Salute the Dark

Five

‘It can’t really be just because of the girl, can it?’ Teornis asked. The Spider Aristos did not look at Nero as he asked the question, but purely because the artist was intent on a profile sketch of him just then. ‘After all, you didn’t exactly spend much time with her, before she set off on her own.’

‘She didn’t exactly spend much time on board ship,’ Nero pointed out.

Teornis spent a further moment in composition, the chitin-shard pen poised deftly between his fingers, then he scratched a few additional notes to a report he was sending on. He had already played host to two Fly-kinden couriers bringing document packets, and a third was anticipated soon. Their airship was passing over the isle of Kes even now, with the Ants’ metal-gleaming navies mustering below in preparation for war.

‘I had thought Fly courtship to be a fairly straightforward affair,’ the Spider said idly.

‘I’ve got no idea how they do things in Solarno – probably slap each other with fish or something. All mad in that city. Sure, in the hollows it’s simple enough,’ Nero remarked, meaning Egel and Merro. ‘That’s because it’s mostly arranged. Everything’s run by family there. That’s why I got out, and that’s why you find so many of my people away from home. Easier for us to live anywhere but directly under the noses of our own kind. Why, how’s it work with your people?’

‘I’ve no idea how they do things down in the gutter,’ Teornis said, with a dry imitation of the artist’s tone in his voice. ‘Amongst the Aristoi, however, it is a very delicate and intricate business. If a woman wishes a man’s companionship, he is allowed to discover it from some third party, but most often the woman merely waits for suitors, no mere man being considered important enough to attract her attention. Once his affections are engaged, the man is expected to approach the woman carefully, respectfully. There is a chain of social observances that he must perform: questions to be asked of her servants and friends, discreet giving of gifts through intermediaries, the scribing of poetry or the commissioning – as you must know – of artistic works for her.’

Nero nodded, making connections. ‘I didn’t realize I’d become part of some Spider fellow’s love games.’

‘A minor and preliminary part,’ Teornis said. ‘Then there comes the meeting with her closer court, perhaps a duel, a challenge made by some unimportant member of her cadre – the skill of that challenger varying, of course, in inverse proportion to her favour of the admirer’s suit. Then they will meet by her arrangement, on an occasion unknown in advance to him. She will evaluate him. If he has displayed sufficient wit, beauty, charm, whatever virtues she seeks in him, then he may gain further access to her household, to her chambers, finally to her body. If not, well, if he is lucky he will escape with his life and reputation, but that is not always the case. Wooing a Spider-kinden Arista is a perilous business for the unprepared.’

‘And if she’s made it known to him that she wants him, but he doesn’t want her?’ Nero asked, fascinated.

Teornis chuckled quietly. ‘Little man, his interests are of no importance in this ritual, save to explain why so many of the men of my people are also to be found living in the cities of others.’ In that revealing moment of frank humour, Nero almost liked him.

There was a respectful knock at the cabin door and, on Teornis’ invitation, one of the crew let a Fly-kinden messenger in. The woman was obviously used to serving Spiders, finding nothing unusual in seeing her target sitting for a portrait, and simply presented him with another wallet of documents. If she had flown herself ragged in meeting up with the airship her manner certainly did not show it.

‘Find her some victuals,’ Teornis ordered the crewman who had escorted her in. ‘I shall have returns for her to take away shortly.’

He unsealed the wallet carefully and stripped out the topmost scroll, reading down what Nero guessed was a summary of the most important points of the enclosed documents. Nothing in his face betrayed any reaction but, when he finally spoke, he announced, ‘It would seem that the diplomatic channels are closing.’

Nero said nothing, waiting for further exposition.

‘We sent ambassadors to the Wasp forces massing at Tark, and to Solarno as well. Now we have the response.’

Again, Nero waited. Teornis’ smile had become a hard line.

‘We have been told that all land north of Seldis is officially the Empire,’ Teornis said, ‘and that, if we interfere, then Seldis itself shall be invested in siege. My own efforts, it seems, have stalled them as far as they are willing to be stalled, and now they set about the business as Wasp-kinden are wont to do: with simple force. The Wasp Second Army has marched from Tark against Merro and Egel, and the Eighth sits in the Ant city still, waiting to strike if we venture outside our walls. Well, we are at war now, so we must expect such treatment.’ He paused a moment, perhaps evaluating how much Nero actually needed to know. ‘Our ambassadors to Solarno were killed, I see. They were seized as spies and executed. I am afraid that you are flying into a tempest, Master Nero. Therefore I hope you and your friend are strong enough to battle your way through.’

After Nero had gone, Teornis returned to the reports his agents had brought him. They were penned in elegant hands, a collection of polite nothings, niceties, social calendars and fashions. It took a true Spider-kinden Manipulus to pierce through the nothings and decode to the steel core of information within. It is all coming together, which meant that it was all falling apart. Teornis read and read.

I have to assume, he thought, that there will come a time when the coming-together and the falling-apart converge.

Distant news informed him that two Wasp armies were marching on Sarn and its allies, but he was barely interested in that. The Ants now had their chance: they would grasp it or fail. If the worst came, then the northern half of the Lowlands was expendable. That it would complicate the defence of Collegium was the only way in which it mattered to him. Collegium he wished to keep free. Its value as a grateful tool of the Spiderlands was too high to neglect. He had not gone so far to lift the siege the previous year, just to have the Wasps taking the place now.

Even if it lost eventually, Sarn would occupy its Wasp tormentors for many tendays before they occupied it, and after Sarn the mopping-up of the so-called Ancient League would take even longer. Teornis was meanwhile more concerned about local conditions.

The Wasp army that had left Tark so recently had set course directly for the Fly warrens of Merro and Egel. True to form the Fly-kinden had surrendered without even drawing a blade, swearing fealty to the Empire from a distance of many miles, just as they would happily swear to the Spiderlands or the Tarkesh or whoever else came against them. Such fealty would, of course, last only as long as there was sufficient strength to enforce it, but the Wasp possession of the two interconnected Fly warrens was a fact he had to live with.

From Egel and Merro the going got tougher for the Empire as their supply lines became increasingly stretched, by then conveniently close to the Spiderlands border and wanting but a knife to cut them. Beyond the Fly-kinden territories was the island city-state of Kes, a formidable investment for any besieger, especially with the new weapons that the Kessen had taken away from Sarn. Down the coast from Kes was the Felyal, whose Mantis-kinden were still bloody-handed from their destruction of the Imperial Fourth.

The imperial strategists must surely have a plan for Kes and for the Mantids, but as yet Teornis’ agents had not uncovered it. He suspected that the general of this latest army was keeping it mostly within his head, where it could not be easily spied upon.

There was also the problem of the fortified garrison that the Wasps had left north of Seldis, and the Eighth Army waiting in nearby Tark. The Spiders still controlled the sea, as the landlocked imperials did not seem to recognize how useful it might be as a means of attack down the coast, but if Teornis wanted to move soldiers north by land to support the Lowlands, then he would have to fight them for every inch of ground.

Well, it may come to that, he decided. His family, the Aldanrael, was already gathering its allies and forces in Seldis and Everis. House-guards from a dozen of the noble Aristoi families were jostling shoulders in the streets and challenging each other to duels, whilst mercenary and Satrapy companies were either shipped in or marched up the Silk Road past Siennis. More than half of the contributions had been made by Spider families that would have marked the Aldanrael down as their bitter foes not long ago. The imperial capture of Solarno had damaged Spider pride, and Teornis was making good use of the backlash.

Solarno, of course: another angle to consider. Solarno, the renegade city that declined to be part of the Spiderlands, instead enmeshing itself into the provincial politics around the watery expanse of the Exalsee. Easy to see why the Wasps had thought they could take it, although, as in so many things, they failed to understand. Solarno was a renegade, yes, but it was the Spider-kindens’ own pet renegade. It was the little political backwater where a Spider Aristos could go and paddle about, and not worry too much about who they upset or fret over any repercussions. It was the manipulus’ seaside resort. A great many influential families had a fondness for Solarno.

Not so the Aldanrael, but the family had seen just how useful a banner the invasion of Solarno would provide. Teornis thought about the Fly girl, Taki, how dreadfully serious and earnest she was. Well, good luck to her. Whether she liberated the city or if not, either outcome would serve.

He turned to the next report, from an agent within Kes, and tried to measure how long it would be before the Wasps were, one way or another, at the gates of Collegium.

Subterfuge and distraction. That was the Solarnese game, of course: the very board on which he had just placed his ignorant agents. Nero seemed a capable, if uninspired, choice and Teornis always preferred Fly-kinden tools where Spiders could not be risked. The aviatrix, though, was an unknown quantity. She could be dangerous. She could also be invaluable. I hope she’s as good as she thinks she is. His mind focused on Taki, already far ahead of his airship in her refurbished flier. Save your city if you can, girl, he thought, but, above all, give the Wasps something still more to think of. If you can manage that, then let Solarno burn to the ground for all I care.

Taki made the flight from Seldis to Porta Mavralis by coasting on the updraughts above the Silk Road that skirted the edge of the Dryclaw. From there her last chute wound the engine enough to bring her into the Mavralis airfield.

Nero would be following by whatever means he could. He had even exacted from her two-thirds of a promise to stay there until he joined her.

‘Just wait for me,’ he had requested her. ‘I won’t be long. You don’t want to go off half-ready, so why not taste the air, scout about, but wait for me.’

She had folded her arms. ‘If I learn that someone needs me back home, then I’m going. If Solarno needs me, or my friends need me.’ Seeing his pained expression, she had then relented a little. ‘But other than that, I’ll wait – so long as you don’t take too long catching me up.’ She regarded him dubiously. ‘I’m going to have to ask, though, why do you even care? It isn’t your fight, so why are you even here?’

And his smile had gone from brash to self-mocking to brash again. ‘Because I like you, girl, why else?’ A bald, knuckle-faced man twice her age, and not even of her profession.

She was still trying to work out what she thought of that. Still, he might be useful back in Solarno, if she could judge from how swiftly he had won over Domina Genissa, her previous employer.

The shock of the imperial invasion was still resounding through Porta Mavralis. Trade all about the Exalsee had been thrown into chaos, with the Wasps still trying to clench their fist on the city. They were turning most ships away from Solarno docks, impounding some, allowing a few others to trade freely, all decided apparently at random. Listening to this news, Taki formed the opinion that the Wasps themselves were divided, different officers ordering different strategies, and she further understood that the Crystal Standard party was still trying to assert itself as the new master of Solarno against the resistance of all the rival factions. There would be a reckoning for that pack of traitors, she knew, when they found out what kind of venomous creatures they had given their city over to.

Teornis had not sent her off with no help at all. He had given her a sealed introduction to his chief agent in Mavralis, and Taki met with her on the second day after her arrival: a lean, sly-looking Spider woman named Odyssa.

‘Refugees are still fleeing Solarno,’ the spy explained. ‘There’s almost a quarter of the Path of Jade’s members of the Corta Lucidi set up here in Mavralis, claiming to be a government in exile. Others have dispersed further around the Exalsee, to Princep Exilla, Ostrander, Diroveshni and Chasme. The Wasps are still fighting to lock down the streets and gain total control of the city. Their colonel has not even been able to proclaim himself governor and four or five of the top Crystal Standard collaborators are dead.’

‘By whose hand?’

‘Nobody knows,’ the Spider replied. Odyssa’s smile said that she had her own thoughts. ‘There’s enough general mistrust, though, that Wasp assassins are not so far from people’s thoughts.’

‘Good.’ Let them continue to fight amongst themselves, especially before their prize is secure. ‘I need to find out where certain individuals have gone, if you can help me.’

‘My Lord-Martial does not prohibit it, so give me a list of them and I will see what I can uncover.’ Odyssa slid a blank scroll over to her, with an inkpot and chitin quill balanced on it.

They may be all dead, Taki thought. Some of them will surely be dead. She was thinking of her fellows, her peers, the fighting pilots of Solarno and the Exalsee. My brothers and sisters of the air, my glorious enemies and closest friends. ‘What else are you allowed to give me,’ she asked, ‘or is it just information?’

‘By no means, for my Lord-Martial is not so parsimonious,’ Odyssa replied. ‘I myself am staying at the Cartel-House of the Craesandral family. Do you want to know who my fellow guests are there?’

Taki ground her teeth. ‘Forgive me, Bella Odyssa, but I am a pilot, not a game-player. My city is under the yoke, so please just say what you mean.’

Odyssa’s responding glance was pitying but Taki could live with that. ‘I have twenty Craesandral house-guards as company, and two hundred mercenaries from Iak.’

Taki blinked. ‘You will…?’

‘Make your plans, little one, and I shall help you as I may. When the time comes for blood-letting on the streets of Solarno, we shall be with you.’

Two hundred and twenty. Odyssa looked very pleased with herself but Taki was already seeing in her mind the mighty imperial airship Starnest and the hundreds of Wasp soldiers descending from it. And how many friends are left in Solarno that will fight? She needed her friends, her fellow pilots, and she needed a plan.

And she needed someone she could trust to go into Solarno on her behalf, and that someone was not Odyssa.

It would have to be Nero.