‘Come on, Stenwold! We’re going!’
Stenwold heard her, then threw himself to one side, his sword clattering away from him, as the box he hid behind cracked in half. The unseen bowman high above loosed another shuddering round of bolts at the Wasps, making them duck away, and Stenwold reversed his course yet again, running for her and the door.
Tisamon was done when they emerged, standing over the two last bodies, and waiting for them.
‘They could have more men nearby,’ he said, his breath ragged. ‘We have to go.’
‘Not quite yet,’ Stenwold wheezed back, looking as though he could no more run than fly just then. A few moments later, Balkus came running for all he was worth round the corner of the warehouse, his nailbow in his hands.
‘Now. now we go,’ said Stenwold, as the Ant joined them. ‘I hope it was worth waiting for,’ he added, to Balkus’s sudden grin.
Back in Graf’s office they remained quiet for some time, watching their leader. Thalric stared into the fire, his hands clasped behind him, and it seemed that he was fighting to repress a great deal of anger that might spill out at any moment.
Lieutenant Graf stood to attention, his eye staring fixedly across the room. It was his hired men that had let them down, and it was obvious he expected the worst of the lash. The other three sat cowed and quiet. Scadran was attempting to staunch and then bandage the gash across his leg that a nailbow shot had made, grimacing as he struggled to tie the knots but not letting anyone else help him. Hofi and Arianna exchanged silent glances. Hofi, for his part, was strictly not a fighter and had not even been there, while Arianna felt she could claim that her task, at least, had been completed to specification.
Or had it? Stenwold’s glance at her had suggested genuine betrayal, but they had been ready for the trap nonetheless, with one of their men waiting on high to ambush the ambushers. What had tipped them off?
Or had Stenwold just been more cautious than she expected? After all, he was an old campaigner in the intelligence trade. Perhaps that nailbowman had been hanging out of a window every time that Stenwold went to meet the students. In Stenwold’s business it was not whether things would go wrong, but when.
And she knew, as Hofi knew, that this was all immaterial. If Thalric now decided to take it out on them, because of some dislike of them as individuals or lesser kinden, or simply to safeguard his own career, then reason need not enter into it. Graf would be only too glad to offload the blame onto them.
At last Thalric spoke. ‘Playing your enemy in his own city is always a risk,’ he declared. ‘I had hoped that we could at least strip a few of his bodyguards away from him, but the Mantis and his girl seem to have survived this as well. So where are we now?’
He turned to them. Arianna noticed a muscle in Graf’s jaw twitch.
‘There are plans and plans,’ Thalric said. He no longer seemed angry, had clearly conquered that. ‘I was sent here with two, but one has come to nothing. Stenwold will be speaking his piece at the Assembly soon enough. Now, we have our own people on hand in the Assembly, who have taken our gold, but the Empire has seen how those old men and women of Collegium cannot leave well alone. Look what they did to Sarn. They think they have all the answers, and yet the philosophy they peddle is an enemy to the Empire in its own right.’
He sat down at last, and only then did Graf allow himself to relax.
‘I had hoped to take Stenwold tonight,’ Thalric said. ‘This next part would be so much the easier if we could pick over his brains. I still hope the Assembly will refuse him. All that is now effectively irrelevant. We have a greater matter at hand.’
Arianna and Hofi glanced at one another again, because this meant something Thalric had not mentioned, and the comment surprised even Graf.
‘I sent a messenger to Vek two days ago,’ Thalric told them. There was a thoughtful pause at that, and he knew that he stood on a very narrow line, and must cross it soon enough. There was little expression on Graf’s scarred face, compared with the wary looks of the other three, but it was Graf who spoke.
‘The Ants of Vek, sir?’ They all knew how difficult Ant city-states were to infiltrate in the spy trade, for it was nigh impossible to place agents within a city’s power structure where everyone knew the inside of his neighbour’s head. They had to kick about the edges like any other foreigner.
‘Do we have agents in Vek, Major?’ Hofi asked.
‘Not spies as such,’ Thalric said. ‘An embassage, however. Official, formal, very respectable. They got there about a tenday before I arrived in Collegium. Nothing underhand, merely trade deals, talks of a possible compromise between their city and the Empire. After all, Vek is a long way from our borders and, like all the Ants, they are vain about their strength. Our envoys have been taking things leisurely but now I’ve sent them word, they’re going to change pace. They’re going to arrange for me to see that city’s Royal Court, and I’m going to put a proposal to them that they won’t turn down.’
‘Dealing with the Vekken?’ rumbled Scadran. ‘They are not at all trusted, here.’ He glanced sidelong to see Hofi nodding agreement.
‘Nor should they be. They’re an ambitious and grasping lot, always looking for a chance to extend their borders,’ Thalric declared. He smiled at that, but kept the next thought unspoken. Just like the Empire in miniature, I suppose. Still, with empires size was everything and, in the fullness of time, Vek was small enough to fit easily within the Empire’s jaws.
‘We’re going to offer to split the Lowlands with them,’ he explained, and let that drop into the room and silence them.
‘Sir.?’ Graf began slowly, after a long moment.
‘We can’t trust them,’ Arianna interupted. ‘And they won’t trust us either, I’m sure.’
‘You’re right. It’s all nonsense of course, and they’ll know it for that, but they won’t believe that they can’t beat us if they need to. Someone here please tell me Collegium and Vek’s recent history.’
‘Vek was at Collegium’s gates in living memory, sir. Thirty years back, or so,’ said Graf.
‘Nobody here’s forgotten,’ Hofi added.
‘So what happened?’ Thalric prompted.
‘They wanted inside the walls quick,’ Hofi said. ‘But they got held off so long at the gates that a Sarnesh army came to attack them, and they had to retreat.’
‘Right,’ Thalric agreed, ‘because Sarn and Collegium are close allies, these days. So our offer to Vek will be simply this: an army will be on the move towards Sarn, through Helleron, soon enough. With that keeping the Sarnesh on their toes, Vek can take Collegium at last, which they have been wanting to do for a very long time.’
‘They’ll sack the entire city,’ said Arianna. ‘Everyone here knows they haven’t forgotten their defeat. When they were forced to withdraw from the walls they burned the crops in the fields and razed a dozen of the tributary villages. They’re a vindictive lot in that city.’
Thalric nodded. ‘Nobody much likes them, that’s plain.’ Privately he was not overjoyed with the plan, but his own wishes were entirely secondary. ‘The Empire’s path into the Lowlands is fraught with difficulty as it is,’ he reminded them. ‘The Ants and the Mantis-kinden will fight, and there will be a great many miles that will have to be bought with blood. However, the real danger is here. If these scholars and pedagogues all end up pointing in the same direction, they could conceivably forge the enemies of the Empire into a single blade. If that happens, not only will the conquest of the Lowlands become much more difficult, but if it fails the Empire will have that blade at its own throat, because they will not stop at simply defending their own lands. So, Collegium must fall and, if Vek is our agent in that, then what outrage the Lowlands can muster will fall on them, and away from us. That is why I sail for Vek tomorrow.’