Empire in Black and Gold

the hall towards them.

‘No!’ Chyses yelled, and then the servants were rebounding at the far end of the hall, as a soldier suddenly appeared there. In an instant his hand was outstretched, energy crackling from it. Tisamon dropped to his knees, skidding along the smooth flags of the floor, and the bolt of fire lanced over his head even as he rammed his claw forward, taking the man in the side and then again across the throat as he fell.

They could hear a disturbance on the floor above, but seeming to get fainter as they listened. Tynisa hoped Toran Awe would be successful in her subterfuge and keep them running, and that the Grasshopper would not suffer for it.

‘Downwards,’ Chyses hissed, and two turns later he at last found a stairway for them. By now Tynisa had lost all track of whether they were above or below the storeroom through which they had entered, but just as she was deciding that Chyses had lost the way again, Achaeos spoke from her elbow.

‘This is it,’ he said. ‘We’re getting closer.’

His face, grey and white-eyed, was unreadable.

Chyses was moving faster now, informed constantly by the sounds from above that their sands of opportunity were running out. He took less care now, he was almost running headlong. Tynisa and Tisamon could keep up with him, but she knew that Totho was clumping along increasingly far at the rear. Achaeos could be anywhere. She lost track of him from moment to moment.

Then, ahead of them, a door burst open and Wasp soldiers came out.

Chyses hit the first one head on. He could not have stopped if he had wanted to. He had a long dagger drawn and, as the two of them went over, he was already stabbing at the man savagely. The second man clear of the door tried to back away, almost tripping over Chyses and then righting himself with a flash of his wings. In that moment Tynisa was on him. Her first lunge merely scraped on his armour, giving him a chance to drag his shortsword clear of its scabbard. But before he could thrust it into her she was over his guard, the point of her rapier entering under his ribs and pressing forward until only inches of the blade could be seen between flesh and hilt. He stabbed at her anyway, even as his legs gave way, but she twisted out of the blade’s path easily, pushing down on his shoulder to yank her sword free.

She turned to find Tisamon had felled two more, Wasps without armour, and was lunging at another who was trying to back away from the doorway. The vicious claw slashed the man across the chest, but shallowly, and then a bolt of Wasp-sting energy lashed out to char the facing wall, making Tisamon duck sideways out of view. Tynisa made to lunge through the doorway past him but, while she was still thinking it, Achaeos put in a brief appearance, crouching low and already releasing his bowstring as she saw him. There was a cry from inside, and she and Tisamon went sweeping into the room in the next moment.

Instantly Tisamon was brought up short, snapping himself back into a defensive stance with his claw raised high to confront some great menace. She pushed past him, running her blade into the adversary whose chest Tisamon had already slashed so that he sprawled back across a great table.

There was a last Wasp there, at the far end of the room, and she registered his widening glance. There was an arrow in him, the shaft shuddering as he tried to remain standing. He had his hand held out towards her and, had he not been a Wasp, she might have thought it a gesture of supplication.

Tynisa froze: he was too far to take a run at. While she hesitated, another arrow seemed to flower magically beside the first, and a gush of blood burst from his lips. The Wasp fell back against the wall and slid to the ground.

That was it. There were no more of them. It came to her afterwards that, aside from the first two soldiers, the rest had not been in armour, had in fact been dressed in civilian clothes.

Tisamon was now advancing down the length of the table’s far side, and at last she saw what had so startled him. The carapace of a gigantic praying mantis hung on wires, looming over the table. Tisamon stared up at it and then, with an angry sound, he vaulted onto the table, scattering papers, and sliced through the wires with three swift blows. In a moment the macabre display was tumbling down, chitin plates bouncing and cracking.

Tynisa saw that the table had some kind of map on it, and papers as well, closely written with numbers. She swept up as many of them as she could grab and folded them, stuffed them into her tunic. Stenwold will like these, she had decided.

Chyses was in the doorway with his bloodied dagger. ‘We’re wasting time,’ he insisted.

‘You led us here,’ she replied sharply. ‘Now lead us where we’re supposed to be.’

Thalric did what he could with the wound. Ten years’ worth of field surgery in yet more friendless places than this came to his aid. The Scorpion’s claws had punched straight through his copperweave mail, leaving two jagged circles of broken links. He wondered, if he had not been wearing it, whether he might have lost his arm at the shoulder.

He took a moment, out of sight of the world, and even of te Berro, just to sag against a wall and close his eyes. It had been a rough night and the worst was still to come. Already he could hear running feet and he had left a pretty pattern of bodies in the garden and on the upper tier. Let them come flooding upwards. Let them start their search there on the terrace itself, or stare up at the skies for aerial assassins. He was already heading in the opposite direction.

Yes, quite. It seemed his whole career had reversed direction recently. He could not quite disentangle the pain in his shoulder from the feeling of defeat and despair that attended his mission. It should not have to be like this, a man turning on his friend, but Thalric was above all a loyal servant of the Empire.

He was also a loyal servant of the Rekef and, if he strained his imagination just far enough, he could justify to himself that the two were the same thing.

He had run ragged his reserves of strength in that fight, so his sword would be his first resort now. Using the Art-made sting of his people — which had become the symbol of their conquest in the eyes of the conquered — was draining on one’s physical reserves.

He knew he could have let te Berro and his agents deal with Ulther, but that would have been one betrayal further than he was willing to go. If things went badly, if Ulther had more sycophants to deploy, or even managed to kill him personally, then perhaps there would be some balance restored in that. He pushed himself away from the wall with a groan, and started off on his way to Ulther’s harem. The thought that he might encounter Ulther in the throes of the old man’s passions drew an involuntary, horrified laugh from him.

The servants he passed flinched away from him at the sight of his grim expression or his bloodied shoulder. There was a great deal of commotion on the upper floors that Thalric passed through like a ghost, and as he descended the stairs it was like going underwater, suddenly so quiet, but with a pressure in his head he knew was bred of doubt and guilt.

There were half a dozen guards in a sentry post near the cells, but Tisamon was running ahead of the pack now, and Tynisa got there just in time to put her rapier in the back of one who was trying to put distance between himself and the Mantis. Inside the sentry room Tisamon stood behind a table strewn with cards and small coins and the floor was scattered with bodies, like some Collegium woodcut depicting the evils of gambling. Despite her willing involvement in the venture the sight brought home to her just how much blood had been shed that night, and how much might yet be spilled.

Chyses joined them then, and Totho barrelled past him and began clicking away at the first locked door, not with the cumbersome autoclef but with a set of keys taken from one of the slain guards.

‘No, further on,’ the Mynan directed. ‘She’s down that way.’

‘We’ll do this my way,’ Totho told him patiently. ‘I’m not here for your leader.’

Chyses bared his teeth and Tynisa saw his knuckles whiten about his dagger hilt. She moved to stand beside Totho, where the Mynan could see her intent. At the same time, and somewhat to her surprise, she found herself seeking out Achaeos.

The Moth gave her a small head-shake. ‘Further in,’ was all he would say. Totho hunched his shoulders against the revelation and sprung the first door open. Inside there was a shabby-looking Soldier Beetle-kinden, a greying, careworn-looking man.

‘Out,’ Chyses told him. ‘Out and get yourself a weapon from the guard room there.’ The prisoner paused only a moment and then went to obey.

Without saying anything at all, Tisamon went to the foot of the stairs they had descended and waited. Tynisa knew that his instinct was right. There would be more soldiers coming soon. Their luck had held so far but the