can there be in vanquishing Fly-kinden?’
‘Merro is a keystone in the Lowlands trade routes,’ one of the Consortium factors intoned drily. ‘Also a large proportion of black-market and underworld trade passes through the hands of the Fly-kinden. There is a great market at Merro in which, it is said, anything can be purchased for a price.’
‘Moreover,’ put in old Colonel Thanred, ‘we have no guarantee that the Spiders will not simply disrupt our supply lines and attack our rear, with or without the cooperation of these Ant islanders.’ Thanred was the nominal governor of Capitas, a ceremonial position accorded to a war hero, and his sole advisory role seemed to be to deride other people’s ideas.
‘Is that likely?’ an adviser asked, and Odyssa then explained to them about Spider politics, or at least so far as they could be made comprehensible to outsiders.
‘The Spiderlands,’ she said, ‘are like the Empire in that they have a fair number of subject peoples within them, although those territories, I would think, are more than twice the size of the current imperial holdings. Unlike the Empire there is no central rulership. Individual cities have families that vie for control, and so do whole regions, and then groups of regions and so on. And all these families are constantly working against each other, playing one another off, changing alliances or enmities. Spider-kinden, when engaged in politics, cannot be second-guessed. Therefore they may decide that General Alder’s army represents a threat, and thus attack, or instead they may not. You can only be certain that you will have no clue of what they will do before it happens.’
‘A load of good that information is,’ the Consortium factor grumbled.
‘What about that city beyond the Dryclaw, what is it called? Our recent find?’ someone asked.
‘Solarno,’ Maxin completed for them: a city that Wasp exploratory expeditions had contacted only months before, that seemed to represent the north-east corner of the Spiderlands. ‘It may repay long-term investment,’ he suggested. ‘Unfortunately it seems to have seceded unilaterally from the Spiderlands, with no attempt to recapture it. More politics, I suppose.’
‘Long-term investment?’ Thanred jeered. ‘We have an entire army sitting at the mercy of these backstabbers.’
The Consortium factor bristled. ‘And what if they
‘If I could, mnn, speak,’ said the old Woodlouse Gjegevey. Maxin turned a narrow gaze on him, because he had not entered the debate until now.
‘I have not travelled in the Spiderlands, but have read, nonetheless, of their, mmn, kinden. There is record of a Spider lordling who mustered an army with the, ahm, intention of conquering at least part of the Lowlands — Tark and Kes and the Fly warrens at least. It came to, mnm, well, he was defeated by the machinations of his political rivals amongst his own kinden, but the, mmn, reports regarding the force he raised placed its size at over one hundred thousand soldiers.’
There was a thoughtful pause amongst the other advisers.
‘I cannot vouch for the quality of their troops, but you will understand that this was a single lord. If our precipitate, mnn, action should prompt a unification amongst such families, well. ’
It was help from an unexpected direction, but Maxin would take it. He turned to the centrepoint of the advisers’ crescent of chairs and asked, ‘Your Imperial Majesty, what would you have us do?’
Alvdan started from his reverie. He had taken no part in the discussions, and Maxin knew just what it was that so consumed him. What the Mosquito was offering him, impossible as it sounded, far outweighed these mundane debates. ‘What would
‘Perhaps an official embassy should be sent to these Spider-kinden. No doubt they want something from us, some recognition or tithe. We can buy them now and take back our gold at our leisure. We have done it before.’
There were no strong objections, and the Emperor put his seal on the plan. The Fourth Army would stay put, and General Alder would fret, but Alder was Reiner’s man, Maxin knew. The glory of the Lowlands would go to General Malkan when he took first Sarn and then Collegium. But Malkan had always been one of Maxin’s retinue, and he was the youngest and keenest general the Empire possessed.
Maxin was careful not to leave in Odyssa’s company, for that would have raised too many questions. He met her eyes, though, and nodded to show that he approved of her performance. He gave a nod to old Gjegevey too, before he left.
As for Gjegevey, he made a great show of being slow to rise and the last to leave, and when he left, Odyssa was waiting for him.
‘I thought it must be you,’ she murmured softly. ‘My message was that the Lord-Martial had a man amongst the imperial advisers.’
‘As you yourself said,’ Gjegevey murmured, ‘any man who plays politics with the, hmm, Spider-kinden, is liable to find himself caught in webs.’ He smiled. ‘What a pair of, mmn, traitors we are.’
‘To who?’ she asked. ‘Do you honestly think, O scholar, that you know where my loyalties lie?’
Felyal had an uncertain relationship with the sea, and held no firm borders. The wall of greenery their boat coasted past was inundated now, the brackish waters reaching far inland with the high tide. When the waters receded, the trees would be left suspended on their spidery roots amongst a mudscape of burrows and discarded shells.
Outsiders used the name and made no distinction, but Tynisa learned that ‘Felyal’ was the Mantis Hold, and that ‘the Felyal’ was the wood itself, just as that other place far north-east of here was
Their boat tacked closer and then further away, the Moth-kinden fisherman shading his eyes and watching the water carefully. At last he found a channel running into the wood, and guided the boat twenty yards along it before throwing a line out to loop over a branch.
‘This is as far as I can take her,’ he explained. Tisamon paid him a handful of coins, and then stepped out onto one of the arching roots, holding an arm back for Tynisa to clutch at.
It was an awkward journey until they passed the high-tide mark, stepping half in muddy water and half on the projections of the trees, seeing the swirl of creatures moving in the murk, and slapping at mosquitoes that hung in the air as big as hands. They clambered and scrambled inland with best speed, walking from root to root, jumping channels that were thick with mud and motion. The air glittered with life. Dragonflies skimmed the waters for fish drawn in by the tide, and butterflies like ragged brown cloaks hunted through the canopy for the open blooms of flowers.
They reached land, at last, and if it was not dry it was at least solid, past the furthest intrusions of the sea. The trees progressed from the stilted marsh-dwellers to broader and more familiar breeds. There was a weight to them, an ancient crookedness, that returned errant thoughts of the Darakyon to Tynisa, and she shook them off uncomfortably.
‘What lives here, besides your people?’ she asked.
‘Our namesakes,’ Tisamon said briefly. ‘Beyond those two, there is nothing to worry you.’
‘No ghosts?’ she asked. ‘Spirits?’
Tisamon turned back to her. ‘The mystics teach us that there are ghosts and spirits everywhere,’ he said. ‘But no, this is not like
She would have asked more, but then the Mantis-kinden found them. She only knew about it when Tisamon moved, the metal claw abruptly in place and at the ready. She had the sense of sudden flight, the sound of metal on metal.
Everything stopped. She could see nothing, though her sword had leapt to her hand. Claw cocked back, Tisamon was standing before her, tense as a taut wire.
There, by his feet, was a broken arrow. It had been meant for her.
‘Where is your honour?’ Tisamon shouted out, genuinely angry. ‘Come forth that I may see what my kinden have become!’
There were five of them, three women and two men, all of them within a few years of her own age. They had bows, strings drawn back to the ear, and not the little bows of Flyor Moth-kinden, but bows as tall as they were, and they were all of them tall. They were fair too, as Tisamon was, and as she was also. Her features were
