We just need a Mantis-kinden from the Netheryon for the set, Eujen considered. In truth, nobody knew what the intentions of that newly renamed Mantis state were, despite over two months of Sarnesh diplomacy. The Mantids had attacked the Imperial Eighth and directly contributed to the Sarnesh victory there, but the one certainty with them now seemed to be that all previous alliances and agreements were off. That this included their longtime subservience to the Moth-kinden was currently absorbing the full attention of Dorax as well, to the frustration of anyone who had been counting on their support.
Tactician Milus met them alone, but of course he had the whole weight of Sarn within his head. He outnumbered them by thousands to one. He was in his full armour: dark steel plate heavier than a normal soldier’s but undistinguished by finery or any badge of rank. All his soldiers knew who he was, after all.
The interior of the Royal Court buildings was crammed with innumerable little square rooms, gaslit and often windowless, each changing purpose by the hour as the busy Ants ordered their state, their daily lives and the war. They found him in one such, with a map tacked up before him, displaying Sarn and the immediate tens of square miles, out as far as the edge of the Netheryon forest.
‘Well, now, haven’t we done this before?’ He was unusual for an Ant: a confident speaker with a good voice and a sound grasp of expression and body language, who was well used to dealing with other kinden. He carried a presence with him, a tangible strength of purpose that most of his inward-dwelling people lacked. His face was all slightly exasperated good humour as he looked them over: Eujen, young and chair-bound; diminutive Sperra; Willem Reader, a man of ideas who flinched slightly before the Ant’s stare; Castre Gorenn, already losing interest and peering at the map instead. Only Kymene met him on even ground. She had led the resistance in her city, freed it from the Wasps and lived to see it taken again. She had enough force of will for the five of them.
‘We have been here before, exactly. I believe that we left with the impression that you would be bringing forward your plans to liberate our city.’ Eujen’s voice was steady, even strong, coming from somewhere the injuries had not touched.
‘The Empire is bringing another army up—’
‘There is an army in Collegium, if only you will release it from its chains. There is no suggestion that the Empire intends anything other than to forestall a Sarnesh attack. Which, I would add, they are achieving with a minimum of effort.’
Milus regarded Eujen placidly. ‘You are asking me to gamble with my city in an attempt to save yours. A familiar statesman’s trick, but we have no statesmen here.’
‘You sell yourself short, Tactician,’ Eujen replied implacably.
There was a second of utter stillness that he had learned to recognize: it was when emotions that Milus was not showing were quietly led off to execution. Then the Ant turned his attention to Reader. ‘Master Reader, you must be well aware of how much further our preparations must go. Or is your work complete?’
‘It is not, Tactician,’ Reader admitted, and plainly Milus overawed him somewhat. ‘However, the Second still has minimal air power—’
‘It has enough, and you of all people know how quickly the Empire can move reinforcements in. They could have two score Farsphex out of Capitas and over my city, and us with only a few hours’ warning from that Ear device you set up.’
‘Well, it wasn’t me. It was—’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Milus cut him off. ‘And your being here as part of this business is not advancing the war. Both you and I have better things to do with our time.’ Blatantly unspoken was his assessment that the rest of them there did not.
‘Then perhaps we should leave,’ Kymene stated.
Milus locked stares with her, and it became clear that she was not talking about the delegation but about her countryfolk.
‘The Spiders are fighting the Empire. They would take us in,’ she went on. ‘Gorenn, you’d come, wouldn’t you?’
The Dragonfly’s head snapped round at her name. ‘Of course,’ she confirmed immediately, although it was anyone’s guess if she had actually heard the question. She had no patience for politics. ‘What are these here?’
She was indicating the map, and the conversation derailed instantly, Milus taking up a new defensive position by deciding to humour her. ‘Attacks. Attacks made on my people over the last month.’ Four sites were marked within the map’s extent, the closest of them within a few miles of Sarn. ‘Still think we should be sending all our soldiers off to Collegium?’
‘What attacks? We’ve heard nothing,’ Eujen demanded, aware that he had lost the initiative.
‘Small in scale.’ Milus shrugged. ‘A patrol, a merchant caravan, a farm. But no signs of how it was done, no sign of the enemy – just turned earth and too few bodies.’ He let that sink in. ‘So, believe me, I am not sitting here gloating over the plight of Collegium, but I have many demands on limited resources, and my city is not safe.’
‘Like the Eighth,’ Gorenn remarked, again forcing everyone to change step to keep up with her.
Eujen was about to question her, but then an uncomfortable understanding came. Turned earth, too few bodies, no sign of an enemy. Surely he had heard that – from Balkus, perhaps? – about what they had found when they went to look for the Eighth.
‘Be that as it may, these are attacks on my people,’ Milus insisted, but Eujen could tell from his tone that he had made the connection long before. And has no idea what to make of it, I’d guess. ‘This war has overwritten most of the rules of warfare that we were used to, and it looks as though the Wasps are still writing it.’ He held up his hands. ‘I fully understand. You all have homes, too. You want to free them. You want to fight the Wasps – of course you do. There will be a reckoning. The Empire will be turned back and then destroyed. I am dedicating myself and the might of my city to this objective. It must be by concerted action, though, so you must trust us.’
He looked from face to face, as if ascertaining that there was just enough trust left, averaged between them, to get him home.
‘And if things change in Collegium?’ Sperra piped up, her first contribution.
‘What changes do you anticipate? Things seem… stable there.’
‘Who knows? New Wasp atrocities . . . or perhaps an uprising.’
For a moment Eujen thought that Milus seemed unsure. Certainly he himself had no idea where Sperra was leading them.
But then the tactician’s customary demeanour returned. ‘Bring me any such intelligence and of course it will be looked at. The war changes on a daily basis. Perhaps tomorrow it will be me coming to you, ready to head south. Who knows?’
He knows, Eujen decided. He had a great deal of respect for Milus’s handling and control of the war so far, but very little liking for the man.
Four
It was a long walk to Cold Well.
Thalric had a lantern of sorts, a twisted braid of luminescent fibres that gave out a pallid, unwholesome light. It barely showed him where to place his feet but, out of all of them, he was no friend of the darkness. Messel apparently knew he held it, and when their blind guide hissed at them Thalric stuffed the bundle beneath his breastplate to hide its meagre phosphorescence. It was a wretched thing, and he was forced to replace it often from the grotesque fungus things that they found in passing.