In came Colonel Latvoc, mouth already open to speak when he saw the wreckage. Thalric had a palm directed towards him but Latvoc made no move against him, just stared and stared. Something was melting behind his face, and it was his own future. The ship he had invested everything in, whose fortunes he had backed beyond all else and which he had clung to in the storm, was now sunk.
He fell to his knees and a noise came from him: not a word, or anything that Thalric had ever heard uttered by anyone before – just a small, thin noise of pure grief. It seemed to Thalric that, in that same moment, Colonel Latvoc suffered more over the loss of his general than did Felise Mienn over the deaths of her children.
Thalric felt no sympathy, finding again that he was a Rekef officer at heart. In the end he cared only for the Empire, and the Empire’s worst enemy, right now, was itself. It was men like Reiner and Latvoc here, yes, and Maxin and all the other conniving generals and colonels and governors who were tearing out pieces of the Empire for their own fiefdoms, behaving no better than the criminal gangs of Helleron. Even the Emperor himself, if he tolerated or encouraged such practices, was no longer exempt from Thalric’s contempt. Such a weight was suddenly lifted from his shoulders with that thought, for he had done something truly good for the Empire at last.
He hardly even had to make the decision. His hand seemed to flash fire of its own accord, searing into Latvoc’s slack face and smashing him to the floor.
Now he could go, his work here done. He went to the balcony and looked out across Myna, a city on the brink of uprising. In the circumstances, what should the good officer do?
Or what should the turncoat Lowlands agent do? Or the sometime companion of Che Maker?
That thought still rankled: he should not have left her. Worse, he should not even have put her in the situation. Che was in the hands of the resistance, that seemed certain, and they might already have killed her. They might, on the other hand, have believed her. Of course he, Thalric, had news now that the resistance would covet. How would the officers here cope now, now that the governor and his Rekef general master were both dead?
It took him only a moment, poised there on the balcony’s brink, to see it: the Wasp garrison would lash out. They would see this as a political killing and they would retaliate blindly in the heavy-handed way that Latvoc had taught them. Without precise targets, they would bludgeon the whole city in their wrath. Myna was about to feel the whip, but the slaver might yet find the slave snatching the weapon from his hand.
Wings flashing into life, he vaulted off the balcony, stepping out over the city. He would find the resistance. He would find Che. He owed her that much.
They were within sight of Hokiak’s Exchange when Kymene signalled a halt. Che stumbled, blundering into Chyses’ back, and he cuffed her hard with a hiss of annoyance. She was pinned between two of the Mynan Red Flag dressed as civilians, cloaked and hooded as if against a blustery day.
‘Kymene?’ Che asked. Chyses glared at her, but he was just as uncertain.
‘Something has changed,’ Kymene said, though there was no obvious reason for the remark. She might as well have made the declaration after just sniffing the air. Still, the men with her took her seriously. Chyses carefully drew his blade from its sheath, hiding it along the line of his arm. Ahead of them, a squad of Wasp soldiers crossed the street, from alley to alley. To Che they seemed hurried and yet uncertain, dashing most of the way before dawdling for a moment, then dashing on.
‘We should go back,’ Chyses suggested. ‘Or send for more men.’ Che’s two guards were their only escort. Kymene was not a leader to hide behind walls, Che gathered, but it was a two-edged sword. Her followers loved her for her bravery in taking the self-same risks she asked of them, but of course the Wasps would give a great deal to catch her. Che understood from Chyses that there had been some close calls since Kymene’s release from the palace, attempts by Wasps and mercenary hunters both to recapture the resistance’s leader.
Kymene gazed thoughtfully at the front of the Hokiak Exchange thoughtfully. Hokiak was more than capable of double-crossing her, and it would have been entirely in character. He would have done it differently, though: the trap would be elsewhere than his own den, and more subtle than sending a simple message that the very Thalric she wanted to see had just walked into the Exchange and given himself up.
A trap of the Empire, then? She and Chyses had made what examination they could of the Exchange’s exterior. They were used to spotting ambushes after long years of setting them. If there were Wasp soldiers waiting to drop on to Hokiak’s Exchange then she saw no sign of it. Furthermore, she was sure that Hokiak kept a few eyes of his own out, and she knew for certain that those venal Wasps who used his services to bring in contraband ensured that he always had warning of any intended raids. There was the alternative, unlikely as it sounded, that Thalric was exactly what Che said he was, and therefore a useful man to talk to.
But something is wrong. Not a simple betrayal, but my city has changed in some way.
She would recognize Thalric, while her men would not. So she had to go in herself. Chyses was all for burning down the Exchange, with both Hokiak and Thalric inside it, but she wanted to see the man and speak with him.
‘He killed the Bloat, remember,’ she murmured.
‘Not for us, he didn’t,’ Chyses shot back, and that was true.
‘We go in,’ she said.
He hissed in frustration, but he nodded in the end. They had not always been allies, the two of them, nor had he always been willing to take her orders. It was only after her capture that he had realized how much Myna needed her.
They found Thalric playing a game of dice and counters with one of Hokiak’s followers. The old Scorpion himself was lurking at the bar of his back room, which was inhabited only by his men and by Thalric. Chyses went in first, the drawn knife still hidden by his cloak, peering suspiciously at every face in turn. Hokiak’s men, a half-dozen of them, watched him just as carefully in return.
There was a change, though, that went through them when Kymene entered. They were mostly locals and, though they had given their pledge to gold rather than city, they knew her. When she lowered her hood, the Maid of Myna, both beautiful and stern, their slouching arrogance straightened up into something more respectful.
‘You took your time.’ Hokiak came hobbling over towards them, immune to all that. Across the gaming table, Thalric’s eyes found Che’s own.
‘Tell me what you’re playing at, old man,’ Kymene said. ‘You said he was your prisoner.’
‘He ain’t going nowhere,’ Hokiak said. ‘As for games, what have you got? You been list’ning at all out there? It’s like the start of a sandstorm, just beginnin’ to blow. You hear that?’
‘What’s changed, Hokiak?’
‘He’ll tell you.’ The Scorpion chuckled. ‘Gryllis, how’s it going?’
The voice of his Spider accomplice drifted in from the shop front. ‘Everything worth taking is boxed. The boys are moving it right now.’
‘Taking a trip?’ Kymene inquired. When the Scorpion just leered at her, she reached out and grabbed his collar, twisting it. His men moved, but uncertainly and without direction. In that moment it was clear, as it had not been before, that they would not attack Kymene even for their employer.
‘This city is like a keg of firepowder, and it’s just about ready for the match,’ Hokiak said casually, as though she did not have him by the throat. ‘I deal with all sorts here, you know that. I do good business with your lot and the Wasps, and with anyone. Ain’t no matter to me, so long as there’s business in it. I seen what’s coming, and I ain’t going to have no looters gettin’ their hands on my valuables. Just taking care, that’s all.’