Seal of the Worm

Twenty-Six

‘What are they?’ Tynan demanded. He was looking red-eyed after being torn from his bed at midnight and put through a battle that nobody really understood. His officers around him looked worse, though, and the oldest of them was ten years his junior. Oski himself felt about a hundred.

‘General,’ he said, ‘we have no idea, but we basically can’t contain them. That armour’s so strong some of the men thought they were automotives or something. The bastards go where they want, when they want. We’ve lost most of our pissing artillery at the harbour, sir – just gone – and they’re using it on us, you can believe me. They’re not slow with the Aptitude.’

‘They’re Spiderlands troops, sir?’ one of the army majors asked.

‘If the Spiderlands had that, why didn’t they use it when we were still . . .’ another snapped back, and then faltered into silence under Tynan’s glower.

‘Sentinels have proven effective as mobile artillery, and are just about the only things that will keep the creatures back, but we only have about seven left. We’ve lost three overnight,’ Oski went on. ‘We have the air, still. We can drop Airborne wherever we want, if only they could accomplish much when they got there. The other troops – the buggers that look like Spiders or Grasshoppers or whatnot – they’re not shot-proof. But now the Tseni have landed several hundred repeating crossbows and snapbows at the docks and, wherever we go, we’re getting bolts coming at us.’

‘Sir.’ A lieutenant had finished marking up a map of Collegium with the latest scouts’ reports and now stepped back for Tynan to look over his work.

‘They’ve slowed up a lot,’ the general noted.

‘Yes, sir,’ the lieutenant agreed. ‘Scouts say they seem to be working to a plan, taking key points – the College, market squares, workshops – and then holding them. We’ve now lost –’ he actually took a breath as though the news was just catching up to him – ‘almost half the city, it looks like, sir.’

‘We just can’t keep them back or bottle them up or anything,’ Oski commented wonderingly. ‘They’re real Sentinels, sir, the old heavy infantry – only like I never saw. If we’d had lads like that, we’d not have disbanded them.’

‘“Stone armour,”’ Tynan threw at him.

‘Sir, you didn’t see.’

‘What’s the latest word on the Ants – not the Tseni, the Ants outside the walls?’

A captain who had been waiting patiently for just this moment stepped forwards. ‘Sir, they’re moving in, but they’re not storming the walls just yet. Sarnesh and Vekken both, they’ve approached to just outside the range of the wall engines.’

‘What are they waiting for?’ Tynan murmured.

‘Morning.’ It was the first thing Vrakir had said since he arrived, standing at the back like a pariah, and yet the only man who didn’t look drawn and pale with fatigue.

Tynan glared at him. ‘If they’d wanted the walls they could have had them by now. We’ve not had the men to keep them back. Someone’s playing games. Besides, at least when morning comes, we can see properly what we’re doing.’ It had become plain that darkness was no encumbrance to any of these invaders. ‘And the locals are just sitting tight, too. No taking to the streets, no throwing themselves at our stings and snapbows. Precious little welcoming of their liberators, as far as that goes, which suggests that they don’t know what the pits the creatures are, either.’

‘They couldn’t be . . . them, could they, sir?’ Oski asked hesitantly. Tynan stared blankly at him, and he added, ‘You know, from the earth. Those villages . . . and when that whole street went . . .’

Tynan grimaced. ‘They’ve changed tactics, if so. We can’t know for sure, but my gut says no.’

‘Sir,’ the lieutenant in charge of scouts put in. ‘Reports say the Tseni are doing a lot of house-to-house, speaking to the locals.’

‘Familiar faces,’ Tynan finished for him. ‘Makes sense. I don’t know: maybe there is some far corner of the Spiderlands where they grow these kinden. How would we know?’ He did not sound convinced. ‘For now, we need better barricades. Redeploy the Sentinels here, and here –’ pointing out spots on the map – ‘Major Oski, artillery to support, here, here . . . We need to draw a line, to secure at least part of the city. You say we can’t stop them? Find a way. Caltrops, explosives, bring houses down on them, whatever it takes.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Oski said, without a great deal of hope in his voice.

‘Sir!’ A soldier skidded in, one arm bound up in bandages already leaking blood. Any of the lightly wounded who could still fly were running word between Tynan and his officers. ‘Messenger, sir.’

‘Well, out with it.’

‘Sir, I mean a messenger from the enemy.’

The room went silent. Tynan took a deep breath.

‘And what power does this messenger purport to bear word from, soldier?’

‘War Master Stenwold Maker, sir.’

All eyes were on the general now. The name, the dead man’s name, was like another presence in the room.

‘And what,’ Tynan asked at last, ‘does War Master Stenwold Maker have to say?’

‘That he wishes to meet with you. That he has an offer for you and the Second, sir.’

Oski was watching his superior’s face carefully, and he saw the slight quirk of the man’s mouth, a bleak moment of something close to humour.

‘I’ll bet he does,’ said Tynan quietly and, against the wave of objections that it must be a trap, that he should send someone else or nobody at all, he raised his hands for quiet.

‘Where and when?’ he asked.

They met after the eastern sky had greyed towards a sullen, red dawn, less of a promise of another day than a threat. The venue was a market square, now clear of stalls, and of bodies, too. Imperial scouts could not swear that it rested quite on the boundary between ‘what we have lost’ and ‘what we have yet to lose’, but it was close. Tynan’s troops had seized every house on his side, turfed the locals out onto the street, put soldiers at each window. There was a Sentinel a street away and some Farsphex ready to launch.

When he stepped out into that grey light, into that open space, he did so alone.

The enemy had set out lanterns, or some sort of globes that would pass for such – half a dozen bruise-coloured lamps that gave the square the air of some malevolent Inapt festival.

A single figure had broken from the far side of the square, striding forwards like Tynan’s reflection. Behind him, the windows did not throng with troops, but with citizens, those whose homes overlooked the square – dark Beetle faces of men and women and children, wide-eyed, fearful. They don’t know if they’re being liberated or invaded, Tynan decided.

His opposite number was not familiar: a Beetle by his frame, certainly, but clad in such armour that Tynan had never seen, looking as though it had been grown more than made. Proof against a snapbow, though? It did not seem of a heft and bulk to match the shock troops that his men had faced so far. Will we get to find out? There’s the question.

Tynan himself was wearing only light armour. Heavy mail would not stop a well-aimed bolt, and he wanted the use of his wings if he needed them.

The man across from him removed his helm with a slight awkwardness that suggested that the armour was not second nature to him, and for a moment Tynan let the unclean, ugly light play across those features, seeking recognition. It was surprisingly slow in coming: this man had been wounded, driven into the sea and spent the intervening months who knew where. He was thinner now, his face written over with new experience in a script Tynan could not read.

But it was him. In the end, that conclusion was unavoidable.

‘So, it’s true. Here you are, at last,’ the general grunted. ‘Stenwold Maker, no less.’

‘General.’ Maker nodded.

‘War Master.’ Tynan’s eyes flicked behind Maker to the hulking shapes lurking between buildings. ‘New friends, then?’

‘Old friends,’ Stenwold replied calmly. ‘General Tynan, meet the Sea-kinden.’

‘In truth?’

‘Very much so. Collegium has always been good at finding allies in times of need.’

‘Sea-kinden . . .’ Tynan wasn’t sure he believed it, for all that it seemed to explain a great deal. ‘Since when have there even been . . .?’

‘For longer than our histories record, and yet they have been little more than a myth since the end of the Bad Old Days. I feel that is likely to change, after this.’

‘And they’ve given up a thousand years of secrecy just to help you out, have they?’

‘They pay their debts,’ Maker confirmed.

For a moment, Tynan just stared at him, unwilling to proceed, with all the lost ground that would entail. Then: ‘I have snapbowmen ready to bring you down, War Master. One gesture from me and you’re a dead man.’

‘As would you be, and the bulk of your army.’

‘Probably. What do you want, Maker?’

‘We’ve been here before, you and I.’

Tynan just nodded sullenly.

‘When you came to me, outside the gates of my city, you gave Collegium the chance to surrender then and there, and we refused you. I made a speech that was very self-righteous and far too long. Your offer was not accepted, and we fought you at the wall.’

‘And you lost.’

‘And we lost,’ Stenwold agreed flatly. ‘And a great many men and women died – yours as well as ours – for nothing. Had we accepted reality and taken your deal, we’d have been no worse off.’

‘That speaks of a great deal of faith in myself and my soldiers,’ Tynan pointed out with a bleak smile.

‘Do you think I haven’t heard the details of your time as governor? I have seen many Imperial administrations. Yours is hardly the worst, not by a long reach. And you forget – we have met twice now. I have a sense of the kind of man you are.’

‘I used to think the same.’ Tynan grimaced. ‘So, go on, Maker. Tell me.’

‘You and your soldiers leave the city. You give the order now. You’re gone by midday, all of you. You surrender control of Collegium peaceably, without reprisals. We let you leave. “We” meaning the Sarnesh and the Vekken as well as my forces here within the city.’

‘You think I set the honour of the Empire so cheaply?’

‘I hope you set the lives of your soldiers so dearly, General. I have thousands of Ant-kinden outside who can storm the walls, or else we can just take a gatehouse and open the city to them. I have an army of Sea-kinden who are used to very different standards of mercy and warfare from ours. I, on the other hand, speak for Collegiate enlightenment.’

‘And you don’t want to have to destroy half your city in order to save it, or have my soldiers butcher your people in the streets, or use them as shields against your shot.’

Stenwold nodded. ‘Of course I don’t. And you? You want to do this? You want to make my city hurt for the crime of wanting to be free, and you’re willing to keep putting out our fires with the blood of your soldiers until you have nothing left? I have known men who thought like that – and not just Wasp-kinden either – but I had not picked you as one of them.’

‘I am a man who obeys orders,’ replied Tynan, although the words tasted like bile.

‘General,’ the War Master snapped out flatly, ‘I will return to my forces now, and await your word. If it has not arrived within the hour, then we will take the rest of the city from you, with the aim of exterminating every soldier of the Second who does not take to the skies and flee.’

‘Duly noted.’ Tynan’s hand twitched, and he saw Maker’s face harden, thinking that the general has been about to use his sting. The Beetle would never realize that the reflexive gesture, inexplicable, humiliating, had been a strangled salute.

‘We cannot quit the city, of course.’ Major Vrakir was the first to speak after Tynan had relayed the ultimatum. The other faces of his officers, the men who had been fighting all night to stop it coming to this, looked less certain, pale and worried.

‘Alternatives?’ Tynan demanded, the clock in his mind counting down.

‘We hold the city as long as possible.’ Vrakir again, promptly.

‘We’re barely holding half of it now!’ another major snapped. He had a bandage about his head to cover the gash a Sea-kinden claw had dealt his scalp.

‘We make them pay in blood and time,’ Vrakir insisted. ‘The Empress is relying on us. Our forces to the north of here are—’

‘Already under attack,’ Tynan finished for him. In the surprised quiet after that he added, ‘No, I’ve heard no report, but of course they are. The Sarnesh were only holding back because of us – because a strike north by the Second could catch their city undefended if their main force was off chasing our relief. Now that we’re pinned here, they can just push east at their leisure. Last reports had them outnumbering our forces.’

‘The Empress’s will is plain: no retreat,’ Vrakir said flatly.

‘This is your “voice of the Empress”, I take it,’ Tynan needled him.

‘Yes, sir, it is.’ Vrakir met his gaze without flinching.

Tynan glanced away first, and for a long moment he just looked up at the ceiling, hands clenched into fists, keenly aware of the gaze of all his officers on him, knowing that they were torn as he was torn. They wanted to live. They wanted their men to live. They wanted to continue serving the Empire.

He, Tynan, wanted to serve the Empire. It was all he had ever done. He had never disobeyed an order. And, whilst there had been a time when he could have denounced Vrakir as a fraud, denied his Imperial mandate, that time had now passed. He had been given too many unpalatable commands straight from the Empress’s own mouth, and he had obeyed every one.

Out there, the Sea-kinden would be stirring, if that was truly what they were. They were something new, certainly – new and deadly. With their Ant allies they would break the Second, today or next day or in a tenday, and all that remained was to see how much of Collegium the Wasp army would destroy or depopulate in its death throes.

You want to do this? Maker had asked him.

Tynan felt himself poised on the edge of a great fall that no Art could save him from.

‘Ready the army for an evacuation of the city,’ he said quietly.

The very moment he said the words, three of his officers were already moving.

Vrakir’s voice halted them. ‘You cannot go against the Empress’s wishes, General!’

‘I serve the Empire,’ Tynan stated. ‘The Empire is not best served by my men giving up their lives so that Collegium can live another tenday under the yoke.’

‘That is not your decision to make, General.’

‘It is!’ Tynan snapped. ‘I lead the Second. Not you, not even the Empress. Here and now, in this room, in this city, I am the final voice of Imperial authority. We cannot hold Collegium, and the Sarnesh will be marching even now. Where will they be marching, Major? East, towards Helleron, towards Myna, towards Capitas. The Empire needs this army, but not just to make some mindless stand here.’

‘No, General—!’

‘Major Vrakir, I will have you locked up if you so much as say another word, and then you can keep the flag flying alone over Collegium after we’re gone. Go, muster the men and get them ready to retreat. Lieutenant, get a messenger to fly out to the enemy and let them know I’ve made my decision.’

This time Vrakir remained silent, though his throat worked and he opened his mouth once or twice.

Tynan felt a great surge of relief, the promised confrontation receding. ‘And empty those big airships. I want all our gear – artillery, supplies, anything that would slow us down – stowed in there and ready for getting out.’

‘General, those are Slave Corps ships,’ a new voice objected: the captain of slavers.

‘Consider them commandeered.’

‘General, no.’ Vrakir once more, but now a new tone had entered his voice, a new stillness to his body. ‘They do the Empress’s work. The slaves they are laden with are for her.’

‘She has all the slaves in the Empire at her disposal,’ Tynan told him, slightly wrong-footed.

‘This is the will of the Empress,’ Vrakir stated. It was as though someone else spoke through him. ‘The slaves must go to Capitas. A great deal depends on it. This is the Empress’s command. There is nothing more important than this.’

‘More important than whether we stay or evacuate?’ Tynan demanded.

‘Yes!’ The otherworldly quality was abruptly gone from Vrakir, its work done, and Tynan saw the man visibly catch up with what he had said and latch on to it as his new purpose in life. ‘The Empress is not to be denied!’

But, to Tynan’s surprise, having twisted in Seda’s unseen grip once, it was easier to struggle free now. ‘Get the airships emptied. We need them.’

‘General, this is treason.’

‘I shall answer for it,’ Tynan told him, quite calmly. The assembled officers watched, frozen, this long-threatened confrontation coming at just the wrong time. ‘Get the—’

Then Vrakir’s palm was out, directed at him, killing Art wisping and flaring on the man’s skin. Tynan stared into his enemy’s eyes, seeing madness there: a man under pressures that no Apt man had been born to. Death too, though – he saw his death there, sure enough.

‘Major Vrakir, stand down.’ Useless words, for the other man was beyond that now.

‘I am the voice of the Empress,’ Vrakir stated, each word forced through clenched teeth. ‘Obey, or die a traitor.’

Then a lieutenant had feinted at him, a desperate lunge that the officer was already turning into a dive as Vrakir’s arm snapped around. And Tynan’s wings flurried enough to close the distance, barrelling him into Vrakir so that the pair of them landed hard on the floor with Tynan on top.

He was older, and he had not fought with his fists for too many years, and Vrakir was fiercely mad, capable of anything, fearless of any consequence. There was no time for subtlety. Besides, Tynan was not interested in subtlety just then. His pent-up rage at this subordinate’s orders, of what Tynan himself had done at this man’s prompting, the betrayals, the wrongs . . .

He had Vrakir’s throat grasped in his hands in that brief moment before the other man caught his breath back, and Tynan’s Art blossomed with a release that was fierce and primal, a second’s worth of youth and strength that he had been husbanding for his old age. The searing flash left the Red Watch major’s head almost scoured from his body.

Shaking and unsteady, Tynan allowed himself to be helped to his feet.

‘Unless there are any other objections,’ he said, his voice uneven, ‘get those poor bastards out of the airships and get our kit in. We’re leaving.’

In drawing up his plans to decamp the whole Second Army as efficiently as possible, he did not wonder about the sudden disappearance of the Slave Corps officers until it was too late.