other fire and its owners. In the end, Che was the only one amongst them advocating anything other than confrontation, so she gave in with bad grace.
After a little preparation, they set off in that direction, knowing that their opposite numbers had been given ample time to prepare.
Che, Maure and Thalric proceeded first, approaching the campfire as obviously as they could, finding just two men there, neither of them locals, and with three horses tied nearby. One was a squat Scorpion-kinden, and a loaded crossbow lay beside him as he ostentatiously burned a hunk of bread in the flames. The other was a solid- looking Wasp-kinden man with dark hair, who was watching their approach bright-eyed.
‘I swear I’m meeting more Wasps here in the Commonweal than I ever did in the Empire,’ Che murmured.
Thalric stopped within range of their firelight, having counted the horses, and Maure leant in to say to him, ‘The third is in the trees to your right. He has a bow.’
He nodded, then announced, ‘We seem to be neighbours for this night, so perhaps it would make sense if we shared the same fire.’ They had already discussed this, and it seemed marginally safer to have their opposite numbers where they could see them, rather than out in the dark planning who-knew-what.
‘There’s logic to that,’ the dark Wasp conceded. ‘You have food?’
‘Some,’ Thalric returned. ‘We’re no danger to you, so perhaps your friend could come and join us.’
The two men exchanged glances, and the Scorpion shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Come on out, Soul,’ he said. A moment later a tall, angular man glided out of the darkness, his face expressionless. He was Grasshopper- kinden and, tall as he was, his bow was taller, an arrow fitted to the string, but pointing towards the ground.
‘They’ve a friend also, a big man still out there in the dark,’ said the Grasshopper.
The Wasp raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that so?’ He reached down beside him, retrieving something from under a blanket. It took Che a moment to recognize that the object now resting across his knees was a nailbow, a weapon she would not have expected to find in the Commonweal.
Thalric nodded, recognizing this game of escalation when he saw it. He opened his mouth to call out, but Varmen was already responding to his cue and strode out of the darkness to back up his fellows. They had decked him out in all his armour, and for a moment the three strangers just stared at him. Probably the nailbow bolts could have pierced his mail, some of them at least, but it was clear that the dark-haired Wasp knew a Sentinel when he saw one, and he reacted in almost superstitious awe.
‘Well,’ the man said at last. ‘I reckon you won that round.’ He set the nailbow back down, though still within easy reach. ‘I’ve not seen one of your kind since the Twelve-year War.’
‘Not since you deserted, you mean?’ asked Thalric, sitting down by their fire as though he had just taken possession of it.
The Wasp’s face showed that he was about to make a retort, but the Scorpion’s sudden snicker took the wind out of him. ‘I reckon we’re none of us here with the Emperor’s orders in our packs,’ he stated.
Che had been watching the three carefully, and something tugged at her notice: nothing she could put a name to, but she was abruptly sure that there was a fourth one somewhere. It was hinted in the way that they sat, something implicit in their placement.
‘Your other friend might as well come out,’ she said pleasantly, ‘now that we’re all getting on so well.’ She saw the Scorpion-kinden’s eyes shift and she drew her sword smoothly, pointing it behind her in the direction he had glanced. ‘Or is that not the case?’
For a moment everyone was very still, but then the Scorpion grunted, holding out a hand. A moment later, something surged from the undergrowth to let him run clawed fingers over its segmented carapace. It was a fine specimen, Che considered, perhaps two-thirds the bulk of its master, its claws looking well able to scissor a man’s leg off at the knee, and the needle point of its sting was swaying suspiciously as if regarding the newcomers.
‘Scutts,’ the Scorpion gestured with one talon. ‘Barad Ygor,’ he added, pointing to himself. The Wasp was Mordrec, the Grasshopper Soul Je.
Introductions made, the two groups of travellers settled down about the single campfire, watching each other very carefully. Varmen remained in his armour, a hulking presence weighing down the corners of everyone’s attention.
Che busied herself with sorting out some food, readying a pot for boiling, reckoning that such signs of unconcerned activity would go some way to allaying suspicions. Soon enough, she saw Thalric and Varmen fall into cautious talk with the dark-haired Wasp-kinden, but before long they had broken off and retreated back to silence around the fire, to the other man’s obvious chagrin. She shifted over to ask, out of the corner of her mouth, ‘What is it? Something wrong?’
Thalric gave a derisive snort. ‘Slave Corps,’ he muttered, as if that explained everything.
‘What, still?’
‘He used to be.’
Che gave Thalric a level look. ‘And you’re in a position to care?’ she demanded, still trying to keep her voice to a whisper, but failing somewhat.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he told her, and he grimaced even as he said it, realizing how unwise the words were. Immediately, Che was storming over to the three travellers, aggressively enough for them to scrabble for their weapons.
‘You,’ she pointed at Mordrec. ‘You enslave people much these days?’
‘Not me.’ He looked at her levelly. ‘In fact my current troubles are more to do with too much pursuit of freedom.’
Che glanced back at Thalric and Varmen. ‘Then stop being so stupid, the pair of you.’ To make her point she sat down beside Mordrec, hooking her pot over the fire. ‘Why did you leave the army, then?’
He blinked at the question, then shrugged. ‘Killed a Rekef man. An officer.’
Thalric had the grace to smile slightly at that. ‘There’s a coincidence.’
‘And the debts,’ Ygor muttered. ‘What he’s not telling you is how he owed the man money. Don’t go taking him for some kind of hero.’
‘Well maybe we should get on to what you and Soul did,’ Mordrec retaliated, whereupon Ygor held his hands up hurriedly.
‘All right, you’re a hero. The less said about us mere mortals the better, especially as that business could still come back and bite us.’
Other people’s histories, thought Che, noticing significant looks pass between the men, and knowing that she would never find out. She lifted her eyes to the third member of their band, and found him staring at her.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ the Grasshopper replied softly. ‘Something, though.’
Ygor and Mordrec would be Apt, of course. She wondered if Soul Je just had particularly good sight, or whether all the Inapt would end up staring at her like that, trying to work out what had marked her out in their eyes.
Later, she sought out Maure’s company again, after Thalric and all three of the travellers had bedded down, leaving just Varmen and the scorpion Scutts staring at each other over the fire. The halfbreed woman was plainly about to seek sleep herself, but she sat up again as Che approached.
‘These three,’ the Beetle girl murmured. ‘Any ghosts there?’
‘Hah, it’s strange,’ Maure replied. ‘They share one, but it’s not a dead man’s. You can be haunted by the living in a strange sort of way, as you yourself have cause to know. They’d rather be elsewhere, maybe even not in each other’s company, but I can see the same hand rests on each of them. Loyalty to a living friend can haunt you as much as the ghost of a dead one.’
The next morning the two travelling parties parted company, and Che would not see any of the three again until much later, and in much-changed circumstances.
Thirty
There was precious little cover out here, and Dal and his followers were lying low in a copse of twisted trees,
