He forced himself to stay calm. They would meet again, he assured himself, and the Empire would triumph over the backwoods belligerence of the Mantids.
But secretly he hoped they never met again.
‘Our man’s name is Piraeus. Apparently the daughter, or whatever she is, gave him a public whipping at one of their little fencing games, and for once we’ve found a Mantis who doesn’t care just how he gets even. He’s more than happy to stick her from the shadows. Or her old man, come to that. He’s not particular.’
‘Thalric,’ she said, ‘a Wasp-kinden. That is who I’m looking for.’
The paunchy Beetle-kinden looked down on her from his throne. It was meant to be a throne, anyway. A built-up chair atop some steps with gold and stones hammered into it. Perhaps he had been aiming for barbaric splendour.
‘Name rings a bell,’ he allowed. This seated dignitary was known as Last-Chance Fraywell. Felise understood this name came from his final words to those who crossed him. ‘I’m going to give you one last chance,’ he would say to them, and then proceed to kill them in whatever way appealed to him. So she was led to understand, anyway.
Fraywell leant down from his throne, peering at her suspiciously. She was standing a fair way back and she had come without her sword but, even so, there were a dozen of Fraywell’s bullies carefully watching her. She looked from face to face: Beetle-kinden, Ants, halfbreeds… there he was, the man she was told to watch out for: a tall Spider-kinden, the only one here of his kind. His was the face she knew.
She moved in worlds far from home these days, always amongst the faces of strangers. It was better that way, for she could not have guaranteed recognizing faces from the Commonweal any more.
‘Why do you want him?’ Fraywell asked her. ‘I’ve got no brief for Wasp-kinden, but this doesn’t ring true.’
‘Why I want him is my own business,’ she replied flatly.
‘Well then maybe where he’s gone is mine.’ Fraywell sat back, looking pleased with himself. He was one of the smaller gangsters in Helleron, and his fief, as they called a criminal’s holdings, was pitiful, but it had been expanding recently. The word was that he had done well out of the recent visit by imperial troops, peddling all kinds of muck to them: drink, drugs, women. Certainly he had the clout to jostle for elbow room now.
‘I must know,’ she said. ‘I will know. I have followed Thalric a long way and I will not give up now.’
‘Well maybe your business can stay your business if only you’ve got the wherewithal,’ said Fraywell, sounding bored all of a sudden. ‘Come on, let’s wrap this up. You’re taking up my valuable time, woman. Show me the stamp of your coin.’
She found that she was smiling, and it was disconcerting Fraywell and his men. ‘I am not here to buy,’ she explained. It was such a simple concept and yet the Beetle had still not grasped it. ‘I am here to make payment.’
Fraywell glanced at his men, baffled, and she now was advancing on his seat smoothly, so smoothly that two of his people barely got in her way in time. Her hands flashed out, the razor edges of her thumb-claws folding forwards, and she cut them down with swift economy.
Fraywell screamed and kicked away from her so hard that he toppled his would-be throne backwards, leaving only his boots showing. She turned, looking over the room of stunned thugs and held a hand high.
The Spider-kinden that she knew stepped back and took her sword from within his cloak, pitching it to her above the heads of his fellows in a smooth arc. She hardly had to move her hand at all to catch it.
With her blade restored to her, she let them all draw their own weapons. That seemed only fair. Ten of them, and they tried to rush her, but she was already leaping forwards from the steps, descending on them with blade first.
They were not skilled but they were many. She made their numbers her ally, as they crashed into one another, fouling each other’s blows. Her blade moved among them like lightning, like sunlight. She sent them reeling back in bloody arcs, and moved – quicksilver past lead – to evade their clumsy thrusts and grasping hands. Behind them the Spider-kinden traitor had a long dagger out and was picking and choosing his targets, putting the point in with the care of a surgeon.
And suddenly there were none left. It was so sudden she could not quite work out where they had gone until she saw the bodies. She was used to that now: the jarring of cause and effect, the sudden returning to herself to discover blood on her blade and the fallen around her. There was some part of her, some innocent part, that had come loose inside her head, leaving only cold skill to hold the reins and whip her on.
She stalked over to the throne where Last-Chance Fray-well was now clambering to his feet, his broad face a-sheen with sweat.
‘Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it,’ he gasped, but they were paying her with the next chapter of Thalric’s story, and how could he double that?
‘I will not take up any more of your valuable time,’ she said, and ran him through. Only afterwards did she notice that he had been holding a sword. It had not done him much good, she supposed.
Then she turned, like a performer to her audience.
The Spider-kinden man clapped politely. ‘So much for the Last-Chancers. My employer will be over the moon. Serves them right for getting above themselves, say I.’ He was a man past middle years, hair long and greying very slightly, wearing clothes whose flamboyance had been cut down, she guessed, to suit his purse. His voice was cultured, though, and she could only wonder where he had fallen on hard times from.
‘Thalric?’ she said questioningly, the sword still very much ready in her hands.
‘Do you want it from my employer’s mouth, or mine?’ The Spider’s name was Destrachis, she recalled, although she could not exactly remember now who his employer was.
‘Tell me,’ she directed.
He nodded, taking a seat on a bench there. ‘Well our man Fraywell was here with a whole load of Wasp-kinden not so long back, and they got involved in something bad. Some people say they destroyed some big Beetle machine called the Pride, although that doesn’t make much sense to me. They were kicked out in a hurry, though, and your man along with them. They went to Asta, which is a Wasp-kinden-’
‘I know Asta,’ she said. ‘So he is there? Or at least that is where I travel next.’
Destrachis raised a hand. ‘We pay in good coin in this fief, lady. He’s not at Asta, we’re sure of that. There’s a fellow known to us, trades secrets all over, and to the Wasps as well. He’s heard of your man. Thalric’s a name that’s being talked about after the wheel he knocked loose here. You’re not the only one who’s keeping him fingered.’
She stared, waiting for more, and he smiled, suddenly.
‘Your man’s been posted way out west of here. Do you know a city called Collegium?’
She shook her head. ‘I shall find it, though.’
‘I don’t doubt it. You’ve got quite the way of asking questions.’
She merely nodded, and cleaned her blade on Fraywell’s tunic before returning it to its scabbard. ‘West. Collegium. Well I must go then,’ she announced, and was at the door of Fraywell’s hideout before his voice called her back.
‘You know… you’re a remarkable person,’ he said. She turned, frowning. One hand was close to her sword. She sensed a trap here. At her expression he put his own hand up to forestall her.
‘I’ve been all over the Lowlands,’ he explained. ‘I can do business in Collegium. If you wanted a guide, I could go with you.’
Her hostile expression remained. ‘Why?’
‘Because when I look at you, I recognize something. I see someone who’s lost everything, and yet lost nothing.’ He was not telling her why, she could see. It was just words.