his knee. The description was very specific.’
‘Those lists… they must be years old, though.’
‘Oh, but once you’re on a list, there’s only one way off, as everyone knows. Imagine the reward I’d get for turning in such an inveterate traitor.’
But I’m not a traitor: I was the Regent… And of course such a revelation would make matters a great deal worse. Thalric steeled himself, reasoning that this slaver would want him alive. Once again, he wished Che had fled, but to order her away now would surely give Halter the idea of using the woman as a hostage. Right now, the man probably thought Che was a servant or slave or something.
‘So, you’re going to strip, or shall we just fly you off to the Empire and see if they want you?’ Halter demanded.
Thalric was formulating a line concerning the wrath of his notional Consortium masters, when a voice shouted out from behind Halter.
‘Right now, you sneaky bastards! Face a real man!’
Halter whirled around, and half his men with him, to see an apparition come striding into the lamplight, out of the drifting snow, approaching almost within spear-reach before they could react.
The newcomer appeared colossal, but that was mostly the armour. A full-face helm exposed nothing of him save a narrow eyeslit, whilst segmented pauldrons encased his shoulders, and his torso was locked into a massive breastplate and backplate, from which hung curved tassets that descended clattering to mid-thigh. Brutal-looking gauntlets encased his hands. All of this was worn over the full layer of mail that Thalric had last seen the same man wearing, for that voice, despite its hollow echo, was Varmen’s. He had his heavy-bladed sword in one hand, and a broad heater shield strapped to his other arm. The man had transformed himself into a ghost of the Imperial past: here was the heavy armour of the Sentinels, who until not so long ago had been the Empire’s pride and joy and the unyielding fist of its line battles.
The only flaw in all this barrier of solid steel was a small, jagged hole in the breastplate, low-down to the left and barely noticeable.
‘Oh, piss-damn,’ Halter swore, shaken, and Thalric let fly a sting-bolt that killed one of the archers, whilst lunging at the other in a flurry of wings. The bowman twitched backwards, out of reach, but Thalric’s backhand swing smashed his bow before he could bring it to bear. Then Varmen was charging down on Halter, an unthinkable weight of both metal and man in smooth, furious motion. The slaver rapidly let fly with his sting three times, twice caught on the shield and once searing harmlessly off the breastplate. One of the Dragonfly spearmen, undergoing a surfeit of loyalty, tried to get in the way, but Varmen did not even give him the courtesy of a sword stroke, barging him aside as though the man was irrelevant, bellowing ‘Pride of the Sixth!’
At last, Halter tried to fly, wings suddenly sparking from his back. He had left it too late, though, and Varmen’s blade chopped down to catch him neatly between neck and shoulder and slam him to the ground.
The Dragonflies had joined in the fighting, and Thalric had been hard pressed to keep the spearmen at bay in those first few seconds, until Che had lanced one through the ribs. Once Halter was down, however, they scattered instantly into the night. Had there been a free archer left amongst them, Thalric would have expected some long- range reprisal. As it was, he reckoned he and Che were probably safe from at least that particular pack of villains for the rest of the night.
He turned his gaze to the armoured behemoth that Varmen had become, and saw that the man had not yet sheathed his sword, but instead was now staring at him through that dark eyeslit.
‘The lists,’ came the man’s voice, hollow from within the helm.
‘What?’ Thalric asked, with a sinking sensation in his stomach.
‘He said your name was on the lists,’ the other Wasp stated flatly.
Thalric felt himself tense, so as to be ready if the man came for him. Halter’s sting had barely marked that solid armour, but Thalric’s Art was considerably stronger than most, and he would aim for the lighter mail over Varmen’s throat.
‘What’s going on?’ Che wanted to know.
‘Lots of people were on the lists,’ Thalric said defensively, enlightening her not at all.
‘Oh, I remember the cursed lists, and all the names on them were Rekef,’ Varmen spat. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? You watched me doing all that mumming for the Dragonflies, all those hints about how you were a sneak, and all the time you were laughing at me ’cos it was true all along.’ His voice had turned raw and angry.
‘Varmen, listen,’ Che said hurriedly. ‘It’s not what you think-’
‘I remember your lists,’ Varmen snapped. ‘When we were waiting to march on Sarn with the Seventh, two or three times some pack of Rekef executioners would come from down the rail line, with their cursed lists. They’d haul someone out from inspection, hustle them off, and then it was an unmarked grave and no questions asked. Because they were on the lists. And, you know what, I don’t care. Let Rekef kill Rekef, I’m not going to piss any blood for that – but those poor bastards they hauled out, we knew them. We’d known ’em for years, you know? Ate with them, diced with them, trusted them to watch our backs – and they’d been Rekef all along, spying on us, writing down every last thing anyone said that sounded like it might be treason.’
‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Thalric demanded of him.
The faceless helm shifted left and right, seeming something less than human, a mute animal in pain. ‘If I’d known… I’d never have agreed to guide you, if I’d known.’
‘Listen,’ Che told him, ‘I’m not Rekef, right? I’m a Lowlander from Collegium. You’re…’ She remembered his cry: Pride of the Sixth. ‘Sixth Army? You were at…’ She got her recent history straight and blinked. ‘Malkan’s Folly, that must mean.’
‘Malkan’s Stand,’ Varmen corrected, giving the Wasp-kinden name for the battlefield on which Imperial ambitions towards the Sarnesh Ants had been smashed… and where the Empire’s heaviest line infantry had met the new dawn of the snapbow. Her eyes were drawn to that single flaw in the man’s mail, a finger-sized hole punched effortlessly through that thick armour plate.
‘I’m no Rekef, and Thalric hasn’t been one for years. That’s probably why he was on this list to begin with.’
Varmen’s carapaced shoulders slumped. ‘I’d never have said yes,’ he muttered, but he sheathed his sword in a single motion, through long habit able to find the scabbard’s mouth without searching, and then he was fumbling at the buckle to his helm, dragging the weighty thing off and then drawing back his coif, showing a tousled, unhappy man underneath.
‘We’re glad you came back, even so,’ Che told him. ‘And that you could get all your armour on so fast.’
‘All?’ he said, with a faint smile. ‘Woman, this isn’t all. This is just what I could, you know, throw on in a hurry. Most of it’s still on the beetle.’ His eyes found Thalric’s and the smile faded.
‘What can I say?’ Thalric shrugged. ‘So I was Rekef. As she says, not for a long time – and the Empire has gone to some lengths to get rid of me since. Putting my name on the lists is the least of it.’
Seeing Varmen’s grim expression linger, Che pressed on. ‘I promise you. Nothing about this journey relates to the Rekef, or even to the Empire.’ She essayed a smile. ‘Let me tell you about my sister.’
Fifteen
A crowd had gathered in one of Khanaphes’s great plazas. Merchants and artisans and farmers clumped together, looking up at the balcony from which, traditionally, the city’s leaders had formerly made pronouncements, passing on the words of the unseen Masters.
Now the balcony bore a less familiar burden, as a handful of Beetle-kinden Ministers was overshadowed by the presence of the Empire. However, the most imposing presence belonged not to the Wasp-kinden officers, nor the Mantis bodyguards, but to the Empress Seda herself. For all that she was such a slight and unassuming figure, something about her instantly drew the eye and held it. No Spider Arista possessed such raw presence as she did, looking out over the anxiously milling people of Khanaphes.
Across the street, from the window of a merchant factora, Praeda and Amnon watched as one of the Ministers stood forth to address the populace.
‘That’s not Ethmet,’ the big man murmured. ‘Why isn’t the First Minister there?’
