War Master's Gate

Twenty

It had taken Che a day to exhaust the patience of the Sarnesh. While she had been heading forwards, they had been happy to follow her. When she had led them to the Empress herself they had been exultant. It had not mattered that Seda had then vanished into the forest, that the woman and her fellows had somehow left no tracks, or that the Nethyen might happen on them at any time. Che had led them so far, and Che would lead them to the Empress again. A decisive victory for Sarn was imminent, and that was all that mattered.

A full day later, however, and it had become clear to them that Che was leading them nowhere. Not that they stayed still, but the Beetle girl’s path wound round and circled, doubling back and trailing off, so that by evening it was apparent that they had crossed and recrossed only a small patch of forest, and ended up where they had started.

They were going to report back, they explained the next morning, but it was obvious that their confidence in her had evaporated. For a moment the old Inapt mysteries had carried them along, but no further. They were rationalists and it was plain that Che was mad.

The others, Che’s own retinue, had stayed with her, but she could feel that their confidence was slipping, too, watching her through the hours of morning and then on past noon, and the day creeping away — and still no progress and no explanation.

Tynisa particularly. . Che was worried about Tynisa. ‘That was my father,’ she had said, and Che had stared at her and tried to convince her that she was wrong, but the girl had become more and more insistent. Her father had been there with the Empress, guarding her. How can that be, Che? And Che’s denials had fallen on deaf ears.

Then Maure herself had come and stepped between them and said, Che, she’s right. Simple words, but Che already knew inside that they were true. For, of course, the Empress had been present there when Tisamon died. Of course the Empress could call up Tisamon’s shade, especially since Tynisa had rejected it and cast it out.

One more thing to put right when we find Seda, Che had vowed. But they could not find Seda. The Empress had taken a path that they could not follow.

‘I don’t understand it,’ Che confided to Maure. ‘I can feel her still. She’s there. She’s not even far away. It’s just. . every direction I choose takes me further away from her.’

‘She has gone inwards,’ Maure confirmed. ‘I think. . she has paid some price or enacted some ritual that has let her through. I can feel the ghosts of this place all around, angry and confused. If we had come here alone, then we might have just walked in — assuming the Mantids didn’t kill us. Now, though, the division of the locals has tangled the way. The Empress has been able to buy or force her way through, but we cannot follow.’

‘Why not?’ Che demanded. ‘Doesn’t this place. .’ know who I am? But that would be a foolish line to take. ‘Then find me the price, and it will be paid.’

Maure just stared at her, and after a moment Che reconsidered what she had said, and sighed. ‘I mean, we will have to find a way in. We have to stop her, Maure. Last night I dreamt that. . this Argastos was calling to me. I could sense that Seda was nearing him.’

‘Che, this is a Mantis place.’

‘I know that, and I. . you mean the price?’

Maure nodded.

‘But blood? Hasn’t there been enough?’

‘Blood to the Mantis-kinden is like machines to the Apt,’ the halfbreed observed philosophically. ‘They see so many distinctions and divisions, where to us it is all just. .’

‘But I thought blood rituals were. . for the Mosquito-kinden?’

Maure closed her eyes for a moment, as though pained. ‘Blood is a symbol, Che — a symbol of power, violence, identity. Mosquito-kinden might have made it an art form, but blood was always the Mantis way. Be thankful it was the Moths that got to them first.’

Che blinked. ‘You’re talking about a sacrifice. I don’t think I can do that.’

Maure just shrugged. ‘It’s no magic that I was ever tutored in. It’s not the Woodlouse way, nor that of the Moths, for they have other ways of exerting power. But I have been trying to find the path in, and it is as barred to me as it is to you. If Terastos was a greater magician, perhaps he would have some way of circumventing it, but he admits that he’s out of his depth.’

‘There must be some other way.’

The necromancer shrugged again.

‘Che,’ came Tynisa’s soft call. ‘We’re not alone.’

The Beetle girl’s eyes opened wide, and she reached out, seeking. .

Fool, to become too focused on this. ‘Nethyen,’ she managed to warn them. ‘Everyone, ready to move.’

‘Where?’ Thalric hissed.

‘Away.’ But he was right. Even as they were moving off, Tynisa leading the way with drawn blade, every step took them further from their destination — that destination that could only be reached by travelling in some direction off the compass, off all maps.

And without that destination, that star to steer by, where could they go? They were deep in the forest of the Mantis-kinden, and they could not run forever.

Nonetheless, run they did. In Che’s mind appeared the Nethyen, a score of them spread out between the trees and closing fast — some of them already running alongside the stragglers, racing to get ahead of the fugitive band. She heard Thalric’s sting crackle and spit, but knew that he had hit nothing, merely making himself a target. Ahead, Tynisa stopped and turned, waiting only for a second to ensure that Che and the others were still behind her before springing into motion again.

Helma Bartrer was falling behind. The Collegiate woman was not used to such a chase — and since when was I? — and was making too much heavy going amidst the undergrowth, virtually bouncing off the trees. Che felt Terastos’s exasperation as he dropped back himself, to drag her onwards.

Thalric was ahead of her now, looking over to their left, and Che knew he could see the shadows of Mantis-kinden there. Maure was beyond him, almost catching up with Tynisa — a surprising turn of speed from her, but then she had been many years taking care of her own skin, and perhaps the Mantids would even spare her out of respect for her skills.

Amnon was just behind her, slowing himself to keep pace, ready to protect her from. . Che did not think he would have the chance to protect her from anything.

And I am not thinking! Was I not crowned by the Masters of Khanaphir? Do I have no authority? I should not have to run like a roach.

‘There’s something ahead!’ Thalric called out. ‘I see walls!’

She risked a glance, expecting the half-seen rounded structures of a Mantis hold, but instead caught a glimpse of a timbered frame ahead, curved, but no Mantis work. Nor any sort of building she knew except. .

Is that a boat?

Focus. And she tried to project her mind out, to thrust her authority and importance into the faces of the pursuing Mantis-kinden. The running made it harder, constantly stumbling and staggering, and then an arrow skipped past her, making her heart leap and throwing her off stride again.

Focus! There was a feeling within her, encapsulating all that had changed since she had lost her Aptitude, all that she had instead been gifted with beneath Khanaphes, and she threw it outwards, a wordless demand for recognition from the Mantids, from the forest, from the Empress herself had the woman not been so maddeningly elsewhere.

She had it. She felt their minds, felt them shudder as she reached for them. You will know me!

It was Amnon who broke it, ramming out a straightened arm and knocking her from her feet with a scream, all her efforts in vain.

What is he. .? Why did he. .? Betrayer! Her fury was something beyond her, a magician’s self-obsessed rage at being thwarted, and she twisted on the ground to reach for him, intending to do she knew not what, hands out and fingers crooked like a stage actor hamming a witch.

She saw the stroke that came for him, that might have been coming for her. It unfolded from the trees, but he was closing with it, blade out, and had got closer than the attacker had intended. Instead of meeting the razor-spined inner edges of those terrible weapons, Amnon was simply struck by the hard backs as the twin arms lashed out. He was thrown clear over Che, sword spinning from his hand, and she heard him land behind her.

The mantis loomed over her, arms folding back with an air of disappointment. It was a drab green mottled with black, save where its underbelly was paler, and its eyes were the colour of old gold.

She heard Thalric’s yell, but she could spare him no attention. Those vast orbs were now her whole world.

The mantis twitched back, and the bright flash of the Wasp’s sting glittered across its carapace, to no visible effect. It went for Thalric with one arm, an elegant feint of a blow that sent him reeling away from its unexpected reach. Che could feel the creature as a knot in the weave of the forest, just as she could feel the Mantis-kinden themselves. And one in particular. She realized that the beast before her had a. . not a master but a companion, another mind, another pair of eyes, adding up to one formidable opponent, Mantis and mantis united.

It struck and, though she was watching, it moved faster than she could follow. The arms scything down and raking her up into their jagged embrace.

Thalric turned to see Amnon struggling to his feet, and Che — gone, no sign of her, just movement in the trees.

He turned, boots digging into the dirt, and let his wings carry him back the way he had come. ‘Amnon!’

The big Khanaphir threw himself forwards, but a Mantis-kinden woman leapt on him even as he did so, bladed gauntlet upraised. The two of them went down, and then Amnon had backhanded the woman off him. She turned, quick as a coiling centipede, driving for him again, but Thalric’s sting took her in the throat, snapping her backwards almost head over heels.

An arrow spun from between the trees and struck the Wasp full in the chest, and he himself went over, feet skidding out from under him. The force was like a strong man’s punch and his chitin breastplate cracked slightly under the force, but his mail kept his hide intact.

‘Where is she?’ he yelled at Amnon.

The big Beetle was looking about him wildly. ‘They took her! She’s. .’ He made an abortive little run into the trees, then backed off. ‘I don’t see tracks. No tracks at all.’

Like the Empress? Or perhaps they just flew, or. .

‘What happened?’ Thalric shouted.

Tynisa passed him, darting in between the trees and then skidding to a stop. ‘They’re coming for us!’ she shouted at him.

‘We have to go after Che!’ he insisted.

Her face, as it turned to him, was devoid of expression. ‘Where is she?’

Another arrow lanced towards them, and she turned it away with a lightning flicker of her rapier, without even looking. Thalric’s quick glance around detected plenty of movement coming their way, just as Tynisa said.

‘They know she’s special,’ he stated. ‘They wouldn’t. .’

‘They’re Mantis-kinden, Thalric. Of course they would.’ Only at these last words did her voice shake, a brief window on the fear and rage inside her.

Amnon had his snapbow out, a bolt chambered and the battery charged. ‘We fight?’

‘A sacrifice,’ Tynisa breathed.

Thalric stared at her, but he had no need to ask what she meant. Outside Khanaphes, other Mantis-kinden had very nearly done for him at one of their nasty little shrines. And of course, as he said, Che was special. She was owed a special death.

‘I’ve an idea, but it means we need to speak to them. So we need to be able to hold them off,’ Tynisa was dancing quickly backwards, heading in the direction where Maure had gone. ‘Come on, quickly.’

‘But. .!’

‘Thalric, die here and what have you accomplished?’ Whatever she saw in his face prompted her to add, ‘The Commonweal trick, Thalric. Remember?’

They were all of them backing off now, because the Mantids were so close. Thalric let his sting speak three times in the hope that it would deter them. The Commonweal trick. . ‘Didn’t work so cursed well last time.’ Her ravaged face, and the limp that seized on her the moment she wasn’t fighting or running, those were her rewards from the Commonweal trick.

And who’s to say it’ll work again? Another arrow glanced from his pauldron — uncomfortably close to his face — and abruptly he was running, and cursing himself for it. The other two followed right behind him.

Ahead of them rose those wooden walls, and he had already identified exactly what they had once been. He had seen vessels like this often enough during his time in the army. Imperial scout airship, old model — but there were still enough of them around by the end of the last war. Even before he saw it, he had been expecting the Seventh Army insignia he saw there: the badge of General Malkan’s Winged Furies that had been destroyed by the Sarnesh and their allies at the place still known as Malkan’s Folly.

The vessel’s hull lay at an odd angle within the clearing it had carved as it came down. There was little sign of a balloon or rigging, and the hull was mossy and probably part rotten from a few years in a place unfit for human craftsmanship, but it offered cover at least. The only problem was that it might become a tomb as easily as a hiding place.

Maure appeared at the open hatch, and then ducked back inside almost immediately, as an arrow thudded deep into the wood right beside her hand. Thalric let his wings bloom, kicking into an extended dive that pitched him neatly through the square opening, and then he was turning back, hauling Tynisa inside and putting out a hand for Amnon. The Khanaphir leapt to the hatch in one clear bound, paused there for a moment to discharge his snapbow — Thalric heard a cry as the hasty shot nonetheless hit home — and then dropped in, already fumbling for another bolt.

Thalric took up station with him at the hatch, one hand poised to sting as he waited for the Nethyen to make an appearance. There was plenty of movement between the trees, but nothing that made a good target. The corpse of the man that Amnon shot lay in a crumpled heap just inside the clearing. Too keen by half.

‘We’re not the first to end up hiding here,’ Maure observed softly, in the silence that descended. Thalric risked a glance backwards, and saw her kneeling by a skeleton still attired in Imperial armour, picked clean by busy scavengers long since.

‘Probably died in the crash,’ he decided.

‘He didn’t,’ the necromancer corrected him, and he felt disinclined to press the matter.

‘Where the hell are the Moth and that Collegiate woman anyway?’

Amnon shook his head. ‘They fell behind.’ There was a finality to his tone.

Behind them, Tynisa swore, but with a hint of awe in her tone. ‘Thalric. .’

Leaving Amnon watching, Thalric navigated the sloped interior to see what Tynisa had found. He expected another body, or some further evidence of Mantis atrocity. He had not expected to find a fortune, but there was a chest there — Quartermaster Corps heavy-duty issue — which was still nearly full of Imperial mint gold coins.

‘Some deal they were brokering with the Mantids?’ Tynisa suggested.

He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Not a currency that’s any good around here though, certainly not at the time this boat must have come down. Your plan, Tynisa — it’s a fool’s plan.’

‘We’re all fools anyway, so that works out well,’ she retorted, ‘but I’ll make Che the stakes of the wager.’ Her eyes shifted over to the hatch, past Amnon’s shoulder. The sky was darkening already. ‘Mantis honour. Let’s hope that currency’s still good around here.’

She made as if to go, but Thalric caught her arm. For a moment he held her, just looking into her eyes, words rising in him and being thrust back down again. In the end, he could not bring himself to thank her for what she was about to try, although it was a debt that weighed on him heavily. After all, it doesn’t matter that we don’t like each other, so long as we both love Che.

She nodded, and in that brief motion he saw that she understood. Then she was stepping carefully over to Amnon, the only one of them who did not know what the Commonweal gambit actually entailed.

He knew Mantis-kinden, though, and after a few brief words she had him nodding agreement. ‘I will go, though,’ he put in.

Tynisa jabbed a thumb at the sword-and-circle brooch she wore. ‘This badge says I go.’ She stepped past him and hauled herself out into the square stretch of greying sky that the hatch delineated, holding her sword high.

One arrow, right now, and the Commonweal trick hits the dirt, thought Thalric. But perhaps that raised weapon signalled Tynisa’s intent, for no shaft feathered from the trees to seek her out.

And the problem with the Commonweal trick is that it isn’t a trick at all. And surely those Mantids out there will have a few of those badges between them.

And, of course, you couldn’t solve all the world’s problems just by fighting a duel of champions. Not even the Mantis-kinden world worked like that. So Tynisa could buy Che a slightly longer life, but they were all still intruders in the Mantis heartland. There was only so much some Mantis swordsman’s death could buy for them.

Or Tynisa’s life. And Thalric was surprised to find that the prospect of Tisamon’s daughter getting her surely justified comeuppance did not delight him the way it once had. I am running out of peers. I shouldn’t squander the few I have left.

‘Hear me!’ Tynisa called out. ‘Know me by the badge I wear. Are any of you bold enough to meet me?’

Thalric waited, still half-expecting that arrow, but then Amnon grunted, ‘Someone comes.’

A lone, lean figure stepped out into the clearing, and Thalric wondered if that same wariness — of a sudden and treacherous shot — had affected their enemy as well. Even Mantis-kinden must fear a bad death. The woman who stepped forwards had a bow in one hand, but no arrow to it, and she looked up at Che curiously.

‘For entering our forests, you will die,’ the Nethyon declared, her voice clear and sharp. ‘And for being of our enemy’s kinden, you must die. For being of that kinden, and worse, death is better than you deserve.’ She looked up at Tynisa fiercely. ‘And yet you bear the badge. . I see Parosyal on you, halfbreed.’

‘I earned this on the island,’ Tynisa agreed. ‘I was accepted there. No words of yours can strip me of my right to bear the sword and circle.’

Thalric expected an angry response, but the Mantis woman’s shoulders sagged, and he could almost put the words into her mouth: What is the world coming to? For a long time she just stood there, looking up at Tynisa, at the unforgivable adulteration of Mantis ways that she represented, and at the badge she also bore.

She would rather we had just shot her, Thalric guessed.

‘Let it be at dawn,’ Tynisa declared, when it was plain that the woman was not going to say anything. ‘And I claim as trophy the Beetle woman your people have taken, she is the victor’s prize. Not one drop of her blood must be shed, until we have fought.’ She said the words boldly, but Thalric was already trying to plan for her failure: How can I get Che out of this mess? And, furthermore, he knew that Tynisa was fully aware he would be thinking just that. So Mantis honour is a blade that only cuts one way, is it?

‘You speak of the great magician?’ the Mantis woman asked.

Tynisa hesitated, but Maure spoke up: ‘Yes! That is who we mean!’

‘We don’t have her,’ the Nethyen said slowly. ‘We are hunting her, and she may be killed, once she is found. If she is taken alive, we will kill her after we have killed you, but I cannot guarantee that she is not already dead — or that she will not die soon. We know better than to take risks when hunting a magician.’

Tynisa remained very still, but Thalric could see the fingers of her off-hand clawing at the rotting wood of the hatch’s edge.

‘Let it be dawn, though,’ the Mantis woman finished. ‘Why not?’

Terastos let his attention flow out between the trees, trying to project all his senses, into hunting out his enemies. Night was drawing in — his advantage, for his eyes were better than any Mantis-kinden’s — and he neither could see nor hear any suggestion that the Nethyen were close by. Nor did his paltry magic suggest it

‘Gone,’ he whispered for Helma Bartrer’s benefit. ‘Gone off after the Maker girl and the others.’

The Beetle woman shifted, in a single motion making a remarkable amount of noise. They were almost completely buried amid a stand of bracken, its fronds curling almost to man-height above them, but every time Bartrer moved their entire hiding place shuddered as if the wind was at it.

‘Oh, they clearly know who’s important,’ the woman said acidly. ‘The Maker girl and her newfound heritage, yes. Not us.’

‘Thankfully,’ Terastos added. ‘Come full night, I’ll see what trail I can find. We can catch up with them. . if they got away, that is.’

‘I have a feeling that Che Maker is quite safe. There was a purpose in her coming here. Not necessarily the purpose she assumed,’ Bartrer put in.

The Moth turned to her. ‘You’re well read, for a Collegiate.’

‘I’ve been studying the old ways since before you were born,’ Bartrer boasted. ‘And I might not understand what the Maker girl is now, or how she does it, but I can read between the lines.’

‘And what is your scholarly conclusion?’ Terastos enquired somewhat archly.

‘Argastos wants her here.’

He turned to her, wide-eyed. ‘You think?’

‘I told you, I’ve read enough to know some scraps of history about this place. I only wish I’d got to visit here when there wasn’t a war going on to complicate things. History books, yes, but a scholar can’t live off books forever. There was an Argastos once, and I believe that there is an Argastos still, somehow, some shadow of him.’

‘You’re a remarkable Beetle,’ he conceded.

‘Not as remarkable as Che Maker, it’s true,’ she allowed bitterly, ‘but I do my best.’ She rammed her dagger up under his ribcage with all the force she could muster, right up to the hilt, so that what emerged from his lips was not a cry but only blood.

She struck two, three more times, and made a sorry mess of the task, too. She was, after all, an academic and not a habitual killer.

Then she wanted to retch, to cast aside the knife and retreat from her horrible handiwork, but she knew that time was of the essence.

‘Argastos,’ she said, for even though she possessed no power, she had still learned that names were power among the Inapt. If I go through the motions well enough. .? ‘Argastos, this is yours, this blood. I have no altar, no icon. Take his life, though. It is my gift to you. Argastos, I am weak. I am the last of my line, the dregs of a once proud lineage. In times long past my family were loyal followers of your kinden. We were your servants and your slaves, Argastos, and that was our purpose and our place in the world. But we have lost our meaning, generation on generation, and now I know I am just a weak and empty vessel, but please, there must be enough — some last spark of the old ways in me — that you can hear my words. Argastos, I shed his blood, a magician’s blood, for you. Please, please, please let me in.’

Her head jerked up. Was that. .? Had she heard some faint voice on the wind, something distant as a dream?

The night was coming on, though. It was time for dreams.

She stood up, hands still dripping with Terastos’s blood, and walked out from among the ferns.

And into another forest, another place.