‘I suppose even Ants can innovate,’ Thalric said, ‘given sufficient incentive.’
‘You can be sure that they have a plan, sir,’ Lorica confirmed. ‘Taking Collegium has become their prime civic ambition.’ She said it sourly, and he guessed that the civic pride of Vek was something far from her own heart. Halfbreeds were even less welcome amongst Ants than elsewhere.
‘Well, then,’ Thalric said, ‘let us go and make our bid. You can arrange an audience with the Royal Court?’
‘Tomorrow evening at the latest,’ Daklan confirmed. ‘It would not surprise me if they will be marching east in three days’ time.’
Oh, it was a difficult enough time to be a Rekef lieutenant. The Fly-kinden te Berro was finding his race’s gift for survival becoming strained. Rekef captains tended to have their own followers, their own networks and operations to fall back on. Sergeants and agents were considered just tools, seldom important enough to make the death-lists of those on high. Lieutenants, on the other hand, seemed to have the worst of both worlds.
He had been working in the west-Empire these last few years, even in the borderlands during the preparation for the Lowlands invasion. He had straddled the line, with his diminutive stride, something between Outlander and Inlander. He had hoped to be useful enough to all, and not too vitally useful to any. That line had since become impossible to walk.
All these years he had been General Reiner’s man. It had seemed the safest bet. It had got him his lieutenant’s bars, some good appointments, neither too dangerous nor too dull. Then things had started going subtly awry. An intelligent man with an inquiring mind, he soon realized that the problem lay within the Rekef itself. The secret service was honing its knives, but its eyes were turned inwards. Two cells of agents that te Berro had worked with had been wiped out by men that should have been their allies. General Reiner was now fighting a war, and that war was not against Lowlanders or Commonwealers but against elements of the Rekef itself.
Then there had been Myna, that gloriously bloody excursion undertaken by Major Thalric, another of Reiner’s men. Te Berro’s name had been commended in the reports. He had been very proud at the time, but not so long after he had realized that his time was up. The clock of his career in the Rekef had struck, and he was a dead man unless he slid down the pendulum soon and made his goodbyes. He was suddenly a somebody, and Reiner’s enemies were using his name in pointed ways. He made his researches and his plans, and determined that General Reiner was not in the best position, just now, that there were other men with more promise that a Fly-kinden agent could cling to.
Even before he had been briefing Thalric in the Cloud-farer, he had made his contacts, put out tentative feelers. He had got in touch with the agents of General Maxin, Reiner’s chief competitor, and offered to defect.
Te Berro was an experienced agent, a useful man, and besides, he had a lot to say about Reiner’s people and their operations. He had spent almost a tenday talking to his new friends, until his narrow throat was hoarse with it, and they had written down every word. At the end, knowing that he had nothing left to give, he had cast himself on their mercy.
‘Let me serve you,’ he had begged Maxin’s people. ‘Make use of me, for anything.’ But do not cast me away. Do not make of me just one more vanished name from the Rekef books.
Whether it was this particular mission they had in mind, or whether his breadth of experience recommended him for it, he would never know. A day later they had packed him off to Helleron with his orders, and the implicit understanding that it was his success in this venture that would determine his ultimate longevity.
He had been at pains to show how professional he was. They had told him to recruit agents and he had done so, reviving old contacts with ease to pluck four capable mercenaries from the city’s stews and bring them to this private room in a good Fly-kinden taverna. His only problem was in the nature of his instructions and, seeing their hard, professional faces regarding him, he felt that they might tear him apart, or merely laugh at him. They must not laugh, at this. It had been impressed on him that, no matter how bizarre the task seemed, it was in deadly earnest. A great deal hung on his small efforts here.
‘These are your orders and I make no apologies for them. They come from the capital itself, from the very palace, so make what you will of them.’ Te Berro shrugged, hands spread. ‘In Collegium, kept in a certain private collection, there is this item. A box, no more than six inches to a side. Unopenable, or at least you are apparently advised not to open it. A box worked with intricate carvings, vine-patterns and abstract foliage. No better description is provided, but unmistakable, or so they assure me. Given the location and the expertise required this is judged no matter for the regular army. Moreover, by the time you arrive the city may be in some considerable distress, so that your skills may well be tested simply in gaining access. So the Empire calls on you, as freelancers.’
‘Mercenaries,’ said Gaved. ‘Let’s wear no flags we’re not entitled to.’ He was the only Wasp-kinden amongst them and his skill in hunting fugitives had won him an uneasy separation from the Empire, so long as he would always come when they called him. The sting-burn above one eyebrow puckered his expression into a suspicious squint.
‘Whatever,’ te Berro conceded. ‘I have bartered for swift transport to take you to Collegium. The more enterprising gangs of Helleron have realized that the Iron Road is alive and well, so you can be in Collegium in under a tenday.’
‘Takes the fun out of the job, but whatever.’ The speaker, Kori, had a broad face that held a smile easily. He was Fly-kinden like te Berro, but a barrel-chested, wide-shouldered specimen. He was a treasure-hunter, a raider equally of ruins and of collections such as their current target. Like Gaved and the other two he had a reputation, and no qualms about taking imperial coin.
‘Phin?’ te Berro asked, and the Moth-kinden woman nodded sullenly. Her name was Eriphinea and she had been part of the Rekef operation in Helleron for some time, an outcast from her own people. What her crime had been she had never disclosed, but she was an assassin by training and more than happy to kill her own kin.
‘And you?’ te Berro asked of the final hunter. ‘It’s not quite your line, I realize, but I’ve read of your skills and achievements. You’d be an asset.’
The man he addressed was Spider-kinden, middle-aged and lean, with a deeply lined face – or that was what te Berro and the others now saw. His eyes narrowed, considering the proposition.
‘Master Scylis?’ te Berro pressed.
‘It sounds diverting,’ said Scylis – or Scyla, as she truly was. The name was no more genuine than the face she wore for them, but in dealing with the Empire a masculine visage gave her more of an edge. ‘I have some business of my own in that direction, Lieutenant, so while I am there, I may as well help recover your trinket for you.’ Scyla appeared elaborately casual but, inside, her mind was working feverishly because the description of the artefact that te Berro had given her rang bells. She now recalled stories and histories she had read decades back when she was still in training: in training as a spy, in training as a face-shifting magician.
Te Berro looked them over. Stocky, blocky Kori in his hardwearing canvas garb, a grappling hook hanging from his belt as the symbol of his trade; Gaved, scarred and lantern-jawed, leanly muscled beneath his long coat; Phin the Moth in her plain robes, grey-skinned and white-eyed, dark hair bound back; and Scylis, an ageless Spider in nondescript traveller’s clothes with a rapier at his side.
‘For recovery of that box, nine hundred Imperials each, or else the equivalent in Helleron Centrals.’ He saw appreciation of that sum register on all their faces save Scylis’s. ‘I wish you luck,’ he concluded. ‘If it’s worth that much, I suspect you’re going to need it.’