Brugan knew his proper priorities. The Empire must be protected from its enemies from without, of course — a task that was usually pursued proactively — but more importantly the Empire must be protected from internal strife. The status quo must be defended, and Army Intelligence had begun to make ripples. If they had simply been the clowns they were supposed to be, then no harm would have been done, but they had committed the cardinal error of succeeding, and too many people had been left wondering about the Rekef’s power and influence, and questioning the stranglehold it maintained on the Empire. Something had needed to be done, but thankfully there was a longtime Rekef man heading up Intelligence for the Second Army. As soon as Solarno was taken and General Tynan’s people took over the westward push, Brugan could ensure that Intelligence had its teeth pulled, firmly and fatally.
‘General.’
He acknowledged the salute of the soldier, one of the palace staff. ‘Report.’
‘Message from Colonel Harvang, sir.’
I’m on my way to meet the fat fool now, Brugan reflected. What is it that can’t wait?
‘He says to tell you, sir, the orders have gone to General Roder and the Eighth.’
Brugan stopped, staring at the man. ‘Orders to the Eighth from Harvang? What orders?’
‘Forgive me, sir, I don’t know.’ Receiving the full attention of the general of the Rekef was plainly more than the man was comfortable with.
What is Harvang playing at? The unexpected always put Brugan on the defensive, if only because there should be no room for it in a spymaster’s life. He waved the messenger away irritably, and doubled his pace. The possibility that, now the Rekef was firmly holding the reins again, there might be some challenge from the ranks had already occurred to him, and Harvang was certainly the leading contender, especially as he and his little catamite had done so much of the work in putting Seda in her place. But I had looked for more time to consolidate than this. Brugan ran a quick mental inventory of assets within the palace — those who were loyal, those who were for hire — and by his reckoning Harvang possessed nowhere near the support the man would have needed to strike now. Besides, Vecter would never back him, just as Harvang would never back Vecter: a rivalry that Brugan had always encouraged. So this is perhaps his first ranging shot, to see how I will react. And if it’s more, well… The men in formation behind him were a mere formality, of course, but a Rekef general’s orders would suffice to have them kill a mere Rekef colonel, of that he was sure.
It was a slightly depressing thought, that he might well have to do away with Harvang’s talents. Although at least I get that vermin Ostrec with him. We’ll see how much of a pretty boy he remains after a few rounds with the interrogators.
Seda always liked this level of the palace, he thought drily, as he mounted a final set of stairs and headed towards sunlight. No dingy Rekef cellars for the conspirators now, but an airy room with a balcony overlooking a muster square. After all, there was no need for secrecy any more.
He stepped through the doorway with the word, ‘Harvang…’ on his lips, and stopped dead.
Colonel Vecter sat on a couch across from the door, or at least he was propped there: his spectacles askew on his nose, eyes wide, his skin deathly pale. Brugan made a sound, just a wordless noise.
The Consortium magnate, Knowles Bellowern, sprawled to his left, lying on his back, dark skin gone an ashen grey. To Brugan’s right, as if struck down while rushing for the doorway, was an army major who had been privy to the plot. Only yesterday he had been nagging to receive a reward for his services. Someone had ensured that he had been given it. He lay face down, frozen fingers clawing at the stone floor.
Despite himself, Brugan took another two paces into the room.
There were others, but in the far corner, slouching in a chair, was the vast dead-leviathan bulk of Colonel Harvang, an appalling sack of flesh bleached white like some sea-thing dragged into daylight. Bloodless like them all, his sagging, flaccid face bore an expression of horrified disbelief.
Seda stood beside him, and she was not alone. At one shoulder stood a young Wasp with a faint smile on his face, the one notable absence in the corpse-conspiracy that now surrounded them.
‘Ostrec!’ Brugan hissed, and then, without pause, ‘Kill him! Kill Ostrec now!’ for he himself could not raise a hand, not with her there.
Something moved very swiftly behind him, and he was spattered by a warm spray. Someone’s elbow struck Brugan in the back, staggering him, and there was some small scuffling, no more than that. Reeling back, turning with his palm raised, he found himself facing a figure in full armour of ornate Mantis construction, its only weapon a clawed metal gauntlet on one hand.
His men were dead. All his men were all dead. Brugan’s mouth moved, wordlessly. This was one of the Empress’s bodyguards, but had they not all been women? The faintly glimpsed face within the helm seemed as pale as the drained corpses around them.
He turned, hand directed now at the Empress but shaking so wildly that his true aim would have been unguessable. He could not loose, though. His sting was a prisoner of his hand and her eyes. Her feigning of the night before had been cast aside, as had all his assurances to himself that she was his, that she was just a Wasp woman, that she was in any way natural.
‘Do you fear, General Brugan?’ she asked him sweetly. ‘Do not, for you are dear to me, after all. I would not harm you. Come.’ She gestured, stepping out onto the balcony, Ostrec a step after her. The presence of the Mantis loomed large behind him, and Brugan felt himself shepherded, driven until he stood out in the open air.
‘We have much to celebrate, General,’ Seda told him. ‘The Empire is to become great in ways you cannot imagine. Drink with me.’
Ostrec held a goblet to him, and Brugan felt keenly aware of all those pale bodies in the room at his back. He knew what the cup would contain.
He saw soldiers out there on the muster field, perhaps a hundred of them in slightly unfamiliar uniforms, the pauldrons and gorgets of gleaming red offsetting the traditional colours of the Empire. Each one of them held a clay beaker, and when Seda lifted her own goblet high, so did they.
‘Your Rekef is so prone to plots and divisions,’ Seda told him. ‘I had hoped when I took the throne that ridding you of your rivals would cure the rot, but it appears that conspiracy is addictive. These men you see before you are mine,’ and the way she used the word spoke of far more than simple oaths and orders. ‘They have been chosen by me for the blood they bear, some last fading touch of a former age that lets me speak to them. They have bound themselves to me and, wherever they go, they shall speak with my voice. They are my Red Watch, and even the Rekef shall obey them. Is that not so, General?’
He could do nothing then, but apparently silence had doomed him to acquiescence, for Seda nodded, satisfied. Perhaps she had read the surrender in his mind. He would believe anything now.
‘Drink,’ she said, and brought the cup up to her lips, and Brugan felt his own arm move, as if accepting that it had no choice. In the square below, the Red Watch drank too, renewing their pact with the Empress, and all that she represented.
The Eighth Army under General Roder had been making determined but dragging progress towards Sarn, constantly plagued by the attentions of the Mantis-kinden. The forest north of them seemed to throng with inexhaustible numbers of the creatures, and all their unpleasant pets, and every night they would sally forth to plague him in some manner. The army carried its fortress with it, just as General Tynan had pioneered against the Felyal in the last war, constructing it every evening before dark, taking every wall down each morning by dawn. This on its own had slowed progress, but Roder was beginning to wonder if he should not have found a way to lay siege to the forest itself. The Felyal, with its warlike natives, was tiny in comparison, and these two Mantis holds of Etheryon and Nethyon fielded a formidable number of inventive and determined killers.