She heard movement behind her and turned to see Thalric. He had a shallow gash across his temple and one hand clutching to his shoulder, but she knew the strength of his armour of old. His old tricks had always preserved him before and, as the bolt had struck him, she had guessed that not even Totho's snapbows were his equal. In the instant she glanced at him, she noticed his expression was pure murder, his hand extended ready to sting. Che quickly interposed herself between them, to protect Totho from the Wasp's rage.
Thalric grimaced, made two efforts to speak, to order her out of the way, his eyes fierce with incomprehension. On the scales, his personal and cultural pride swung up and down against how she would see him if he killed her former friend.
He finally closed his hand and took a long breath, but it still was a long time before he could lower his hand.
'Che…?' Totho began quietly, as though releasing her name into a great silent room and waiting for the echo.
'I've used you badly,' she told him quietly. 'I'm sorry. And for what you did during the war, I have no right to judge, because I wasn't there.' She put a hand on his arm, feeling the battered mail. 'Be safe, Totho.'
He closed his eyes, keeping his expression very still, and then he nodded, and she half expected to see a filmy grey shape leave him, the ghost of all of their failed futures exorcized at last.
At last, he smiled, something weak and faint but still recognizable as a smile, and then he turned and left.
Thalric was working patiently with one hand to free the bolt in his shoulder. She reached to help, finding that the missile had punched through the fine rings of his copperweave but was snagged hopelessly in layers of cloth beneath. Spider silk, she realized.
'If you're wondering,' he said, 'it still hurts like the rack.' His voice was taut, with pain and the stale dregs of his own emotions. She opened her mouth to reply and he said, 'That was very elegantly handled. You're a born ambassador.'
'What, breaking a sword over him and then mouthing platitudes?' she replied.
'Everyone walked away from it.' Thalric finally held up the bolt and she saw a pinprick of blood at its tip.
'Closer than you'd like to admit?' she suggested.
'Being the pleasant-natured creature you are, and beloved of so many, you cannot imagine how many have tried to kill me over the years,' he told her, and she could not decide whether he was mocking her, and to what extent. 'That halfway artificer hasn't come the closest, and he's more reason than many to attempt it.' His smile was flat. 'I happen to agree with him. I think you're worth killing for too.'
She instantly felt deeply uncomfortable, remembering that he was a killer from a race of killers. At the same time, something responded in her that someone should say such a thing about her and not her sister… her sister… Tynisa.
'Where now, Thalric? Where do we take this now?'
'I have some temporary plans, regarding some matters I need to put right. All the more so if you'll be travelling with me.'
'I have plans as well,' she told him. 'There is something I must do.' The feeling of that moment's wrath, that Mantis-fury pure and deadly as forged steel, still terrified her. Not Tynisa, she thought. You shall not have her.
*
There was a ship that had already departed, and a ship that was preparing to leave. Two voyages to mark the end of this blighted moment in Khanaphir history.
Already on the seas were the Iron Glove men, finally enacting their long-promised banishment. Che had not spoken to Totho before he left, by unspoken consent. The fragile detente they had achieved would not bear too much inspection.
Now there was a second vessel, a Spider trader called Flighty Drachmis, and it would be heading to Porta Rabi, and from there one could find a way to Solarno, and from Solarno, home.
They were fewer than they had been, the Collegiate scholars. Trallo of the dubious loyalties had been loyal enough to die for them, and poor Mannerly Gorget too. They were also reinforced though, for as well as Praeda and old Berjek Gripshod, and the brace of Vekken, there was now the looming figure of Amnon, former First Soldier of Khanaphes. Even in his simple white tunic he still looked like a warrior.
'Are you sure you're not coming with us, Miss Maker?' Berjek asked. 'What precisely am I to tell your uncle?'
'I've thought of that,' Che said, producing a folded and sealed letter. 'This will satisfy him. I'll send messengers when I can – if I can. Tell him not to worry about me.'
He huffed, and asked balefully, 'Any other impossible tasks?' After a moment he added, sadly, 'It's not worked out well here, has it?'
'Not so well, no,' she admitted. 'I have had my hand in that, I think. I'm sure I could have done more.' She thought of Petri Coggen, and knew that, of all of their losses, she could have prevented that death, had she not been so wrapped up in her own problems. I am sorry. There were so many people that she owed apologies to, and most would never hear them.
'Che, come back to us,' Praeda told her. 'If not now, then soon.'
Che shrugged, unwilling to commit herself. 'I will try. I can make no promises. I have a long road.'
Praeda glared at Thalric, over Che's shoulder. 'And you'd travel with this Wasp, rather than us?'
'Yes, I would.'
The other woman made a wry expression. 'Well, be safe.'
'And you.' After which, Che turned to the last two waiting to embark. They looked back at her from near-identical faces, dark and expressionless.
'What will you say?' she asked them.
Accius and Malius shared a moment of silent conference before Malius finally answered. 'That we cannot understand why you came here, but it involved no plot against Vek. That our cities are both enemies of the Empire. That…' She had the impression that Accius was prompting him before he went on. 'That there may be some cause for common ground between us. Perhaps.'
She took a deep breath. So little conceded, and yet see how far we've come! 'My uncle is a genuine man, and he does not wish another Vekken war. I know he will treat fairly with you. I know that you cannot take my word on that, but all I ask is that you keep an open mind.'
'That was humour?' Accius interposed unexpectedly. Caught unawares, Che stared at him in surprise.
'Open mind?' she realized at last. 'The Ant mindlink.' A smile forced its way unbidden to her lips. 'Humour, fair enough. Travel safely, both of you.'
'Do not fear for us,' Malius said, halfway between affront and reassurance. It was hard for Che to keep in mind how both of them had been present there beneath the earth, one in body, the other just in mind.
She watched them take ship, as the Spider-kinden crew cast off moorings and let the current take them out towards the Marsh channels without raising sail. Her own route would take them upriver as far as the Forest Alim, and further still.
'Have you actually any idea where we're going?' Thalric said.
'Oh, yes,' Che replied, 'every idea, but you're not going to like it. You won't be made very welcome.'
'That hardly narrows down the list of places I know,' he said drily.
'The Commonweal,' she said, remembering Tisamon's shade saying, She is amongst the Dragonflies. 'Tynisa is in the Commonweal. Feeling any reservations now?'
'No, that's good,' he said, surprising her. 'It's out of the way, and I feel the need to be invisible for a while. News travels more slowly in the Commonweal – although there is a single message that I must send first. Just a little unfinished business.' General Brugan retired to the desk in his study after a long day. The Khanaphir expedition had returned at last, or what was left of it. Detailed interrogations could wait, but the ranking officer had some plea for mitigation he wanted to make, sounding tiresomely technical. Other than that, Captain-Auxillian Hrathen was dead, which was no loss. The Scorpions of the Nem had been decimated, likewise, and half of Khanaphes had been sacked. How one sacked half a city was a mystery to General Brugan, but it suggested poor planning.