, the Weaponsmaster pin, on the left breast. She had eschewed her armour, instead wearing the closest she could
find to Dragonfly garb: loose clothes of Spider silk pulled in tight at the waist, the forearms, the calves. She wore shimmering turquoise and gold, with a black sash for a belt.

Tisamon and Felise Mienn watched each other narrowly and waited for the other’s move.

His soul was focused on the razor edge of her sword. They could only spar with real blades. To propose otherwise would be an insult to their skill.

Somewhere in the back of his mind was a memory of when they had fought each other on the streets of Collegium. She had thought him a Wasp agent, and for the first time in many years Tisamon had
been truly fighting for his life in single combat. For ten years previously he had made a name for himself in Helleron, hiring his blade to whoever could meet his fees. The money was nothing; the
fights were all. He had thought that he was taking pride in his skills, displayed in all those brawls and formal duels, but now he discovered that he had been waiting to meet the one who could
properly challenge him. In Collegium she had found him.