‘Don’t tell us,’ Tisamon warned him, ‘that every one of your people taking the governor’s bread is just waiting to throw off their shackles.’
‘He is stunned only,’ Toran assured them, as she passed the limp form back to them and Chyses’ two associates laid it in the grain cellar.
‘And this way, he may not suffer for what we’re about to do,’ Tynisa added. Chyses’ angry look did not soften, but he nodded grudgingly.
‘The sands are running now,’ said Tisamon, ‘until he’s missed. Where does your map say we should go next?’
Achaeos could have told them, if only they would have believed him and if only they could have walked through solid earth and stone. The maze of the palace was unknown to him, but he could feel her heart beating, even through these cellar walls, feel the blood he had shed on her hands calling out to him.
Thalric had to wait until dusk before they came for him, and he would never know whether it was Ulther’s conscience that had restrained him that long, or if they had needed the time to gather their courage.
He had made himself readily available. Wherever he had gone throughout the day, there had been servants watching who could report on his doings. It was important, at this point, that they find him easily.
His plan, which seemed to have come to fruition without his ever having to piece it together, was complete.
He had chosen a walled garden this time, situated on one of the higher tiers of the palace. The expense that must have gone into the hauling of the earth and the plants staggered him, let alone the constant attention needed to prevent such an artificial plantation from withering where it stood. It would be as suitable a place as any to confront what Ulther would send for him.
When he saw them he was instantly relieved. If it had been soldiers then he would have been out of his depth. Ulther had a great many soldiers to call on, and the Auxillian militia as well, but it was obvious he did not trust the garrison. The Rekef’s reputation had done its work well. Ulther knew there must be Rekef agents in place, but could not know who, and so he could not even trust his own men in this. Instead, he had gone to his henchmen, his sycophants, and told them that the hour had come for them to repay him for all his favour.
Some half a dozen men came stalking carefully into the garden. Thalric had made sure he was seen going there, but he had chosen a vantage point concealed behind a stand of stunted fruit trees, so he had a good chance to see who he was dealing with.
He recognized first Oltan the quartermaster, surely a leading hand behind the embezzling of supplies that had brought Aagen here. The items he had taken as his due, intended for the war effort, instead went onto the black market, feeding into the lawlessness of the city and therefore the power of the resistance. Behind Oltan came Freigen of the Consortium of the Honest. Thalric, who disliked self-important merchants even when they did their job, would lose no sleep over his death. Draywain, his Beetle-kinden partner, was not present; either he was insufficiently martial or insufficiently reliable. There was the intelligencer, Rauth, as well, who must have found his own games to play with the Empire’s resources, and there was a confidence to his walk that had Thalric pinning him as the most dangerous of the conspirators. There were another two as well, unknown to him, but evidently of the same stamp.
Then, muscling in from behind Freigen, came a figure looming head and shoulders over the others: a Scorpion-kinden, massively built and bare chested. Some hired thug or bodyguard, Thalric guessed, and he looked a capable one. He was not armed, and that in itself was worrying. It suggested that his scythed hands alone would be sufficient for his needs.
With Thalric not immediately visible, they paused at the garden’s entrance. Rauth was glancing upwards, evidently wondering if their quarry had made his escape skywards. Some brief argument went on between the others, and then Freigen took a step forward.
‘Captain Thalric, are you there? The governor has sent us to. . to talk with you. Will you come forth?’ The hesitation part-way through made his speech ridiculous and Thalric saw an annoyed look pass over the faces of some of the others.
He had been aiming for the Scorpion hireling but, as luck would have it, Oltan had chosen that moment to step in to tug at Freigen’s sleeve and the bolt of energy struck him instead. As Thalric had been aiming for the centre of the Scorpion’s chest, Oltan took the blow full in his face, slamming back against the big mercenary and then collapsing to the ground, dead before he knew it.
‘There!’ howled Freigen, and launched a bolt of light at Thalric himself. It went wide and Thalric already had his sword out, still half hidden by the trees. Some of them were coming for him and others were seeking cover of their own. The Scorpion shouldered Freigen out of his way and ran at Thalric, claws out and held low. Thalric sent another bolt that scorched across the huge man’s shoulder but barely slowed him, and then he kicked off into the air. Sting-bolts lashed left and right of him, but none of them close yet. He glanced down to see at least three of them coming after him, and wondered whether they were any good, whether their years of self-indulgence had left them room for training and practice.
He chose to alight on another tier quickly, for he was not the strongest flier of his people. Even as he touched down they were upon him.
The first man approaching was a face unknown, barrelling up with his sword foremost and his eyes almost closed. No warrior, this one. Thalric stepped aside neatly, ducking into a crouch as the man passed over him and stumbled into an awkward landing. Before he could recover, Thalric had kicked out into an extended lunge, his wings flickering for just a second to help turn a three-foot jump into a six-foot leap. His sword caught the man in the ribs. His victim had the armour of the light airborne on under his tunic, but that was open at the sides, and the man screamed in shock as the blade pierced him, rammed home almost to the hilt.
As the guard flexed against the man’s ribs Thalric instantly let go of it and was snatching the man’s own military-issue blade from the air. He whirled just as a thrust sliced across his shoulder, grating on the copper-weave armour beneath. His assailant’s face twitched with surprise, either at Thalric’s speed or his mail. Thalric elbowed him in the face, breaking his nose and spattering them both with blood.
Rauth was now standing on the very edge of the balcony, wings dancing in and out of existence to keep him balanced there. As the bloody-faced man staggered away Rauth took one step down and levelled his blade, his offhand raised high and directed forward. For Thalric it was a pose that brought back a lot of bittersweet memories.
He recalled that the girl Cheerwell had been part of some duelling circle at Collegium, for all the good it had done her, but the Beetle-kinden were not unique in their ritual combat; Thalric himself had done his time amongst the Arms-Brothers when he was a junior officer, learning the blade and practising his social contacts. Rauth had taken the stance of an Arms-Brother duellist, and he was waiting for Thalric to join him.
Old habits, however inappropriate, die hard. Thalric felt himself drop into the correct stance without really choosing to, and a moment later he was making his careful advance.
Rauth lunged first, kicking off into the air and reversing his blade, coming down point first towards Thalric’s collarbone. Of course these were not the practice blades of dull bone usually seen in the sand circles of the Arms- Brothers. The steel flashed past Thalric as he swayed back, and his own stroke went wild, but he followed it up with three savage circular sweeps that Rauth dodged and ducked until he was on the very edge of the tier again. There was no parrying among the Arms-Brothers: the sword was for offence only, feet and wings were for defence.
Rauth was airborne again, passing straight overhead. Thalric spun as he passed, cutting across the man’s flight-path and scoring a narrow line across his calf. The man with the broken nose ran in suddenly, half-blinded and charging like a mad animal. Thalric stepped left and low, his leading leg folded double, and as the man went past he opened him up below the sternum with a single slice, and then sent him over the side with a spinning kick, launching him screaming down twenty feet into the unsuspecting garden.
Rauth had tried to make use of the distraction but as he pounced again from above his doomed comrade’s flight got in his way. He ducked back and Thalric drove up at him. For a moment they spun about one another in the air, swords drawing a complex web of lines about them, and then they were on the very balcony edge once again, back into their familiar stances.
