War Master's Gate

Ten

‘The problem, basically, is that the Mantis-kinden never fought a traditional battle in their lives. When we fight, we go in, we take and hold land, consolidate, press on. Them? They attack, kill, fade away. They don’t stay where they were. Their only strongpoints are their actual holds, which are basically villages built into the trees, which you could pretty well miss if you walked right through them — until they killed you, anyway.’

Tynisa nodded, remembering her journey to the Felyal with her father. He had been bringing her there to see her people’s way of life. Since then she felt she had run into more than her fair share of the Mantis way, and yet here she was again.

The speaker was an Ant-kinden named Sentius, placed in command of the Etheryen relief force by Tactician Milus. He was a lean, weathered Sarnesh with some grey in his dark hair, and he had ventured into the forest before to liaise with Sarn’s allies.

‘The Etheryen tell me that they won’t attack holds, and the Nethyen won’t either. Now, I reckon that’s likely to change soon enough, either because someone starts losing or because your Wasps won’t know the rules. For now it’s a blood-pissing chaos in here. There’s basically a whole third of the mid-forest that’s full of war bands from either side all running about lying in wait and jumping out at each other, and both sides are striking out towards the other side of the wood — so we’re only a hundred yards in and still I’ve got scouts out,’ he went on. ‘And then there’s me with my men, and at least we can get as split up as you like and still know where we are, but I reckon that I’ll be losing whole squads within a day or so, once the Nethyen get wind of us — and our friends will be doing the same for the Wasps, too. And then I have you lot to cope with as well. All of you.’

Overhead, the canopy was near full. The world beneath was cast in shades of dark green and pale grey, lanced by errant sunbeams. Just a hundred yards in, as Sentius had said, there was no mark of axe on any tree, but instead great bloated forest giants that three men could not have stretched their arms around, and growing far closer together than seemed reasonable, each one muscling up against its neighbours for room. The space between them was like some mad architect’s fantasy, a vaulted, irregular colonnade that unravelled in every direction into the gloom. All around them were Sarnesh Ants, stepping carefully through the undergrowth that somehow clawed itself a hold here despite the poor light: great sprays of ferns, twisted nests of brambles, the jutting shelves of bracket fungus, and slender capped spires of mushrooms half the height of a man.

‘Civilians,’ Sentius pronounced, giving the word that special contempt unique to military men. His gaze raked the assembly, barely pausing on Che and her followers. Tynisa understood that they were already accepted, by order of Milus himself. The rest, however. .

The Roach girl, Syale, was no surprise, and in truth she seemed to pass through these woods with an ease that surprised even the Mantis-kinden. Or perhaps she just had no common sense, of course, but it was plain that the Sarnesh were not going to keep her out. The ambassador from Princep Salma was here to stay.

The ambassador from Collegium was a more contentious figure, though. Helma Bartrer, Master of the Great College and representative of the Assembly, seemed oblivious to any hints. Instead she had attached herself to Terastos, the Moth-kinden nominally representing Dorax, and she was not to be dislodged short of physical force. Any such attempt would be complicated by Amnon, her vast and unsubtle shadow.

‘Listen to me,’ Bartrer told Sentius sharply. ‘I am an expert in the history of the Etheryen and their culture. I have studied these matters for longer than you’ve held a sword.’

‘I’ve got experts, Mistress Bartrer,’ Sentius told her with admirable mildness. ‘I have him-’ Terastos. ‘And I have her-’ Che, to her plain surprise. ‘More to the point, I have every cursed Mantis who lives in this forest and isn’t actively trying to kill me.’

‘And you have me,’ Bartrer finished, with great finality. ‘Believe me, before this is done you’ll be glad of me. Tell him, Mistress Maker.’

Che started in surprise, her thoughts obviously elsewhere. ‘I. . why?’

Helma Bartrer’s eyes narrowed. ‘Because I know what you’re after here. And, believe me, you need me.’

There was some unheard signal from down the line, and Sentius abruptly blanked the entire conversation from his mind. The Sarnesh, who had been making a cautious advance, were instantly seeking cover, then freezing to stillness with crossbows and snap-bows at the ready.

Che and the other ‘civilians’ crouched together in the midst of an overarching stand of ferns. ‘What are you talking about?’ she hissed at Bartrer.

‘Oh, I hear a lot.’ The College woman seemed almost hostile. ‘You reckon the Empress is coming here — or is here right now. You reckon she wants something in these woods, that’s the word I hear, but you don’t know what that something is. Even though you’re Inapt now, I hear.’ That last comment seemed the crux of the dislike in the woman’s voice, and yet Tynisa could not see it as merely the Apt dismissing their forebears. Instead she read something like envy in Bartrer’s tone. Live long enough with history? she wondered. Like most Beetles, Bartrer would be Apt, making the study of the Inapt a maddeningly frustrating business.

Che looked from face to face. ‘I assumed that if there’s something here the Moths would know.’ She cocked an eyebrow at Terastos.

The Moth grimaced. ‘Some scraps perhaps. I am no Skryre, and my masters are jealous of their learning, And many of the texts in Collegium are lost to my folk, despite our demands for their return.’

Che looked into Bartrer’s face again, and her eyes flicked to Amnon, who would presumably go where the academic went. Perhaps it was the thought of his able help that decided her.

‘Then I need all the help I can get,’ she admitted. Maure plucked at her sleeve, but she shook the halfbreed magician off.

By then the Sarnesh were moving again, some false alarm now dealt with. Squads were constantly moving off, to be rapidly lost in the darkness, guided only by the best-guess mental map they shared between them. Sentius reappeared with his repeating crossbow over his shoulder, and a Fly-kinden padding along almost under his armpit. This was Zerro, his chief of scouts, a gaunt and taciturn man who moved as silently in the forest as any Mantis.

‘Bartrer’s with me,’ Che told him, pre-empting any argument.

Sentius nodded glumly. ‘Fine. You get to tell your people when something happens to her. She’s not my concern from this moment. And I gather that you’ll all be out of my hair soon enough? Off on a jaunt into the depths?’

Che nodded.

‘Zerro here will be with the vanguard. You break off from him at your discretion. ‘I’ve been in here more than most. There’s some bastard things in this wood that I only ever heard about from the locals. There are places the Mantids won’t go. Wandering around with your mouth open’s a fool’s errand. But, like I say, we’re up to our eyeballs in experts, and I reckon you’ve got your own, now.’

‘Is that your way of wishing me good luck, Commander?’ Che asked him drily, but he just shrugged.

Tynisa fell in alongside Maure. ‘What is it?’

The magician glanced at her — obviously still a little uneasy in the Weaponsmaster’s company after their jagged history in the Commonweal. ‘The Beetle woman, Bartrer.’

‘What about her?’

‘I don’t like her. There’s something wrong with her: a ghost. . or something like a ghost.’

Tynisa waved that away. ‘You don’t trust her, I don’t trust her.’ Thalric, the third member of their forced clique, had drifted in to eavesdrop, and she added, ‘And you don’t trust anyone, so that makes three of us.’

Thalric nodded curtly. ‘Except Che, but yes, there’s something eating that woman for sure.’

‘The others?’ Tynisa pressed.

‘Amnon’s straight up, from what I remember,’ Thalric admitted. ‘Moths are always trouble. For the rest, we’ll all just keep our eyes a bit wider open.’

In his mind, Tynisa knew, everyone was an enemy, Sarnesh and Etheryen Mantids included. She found that she had begun to value his paranoia.

The Sarnesh camp at the edge of the forest was breaking up, its work accomplished. Those detachments chosen by Tactician Milus had entered the forest with the Etheryen blessing that Che Maker had negotiated. The balance, along with Milus himself, was readying itself to head for home.

Somewhat controversially, of course, both the Collegiate and Princep ambassadors had gone into Mantis territory. Balkus had already departed to report to his Monarch on the war’s most recent twists. The Collegiate orthopter still stood, one of the last machines on the impromptu airfield. Its Beetle pilot was in her seat and ready to go, but the side-hatch was still open, with a small and lonely figure sitting there, staring out at the disintegrating camp. Laszlo was still waiting, and had been waiting since before dusk. Now the moon was high, the bulk of the Ants had left, with their trademark efficiency, and he refused to give up.

‘Seriously.’ The pilot’s voice came from within. ‘I don’t know whether you noticed, but it’s about an hour short of midnight by the clock. Can we go now?’

‘She’ll be here,’ Laszlo declared, not for the first time.

‘Well, then at least tell me who-’

‘An agent. One with vital information for Collegium,’ the Fly snapped back. That was his story, he had decided. Perhaps it was even true.

‘She’s stood you up,’ the pilot’s voice told him unhelpfully. ‘Look-’

‘Just — hold on.’ For a moment, just a moment, hope flared inside him, but even he could not fool himself for more than a second. Yes, someone was approaching the orthopter, but it was not Lissart. This was an Ant and, as the figure neared, Laszlo with a sinking heart recognized Milus.

‘Collegium is surely waiting for your word!’ the tactician called out as he drew near. ‘And yet here you are.’ He must have had good night vision for an Ant, Laszlo considered, because he was able to look the Fly straight in the eye at that distance. His crisp little smile said a great deal. ‘You’re Laszlo, of course.’

Having his name known to the Sarnesh court was not a thing of joy to Laszlo. ‘What of it?’ he asked cautiously.

‘She’s not coming. I’d have let you exhaust your patience, but it’s inefficient. Go home.’

For a moment Laszlo was frozen motionless, not a thought or quip or plan in his mind. ‘What do you mean, she’s not coming?’ was all he could come up with in the end.

Milus’s mind was unreadable from his face but, unlike with most Ants, it was not for want of an expression, just that the mild humour he posted up there was feigned entirely for Laszlo’s benefit. ‘My adviser, Alisse — or te Liss, as she called herself in Solarno — will not be joining you. You should go now.’

Laszlo had a knife, and he had a little cut-down snapbow known as a sleevebow, which could poke some nice holes in the Ant’s mail, but there were a lot of Ants left about the place, and he was suddenly convinced, by his instincts and his Art, that there would be Ant marksmen with their weapons trained on him right now. ‘What have you done?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘Taken her in for questioning,’ Milus said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘She was a Wasp agent, you know. Well, of course, you know.’ That false smile broadened by the requisite amount.

‘I. .’ Laszlo had always prided himself on his quick wits and ready tongue, but Milus was changing his ground faster than the Fly could keep up. ‘What do you mean, I would know?’

‘I read your report in Collegium, Laszlo.’ The use of his name was pointed and deliberate.

‘You’ve been spying on Collegium?’

A polite laugh. ‘Collegium has been sharing its intelligence with its allies, the Sarnesh. Your report included.’

But I never. . ‘I didn’t say anything in my report about-’

‘A Wasp agent?’ Milus’s pale eyes flicked across his face as though Laszlo was a specimen in a jar. ‘It was all there for an adequate intelligencer to read, in between the things you actually wrote. Without that one thing, none of your story really makes much sense. Her treachery completes the picture nicely. Although I am grateful to the look on your face for confirmation.’

Laszlo failed to say two or three separate things because his heart was hammering and he could not quite catch enough breath for them. He remembered Lissart telling him what a poor spy he was, over and over, and he had never realized how right she was, or that his failings would prove her undoing. His expression, whatever was left of it, prompted another careful widening of the tactician’s smile.

‘I know,’ Milus admitted. ‘We are Ants. We are terribly traditional. We make good soldiers and not much else. We do not understand you other kinden with your free-thinking minds: how very confusing and lonely you must all be, we think. We do not know how you think, and we cannot read your faces because we are ourselves so inscrutable. How our linked minds must cripple us, hm? How unfair, then, to discover at this late date that we can play the same games you can.’

What Laszlo finally got out, at that juncture, was, ‘You can’t take her.’

‘She is taken. She is gone,’ Milus assured him. ‘You should also go.’

Piss on me, Laszlo found himself thinking. And he’s on our side! ‘I’ll go to Mar’Maker about this.’

Milus regarded him with an expression now turning to pity. ‘And he will be overjoyed that his allies are so committed to the war that he has lived for most of his life. I know Stenwold Maker well enough, from one meeting and three score reports. Stenwold Maker hates the Wasps. So do I, and therefore so do all who serve under my command. Stenwold Maker and I need each other, and we understand each other, and he will not care that an Imperial whore and spy is assisting me. Tell him I will let him have a report of what she knows. But go now. Your continued presence is inappropriate, and I am sure your pilot wants to see her home as soon as possible.’

Laszlo twitched twice, his impulse to attack the man being murdered before it could get him killed. He wanted to say something like, This isn’t over, or warn Milus that if he harmed Lissart, then. . But he had no ‘then’. He had no Lissart. He had precisely nothing.

Such oaths he swore only inside his head, where Milus could not tear them apart with his cold logic.

‘Argastos.’ Seda pronounced it with care, as she would any name of power. Thus far she had travelled within the general Wasp forces that were pushing into the Nethyon to support their Mantis allies — or that was the claim. Seda was unsure how much they could accomplish that the Nethyen would appreciate, but at least poor General Roder would get a clean battle with the Sarnesh, while the Lowlander Mantis-kinden writhed in their death throes. Such a useful kinden. If only the Etheryen would bend the knee to me, then I could save them. But she had not been able to approach them in person, and the Nethyen messenger bearing her offer reported that the Etheryen had taken it badly. Fatally, apparently, but perhaps there was only one sort of ‘badly’ that the Mantids knew.

When this is over, I will save some. I will transplant them to the Empire and make them mine. Did my people think they feared the Rekef? How much more would they tremble at the thought of Mantis-kinden secret police?

Seated at her fire were Gjegevey and the Tharen Wasp, Tegrec, serving as her chief advisers on this forest and its history. In this, Seda knew, the abominable Beetle girl would have an advantage, being leagued with the Doric Moths from whom Argastos surely sprang. For all that Seda’s people might ransack the Empire’s libraries for every mention of the name, the Maker girl would already know it all. Curse her!

A sudden savagery in her expression had apparently silenced the two of them, so she gestured irritably for them to continue.

Tegrec spoke first. ‘This story goes back a long way, you understand, to the great wars of the Inapt world. And if you know Moth histories, you know that they aren’t written as anything an Imperial historian would recognize. Almost no dates even in the Moth reckoning, place names given as metaphors, fact given as allegory, or the other way round. Any Apt reader would take it for some lurid fiction. Even we, with our. . advantages, run into a cultural barrier. Even modern Moths-’

‘Get to the point,’ Seda ordered him flatly, and he swallowed nervously.

‘There was a man named Argastos, and he was a Skryre, and he was a warrior, and he led a Mantis war-host and raised the greatest army the world had ever seen.’ He said it as if he was reciting a text.

Seda stared at him. So swift on my own thoughts comes this? Some great magician, she had expected — for what else would make a Moth’s name live on? — but a war leader? I like him better already.

And across the vast darkness of the forest, yet still intolerably under the same night sky, she knew that Che would be having the same guarded conversation with her no doubt far better informed advisers. .

Terastos had prevaricated but now they had set up camp for the night, Che was not to be denied. ‘She is after something,’ she insisted, not needing to name the Empress for them. ‘And Maure and I, we know that there is a knot of darkness in this forest, at the very heart of it. So tell me.’

The Moth started and stopped several times. ‘My people fought many wars, long ago,’ he would say. Or, ‘It is written that a sole name once ruled all you can see.’ And he was getting nowhere, to Che’s increasing frustration. It was as though there was something he was trying to say, but a key word — a name — could not be forced through his teeth.

Until: ‘Why, then, surely you are talking about Argastos,’ Helma Bartrer declared, half putting him out of his misery, half archly establishing her credentials as expert.

Terastos reacted like a man released from a stranglehold, some spell broken by the simple mention of the name. ‘There was a man named Argastos that made this place his own,’ he admitted weakly. ‘But we do not. . we did not speak of him. Nobody has spoken of him for a very long time.’

Che glared in exasperation, then looked somewhat reluctantly to Bartrer. ‘So speak,’ she said.

Bartrer gave a smug little smile. ‘There were wars, back then. It’s as difficult as getting money out of a Helleren, to work out what they were about, but they had wars. This Argastos was a Moth, a magician, a warlord. This was early, too. He’s named in a codex that lists the victorious war leaders of this particular scrap, and there are names from all over, and some that even read like Mosquito-kinden Blooded Ones — Sarcads as they called them. So if it’s true that the Moths and Mosquitos actually did rip into each other, then this Argastos was before that. Really early, then. There were Woodlouse-kinden names, too, all given high honours, and that’s about the last you hear of them in the histories as amounting to anything important. Spiders and Mantids side by side, Dragonfly noble families. . Others I never could pin down. Basically, my reconstructions suggest that this Argastos was the brightest star in a gathering of war-leaders from pretty much everywhere the Moths could call on. And he lived right here in this forest. In fact he’s described in two distinct ways: like a great Moth magician, and like one of the Mantis Loquae — their speakers and leaders — so he may have been a halfbreed, or he may have been just a Moth with an unusual talent for fighting. A Weaponsmaster, maybe.’ Bartrer nodded familiarly at Tynisa’s sword-and-circle brooch. ‘But when they fought — whoever it was that all these people fought — he gets the most of the credit. He was a hero, a great man. At that time, anyway.’

‘Those few mentions of him that we have, hm, found,’ Gjegevey explained, ‘seem to fall into two camps. He led the armies of the Inapt, and led them to victory, at great cost.’

He thought he was being clever, Seda considered, but she could read every wrinkle in his face. She let him speak because there was no point challenging him about it, not when the answers were written so plainly. ‘So he was a great man, remembered in song and story,’ she murmured.

‘Hm, yes,’ the old Woodlouse agreed, ‘but other sources speak poorly of him. We, ahm, believe that relations between Argastos and the other Skryres deteriorated later. . or that is our best, hm, reading.’

‘Books that speak directly of him are simply not to be had,’ Tegrec complained. ‘Probably the Tharen Skryres keep them hidden. They do a lot of that. But some texts from — I don’t know — generations after the man’s time, perhaps? They mention him obliquely — he’s used as a metaphor for pride and ambition, for turning on his betters. For. . some sort of corruption — questionable magics, that sort of thing.’

‘There is a play, even,’ Gjegevey added, ‘wherein it is, ahm, declaimed that, “Like Argastos, I have won for you the world, and gained but spite,” or some such.’

But Seda was still considering what Tegrec had said. ‘I was unaware that the Skryres considered any magics questionable.’

‘I think. .’ Tegrec swallowed again. ‘To read my own thoughts into what is left unsaid, I wonder if he was not held to blame for doing the Skryres’ will. It would not be the only time they had made a terrible thing happen, and then found it convenient to hold their own agents accountable.’

‘So — ’ and enough meandering, old man — ‘this war, Gjegevey, that your ancient Argastos was so feted for. It was the war against the Worm, was it not?’

‘We do not speak of such things,’ Terastos hissed, cutting Bartrer off. Seeing the others’ somewhat tired expressions he entreated them, ‘Yes, so we are a secretive people. So we hold our knowledge close, and treasure it. But there are names that are not spoken. We damn them into obscurity, and in doing so we deny them power. If you are what you seem, you must know this, Beetle girl.’

Che met his gaze, her easy retort fading in her throat. Yes, I do. Somehow I do. But times have changed. ‘The Empress will speak all the forbidden names there are, if it gives her even a thimbleful more power.’

The Moth actually shuddered. ‘So I will speak of Argastos, but I will not speak of the war that he won.’

‘The war against the Worm?’ Bartrer said, obviously enjoying herself. ‘And what was that, Moth-kinden? The great and terrible war, and yet only marginalia are left of it.’

‘I warn you,’ Terastos spat. ‘Speak it again and I will abandon you all.’ Incredibly, he turned his blank eyes on Che, entreating for her intervention.

Bartrer gave him a superior smile but, before she could speak, Maure stepped in.

‘Enough,’ the halfbreed stated. ‘I know some little of that war. The Woodlouse-kinden that trained me taught me just so much. Argastos is one thing, whoever he was — or is — but we do not conjure them by naming them. Even the old insult for them, to call them “Worm”, is too much. You are right, Mistress Bartrer, that a very many enemies joined together to defeat them. For ten generations after, there were nightmares of their return, for everyone knew that they were not so very finally defeated, and, even so, the means used to cast them down were enough to cripple half the powers of the world. Some never recovered their old strength. But we do not speak of them.’

Terastos nodded soberly. ‘Suffice to say, Argastos was a hero, when he brought about their ruin, and after that he became something else.’

‘A corpse, can we hope?’ Thalric put in. ‘Forgive me if I sound somewhat desperate, but the man is thousands of years dead. So what is she after and what are we expecting to find? And just tell me whatever you believe. Don’t patronize me simply because I have the good fortune to be Apt.’

Che squeezed his hand. His answering smile was strained.

‘There is something awake at the heart of the forest, this much we sensed,’ Maure admitted.

‘His memory must run long among the Mantis-kinden, if nothing else,’ Bartrer mused. ‘It’s only after he comes and goes in the histories that you even get mention of the two holds here. Immediately before that they’re calling the entire forest Argaryon — no prizes for guessing after who. So you’re telling me that, throughout all those centuries, your “Servants of the Green” never told you they had a guest?’

Terastos shrugged. ‘Our servants served under certain conditions, and the sanctity of their places was one such. It was suspected that something of Argastos remained, but if so, the Mantids seemed a strong enough guard to keep him where he was. And until this cursed Empress decided to meddle, were we not right?’

How much does he honestly know, then? Che wondered, and she came to the depressing conclusion that Terastos was being particularly frank, for a Moth. The name of Argastos had been unpicked from their histories — the histories Terastos had access to at least — so that the man only knew something had been there, and that it was safely barred away from the world. The details of what had been there, and of what was to be feared, were lost.

She turned her gaze on Helma Bartrer, and decided that there were depths in the woman she could not decipher. The driven academic on the edge of a breakthrough in her research? Or is there something else?

‘There is, hm, one more matter, of course. Once I had enough people searching for the name, ahm, Argastos, it was bound to come to light.’ Gjegevey did not sound very happy about it.

‘The report.’ There was a similar reluctance in Tegrec’s voice.

‘So tell me and stop all this theatre,’ Seda chided them both.

‘During the last war, shortly before the, hm, battle known as Malkan’s Stand, a reconnaissance airship from the Seventh went astray over this forest and was, hrm, brought down in a storm. A single survivor, one Sergeant Corver, made it out of the trees, but his sanity was, hrm, decidedly in question. His report is, ah, lurid, contradictory, lacking in internal logic. He speaks of a terrible place within the forest, of, ahm, dead men returning to life, of being drawn to a, hrm, hall of sorts, of great gates, and passing within them into a place of darkness where he met, hrm. .’ The old Woodlouse blinked several times. ‘He met a Moth-kinden who named himself, hm, Argastos, who gave him a message. Despite the Rekef being most, ahm, insistent in questioning this sergeant, his story did not change.’

Seda’s eyes gleamed. ‘And the message?’

Gjegevey’s face twisted. ‘You understand we did not know this when we named Argastos for you back in Capitas.’

‘Tell me.’

‘The ahm, the message was thus: “Go to your Empress. Go to her and tell her: I am here, and ready for her. When she seeks me, she shall find me waiting.”’ Gjegevey sighed. ‘At the time Corven first made his report, your, hm, brother still lived, Majesty. I do not know what to say.’

‘Say that you were right, to bring this Argastos to my attention. Say that here is a power that has lasted a thousand years and more, and has still retained a modicum of wit. Most of all say that we will find Argastos before the Beetle girl, or else I will have everyone in this expedition on the crossed pikes.’