have salvaged something, though the effort of wrenching from her breakneck descent might have crippled her in any event. They had kept their nerve to the very last moment, however. She had no time.
There was never enough time.
The rocks met her like a lover.
Elsewhere, Esmail packed what few possessions he had: a change of clothes folded with a care that made him smile painfully, dry rations, an Imperial-issue waterskin Salthric had gifted him. A bedroll likewise. Paper, ink and a few chitin pens. No weapons, but then he had little need of them.
He stowed everything in his old canvas satchel, a calming ritual recalled from his youth when he had been a man with a dozen masters, going wherever the gold might lead him but taking the work for the love of it, the craft of it. The Arcanum had found its uses for him, but so had so many others.
A stupid life. A pointless life. Did he feel the thrill of it now, calling from his memories, the faint old clarion call to war?
He did not. If he had died an old man, grandchildren at his bedside, he would have counted it a life well spent, his earlier escapades just an aberration best forgotten. But now they were calling him back to it, and could he honestly say he was surprised? The Moths would hardly have sheltered him here out of human kindness. They possessed no such thing, and certainly not towards him.
Alone and unobserved, he took the Moth woman’s scroll up and cracked the seal. There was a brief summary of where he must go, who his contact would be, what passwords to use: the familiar information of any mundane spymaster. After that, however, came his orders, with a stern exhortation to memorize and then destroy them.
Infiltrate the Rekef and the Imperial court.
Investigate the nature of the Empress and her intentions.
Kill her.
Four
The Antspider was stepping into the ring of the Prowess Forum, in her first showing at a formal contest, and a murmur of interest passed through the spectators.
The Master Armsman officiating was a sour-natured Beetle-kinden named Corog Breaker, who had been souring still further throughout the proceedings. He held out the swords, wood sheathed in bronze, and she took one lightly and her opponent, a sturdy Beetle youth, took the other. Having second choice, he looked at her suspiciously, as though she had somehow tampered with the sword she had left him, but that was the price of having a reputation.
She was a lean, compact woman with snow-pale skin whose tan mottling could, with a dash of cosmetics, be formed into striking darts at her brow and cheekbones. She presented a most martial image, her features fierce, pale hair cut short as a soldier’s, her stance making the blade in her hand a natural part of her, the point into which the rest of her was focused. In contrast, the Beetle opposite her held his sword first like a hammer and then, as she directed her weapon at him, like a shield.
The Prowess Forum was more popular now than ever before. The College’s students had lived through war with Vek and the Empire, so that matters martial were on everyone’s mind. Four new departments had been created on the back of the war, and every student was expected to be able to acquit him- or herself with a sword. The Apt had a chance to learn the crossbow and the snapbow as well, training alongside Collegium’s Merchant Companies.
‘Salute the book!’ Corog Breaker growled, and the two of them duly raised their blades to the Forum’s emblem — a brass sword within the open pages of a wooden tome — which had become the city’s own martial symbol during the war.
‘Distance,’ the Armsman snapped. This instruction was new, born from a combination of the pastime’s popularity and peacetime’s renewed drive amongst the sponsoring magnates to count victories over sportsmanship. There had been, a half-year ago, a spate of unsatisfactory contests, with one duellist rushing the other in a frantic exchange of blows. The difficulty of adjudication had led to the introduction of a more formal start. The Antspider and her rival touched blade points, arms extended, each out of reach of the other, each theoretically just as ready.
‘Clock!’ called Breaker, and in that moment’s echo she struck, sword nipping past her enemy’s to poke him in the upper arm. The Beetle-kinden swore, then put his hand to his mouth and looked guiltily at the Master Armsman.
Breaker’s eyes flicked suspiciously between them. ‘First strike to the halfbreed,’ he said, with heavy disgust on that last word. ‘Second pass. Distance! Clock!’
And she was in again, a seemingly impossible lunge that caught the Beetle youth in his already bruised arm, making him drop his sword with a yelp. The commentary amongst the spectators was now running rife. The Antspider had not even moved her feet, only leant in a little, weight on the front foot ready for a quick retreat.
She gave Breaker a silent count of twenty before suggesting, in a breach of manners beyond enduring, ‘If you wish, I’ll play the point again, Master Breaker.’ She needed to win, and her two team-mates needed to win as well, because the fourth of their number was inexplicably absent. It was just possible, at that point, that she could talk Breaker into simply declaring that bout a lost match, rather than ruling that their team had forfeited, whereupon they would win the contest three-one. The four of them had worked very hard indeed even to get as far as being allowed to compete.
Corog Breaker stared at her without any love. ‘Play the point again,’ he directed, but now she didn’t like his tone. He was sounding like a man looking out for something specific, which might be bad news. Still, retaining an unassailable confidence in the face of bad odds had got her this far, and it might get her much further if she didn’t acknowledge the chasm yawning at her feet.
‘Distance,’ Breaker snapped, and she lined up with her opponent, their blades touching at the very tips. The Beetle youth had a look of tremendous concentration on his face, as though trying to catch out a street conjuror.
‘Clock,’ said the Master Armsman, and she hit her opponent on the arm, lightly this time for mercy’s sake.
‘Excuse me, Master Armsman!’ one of her rival’s team-mates piped up. ‘The Antspider’s cheating, Master.’
Breaker’s eyes were flicking left and right like flies in a bottle. The Antspider held herself very still. Would the Armsman stoop to admitting he had not seen it? Would his dislike of her — and, she had to admit, his preference for people actually playing the idiot game properly — overcome his oft-acknowledged pride?
‘Show me,’ he growled, and her stomach plunged.
A minute later and it was all over.
‘I have stretched the rules of the Forum and of polite society to accommodate you misfits,’ Breaker was complaining, giving the word a venomous twist. ‘You arrive one man short, I let you fight anyway, because you assure me he’s just on his way. Your sponsor is absent but I agree to accept her letter of commendation. But now I discover that you have found a way to break the rules, despite every measure we take. The last time a team was actually disqualified from a contest, Miss Straessa, was in the early stages of the Twelve-year War, so you may have some satisfaction in knowing that you have achieved at least a footnote in the histories of our duelling society. Do you have anything you wish to say about the matter? An apology would not be amiss.’
This is where my mouth is due to get me into trouble, considered Straessa, known by all as the Antspider. But she had dug a fair-sized well of trouble so far, so she might as well keep digging till she struck something useful. ‘Why, yes, Master Breaker. Take him out and bury him. That boy’s three times dead by now.’ She directed the wooden sword at her opponent, who started out of a conference with his friends and stared at her.
‘By the rules of the contest, one must stand at full extension, blade to blade, before the clock begins,’ Breaker told her sharply. ‘Your little tricks-’
‘Master, had I met him on the field, he’d be dead,’ she pointed out. ‘Do you think this game will help him if he joins the Merchant Companies? By rights I should be allowed every trick I have. I should be allowed to jump him
