War Master's Gate

Twenty-Six

Esmail had already worked out that they would have been having a very different time of it here without her. These grey woods, the inner forest, this was not abandoned empty ground. Things dwelt here. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that things were remembered here. The landscape was composed of knots and snarls of memory — particularly the memory of Argastos that slowly decayed year to year, like one of the Mantids’ idols, and yet never went away.

The three Pioneers, who should have been breaking new ground ahead of the rest, had seen it too. They clung close to the Empress, divining correctly that if they strayed from her notice, they might never get the chance to stray back.

Esmail had seen a great mantis stalking between the trees, its carapace scarred and battered, its eyes like intricate stained glass. He had seen the rushing shadows of Mantis-kinden all clad in ancient armour — war bands of centuries past, perhaps Argastos’s own followers from when he drew breath and knew the sun. There were others, too, barely glimpsed, and Esmail knew that they must be those unfortunates who had found their way here in more recent times — who had slipped in so easily, without needing even a blood sacrifice to open the way, back before the Mantis-kinden were riled up and the forest suddenly bristled with hostility. He had seen Moths and Ants, Collegiate Beetles, Imperial soldiers: the forest’s many victims, still caught in image, here in the web of Argastos’s thoughts. Perhaps being killed by the Nethyen without would have been a mercy.

And will they see us here, too, those who come after us? If the Empress fails, I am afraid they will.

And that was another reason to stay his hand, should he ever find that combination of courage and motivation to carry out his Tharen orders. For, if he killed her here, there was no guarantee that he was magician enough to find his own way out.

Gjegevey had been leading the way. Seda had more raw power in one fingertip than the old slave had in his whole weary body, but he was wise. He had a skill and application that only years of experience could bring, and he had been guiding them through this tormented forest with patience and care, step by step. Now he leant on his staff, looking well past his time to die, plainly exhausted beyond all measure. Seda’s hands twitched angrily, and Esmail thought she would berate the haggard old man, but she visibly restrained herself, and something unfamiliar and awkward touched her expression. Seen on the face of the Empress of the Wasps, it was hard to recognize anything approaching compassion.

‘Rest now,’ she ordered, and Gjegevey sank down gratefully. Esmail knew he would need help getting up, too. Since entering the forest they had been travelling for so long that it seemed they should have passed every tree within it at least twice. Here, in this bleak place, where the sun never quite rose, the air was chill enough to leach away a body’s warmth and Gjegevey had been funnelling all his fading strength into finding a path for his mistress. He was indeed old, but old was a feeble word compared to just how many years the man must have resting on his shoulders. Esmail knew little of the Woodlouse-kinden save that they had been a Power once, and had declined irrevocably centuries before ever a Beetle thought of revolution. With a jolt, some more of the old histories came to him: had it been the war with the Worm that had done for Gjegevey’s people, left them the hermits and recluses that they now were? And did that mean the ancient magician had his own reasons for being here?

To a mind used to intrigue it was an attractive thought, yet Esmail found that he did not believe it. Perhaps the old man had once pursued double purposes, served more than one master, but, at this faded, trailing end of his life, he was Seda’s creature, and perhaps he was the one man she would actually pause pursuit of her ambitions for. He had, after all, turned her away from the Worm once, if only to seek that self-same Seal again here with Argastos.

Thunder rumbled from the sky above them. That sky was mostly hidden behind the vault of the forest roof and, when it could be seen, coursed with clouds that seemed ragged and decomposing even as they seeped overhead.

Abruptly Gjegevey began scrabbling for his staff, and big Gorrec hauled him to his feet without being asked to. Everyone was now looking up at the sky, and the Wasp magician Tegrec cried out, holding his hands up as though to fend something off.

Something’s coming. Argastos? But Esmail could sense that whatever was on its way now was as alien to this place as they were.

‘We must move!’ the hunched Woodlouse cried. He was trembling all over, and Seda took his arm.

‘Eyes out, lads!’ Gorrec shouted. The Pioneers already had weapons to hand, as did Seda’s remaining bodyguard. Tisamon’s right hand was his clawed gauntlet, of course, and he never took it off. Or can’t, more like.

Gjegevey had doubled his speed, even though he stumbled and skidded over the uneven ground, and around them all the ghosts of the forest flickered and danced, appearing almost too briefly to be registered, then gone in the next blink. A wind had struck up, fierce and unheralded, which clawed at the branches overhead, as if trying to find a way in.

Is this what it was like here when we forced our own way in?

There was something ahead. . a mound, was it? And, on sight of it, Seda had cried out in triumph-

Then that thunder sounded again, so close, so apocalyptically loud, that Esmail found himself thrown to the ground, stunned by the sheer savagery of the air that shook and jumped with the impact of it.

And, in its wake, everything had changed.

The thunder itself was a poor accompaniment for the soundless shudder of force that rushed through that other forest, and Seda understood that she was following at last. Whilst Seda had been battling her way towards Argastos, she had somehow simply stepped here — had bided her time on the outside, had. .

Seda tasted the sour triumph of the other’s arrival. Yes, she had won over the Nethyen; she had severed them from Seda’s own purpose.

But my purpose was only to get here — to get to Argastos — and I’m almost there. So close!

And she felt the mind of her enemy like a hot ball of iron, and knew that the Beetle had found her in turn.

‘They come!’ she called. Gjegevey was standing still, looking back. ‘Move, old man!’ she spat at him. He sensed only enough to know everything was now going wrong.

‘Soldiers, destroy them,’ she snapped at Gorrec and the pioneers, while she hauled on Gjegevey’s arm. ‘Come, slave.’ And she found the stab of fear she felt was not for herself but for him. She could defend herself, and he. . he was withered and frail and, despite her many threats, he was hers, and he had been her friend once. ‘Ostrec — see them destroyed, every one of them,’ for the Maker girl had her own soldiers, she could detect them. Each new set of feet set this unnatural terrain dancing like a spider web, telling her — telling both of them — exactly where the fighters were, marking out the woodland between them like a chessboard. ‘Tegrec, help me with him.’

But she saw now that her intervention was required, or else her troops would have no chance of victory. She saw how it must be done. ‘No, lead him away, take him some place safe, Tegrec,’ she spat the words at the turncoat Wasp, ‘or I swear I will have your very spirit on crossed pikes for all eternity. Tisamon, guard me.’

Gorrec glanced at the Red Watch officer, Ostrec, but the man seemed disinclined to give any orders, just staring off into the grey mist of the trees as though he saw some great truth there. Up to me as usual. The Mantis woman who was Seda’s remaining bodyguard loped past him, the claw of her gauntlet jutting downwards like a dagger blade.

He was no great strategist, but he had led men in a fight before, and this cluttered and gloomy forest was as much ideal Pioneer territory as anywhere.

‘I’ll hold the centre,’ he announced, because it was what he was better fitted for than the other two. ‘Jons, left. Ic, right — flank, strike, fade. Once you’ve engaged I’m pulling back.’

‘She’s not left you many places to pull back to,’ Jons Escarrabin pointed out, hands busy working the winch handle to charge his cut-down snapbow.

Gorrec shrugged. He had a broad-headed axe in each hand and a heavy feeling in his stomach. How many enemy? How well armed? Nothing but ‘They come!’ from Herself. Still, he had known before now that he and his fellows were reckoned expendable. The Empress had not brought them here because she enjoyed their scintillating conversation.

Icnumon the halfbreed had his shortbow out, an arrow to the string, and he slunk off between the trees without a word, reliable as ever.

‘Good luck, Sergeant.’ Jons threw Gorrec an abbreviated salute and was gone, too, stepping away with stealth rare for a Beetle. The Empress was still in sight, behind, with that armoured — whatever it was — standing before her. Not my problem, not right now. Right now, I’m my problem. He crouched down, taking cover leaning against a tree, ready to throw himself at an enemy or out of the way, as circumstances recommended. Many thoughts rose to mind, but he let them pass.

When she passed beyond, through that gate opened by blood — whose blood? — Che realized that she had wooed the Nethyen too well. She was here at the very heart, within reach of Argastos’s barrow — and so was she.

‘The Empress is here! Ready yourselves!’ she managed to gasp. ‘They’re coming!’ Because, of course, Seda would sense Che just as easily and, of course, she would send her followers. No, more than that. Che knew they were coming, as if she could see the forest from above and track each man’s progress by the ripple of undergrowth. ‘There, that way!’ She dragged her sword out, and instantly her three protectors — the Wasp, the Mantis halfbreed, the Beetle — were moving as directed, whilst Maure hung back, with a shortsword in her hand and absolutely no intention of using it.

The woods here were less overgrown, but there was a misty gloom over everything that even Che’s eyes made little headway with. Still, she saw Tynisa clearly, as she rushed forwards, leading the way with her blade — saw Amnon peeling off to the right, moving to intercept some enemy that he must have seen or heard, but that Che could not know about — save that she did. She could feel that dagger-like mind drawing near, drenched in thoughts of blood and honour.

She stood stock still, trembling, having stepped into a world that was crowding in on her with knowledge.

Thalric she had already lost track of, somewhere off in the trees and acting on his own recognizance. She reached for him but felt only a shadow, an echo of him that she could not pin down.

Then the killing began, as swiftly as that. A Mantis woman was abruptly rushing Amnon, breaking from the greying ferns too rapidly for him to bring his snapbow to bear. He caught her blade-arm with one hand and her off-hand spines raked down his breastplate before he cast her aside. His snapbow swung back on its strap and, when she leapt for him again, he had his sword out, fending off two jabbing lunges. Che felt the woman’s astonishment at finding a Beetle so swift, and yet still strong enough to snap her in half. The Mantis fell back a pace, daring Amnon to follow her, darting in again as he tried to make more distance between them. Che found herself almost rehearsing Amnon’s moves as he made them, even though he was out of her sight, even though she had none of his skill and experience.

Her own hands twitched as the big Beetle twisted at the woman’s next lunge, letting the metal claw gouge a furrow in his backplate. When his sword came in, the Mantis was ready for it, her free hand slapping his strong, lumbering stroke aside — just the sort of artless stabbing she expected from a Beetle — and Che saw the thought as if it had been her own — but then a solid blow from Amnon’s left hand thundered into the juncture of neck and shoulder, sending the woman staggering to one knee.

He did not hesitate, kicking her in the chest with all his strength, enough to send her sprawling six feet away. She was on her feet in moments, but he had his snapbow aimed and the trigger pulled in the same space of time, and the bolt snapped her head back before she knew it.

Che’s attention jumped elsewhere, because Tynisa had found an enemy that she herself had almost missed. To her, he seemed barely there, just as Thalric had become a thing of glass and shadows. This man came to her only through Tynisa’s focus on him: a big, burly Wasp-kinden, almost a match for Amnon, and more than happy to meet Tynisa one on one. He had a pair of huge axes and he danced with them, never letting them fall still, so their whistling passage made a steel maze for Tynisa to step through. She was faster, but the man was an old hand, and Che could read in his defences a long experience of fighting against swift Inapt blades, Mantis and Dragonfly both. Tynisa was forcing him back, evading his explosive counter-attacks, but he turned any retreat in a circle, losing individual steps but never giving any real ground.

And elsewhere: here was a stealthy half-Mantis killer stalking her. . here was another Wasp — no, what was he-? - watching Tynisa’s fight without stepping in. . there was the Empress, with Tisamon the revenant as her shield. And behind her, some others, making a crippled escape — but who was so important that the Empress herself would cover their escape?

How do I know all this. .?

Then came to her a sublime understanding that allowed her to master all this mental clamour. She was in a place of magic, as perhaps so much more of the Lowlands had been once upon a time. She was a magician facing another magician, each with their cadre of loyal followers. She was waging a war the likes of which this land had not seen, perhaps, since the Revolution. She was fighting as a wizard fought.

Chess, she realized. This was where chess came from, and the Tactician piece — or Arista, or Emperor, whatever name was given to it — so vulnerable and powerless, that was her. But of course the Tactician was not powerless, because she governed and controlled the other pieces.

And the implication was plain: magicians did not care about the deaths of their pieces so long as they won; but the only pieces Che could advance were her friends.

For a moment she fought against it, ready to let them act according to their own direction. But, of course, the Empress would not hesitate, and surely Che understood this, or must soon grasp it.

And the halfbreed killer was getting close now.

Che reached out and made her move.

Amnon, stalking forwards, suddenly changed his course, coming upon Tynisa’s battle with the Wasp. Too close together for a snapbow shot, he broke in with his sword, no doubt assuming that the two of them could take the man, but Tynisa was already falling back, knowing only that she had to, until Che had drawn her to confront the halfbreed — Icnumon. His name is Icnumon.

The man abandoned his bow in an instant, the paired blades sliding silent from their sheathes to meet Tynisa’s rapier. Now I leave her and must trust to her skill. Amnon and the big Wasp were circling, both slightly wounded, the big Beetle’s direct style a better match than Tynisa’s for the Wasp’s two gleaming axes. But that other man, the officer. .

Still watching, and his mind -

Che touched his mind, and for a moment could name him Ostrec, Rekef man. And she would have passed on, save that. . how is it that I can touch him at all? The axeman and Thalric were transparent to her; even Amnon was a shadow barely illuminated by the distant, fading glories of Khanaphes that had shaped him. Tynisa and Icnumon were both fierce fires: Inapt and therefore fitting tools for a magician. But this Ostrec. .

And she pressed, and Ostrec broke like an eggshell beneath her touch. Then she and the man behind that mask were standing looking at one another. He drew new veils, too swiftly and skilfully for her to find out who he was, but he was no Wasp. He was Inapt, he was an impostor, and she knew beyond question that Seda was not aware of it.

If you are an enemy of the Empress, now is your moment. Her own voice sounded weak and timid in her mind, but he trembled when he heard it, as though some great warlord had spoken.

She had a momentary awareness of Thalric, full of purpose, skirting the flanks of the battle. Seda, he is hunting Seda, but Che couldn’t be sure, and then he was gone.

In her absence, Amnon had hacked the big Wasp across one hand, shattering bones and leaving an axe buried in the forest floor. Now the man was falling back, and Che could sense the Empress and her guardian waiting there. Amnon was faster, though. He hurled himself forwards, getting an elbow across the man’s jaw, and then the two of them had toppled over, crashing into the briars. The finish was brutal artistry, with Amnon pinning the man’s good arm, his own sword drawn back. Its descent was clean and final.

The officer, the impostor, the not-Ostrec, just stared at him, then a moment later he had vanished into the woods, absenting himself from the skirmish entirely.

Tynisa kept pressing Icnumon hard, keeping clear of those shorter blades that Che could virtually taste the poison on, but denying herself an opportunity for a telling blow. The man was good, but he was no great duellist, better suited to striking from the shadows and in the back. Che reached for his mind, but it was slippery and venomous, and she could not get a hold on it.

Then he broke through Tynisa’s guard, sending her hopping back a handful of steps — Surely a feint? — but no, she was off-balance; one honed edge sliced a shallow line across her arming jacket as she dodged away. Che witnessed the Weaponsmaster’s mystery then, that perfect unison of sword and wielder. Even as Tynisa fought for balance, her arm was coming about, knocking her opponent’s lunge aside with her rapier’s curved guard and, though her quillons kept winding round, her weapon’s point was just hanging there between them, the long blade angling and angling to keep itself there so that Icnumon almost ran on to it, trying to follow her up. In that moment, when he had skidded and twisted to a halt to avoid being impaled, and both of his weapons were coming together to bind her sword aside, she lunged, arm snapping out straight to ram the point into his stomach, razoring through him halfway to the hilt and then out again in another smooth motion that left her well beyond his reach.

Icnumon collapsed, shuddering but still silent, and Tynisa was already running back to support Amnon.

Che sensed the very moment that Seda understood what was happening. Perhaps because she exercised such autocratic control over her subordinates in the world outside, the woman had come to this new form of battle moments too late. And now her forces were in disarray and fallen, and here came Amnon, led to her by Che’s firm governance, and only Tisamon stood between him and the end of an Imperial rule.

Only Tisamon.

Jons Escarrabin had been a Pioneer for many long years. He had cast in his lot with the Empire during the Twelve-year War, after a stint of fighting against it, because he recognized what winners looked like. He had not looked back since. A loner and an opportunist by nature, the life of a Pioneer suited him well, and being a servant of the Empire provided him with the latest toys — like his snapbow — and the opportunity to use them.

But he had never been anywhere like this, even in the Commonweal. The forest around seemed bizarrely inconstant, nothing ever quite where it should be when he took a second look, and since they arrived they had been stalked by fleeting enemies, never quite seen but always sensed.

Now those enemies had become a reality, though, and he was inching forwards with his snapbow levelled, trying to flank a skirmish that he could hear far too distantly and not pin down. I hope you’re doing your job, Gorrec. But he had a cold feeling that this clash was not one that could ever go well — not in this place.

He was trying to follow a curving course so as to take the notional enemy in the back or the side, as Icnumon should be doing opposite him, but still he had encountered nobody, and the actual fighting seemed to have drifted away, leaving him seemingly the last man alive in this forest.

This is ridiculous; pull yourself together. Just another Mantis forest. But he could not quite make himself believe it.

He pushed onwards, because even the illusion of progress was better than nothing, his eyes scanning the dingy greyness of his surroundings for. . anything, any sign of life. Show him a Sarnesh soldier right now, and he would be glad of it.

And then there was a shadowy figure in the drifting fog that seemed to hang in rotting sheets in front of his eyes. Surely, there was someone there — or, no, perhaps two of them? His eyes ached from squinting, and he had a terror that, if he just loosed now at those nebulous forms, they would be gone and he would have no evidence that they had ever been.

Keeping his eyes fixed firmly on them, and hardly daring to blink, he inched forwards, straining for any detail. For all he could be sure, he might have simply trodden in a grand circle. He could even now have a snapbow levelled on the Empress himself.

No, too short and stocky for the Empress. He wasn’t sure about one of them, but the other was more like a woman of his own kinden. .

A Beetle girl? Hadn’t the Empress been cursing some Beetle girl?

Jons swallowed, and crept still closer, step by careful step, stalking the two women as painstakingly as he would hunt an animal.

Tisamon was faster than Che could follow, each movement appreciable only in its aftermath. Amnon had discharged his snapbow even as he ran forwards, aiming straight at the ornate Mantis breastplate, but Tisamon was already moving, the bolt vanishing between the trees Che was thinking, No, the Empress! Shoot the Empress! But too late, for Tisamon had closed the gap between them, his bladed gauntlet lashing out with blurred speed — and it was over.

She was so convinced of it, of the inevitability, that she could not even watch. She missed Amnon’s skidding to a stop, his sword catching the darting metal claw and knocking it aside, even managing a weak riposte that Tisamon swayed aside from. For a moment the two were poised, drawn back to just outside each other’s reach: the living Beetle — former First Soldier of Khanaphes — against the risen Mantis Weaponsmaster.

Tisamon struck out, making nothing of the distance, his crooked blade driving down like an axe, but Amnon had read the move somehow — not Che’s doing, since she was neither fast nor fighter enough to help him — and twitched to one side, the weapon slicing at the sleeve of his buff coat but not quite drawing blood. His answering lunge met only air. They circled.

Che saw the Empress, then. The woman had sidestepped the duel neatly, her eyes fixed on Amnon and her hand outstretched. Empress and magician, yes, but she was still a Wasp, and she could sting.

Amnon had not noticed her, but with Che watching over him he did not need to. Without knowing why, he had ducked aside, breaking away from Tisamon and drawing the revenant almost into the bolt of gold fire the Empress had loosed He let the Mantis come to him, staying on the defensive, sacrificing his attack to keep Tisamon between him and Seda.

And even as the Empress tried to find a clear line towards Amnon, Tynisa came rushing between the trees. Che sensed her sister’s loathing and rage that this thing was what the Empress had made of her father — nothing but a fighting puppet of blood and old armour. There were no words: the anticipated oaths and threats never came. Instead the girl drove straight for Seda.

Tisamon was faster, taking a blow of Amnon’s blade that dented his mail, but placing himself between Tynisa and his mistress. Then the battle was truly joined and, incredibly, the risen Weaponsmaster was on the defensive, unable to press his advantage lest he let one or other of his enemies past him, dancing and whirling with inhuman speed, and yet giving ground an inch at a time, contending all at once with Amnon’s strength and long-honed experience, and with Tynisa’s speed and skill.

The interplay of blades had been too fast for Che to follow from the first, and she knew Seda was experiencing the same. It was down to the skill of the three combatants now, as to who lived and who died.

For a moment, she felt herself face Seda directly, each looking into the mind’s eye of the other. The bitter loathing there did not surprise her, but there was fear, too. In her innermost heart the Empress of all the Wasps feared this implacable girl from Collegium.

Then Seda was backing off through the trees, retreating behind Tisamon’s fierce defence — but not yet defeated, for she had worked out some use for her magic that Che could not follow, some target. .

Then Che was dragged back to herself, the world wheeling around her, and Maure had crashed into her, knocking her to the ground.

Che shook her head, unable to work out what was going on. The halfbreed was standing over her, blade extended, directed at. .

There was a man there, another Beetle-kinden, a stranger. She almost took him for some ghost of this place, but he had a snapbow and it was levelled at the two of them. It was plain that he would prefer to shoot her, but that he would take Maure if need be, and trust to his speed in reloading.

Che tried to twist him, to deflect him, but she was rattled, and he was Apt. He had managed to walk like a ghost through her battle without her ever realizing he was there. A little magic will destroy him, she thought, for being Apt he would have no defence against it. Surely here, where the land was so fit for it, she could drive this man mad, force him to flee in fear, control his muscles, stop his heart?

But she was frightened now, and the sudden disconnection had scattered her concentration. Maure was already trying something, she knew, but the other woman’s skills were with the dead, not the living. Even so, the snapbowman hesitated, as if for a moment he saw some familiar face before him, or perhaps nothing at all.

The stingshot that struck him had been aimed hurriedly, catching him across one arm and spinning him about, but not knocking him down. The second came even as he tried to swing his weapon about, seeking this new adversary. Then Thalric had him — the searing bolt smashed the snapbow’s air battery and punched into the man’s chest, hurling him, already dead, from his feet.

But he was hunting the Empress. She could not know whether Thalric had come back for her, or just become lost in the greyness, but she had a task for him now. ‘Thalric, follow me! The Empress, she’s. .’ But what is she doing? Che cast her mind out again, fighting for a clear picture of what was going on. There was the furious melee between Amnon, Tynisa and Tisamon. There was the Empress, now barely in sight of it. There. .

The killer, Icnumon, that Tynisa had run through, had been bleeding his last out into the thirsty forest floor, but was not dead, not quite. A spark had remained in him, guttering and flickering with every moment.

Seda had fanned it.

Even as she watched the man haul himself unsteadily to his feet, Che was thinking wildly, Can that be done? as though the evidence of her own scrying was not enough. Blood still pumped from the wound Tynisa had given him, even more now than before, but there seemed an inexhaustible supply. And then Che understood: this was Mosquito-kinden magic run backwards, something that had surely not been achieved since before the Revolution, but more likely had never been done at all. If blood was power, so too power was blood. Seda was clawing up handfuls of the cold energy of this place and channelling it through the wretched Icnumon, her last remaining soldier still clinging to life. Now she had him on his feet, blades to hand. . and a moment later he was running.

For me? But, no, Seda was looking to her own defence. Tisamon was hard-pressed, and she was sending the revived assassin to settle matters there.

‘We have to go!’ Che could not just pick up Thalric like a game piece and move him towards the fight. She would have to lead him there. She dashed off into the forest, half running, half flying, without another word, knowing that he would follow, with Maure trailing behind them both.

The skirmish ahead was as bright as a lantern in her mind compared to the ghostly trees which loomed and lurched suddenly out of the mist, so that she was constantly moments from running into them or being tripped by their roots. She could see the battle, feel each move of it: Tynisa’s straight-arm lunge that Tisamon stepped aside from, even as he caught Amnon’s descending blade with his claw and bound it aside, almost wrenching it from the Beetle’s grip. The answering sweep of the revenant’s blade sent both of his opponents a step back, and he whipped it up and lashed at Tynisa’s face, Che choked, already seeing the attack carving another brutal mark there, but Tynisa had fallen back before it, ducking so far that one knee was level with her chin. The seeking steel fell short, then was dragged back sharply to deflect Amnon’s next lunge, giving Tynisa a chance to find her balance again.

But the other dead man, the tortured form of Icnumon, would be there at any moment. And beyond, Seda was out there but further and further away, joined by two more allies and shepherding them towards Argastos, and there. .

There was the spy, the impostor, and Che sensed a sour reek of doubt arising from him: a man who did not know what to do. Even as she pelted through the forest, she was crying out to him, Do what is right! This is your one chance!

She was moving as fast as she could, but not fast enough, caught out by Seda’s vicious use of blood magic. Even so, the fighting ahead must have been visible to the mere eye, for Thalric had abruptly taken wing, hurling himself forwards far faster than she could.

Icnumon was weaving his way through the trees, leaving a trail of impossibly still-gouting blood behind him, the poisoned blades in his hands just moments from striking. And Che had no choice. She reached out to grab Tynisa’s attention, showing her the threat, knowing that this distraction itself might be fatal.

Tisamon’s scything blade cut at her neck but her rapier was there to catch it, and Tynisa pushed against it hard, sending the revenant a pace off his mark, and using the resistance provided to throw herself out of his reach. . already turning as the ghastly near-corpse of Icnumon leapt towards her.

Amnon did not hesitate, driving his blade in but reaching for Tisamon’s weapon arm as well. Briefly he had it, and tried to bear the slighter man down, but that slender armoured form was like iron, just as strong as Amnon was. For a moment they were locked together, and then Thalric dropped in, hand extended but denied a clear target.

Tisamon spotted him, and that the dark helm snapped about in clear and murderous recognition, and he cast Amnon aside almost contemptuously. Thalric got one sting off, which vanished past the revenant’s mailed shoulder, and then the dead Mantis was rushing him. Plainly there were some enmities that had carried over quite readily into this new incarnation.

Icnumon moved like a spider on its web, all sudden jerks and stops, nothing so predictable as a living opponent. He lunged and cut with the same speed and skill, but made no attempt to defend himself, and Tynisa had holed him three more times, each one running red, before she realized that she was getting nowhere. The man’s face was twisted in terror and agony, the lips twitching, eyes rolling madly in their sockets.

And Che was there, pausing in horror, in time to see Thalric suddenly backing up, wings flowering from his back, then a second stingshot striking Tisamon in the chest but barely staggering him, boiling off that old Mantis plate.

The clawed gauntlet stabbed out. Thalric’s sword was out of line and too slow to parry, and yet the killing stroke never reached him. Amnon had lunged and hooked a hand about Tisamon’s pauldron, dragging him back, his sword stabbing down.

The point scraped off Tisamon’s mail, the dead man twisting in time to shrug off the force of it, and backhanding Amnon with a faceful of spines, sending the Beetle staggering away, clutching at his eye. Thalric struck again, only to have his sword slapped aside, and then Tisamon kicked him solidly in the chest, pitching him over backwards — and took Amnon’s lunging sword on his forearm, the edge savaging his gauntlet, the blade of his claw drawn back along the line of his arm, inside Amnon’s guard.

It flicked out with a spasm of Tisamon’s fingers, the point resting for a second on the rim of Amnon’s breastplate, before he drove it in with one sure, sudden motion, its keen edge cleaving halfway into the big Beetle’s neck.

Che cried out in horror, and for a second she was fumbling at the last traces of Amnon’s life, fully intent on turning the man into an abomination akin to the thing that Tynisa was battling. But she did not know how, and she could not replicate the magic — and a moment later she was glad of that.

Tisamon paused a moment, whether in respect or simply receiving new instructions, and Che reached out to Icnumon — all power and no subtlety, just like the Empress herself — and unravelled him, pulling apart the knot of blood and magic that was keeping him in motion, so that his body collapsed with a final gasp of relief, and he was allowed to die.

By then Tisamon was on the move again, and coming straight at her, but Tynisa was there to defend her, and Thalric as well. . and Che cast her mind out towards that errant false Wasp whom she could still sense out there and gave him an ultimatum.

Act now, she ordered him, allowing no room for negotiation.

And he did.