The Seal of the Worm (51 page)

Nothing was working. Everything was still falling apart. Except, each morning, it was all still falling apart just as the day before, barely any worse at all. He was a dam against the entropy that would lead to collapse, anarchy, starvation.

He had no militia, of course – the Merchant Companies were off with Stenwold Maker, what was left of them, and his own Straessa had gone with them. There was a contingent of Tseni Ant marines on the streets, though, and one day they just started doing what he said, their leader apparently recognizing in him some authority that was otherwise wholly fictitious.

Then the Spider ship had sailed into harbour, as civilized as anyone could have asked for.

There had nearly been a fight over that – not even involving the Tseni so much as the locals who remembered the Spiderlands’ armada and alliance with the Empire, however that had turned out. There was only one ship, though, and it put ashore a single ambassador, an elegant woman who wanted to speak to Stenwold Maker. Of course to Stenwold Maker, who else?

She would have to make do with Eujen Leadswell, she was told.

Their meeting was strained but cordial. Eujen the student had sat there, pretending to be the important Collegiate diplomat whilst wincing at the spasms of pain afflicting his back and legs, and the Spider woman had apparently pretended to take him seriously. There had been an offer, in the midst of all the talk, and Eujen’s scholarly mind had cut through the expressions of mutual need, of shared history, of regrettable recent developments, to see that the Spiders wanted a truce, a safe port, perhaps even an alliance in due course. He had heard that the fighting down the Silk Road was fierce, and more than that, he had heard that the vast reaches of the Spiderlands were beginning to show the strain of current times. There had been catastrophic earthquakes in Skaetha, the golden city at the heart of the Spiderlands’ web. He had heard of a high death toll amongst the highest echelons of the Aristoi, divisions between the families, an inability to address the Empire’s encroachments. Their pragmatism in coming to Collegium was almost disarming.

He would have to consult the Assembly, he had told her, and they both pretended that there still was such a thing, rather than merely a large group of people Eujen knew distantly who could each make small things happen. He would offer her and her crew accommodation in the city, but there might be some wait before she received word of any decision.

He saw the tiny wince in her expression, suppressed just a moment too late. Time was a precious commodity along the Silk Road.

Minutes after the meeting, Eujen was hurrying through a letter to Straessa because, resent it as he did, he really needed to know what Stenwold Maker thought.

His letter caught up with the Lowlander army at the gates of Helleron. The rail lines from Malkan’s Folly eastwards, which the Imperials had used to send in their reinforcements, were intact, and the entire force was able to close the remaining distance to the Lowlands’ eastern borders in remarkable time, using auto-motives rushed in from Sarn. Straessa had wondered if destroying those rail lines, if the worst came to the worst for the Wasps, should have been the job of the Auxillians whom Milus had apparently suborned. Certainly it seemed an obvious way to slow the Lowlands down and yet nobody had done it. More cracks were showing in the Imperial facade.

By the time they reached Helleron, the Empire had already abandoned the city, plainly all too aware of the place’s shifting loyalties. Everyone had been expecting sly Helleren merchant lords appearing to swear smoothly that the Wasps had been their guests under protest, but a whole district of the city was in ruins, and the faces of the citizens looked stunned, unsure whether this was liberation or just a new invasion.

When the magnates did come, Milus kept them waiting, and then presented them with his demands: ammunition, fuel, supplies, automotives – with no suggestion of paying for any of it. Those who demurred, he had arrested. At the same time, Stenwold was sending Collegiates into the city to make contact with lower-level merchants, men and women who would normally wait for the nod of their betters before dabbling in this sort of politics. Enough of them were sufficiently quick off the mark to ensure that supplies were quickly rushing in on credit, because on credit was still better than free, and because being friends with Collegium and Sarn suddenly looked good.

Even now, after a pause of just a few days, Milus’s people were getting ready to move out.

Eujen’s missive was carried there by a civilian pilot with a swift fixed-wing who had tracked the Lowlander army by simply following the rail lines. Finding Straessa in that throng should have been harder, save that – just like Eujen himself – she was looked on as the solution to every problem, large and small, and so everyone knew where to locate her.

She took the missive eagerly, because it gave her an excuse to shake off the little mob demanding her attention.
About time, Eujen
, she thought.
Beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.

The seal broken, she found the contents were not exactly as personal as she had hoped, but still she found herself smiling fondly, skimming over Eujen’s patient setting-out of the Collegiate situation, as orderly and clear as if he thought he would be graded on it. Given that he had marked the contents for the urgent attention of Stenwold Maker, she wasn’t sure why he hadn’t simply bypassed her altogether. Perhaps he still felt too wary of the man to approach him directly, even in writing.

And then, just as she was despairing of Eujen entirely, came that last paragraph:

I badly want to hear the news that Maker and Milus, between them, have brought the war to some manner of satisfactory conclusion. Every child of Collegium, of whatever kinden, is badly missed and badly needed. I miss and need my Antspider most of all. I will muddle on here, and do what can be done, but I am waiting each day for the news that you are coming back to me, and most of all for you to bring that news in person.

And this letter is to go before Maker, apparently
, she considered with a wry smile, picturing him losing his thread, forgetting the chief purpose of his writing.
He never did remember to read things through.

She excised that last paragraph deftly and went in search of the War Master.

He was to be found with his pirates – or that was what Laszlo had claimed the pack of Fly-kinden were. Straessa had her doubts, principally because the thought of being cooped up on a ship with Laszlo for any period of time felt like the prelude to homicide. The pack of them had seemed just a vagrant band of travellers, save that they had the ear of Stenwold Maker. Now, as she approached, she saw them in a different light. Maker was sitting at their fire, discussing something in earnest, and there seemed no suggestion that he was just handing down orders to them. Instead, from their cautious nods, their thoughtful looks, it seemed they were assessing some sort of proposal he was putting forward – but something with no guarantee of acceptance. After that, she also noted just how well armed they all were, and began to wonder,
Pirates, really?
And if that was the case, what were they doing here?

And there were others, too, she saw. Sperra was there, whom Straessa had met before the liberation, and that big renegade Sarnesh from Princep as well, and that weird pale Sea woman who seemed to be at Maker’s elbow much of the time, and all of them apparently conspiring over something, thick as thieves.

She waited awkwardly at the edge of their circle of firelight – when she tried to take a step closer, which might have allowed her to make something of their low murmurs, one of the Fly women gave Straessa a filthy look and shifted a crossbow slightly, so that it was not quite directed at her. The message was clear enough.

But I’m an officer in the Coldstone Company with an urgent message . . .
only she felt that wouldn’t count for much with this crowd. Perhaps not with Maker either, right now.

Then she could hear distant shouting from across the camp, and a moment later another Fly – one of the Collegiates whose name Straessa should really know – dropped down right in the middle of Stenwold’s gathering, almost getting herself killed several times over. She was urgently insisting, ‘War Master! You have to come now!’

Stenwold stood up immediately, and a moment later he was following the Fly as she set off, Laszlo and his crew of pirates trailing after them.

Hearing a clatter of steel, Stenwold quickened his pace, feeling a multitude of old wounds tugging at him. He was keenly aware of Paladrya at his elbow, unarmoured and almost unarmed, horribly vulnerable if the camp erupted into fighting.
Is it the Wasps?
But he knew it was not. He was pushing on between the Sarnesh tents, and the Ants were not forming up, not rushing to repel an assault. They were all alert, though. Whatever drama was playing out was in all their minds. He sensed their eyes on him, the word of his approach rippling out ahead of him.

In front he saw a brief flurry of motion, heard more swords clash – a shout of pain, raised voices. One was a woman’s, louder than the rest. A voice he knew.

‘Hammer and tongs!’ he swore and started running abruptly, lumbering along with the dumb force of a ram, hoping Paladrya could keep up. Behind him, Laszlo’s people whirled in the air like a trailing tail.

Kymene!
Then he saw her, held by half a dozen Sarnesh, wrestling with them furiously. There were a lot of Mynans there with drawn blades, facing off more Ants, and more arriving moment to moment from both sides, save that Sarn had so many more to draw on. Kymene was spitting, shrieking like a madwoman at – yes, at Milus. Of course, at Milus. The tactician was standing aloof, a few paces away from her, his own sword still in its scabbard. His expression was one of mild, almost scholarly interest.

‘What is going on here?’ Stenwold demanded, finding a pair of Ants moving to block his path. He slammed into their shields, but they braced against him and fended him off with that surprising strength of their kind.

‘Stenwold!’ Kymene shouted, and then got out something more that he missed, save that it was to do with her city.

Then the Ants were letting him through at some unheard order from Milus, and he stumbled forwards, aware that the
Tidenfree
crew was now holding back and, he hoped, Paladrya along with them.

‘Release her!’ Stenwold demanded. ‘This is insane!’

Milus gave a wintry little smile. ‘I am afraid I cannot allow attacks on my person, War Master – whether from enemies or supposed allies.’

‘Attacks?’ Stenwold looked at Kymene, seeing her scabbard empty – disarmed by the Ants or had she actually drawn on the tactician?

‘Stenwold, Myna is rising!’ Kymene shouted. ‘We have to march for Myna, now!’

He blinked at her. ‘Well, of course—’

‘That is not the plan,’ Milus pronounced. ‘I have one destination for this army, Master Maker, and you know that. It is Capitas.’ The cool boldness of that statement was sobering. ‘We will cross into the Empire south of the Darakyon. We will not detour north for the Alliance lands. When the Empire is on its knees,
all
its cities shall then be free. I play no favourites.’

A good speech.
Stenwold had to admit that it
was
compelling logic. If Milus believed Capitas could be taken, then the Empire could be shattered all at once.
Unless the garrisons from the north head south to take us while we’re committed . . .

‘Stenwold!’ Kymene insisted. ‘My people are taking to the streets now! There is an uprising in Myna
now
! You know how large the Wasp garrison there is – if we do not go to aid them, they will be slaughtered!’

The horrible twisting feeling inside Stenwold was nothing less than impotence, because Milus’s logic still held. There would have been a time for the Mynans to throw off their chains, but this was not it. ‘Kymene . . .’ he said helplessly, and she read the thought on his face.

‘Ask him!’ she spat, fighting with her captors again, almost breaking free. ‘Ask this flat-faced Ant bastard what he’s done.’

Milus’s expression admitted nothing, but Stenwold sensed the mass of assembled Mynans reaching the point where they would just lay into the vastly greater number of Sarnesh to get their leader back and, at all costs, he had to stop that.

‘Enough!’ he yelled out, using his Assembler’s voice that had silenced dissenters in the Amphiophos for a decade. ‘Release her. She’s hardly about to attack anyone with her bare hands.’

The pause that followed was plainly Milus weighing the options, and then abruptly Kymene was free, shaking off her captors, her eyes still glowering bloody murder at the tactician.

There was something in Milus’s face, something that all the Ant stoicism in the world could not quite hide. It was an admission that there was more to this business than his smooth words might suggest.

‘A messenger arrived, half dead, from my city,’ Kymene hissed between gritted teeth. ‘He came in a heliopter that had been riddled with shot, and almost crashed it coming down. He told me that my people were rising against the Wasps.’ She drew a ragged breath. ‘He was asking where we were. Why we weren’t at the gates to help them.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Stenwold admitted. ‘Help me, Kymene. What’s going on?’

‘
He
sent people to Myna.’ She jabbed a finger at Milus, as though it could kill. ‘While he was making deals with the Auxillians to sell their Wasp masters, he sent men to my city. He said that his army was coming, and that now was the time. Ask him, Maker! Hear him deny it, then come listen to my poor aviator’s tale.’

Stenwold glanced between her ravaged features and Milus’s infinitely composed ones.
But why would he . . .?
came to his lips and was instantly banished, because he thought that he was starting to see.

He settled on simply ‘Tactician?’

The Ant met his gaze without a shadow of guilt, surrounded by tens of thousands of his kin who would implicitly understand and approve of all he had done. ‘It was necessary to clear the way to Capitas.’