Dragonfly Falling

Thirty-Three

They made camp that evening in a half-burned Wayhouse, which seemed to Salma like a physical mirror to his own thoughts of late. There were a dozen charred corpses within that they hauled out and burned properly outside. It seemed likely that the destruction was Wasp work, for the Way Brothers kept rest-houses all over the Lowlands, and they turned nobody away and maintained only peace within their walls. Many a bandit had used them as a place of refuge, so they were seldom robbed or attacked by thieves either. The Wasps obviously had no such traditions, and Salma found it easy to imagine a scouting or foraging party descending on the place, killing, looting and then setting a half-hearted fire as they left. There was a Wasp army on the long road to Sarn, north of them, and Wasp soldiers were neither the most disciplined nor the most restrained.

It had pushed him to a decision, and before dusk he had lit some torches, and then stood on Sfayot’s wagon to address his followers.

They had gained well over four dozen since the defence of the village, so that Salma now had to pause before matching a name to a face for many of them. There were villagers that had actually followed after them, stout young men and women looking for something more than subsistence farming. Then there was the Fly-kinden engineer, and her whole extended family, who had fled Helleron before the Wasps seized it; the five Sarnesh crossbowmen who must have been deserters from some mercenary company; a lean old Spider-kinden archer and hunter who went on ahead each morning to stalk game; a Moth woman with a haunted face who had not given her name or said a single word to anyone since joining them.

He glanced at Nero, who nodded encouragingly, though the Fly did not know what he was going to say.

Salma was not entirely sure of that himself. What scared him was that they were now all listening, waiting for it. He looked from face to face: at the Fly gangers still clustered together, the escaped slaves, the bandits, their leader Phalmes with his arm about Sfayot’s eldest. The pair had slept together the night after the defence of the village, but Sfayot himself had not seemed to mind. ‘He’s strong that one, in lots of ways,’ the Roach-kinden had said of Phalmes. ‘She could do worse for a while.’

‘You’ve followed me this far,’ Salma began to address them. ‘I didn’t ask you to. I didn’t ask to be your guide or your leader, but here we are, all of us, and it seems to me we cannot go on like this. We cannot just drift aimlessly and finally end up beached somewhere not of our choosing. We need direction. Thus far you have looked to me for that. So from now, if you will let me, I will accept the mantle you have offered. I will offer you leadership, purpose and direction. Let me tell you what direction I would be taking you, though. Then you may not wish to continue with me, but we will see.’

He left a pause there. How did this come about? He had no answer but, as he said, here they all were.

‘Sfayot,’ Salma indicated, and the Roach-kinden man nodded. ‘If we came across more of your family, you would want to help them wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course,’ the Roach said. ‘No question.’

‘Of course,’ Salma echoed, ‘because they’re your family. We all understand that. So tell me. ’ He looked over at the Fly youths and singled one out. ‘Chefre, if we ran into more of your gang, you’d want to look after them, surely?’

She nodded cautiously, saying nothing. They were close-mouthed, that lot.

‘You would,’ Salma confirmed, ‘because there are ties and obligations. That is what makes us who we are. And Phalmes, I have spoken to you. I feel I know you. You cannot escape who you are or where you come from. If we met a Mynan on the road, a man of your city, you would aid him. You would have done so even before you fell in with us. Can you deny it?’

‘I cannot, nor would I,’ Phalmes said clearly, though wondering where this was going.

‘Family,’ Salma stressed for them. ‘Family is family, whether it’s blood, or brotherhood, or citizenship, or even kinden. And we look after our family, and they look after us. I used to think that family was a Commonweal thing, and that only my kinden really understood it. But that was just because I did not understand what held the Lowlands together. Family.’

He paused, bracing himself for the mental leap he would have to make.

‘We are all part of the largest family in the Lowlands, and it is a family that grows larger every day. It was never small, but it has never been as large as it is now. That family is the dispossessed, the victims, the cast aside, the ill-used. Look at us all, from different lands and different cities, different trades and races, and yet we are all family, and there are thousands of brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, children who are our family, and who now need our help. Our help against the men who would do this to them.’ His sweeping gesture took in the burned Wayhouse, the cremation pyre. ‘They are our enemies. Let us become theirs.’

‘Just what are you talking about?’ Phalmes demanded. ‘We can’t exactly take on a Wasp army!’

‘Can’t we?’ Salma said, and the certainty in his voice shook them. ‘We can attack their scouts, take their supplies, aid their victims. We can strip the land so they go hungry. We can nip at them and draw a tiny bead of blood, a hundred ways. We can force them to change their plans, because of us: divide their forces, hesitate, falter. Or that is what we shall do if you follow me. We can take the war to them, without ever meeting them on the battlefield.’

Some of them were aghast at the idea, some were keen, most were simply bewildered. ‘I shall give you tonight to consider all I’ve said,’ he told them. ‘Anyone who wishes to find their own path is free to do so. Those who are still with me in the morning will have cast their lots in with me. In the Commonweal there are men called Mercers who ride the roads and keep them safe. Those who stay with me shall become my new Mercers.’

And he turned from them and headed for the Wayhouse. The others had made their camp in and around the broken building, and those that wished to go could do so without feeling that he was watching them.

Salma slept easily that night. He had met the burden of his responsibility, and his conscience was clear.

When he awoke it seemed very quiet beyond the drape. He knew what that must mean. He rose and dressed slowly, then took up his staff. Finally, he pushed the drape aside with the point of the staff and went out into the stark dawn light.

They were all there. Not one of them had gone. More, they had been joined by someone new.

She was there, radiant with her own light even in the sunlight, glowing with rainbows, and gazing only at him. Grief in Chains and Aagen’s Joy — and who knew what other names she had gone by — had come for him.

He could only imagine how it had seemed to Phalmes and the others, this vision striding in with the first rays of dawn — a sorceress, a mirage, and here for Salma only. It must have seemed like a sign for them, the final augur in his favour.

As she approached him now, he felt blinded by her beauty. Her lightest touch on his arm thrilled him. ‘I’ve found you at last,’ she said.

‘How?’ he asked.

‘You came so far for me,’ she whispered. ‘How could I do any less for the one I love?’

Food was arriving, in cartloads, in baskets, in handfuls. Men and women who had tilled their own land, or the land of those that had owned them, were heading out now daily to reap vacant fields. Children swarmed through abandoned orchards like locusts. Farmhouses were raided with the thoroughness of the truly hungry. When they found the hastily abandoned country seats of the rich in their isolated estates, they climbed the walls and broke down the gates, coming back with armfuls of expensive delicacies or coal for the fires. Traders and peddlers threshed and ground, while artisans built the clay ovens to make bread. Hunters came back dragging their kills or driving errant livestock.

Nobody was eating well but nobody was starving, and Salma could have asked for no more.

‘So what’s your next move, lad?’ Nero asked him.

‘Our next move is to move, then to keep moving,’ Salma said. ‘Otherwise we’ll exhaust what’s around us. We’re still just scavenging, though on a greater scale. The bulk of these non-combatants need to find sanctuary, and Sarn or Collegium remain our best chances.’ He watched the woman Grief in Chains as she moved through the people. She spoke to few of them, barely even acknowledged them, but her shining presence changed them as she passed. Just looking at her brought a smile to Salma’s lips, and he knew it would remain the same however dark the times became.

She called herself ‘Prized of Dragons’ now.

‘News has been short from westwards,’ Nero reminded him. ‘And that army north of us can only be heading for Sarn.’

Salma nodded. ‘And yet what option do we have?’ He looked at his hands. It was something Stenwold did, when he had difficult decisions to make. ‘Sfayot! Phalmes! I need to speak to you!’ he called out.

The Roach and the Mynan came over, and it was clear that both of them had been expecting something from him for a while.

‘We’re moving, tomorrow,’ Salma informed them. ‘Sfayot, you must take the needy onwards, at your own pace, gathering and foraging as you go.’

‘Of course,’ the Roach agreed.

‘If scouts from the Empire spot you, they’ll see no more than refugees on the move.’

‘And we can defend ourselves, if we have to,’ Sfayot added. ‘And I take it you two will be campaigning, yes?’

‘It’s about time we drew our swords,’ Phalmes agreed. ‘Where are we bound?’

‘I want to see what’s happening north of us. We’ll probe the Wasp army, see what we can learn, and what good we can do,’ Salma explained. ‘But information first, action later.’

Phalmes nodded, his expression suggesting that he had no doubt about the latter. ‘And your girl?’

Salma faltered for a moment. ‘I had thought she would stay with Sfayot.’

‘She can close wounds with her bare hands,’ Phalmes pointed out. ‘We’ve all seen it, and Butterfly-kinden Art is like nothing else. Besides, after all the ground she’s covered, do you think she’ll agree to stay behind?’

‘True,’ Salma realized, knowing that he had no right to hide her away while he put himself in danger.

‘As for you,’ Salma turned to Nero, ‘I have a special task.’

‘I’m one of your soldiers now, am I?’ the Fly asked.

‘As good as, yes,’ said Salma. ‘But I want you to go to Collegium.’

Nero nodded slowly. ‘It’s been a while, but I can still find my way there.’

‘Find Stenwold, or at least get word to him. Let him know what I’m doing.’ After a moment he added, ‘And tell him about Totho, too. He’ll want to know.’

They entered his tent carefully and, from his hidden vantage point, Thalric saw the brief glint of steel as they pushed aside the flap.

There was a moment’s pause and then he stepped up behind them, startling the two soldiers Daklan and Haroc had brought with them. ‘Were you looking for me?’ Thalric asked.

Daklan and Haroc came back out of his tent quickly. They had come quietly and without armour to catch him asleep. He thought it possible they might regret that.

‘Ah, Major Thalric,’ Daklan began.

‘You had a message for me, at this hour?’ Thalric prompted.

‘Of sorts. I have received orders from Capitas, Major, which concern you.’

Thalric nodded. It was no more than he had anticipated. ‘Perhaps you want to reveal them, Major Daklan?’

Daklan glanced at the Vekken tents all around them. ‘I think we may have some grounds for argument shortly, Major, and I would hate for our allies to see officers of the Empire in disagreement. Perhaps we should step off beyond the sentries.’

‘Into the dark, you mean?’ Thalric clarified.

‘There’s a moon. Or are you frightened of the dark, Major Thalric?’

He smiled at that, watching the two soldiers stand uncertainly to one side, and Haroc and Daklan step apart a little, anticipating his move.

But of course they were right. A brawl between Wasp officers would damage the Empire’s reputation with the Vekken, and Collegium had not fallen yet.

He felt suddenly very cold, as though his life was already bleeding away.

‘My loyalty is always to the Empire,’ he said softly. ‘If the Empire truly requires this, then who am I to put my own interests before those of my Emperor?’

‘Very patriotic,’ said Daklan, who did not believe him, but without another word Thalric turned and headed towards the outer edge of the Vekken camp, leaving them to follow.

He stopped only when they were barely still in sight of the camp lanterns. There was enough moon to see the shapes of Daklan and Haroc, who held a sword in his hand now instead of a scroll. The two soldiers trailed behind, obviously trying not to hear anything that might prove bad for them.

‘I admire your resolution, Thalric,’ Daklan said, tensely, expecting a trick. Thalric saw clearly that, had his name been on the death-list, Daklan would not go so quietly.

‘I have served the Empire all my life,’ Thalric said. ‘In its service I have done deeds that, if I had done them in my own name, would have driven me mad. Only by knowing they were for the greater good could I drive myself to accomplish them.’ He fixed Daklan with a stare that made the man shift uncomfortably. ‘I have burned books and executed friends, tortured women and killed children, all in the Empire’s name. What would I be if, when my own life came before that same judge, I was to reject the Empire’s will and obey it no longer?’

Daklan shifted uncomfortably. ‘This isn’t personal, Major. I won’t pretend that I’m fond of you, but orders are orders.’

‘Of course they are.’

‘You are to leave the service of the Rekef, and as suddenly as possible — their exact wording. You know what that means,’ Daklan said. Thalric saw his teeth white in the moonlight as he grinned.

‘Can I ask why?’ Thalric said. ‘If you know.’

‘I know well enough. The orders are from General Maxin. That’s a name you must recognize.’

‘He’s your patron?’

‘I plan to do well by him,’ Daklan confirmed. ‘There are changes happening in the Rekef, changes at the top, but the ripples come down to lowly soldiers like us. It’s known that you’re General Reiner’s man.’

‘I am the Emperor’s man.’

‘The Emperor doesn’t give a curse, Thalric. You’re Reiner’s man, and Maxin is having a little cull of Reiner’s people just now. You’re a major, so you’re important enough to get noticed, in all the wrong ways.’

‘I don’t think General Reiner has any love for me,’ stated Thalric sadly.

‘Obviously not, or he’d have protected you,’ Daklan agreed. ‘You’re big enough to make the list, but small enough to be sacrificed. Bad luck, Major Thalric. Now, I’ve got sleep to catch up on, so let’s put you out of your misery.’

Daklan was tense again, expecting an explosion of anger or desperation, but Thalric carefully lowered himself to his knees.

I have always served the Empire, so let this be my last service. And yet even as he thought this, even as Haroc stepped over with hand raised, something began turning deep inside him. This was the will of the Empire? Simply because some distant general was grabbing for power? Because the Rekef was tearing at itself? The Emperor would never condone this if he knew.

He heard the crunch of Haroc’s sandals on the ground right behind him.

How does this serve the Empire? But, above and beyond this plaintive call, he heard a voice he had almost forgotten cry out How does this serve me?

Cut off, run out, left hanging, abandoned to the butchers — and something stirred within him that had been fettered for decades.

I want to live.

He twisted, so that Haroc’s sting scorched the side of his face rather than caving in the back of his head. Almost distantly, he felt his own hand flare with fiery energy, and saw one of the soldiers immediately arch backwards. Daklan was running forward with drawn blade, furious at being fooled. Thalric staggered upright, smashing Haroc across the face with his elbow. The man moved with the blow, though, and then his sword lashed across Thalric’s side, grating against the copperweave mail beneath his tunic that once again saved his life.

Thalric let his wings flare open, lifting him up, intending only to get away from here. Haroc was on him, grappling with him in the air, and a moment later the two of them crashed to earth with Haroc on top.

‘Kill him!’ Daklan was shouting now, heedless of the Ants within earshot. ‘Kill the bastard!’

Thalric struck Haroc still harder across the side of the head, but the lean man ignored it, slamming his own fist into the seared skin of Thalric’s face, and then getting a hand on his throat, the other hand raised with palm open.

‘Goodbye, Major,’ he grunted — and then Daklan screamed in pain and Haroc’s head whipped round.

Thalric was bringing his own hand up already, while Haroc’s palm was now pointing back the way they came. Energy spat from it and Thalric heard a woman cry out.

He loosed his own sting, and Haroc was already twisting to avoid it, but the blast caught him across the shoulder and chest, throwing him off Thalric, who now staggered to his feet.

The last soldier was running for him, casting a bolt of energy that sizzled over his head. With sick regret Thalric shot him directly in the chest, then watched him pitch over, roll once and lie still.

Daklan was down, trying to prop himself up with one hand, the other one reaching round for the knife buried in his back. Beside him, Lorica the halfbreed lay curled up into a ball, after Haroc had blasted her in the stomach.

Thalric was about to turn back to finish Haroc, but Daklan was suddenly on his feet, making a jagged, staggering run with sword extended. Thalric swayed to one side, reaching for the sword and letting Daklan’s momentum spin him round. Then he saw Haroc standing, hand extended, and Thalric let go of Daklan to launch a desperate shot at him. Haroc loosed his sting at the same time.

Haroc’s head snapped back, his face a blasted ruin. His own bolt passed between Daklan and Thalric, burning them both, and then Daklan’s sword pierced the copper-weave and sliced into Thalric’s side.

He gasped in agony and dropped to his knees. This was bad. He had suffered enough wounds to know this was a bad one. If Daklan had drawn the sword from his flesh then there would be more blood than he could have stanched, but Daklan was now stumbling away, loose-handed, then falling. Thalric saw a shudder overtake him before Lorica’s knife-blow finally did its work.

Beyond Daklan, he could hear Lorica’s quiet whimpering.

He himself was hurt, hurt enough to die, without some help soon.

But of course, there would be no help, because the Empire had put him on a death-list. He certainly could not seek refuge with the Vekken for, to his pain-racked mind, they were the Empire near enough.

He began to crawl towards Lorica. Haroc’s shot had been a solid one and Thalric guessed she must be on the very brink of death herself. His hand touched her ankle, then worked its way up until he could grasp her hand.

She could not speak, and he himself had nothing to say, but despite his own suffering he clung to her until her sobbing stopped and she relaxed into the calmness of death, because Thalric had always looked after his subordinates whenever he could.

When she was silent, the whole world was silent. The sleeping Ant camp made not a sound. Thalric released Lorica’s cooling hand. He was breathing in fractional stages, each one a burning ruin.

Dying, thought Thalric, and then the fierce thought, No! He would not surrender to this. He would fight. He would fight. He would.

He levered himself to his elbows, rolled onto his good side, and then he gave a short, retching cry as he got to his knees. The world loomed dark for a moment, but he clung to consciousness. If he lost it now, it would be for ever.

Have to fight!

He crawled over to Daklan, leant on the knife-hilt to drive it another inch further into the man, hissing with spite. Now comes the hard part.

He took the hilt of the sword still lodged in him and closed his eyes. It took him three long breaths to begin.

It should be done slowly, he knew. With a strangled gasp he dragged the blade from his own side, feeling the motion far too deep. The darkness clawed for him again as he clasped one hand to his blood-slick flesh. He leant heavily on Daklan’s corpse once again, fighting for every moment.

From the uneven tear in the other man’s tunic he began to rip cloth in long, ragged strips. The idea of pulling a binding tight made him sick with weakness. Instead he awkwardly stuffed cloth in the jagged torn gash in his mail, feeling the fabric grow instantly warm and sopping with blood. Thalric just kept tearing and stuffing until the oozing blood had begun to cake and set, making the whole side of his body a grimy clotting mask. Then he sat back and waited for his shaking to stop.

Have to fight. He was Thalric the spymaster. He had plans to make. He was never without a scheme. He needed to find somewhere to hide. Somewhere to die?

Lurching drunkenly to his feet he instantly doubled over about the wound, then began stumbling away, no clear direction or destination, just away into the night.

Thalric’s mind faded in and out, so that the night became a series of brief moments of lucidity amidst constant descents into chaos. Every so often, like now, he had to stop to remember simple things like his name, or what he was doing, or why his side was running with blood.

He could not tell how far he had gone, but he did not dare look back in case he saw the bodies of Lorica and the others still clearly in sight.

The night was turning grey to the east, now. My last day, do you think? He had been making a shambling progress on knees and one hand, hunched over the other hand pressed to his side, just managing a crippled-insect pace across the dusty terrain.

Betrayed. He had known it would happen eventually, because he lived in a world of betrayal. He had been ready to kill his mentor, poor Ulther, after all, and lied to himself that it was for the Empire’s good. Am I any better than Daklan, for all my protestations? Worse, perhaps. At least Daklan had accepted the true darkness of what he did, while Thalric had blithely convinced himself that he was still a loyal servant of the Empire, and not just the tool of some faction.

He stumbled, and the wound flared in his side, and for a moment he could not breathe. Inside him, something howled for his lost Empire, like a child ripped from its parents. Where did I go wrong? What can I do to make them take me back?

But it was too late for that. There was only one thing the Empire wanted from him, and he would oblige it shortly and settle his account. All he had accomplished through his conscientious loyalty was to make himself expendable, and ultimately be expended.

He did not feel he had the motivation to get up again. He had always been a tough and leathery creature, and he would spend a long time over dying. He felt he deserved it.

But there were footsteps approaching, cautiously. No doubt the Vekken had tracked him. They might put him out of his misery, or take him back and try to save him. He wanted neither option.

Thalric lifted his head to see who was coming. He saw booted feet, shimmering blue-green greaves and the hem of a cloak.

With a great groan he fell onto his back, staring upwards, his gaze following the armoured lines until he came to her face. The sight of it stripped raw something in his mind, something branded into his memory, never to be forgotten. He heard a wordless, ragged cry, and knew the voice was his own.

Fate, he realized, had truly found a fitting end for him.

‘I’ve found you at last,’ said Felise Mienn. That was the last thing Thalric heard for some time.

A pain in his hands woke him, shooting cramps that let Thalric know his clenched fists were bound shut so that he could not use his sting.

Everything seemed unexpectedly, appallingly bright. He had been trying to find somewhere to hide. Now there was sun so dazzling he could hardly open his eyes. Though his hands were bound, his arms were free, but he could barely lift them. He tried to sit up,

The stitches now inserted in his side pulled alarmingly, and he remembered.

Ah yes, Daklan. Daklan and his far-distant general, and the Empire.

He could barely even remember the name of the general who had ordered his death. It hardly mattered, what with so many generals and so many agendas.

Forcing his eyes open, he saw that he was not alone. He lay in a room that had been recently looted. The shutters were torn from the windows, a chest at the foot of his bed had been smashed open, and the wooden panelling had even been ripped off one wall. The design was Beetle-kinden, and he guessed that it was some farmhouse within sight of Collegium that Vekken soldiers had gone over whilst encircling that city. The man sitting beside the bed was no Beetle but a Spider-kinden with long greying hair, wearing a Beetle robe that was smeared with blood.

‘Who?’ His voice was a dismal croak. ‘Who are you?’

The Spider smiled, his features lined with a weary humour. ‘You have a remarkable constitution, Master Thalric. I don’t think many people in your position would even be breathing, let alone talking.’

‘You. know my name, but who are you?’

‘My principal knows your name, and she’s been most anxious to meet you. However, she wanted me to get you in a state where you would be fit to meet her.’

‘Curse you!’ With a supreme effort, Thalric forced himself into a sitting position. He saw a flicker of surprise in the man’s face. ‘Tell me who you are!’

‘My name is Destrachis, Master Thalric, but does it mean anything? No? Are you happier now? Or let me elaborate: I am a traveller, something of an opportunist, a scholar, and a doctor of medicine, which is why you are even in a position to ask these questions.’ Destrachis stood. ‘You’ll be leaving soon, when you’re strong enough to walk. A day or two, who knows? You are remarkably resilient, and I see from the patchwork you’ve made of your skin that this is hardly the first time you’ve been wounded, although perhaps the worst.’

Thalric hissed in rage. ‘Tell me,’ he demanded, ‘what is going on.’

Destrachis, pausing at the door, smiled back at him. ‘She wants you to run, Master Thalric. She wants to feel her victory over you. She wants you dead, but she wants you to appreciate just why — and by whose agency — your death will occur. I can’t claim to understand it myself, but she wants satisfaction, and skewering a sick man while he’s dying on the ground is not apparently very satisfying. So, after chasing you all the way across the Lowlands, she ordered me to make you well enough to run again. Perhaps that makes some sense to an imperial mind?’

‘The Empire and I have parted company,’ Thalric muttered. ‘But she.?’

‘Her name is Felise Mienn,’ the Spider informed him. ‘A Dragonfly-kinden noblewoman. I have no idea why she hates you quite this much.’

Thalric slumped back heavily in the bed, feeling his strength drain away all at once at the very sound of that name. She had been hunting him. All this time, she had been hunting him, and he had never been aware.

The Commonweal during the Twelve-Year War. when the Rekef Outlander agents such as himself were moving ahead of the army, disrupting any resistance the Dragonfly-kinden could mount: raids, sabotage, rumours.

And assassination — dark deeds that he had performed gladly, knowing that the impenetrable shield of the imperial will kept him safe from guilt or blame.

‘I killed her children,’ he recalled hoarsely. ‘And I made her watch.’

‘Yes, that would do it,’ Destrachis said, quite unmoved by the thought, and left him there to reflect.