He was a professional man now torn between his reputation and safeguarding his health. In that moment Felise went for him, claws slashing across him three times before he could even get his sword between them. He stumbled back, blood trailing from his face. Lunging forwards, Felise caught his head with both hands, as though she was a lover about to kiss him. Then she gashed both claws across his throat and he fell at her feet.
She looked at Hokiak then, and if her eyes had been burning mad before there were whole fiery suns of demented rage there now.
He forced himself to lean peaceably on his cane and indicate, with a twitch of his chin, that not one of his men had moved to intervene. He was not sure that she would understand him, but then she was stalking across the bloody floor towards Draywain.
‘Keep away!’ he shrieked. ‘Someone help me!’ but Hokiak knew that his backroom had thick walls and people around this part of the city always minded their own business.
She put one hand up, stilling the quivering hilt of her sword.
‘Thalric,’ she said simply, conversationally.
‘Thalric, of course!’ he gasped. ‘They sent him away. They sent him west, to the new-found lands. The city Helleron, where the foundries are. He’s Rekef Outlander. You know what that means?’
‘Oh, I know exactly what that means,’ she said. Only Draywain could see her expression just then, and his voice dried up to a whimper.
‘Do you know where this Helleron is, Hokiak?’ she asked, without turning.
‘Sure I do,’ the old Scorpion said. Seems like every month I’m shipping people west.
‘Good,’ she said and pulled her sword out of the wall effortlessly. As Draywain gasped in relief she rammed the point of it double-handed through his chest and then whipped it out, all in one movement. He was dead instantaneously, without even realizing what was happening. Perhaps, Hokiak thought, that was her way of mercy. Or her thanks. Charming thought.
‘You will find me means to get to Helleron,’ she told him. ‘And supplies. A map that I can read.’ That last was because she was not Apt, of course, not one for machines or crossbows or technical drawing.
‘I got an old Grasshopper chart,’ Hokiak said. ‘Ain’t what you’d call recent but I don’t guess they moved the cities that much. Look, this all is going to cost. I earned my one-in-ten for bringing him here, no matter what he did.’
She turned then, smiling, and she was a lovely-looking woman, when she smiled — and more likely to kill a man than any Spider-kinden seductress.
‘But Master Draywain has just chosen not to collect his fee. What’s one-in-ten of nothing, Master Hokiak?’
The Scorpion gave out a sigh, and his men around the room tensed, ready. ‘Now that ain’t how we do business around here. You got what you came for.’
‘Do you think I care about gold?’ she asked him. ‘Do you think that I can’t find more? Do you think for me this is about money?’ She snarled at that last. ‘I would empty the coffers of the Empire and the treasuries of the Commonweal to find this man Thalric. You want money? Take it all.’ She gestured at the pile, the not-quite-a-fortune, that she had left on the table. ‘Just get me what I want.’
Five
‘I was right here in my front office,’ Parops told them. ‘I had a crossbow and a telescope, but after I while I just used the telescope. It was quite something to see.’ He indicated the view from his slit window.
‘Nothing’s happening now,’ Totho pointed out. There was a tray of bread and spiced biscuit on Parops’s desk, and he was aware that Skrill seemed to be working her way through it all methodically.
‘That’s war: boredom and boredom and then everything’s far too interesting all of a sudden,’ Nero confirmed. He was sitting on the desk looking at Skrill and obviously trying to decide what she was.
‘So what happened?’ Salma asked.
Parops put his back against the wall beside the arrowslit. ‘Take a look at the disposition,’ he invited. Salma did so, seeing only a large extent of land between the city walls and the Wasp camp, which was dotted with a few tangled heaps of wood and metal.
‘First off, they moved their engines in,’ Parops explained. ‘They started shooting straight off and they must have some good artillerists, because in only a few shots they were sweeping the wall-tops with scrap from their catapults, forcing everyone’s head down. They were loosing some at the walls, too, lead shot rather than stone, I think. We were shooting back from embedded positions like the one atop my tower. You can see evidence of some of our successes out there, but with our lot flinching back all the time it took a while to make the range to them. And of course nobody was getting a peaceful time of it. They had their men flying over the wall amidst the rocks.’
‘Sounds risky for the men,’ Salma said, studying the tents, making out what he could with his keen eyes.
‘A good few of the incomers got squashed, no doubt, but nobody seemed to care on either side,’ Parops confirmed. ‘They were frothing mad, attacking everything along the length of the wall itself, or just charging off into the city in bands of eight or ten. Shields and a chitin cuirass was all they had, most of them, and javelins, and that fiery thing they do with their hands. They didn’t seem like proper soldiers, to be honest — more like a rabble.’
‘A rabble is what they were,’ Salma confirmed. ‘The Wasps call them Hornets, but they’re just Wasps really. We saw a lot of them in the Twelve-Year War when they invaded my own people’s lands. They’re from the north-Empire, nothing but hill-savages. Your average Wasp is a touchy fellow at the best of times, but the Hornets are downright excitable.’
‘And clearly expendable,’ Nero added.
‘Right,’ confirmed Salma. ‘So what happened?’
‘Well, we had crossbowmen on the walls, and line soldiers defending the artillery,’ Parops explained. ‘Their first charge, coming with all that rock and lead, took its toll, but we knew they were a flying kinden, so we had ranks of crossbowmen stationed beyond the walls as well. Any that lingered on the battlements or tried to press into the city were picked off. We think the toll was about four hundred of them, in all, and just thirty-seven of ours. Most of those fell to their artillery and first charge, too. After that we were well dug in.’
‘And are you calling it a victory?’ Salma asked him.
‘Opinion is divided,’ Parops admitted. ‘Some who fought on the walls say it was, but I, who was just watching from inside here, say not. They had their tacticians out, carefully seeing how it went, so I’m suggesting to my superiors that they’ll do better next time.’
‘Wise man, good advice,’ the Dragonfly told him.
‘So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?’ Totho asked. ‘We can’t just sit here. We have to get word to Stenwold.’
‘The city is sealed,’ Parops said sadly. ‘That’s the one thing we and the Wasps seem to agree on, as we’re not letting anyone out, and neither are they. If you left without permission from the Royal Court you’d be shot by our crossbows, and even if you weren’t, they have flying patrols on the lookout all the time.’
‘They’ll try to recover the broken engines after dark,’ Totho said suddenly. ‘They’ll send slaves to do it, probably.’ He had taken Salma’s place at the slit window. ‘Your artillerists should keep the ranges, and keep watch.’
‘Night artillery’s always a challenge,’ Parops said. ‘I’ve said it, though. Let us hope they take it up.’
Totho frowned at that ‘I’ve said it,’ and then realized what the man meant, remembering the mindlink that the Ancestor Art gave to all Ants. It united them within their own walls and equally divided them from their brothers in other cities.
Skrill finished another mouthful of bread, and took a swig of beer from the nearby jug. ‘I ain’t fighting no siege,’ she said.