and this tent was made out of carpets and needed three men to carry. His blade barely cut into it as the two assassins rushed towards him.
One loosed a sting bolt from his open hand as they charged in, but the other assassin was so eager that he nearly caught it in the back. The shot went wild and Thalric tried to bring his sword back into line to parry the quicker man's incoming thrust. He twisted aside as he did so, but the man's blade went home anyway, digging in at his side where the regulation armour plates did not cover him. The sword dug in hard, but skittered off the copperweave mesh underneath.
Abruptly none of them much wanted to be inside it, and yet the two assassins were giving him no leeway. The swordsman had recovered from the blow enough to try and stab again but, this close, Thalric was able to trip him and then stamp on him hard before barrelling for the tent entrance. The second man got in his way and they tumbled over each other through the tent flap. Thalric punched him in the face by instinct, then called up his sting before finding that his sword had already run the man through, slipping between the plates of his mail.
Feeling light-headed, Thalric got to his feet, the sword-hilt greasy in his fingers. He heard the other man approaching from inside the tent and turned to catch him, hearing distantly a sharp 'snap' but not recognizing it for what it was.
Something slammed him hard in the gut and he went over, mind turning utterly blank. There was quite a lot of pain, and he felt a warm wetness of blood. Breathing was difficult, as though a strong man had kicked him under the ribcage. It was all he could do to stay conscious, keep his eyes open. He heard footsteps running closer.
The second assassin emerged from the tent, looking singed and angry. He glanced past Thalric at the newcomer.
'Took your time,' he said — and Thalric shot him under the chin, cutting him off without even a scream, the killer's face vanishing in a sudden inferno. Thalric rolled over, feeling a brutal stab of agony in his side. The third man went stumbling away from him, his face slack with shock, feeding another bolt into his snapbow.
Thalric extended an arm towards him, but the pain made his head swim and he missed his chance. As the snapbowman finished his fumbled reloading and raised the weapon, Thalric gritted his teeth and hurled himself away on to his good side.
His impact with the ground and the impact of the bolt came at the same time. The metal bolt ripped across his left arm, opening a shallow line across his biceps. He gritted his teeth, clinging to consciousness, and loosed his sting over and over. The first three shots went wild, but the man was idiotically trying to reload again rather than watching his enemy or using the weapon his Art had given him. Thalric's fourth shot burned him across the leg and he dropped to one knee, spilling bolts across the ground.
Thalric hissed in pain and then shot him in the chest. Under other circumstances he might have wanted the man alive, but just now he simply was not up to the bother. Feeling the drain on his body's resources he put another two searing bolts into the corpse just to be sure.
He sat down abruptly, hearing the tent crackle merrily behind him. The bruised ribs from the thwarted sword were nothing, and the gash on his arm would mend well enough. With shaking hands he reached for the first snapbow bolt, lodged in his stomach. He kept his eyes closed, because he could not bring himself to explore the wound any other way than by tentative probing.
The little bolt had punched a jagged hole in his cuirass. Carefully — oh so carefully — he unbuckled it, whimpering as that jogged the bolt. He then slid a hand under it, blindly feeling.
His copperweave had fared no better, but the bolt was jutting proud of it, however much it might feel that it was buried in his guts. The delicate mesh had parted like string before the snapbow missile. They had always told him those weapons were good, but he had never expected to be on the receiving end of one so soon.
The bolt had cut into him, but shallowly. His third layer of armour had stopped it going further: Spiderlands silk. The early tests by the inventor had confirmed its efficacy. Like an arrow or crossbow bolt, the snapbow's missile spun, which made it accurate, but also meant that it snarled hopelessly in silk. Thalric had three layers of folded silk pressed beneath the copperweave and, after penetrating two layers of metal, this mere cloth had slowed the bolt to nothing.
It hurt him as badly as it had being stabbed, that one time outside Vek. He could not have felt much worse if the bolt had simply run him through. He wasn't going to die, though, and in a little while he would be ready to stand up and walk around. And then he would want some answers.
Out on the field, the battle ground towards its predetermined ending. The double line of snapbows that Pravoc fielded ripped into the heavy Tyrshaani infantry, butchering them in their uncomprehending hundreds. Predictably, as the scales tipped, the Fly-kinden rose up in a great cloud and simply vanished away, fleeing for either the city or the wilderness, depending on their faith in the victors. A few were bold enough to put a final arrow of farewell into some Tyrshaani officer or other that they had reserved particular contempt for. Meanwhile the orthopters had started preliminary bombing runs against the Tyrshaan gatehouse, on the assumption that the city would require a little extra persuasion to open up.
Colonel Pravoc's entry into the governor's palace in Tyrshaan went unopposed. By that time the controlling elements of the Wasp garrison had been almost completely obliterated, and to the Tyrshaani themselves it meant nothing which slavemasters held their leash. The surviving Bee-kinden soldiers surrendered in good order, laying down their weapons and sitting down outside the walls of their own city, while tearing off the blue sashes that had never been more than empty symbols — Vargen's illusion of autonomy. Wasps being what they were, there were a few incidents of revenge killing, just as there was some looting once the Imperial forces got inside. It was all within the tolerated bounds of military discipline, and Pravoc's orders were for the city to be left intact and simply returned to the Imperial fold.
In the governor's own war room he found Vargen, already doubled in stiff rigour over the table, scattered markers and tiles oddly mirroring the fate of Vargen's own crushed army. The man's face was purple and twisted, his tongue protruding and his eyes wide.
There was a pair of Fly-kinden waiting there for Pravoc, one in the drab of a servant, the other dressed in Imperial black and gold, and not a blue sash in sight. Pravoc raised his eyebrows at them, seeking explanations.
'When it became clear that his cause was lost,' said the better-dressed of the Flies, 'Governor Vargen took poison. Tragic.'
Pravoc, seeing the outraged and horrified expression on the dead man's face, wondered if Vargen had known that was what he was doing, when he had taken the wine. He noted the Fly's careful use of the word 'governor' rather than 'general'.
'Who are you?' he demanded.
'My name is te Pelli. I am a factor of the Consortium out of Shalk,' the Fly replied, his face displaying nothing more than polite deference. 'I wanted to be the first to assure you that we of Shalk were only yoked to Vargen's schemes through threat of force.'
Pravoc sniffed. He had no illusions about how little a threat would have been necessary, nonetheless it suited him well enough if the Fly-kinden were happy to do his job for him. The faster he could report an unequivocal victory, the higher he would rise in the eyes of his masters.
Thalric found him there later, after the ex-governor's body had been removed, along with the poisoned wine.
'What happened to you?' Pravoc asked, and then added, 'Regent,' a moment later. 'Get caught up in the fighting? Unwise.'
'It came looking for me.' Thalric studied the man's narrow face and found it devoid of anything meaningful. 'Some assassins tried to kill me.' As he said it, he found the words sounding petty in his own ears. Had he still been Major Thalric of the Rekef it would have been a reasonable thing to say. It would have been the preface to
