Arvi reappeared, magically bearing a tray with a fresh bottle of Jodry’s favourite vintage, together with an extra pair of bowls. He nearly lost the lot when Taki pushed in past him, and behind her came the awkward figure of a short, pasty-faced halfbreed.
‘This here’s Master Taxus,’ Taki announced to the room in general. She took a full bowl when offered it, explaining, ‘He’s got a message, top-secret urgent kind of business,’ and then she downed the wine in one gulp, apparently washing her hands of the matter.
Stenwold eyed the newcomer, who stared balefully at him, and at practically everything else. ‘Word from Tark?’ he hazarded.
The halfbreed nodded, reaching into his knee-length flying coat and bringing out a creased letter, folded and sealed in black. ‘All yours,’ he grunted.
If you’ve come from Tark, tell me… But the letter was being thrust into Stenwold’s face, and it was plain that there would be nothing further from this Taxus until it was read. It must be some word, at least, about the Exalsee situation. Tark is not so far from them. Perhaps they’re seeking our aid, for when the Empire comes…
He broke the seal with his thumb and folded the out letter, revealing a missive written in an economic hand.
Master Maker
You will recall me from when we stood off the Vekken together, inside your city. You will recall that I took my men to Malkan’s Stand and fought the Wasps alongside the Sarnesh and your own citizens. Later, you supported my people when we returned to our city, with the occupying forces fleeing before us.
I betray my city in writing this. You must burn it when you have read it. Only because I trust you to do so have I gone so far against my instinct as to write this report to you.
We have received an ambassador. She came from Seldis and presented our king and his Tacticians, myself included, with new developments in foreign affairs. A confederation of Spider Aristoi houses, spearheaded by the Aldanrael, has signed treaties with the Empire for mutual defence, she said. As a result of this, an Imperial army was already marching west towards my city. We were not their target, you understand. We were simply in the way, and reckoned by the Wasps as hostile. War was thus upon us.
Our own orthopter scouts confirmed all she said. The Wasps were indeed coming, and with allies not marching under the black and gold. The Spider ambassador then made us what she called an offer and what I call an ultimatum.
Master Maker, the city-state of Tark has yet to recover from the damage the Empire inflicted in its conquest during the last war. Much of our city is not even rebuilt. Our armies are under strength, and we have no stores, no resources.
I am therefore bitterly sorry to tell you that the city-state of Tark has surrendered its independence. We have sworn ourselves as a satrapy to the Spiderlands. Spider-kinden Aristoi are already within our walls, quietly taking the reins whilst assuring us that nothing will change. The army that is now marching on your city will march straight past ours, and we will not raise a single blade against them. Our need to survive makes ingrates of us, and slaves also, I fear.
I am sorry, Master Maker, that Tark has repaid you poorly for your support. My people must live. If I did not remember you so much as a friend, I could not even have gone against my people so far as to warn you. I wish that my duty was looser about my shoulders, so that I could do more.
Forgive us.
Parops.
Stenwold looked up, feeling his fingers crumple and tear at the paper. Jodry was staring at him, and he wondered what expression his own face held just then.
‘Who’s died?’ Taki asked, not quite flippant, but not solemn either.
‘The Aldanrael have taken Tark,’ Stenwold said flatly. ‘This was.. an old friend sending me all the warning he could. You’re right, they’ll be coming up the coast like before.’ He was about to say more when his eyes fell on Taxus. ‘You… can at least take a message back to Parops?’
‘Back?’ the halfbreed demanded. ‘What makes you think I’m going back?’
‘Well, you…’ Stenwold frowned. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Maker — Master Maker, if that’s how it’s done — I don’t know just what you read there, but if you know we’ve got Spiders up where it hurts, then you know Tark’s not your friend any more, and your mate that wrote that, he’s not either, as soon as the ink dried. Ordering me on this fool’s errand was the last thing he did before he became your enemy.’
He left a pause for what he plainly considered an obvious conclusion, and none of them there managed to leap to it.
‘I see. I know how it is. Mixed blood, miscegenation, I know.’ He scowled at the lot of them. ‘Up here,’ and he jabbed at his temples, ‘I’m Ant-kinden. Where it counts, I’m one of them. Now, having delivered some sort of secret business into the hands of Tark’s enemies, you think I can go back there?’
And Stenwold did understand. He had known other Ant-kinden, in his time, who had turned their backs on their cities for their cities’ own good. Sometimes being a renegade and an exile was a badge of honour. ‘Parops ordered you…’ he murmured.
‘I volunteered,’ Taxus said shortly. ‘I knew what he was about, so I agreed. It needed to be done.’ He faced them down, the Flies, the Beetles, all of them: just under five feet of pugnacious attitude.
‘So what will you do now?’ Stenwold asked him.
‘Depends. If you’ll trust me for it, I’d rather like to fight some Wasps.’
Stenwold glanced at Taki, who was looking thoughtful.
‘We need every pilot we can get, Master Maker,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll make sure someone’s keeping an eye on him, but — we have so many unblooded fliers and so few who’ve actually flown for real. I saw him come in. His craft’s a piece of flotsam but he’s good with the sticks.’
‘He’s your responsibility,’ Stenwold told her. ‘Put him with the Mynans. Get him familiar with the Stormreaders. Soon enough you’ll all be shipping out to fight — although whether it’s north to Myna or east down the coast is anyone’s guess just now.’
Being a parasite was a precarious existence, but Lissart, even injured, was obviously well used to it.
She had the pair of them ensconced within the Spider-kinden baggage train the day before the combined army left Solarno, and since then she and Laszlo had almost been travelling in style, Liss spending the days rocking gently in a wagon, cushioned amidst the supplies, whilst Laszlo ran errands and faced off against other Fly- kinden.
‘To think that the only reason I’m in this fix is that I didn’t want to go work amongst Spiders,’ Liss remarked to him one night, as they lay close together in the wagon, surrounded by the whispering breath of sleepers. Her smile, just visible in the starlight, was wistful, so Laszlo kissed it gently. When he pulled away, her expression was the usual: happy, glad to have him there, and yet her eyes demanding to know, Are you mad? Don’t you know how untrustworthy I am yet? He knew, of course. He was in the jaws of the enemy here, a step away from exposure at every moment. Each day seemed a weird dream-run, sailing through treacherous waters without chart or compass, and yet he was alive and unrevealed each dusk, and so was she. The danger that she would betray him seemed only a small voice amongst all the clamouring perils that surrounded him.
They had been aided by the Spider army’s structure, for although the lady of the Aldanrael was their leader, few of the actual soldiers were sworn to her family. Instead there seemed to be a typically piecemeal construction about the Spiderland forces: a number of mercenary bands and Satrapy forces from several different cities, together with Spider-kinden units donated by various different Aristoi houses, few of whom seemed to be actual friends of the Lady-Martial Mycella. Two figures strode through this chaos and made some kind of order from it. One was Jadis of the Melisandyr, some small family that remained closely loyal to the Aldanrael, whose force of personality and — on one occasion — lethal response to an attempted assassination, kept the other Spiders under Mycella’s orders. Lissart had determined to avoid his notice at all costs. He looked, she said, like someone who remembered the names and faces of any who served under him.
Instead, they had inveigled their way into the camp of Morkaris, the mercenary adjutant. There was less discipline amongst the mercenaries, and also less jockeying for position between underlings. In their baggage train of clerks, entertainers, whores and factotums, individuals changed allegiance all the time, with few hard feelings. Everyone was in it for the money, and personal honour was less of a barrier. Laszlo had quickly identified a
