‘What is it, Major?’
‘Someone here would like an audience, sir, if that’s . . .’ The Fly-kinden glanced back. ‘There’s someone you need to speak to.’
‘Do I?’ Tynan flexed his fingers, still uneasy, but if this was an assassin he guessed that there wouldn’t have been all the introduction. ‘Let’s see him, then.’
The man that stepped past Oski was a Bee-kinden, an Auxillian engineer with a captain’s rank badge whom Tynan thought he recognized as one of the Fly’s assistants. The moment the Bee stepped in, though, it was plain that something was wrong. The dynamic between them was all skewed, with the major deferring to the captain.
Rekef? But, no, it wasn’t like that – and who’d ever heard of a senior Rekef who wasn’t a good Wasp?
‘What is this?’ he demanded.
‘Sir, this is Captain Ernain.’ Oski appeared to be trying to make himself invisible. He was frightened, Tynan saw, and not just for himself. He was carrying far more anxiety than the normal life of a Fly could account for.
‘General,’ Ernain addressed him politely. ‘I’ve come here as the head of a delegation.’ His eyes flicked briefly to Tynan’s hands, but his expression remained calm.
‘Whatever it is, it can wait,’ Tynan said, without much hope. This was unlikely to be a wrangle over pay or conditions.
‘It cannot.’ No sir and no general. ‘I see that you and General Marent have called in every soldier you can. It’s a mighty force assembled out there.’
Tynan waited, as if poised on a knife edge. He had no sense of the assassin from Ernain but then, if the man was good enough, there would be no obvious sign. Still, only a sloppy assassin strikes up a conversation.
‘A lot of Auxillians out there,’ Ernain added, as if as an afterthought.
That hadn’t been something Tynan had wanted to hear because, yes, a great many of those hauled from their posts to the gates of Capitas had indeed been soldiers of the lesser kinden, those who were not citizens. Tynan had heard some rumours about the Empire’s slave soldiers deserting – even abandoning their Wasp masters in the midst of battle. The details had been sufficiently vague that he had drawn no definite conclusions, but now . . .
‘And what delegation are you here to represent, Captain Ernain?’ he asked softly. ‘The Auxillians in this army, perhaps?’
‘Not exactly,’ Ernain replied. ‘However, I would like to report that I and other Auxillian officers have received communications from the enemy. From Tactician Milus of Sarn himself.’
‘And what does Milus say to you, Captain?’
‘Walk away, and know freedom.’
‘I see.’ Tynan was already calculating. What proportion of the force here was Auxillian? Too many, and from so many cities. What could he do to restrain them if they attempted to desert or, worse, join the enemy? He could do so reasonably effectively unless, for example, he had a Lowlander army to fight at the same time. What showing could he still make against Milus if the Auxillians were gone? Almost certainly not enough of one. ‘And what has your response been, to this kind offer from the Sarnesh?’
‘We’ve not made one, not yet.’
So we come down to haggling now, like Helleren merchants. ‘And what do your Auxillians here want, Captain? Shall we cut to the core? I have a battle to plan.’
‘I do not represent the Auxillians here – or not them alone.’ Ernain did not seem in a hurry to get to the point. It must be a luxury for a slave soldier to make a general sweat. ‘You remember the war with the traitor governors?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘I’ll recall to you one of the most remarked-upon features of that war: the lack of other rebellion while the Empress was restoring order. All those cities, all those other kinden . . . and there were so few signs of unrest. Oh, some, I’ll grant you, but there were so many cities that might have thrown out their garrisons – whether loyal or traitor – and fought for their own independence.’
Tynan was feeling like a man creeping along a ledge who suddenly realizes he has no idea of the drop that he teeters above. ‘Get to the point.’
‘We did not rebel,’ Ernain said flatly, and with that ‘we’ he was suddenly a man of a different stature, speaking words of greater weight. ‘However, we did begin to talk. Amongst ourselves, with each other, with our allies. A surprising number of allies – and some Wasps amongst them, even. About the future of the Empire. And about change.’
‘Captain, I have a Lowlander army on its way—!’
‘Yes, you do!’ Ernain declared. ‘A Lowlander army on its way to Capitas! And it may destroy all you have here and tear open the Empire’s heart, anyway, but it most certainly will do so if we go.’
‘What do you want, Captain?’ Tynan snarled.
‘Change.’ There was a fire in Ernain’s eyes. ‘Vesserett wants change. Maille wants change. Jhe Lien and Sa want change. Thirteen cities and countless individuals now make their stand and speak through me. Because now you see the lie that is Empire: you need us. You need us to fight and die for you, but why should we? And right here, right now, you cannot force us.’
‘“Change” is not a demand, Captain,’ Tynan told him fiercely. ‘I’m afraid you may have to be a little more specific.’
Ernain reached into his tunic, and Tynan extended a hand towards him, ready to sting. Oski lurched forwards, mouth open to intervene, and got the general’s other palm in his face for his troubles.
‘Easy, now.’ What Ernain had there was no weapon, but paper, just a few sheets of creased paper.
Ask any man on the wrong end of a death warrant whether paper can kill you or not, Tynan considered, but Ernain was holding the sheets out towards him, so he snatched them and stepped back.
‘And remember,’ the Bee told him, even as Tynan unfolded the sheets, ‘even if you refuse us, and you beat the Lowlanders anyway – and if ever there was a general who could, I’d say it’s you – you’ll have thirteen cities in open revolt before the last shot is loosed. In open revolt together, and where will you ever get men enough to put that down?’
Tynan had been skimming his eyes over the written words, but he seemed unable to quite take it in, as if the sheer affrontery of it was more than he could swallow. ‘What is this?’ he demanded. ‘You want freedom?’ Because that part he could understand.
‘There were some who thought we should take this chance to demand it – to offer ourselves as mere mercenaries rather than soldiers of the Empire, to go back to homes with no black and gold flag and no garrisons. But some of us looked further, and saw we would simply end up fighting one another, like as not. Or we would become divided and then fall to your people once again. Or perhaps to the Sarnesh, or whoever the next great power happened to be. This is no time in history to be a city alone.
‘And, besides, we’re not like Myna, where the older generation still remembers the time before the first occupation. We’d rather not be free only to starve. None of us was born to anything other than what we have, not even the oldest. And you know what, General? It’s our Empire too. We’ve built it just as much as your people have. We have a stake in it now. We’ve marched with its armies and we’ve constructed its ziggurats and its engines. And even we, even we conquered slaves, have reaped the benefits of Empire, once you Wasps had finished with them. But now it will change. The Empire will recognize us – or we will abandon it and it will fall.’