‘I have seen a woman command an army as ably as any man,’ he told them, feeling something tug and strain within his heart at the thought. ‘And I have seen a man sit on that throne and make decisions as ruinous as anything Seda has ordered. Alvdan was no paragon.’
‘Then it’s the family that’s rotten, not the institution!’ Nessen argued hurriedly.
‘No,’ Tynan said with enough finality that it shut the man up. He took a deep breath. ‘Listen to me. We are most of us soldiers here, and those of us who aren’t at least understand how an army works. It needs one commander: a general to order his officers, who in turn command their men. Perhaps I would take advice from my specialists, from my chief of engineers, my lead scouts, but my word is law, and it is final. That is how an army works.
‘But an Empire is not an army. It is not some little tribe in the hills, where a chief knows every one of his village by name, and it is not a military force where an instant’s indecision is sufficiently disastrous that one man must take charge. We have an Empire of so many cities, of so many hundreds of thousands of subjects. To give one man – or woman – power over that, unchecked and absolute . . . Who would not become a tyrant, a monster? Marent, you’d see me take the crown? Let me stand where my every meanest whim means life and death across all the Empire and I’d make Alvdan seem a glorious warrior hero, I’d make Seda seem the very hand of mercy. Have you never stopped to look around you at our neighbours? The Ants have their kings, but they are constantly in each others’ minds, accommodating one another’s points of view. Others rule by council or assembly, or just a network of feuding nobles for the Spiderlands. What other state has this madness of an absolute and hereditary ruler? Name it for me.’
‘The Commonweal,’ from Varsec of the Engineers.
‘That’s it,’ Tynan agreed. ‘The wretched, disintegrating chaos and poverty that is the Commonweal. Nobody else, but them and us. So, yes, I am in favour. I will sign Ernain’s declaration. And not just to save the Empire here, or because of his threats, but because that way lies a future that might just endure.’
‘But . . .’ Major Vorken of the slavers put in awkwardly, ‘the slaves, the slave cities . . .? They cannot be proposing to do away with slavery, surely.’
‘There are slaves and slaves.’ It was the first time Ernain had spoken. ‘Criminals, war prisoners, those purchased from the Spiders or the Scorpions, they are slaves, certainly, and we rely on them, after all. Let the Collegiates live that particular dream. But, as for the people of my city, and of the other cities, we will not be born into slavery. We Auxillians will be soldiers as you are, not slave conscripts. We will be citizens of an Empire that is ours, as it is yours. Yes, there will be adjustments. Yes, some that are slaves now will be free servants or artisans or soldiers in the future, but I’m not some bleating Collegium scholar telling you everyone has a right to be free. We all know that isn’t true – and so does most of the rest of the world.’
‘And what of those cities that you don’t speak for?’ Marent put in thoughtfully.
‘If they don’t come round, if they don’t see that this is the best for them?’ Ernain shrugged. ‘Then they deserve all they get.’
‘Well, then.’ Tynan looked around at them. ‘I have Marent with me. I have Bellowern, so I suspect that means that a great deal of the wheels that would need to spin to make this work are already in place.’ And now Honory was nodding slightly at that, the weight of his clan and its many, many dependants and adherents in that small gesture. ‘But what of the rest of you? Here’s our experiment in government. You are my assembly, here and now. So speak.’
He saw Nessen shaking his head, shrinking back, a man not in favour but not brave enough to speak out. Vorken had already stepped back, his expression tense and conflicted, quite out of his depth.
‘General,’ Merva of Solarno said, ‘this is probably where I mention that Ernain’s people have already spread the word as far as Solarno. The Spiders there are aware of this proposal, as is my husband. Solarno will take what is offered.’
‘The Spiders will join the Empire, will they?’ Nessen demanded.
‘Those families who have made their power base in Solarno may,’ she agreed, ‘so long as it would become their Empire too.’
‘What say the Engineers?’ Tynan asked.
‘I have always been a man of progress—’ Varsec started.
‘Quiet, man,’ Lien snapped at him, but the colonel just looked at his superior for a moment, and then went on.
‘Progress is what an engineer should wish for. If a thing does not work, you redesign it until it does. If a thing could work better, it’s the same. And if you do not advance in this way –’ now he was shouting over Lien’s orders to be silent – ‘if you become fond of yesterday’s designs even though they no longer function, then you will fail. Only by changing and bettering ourselves can we survive.’
‘Says the same man who brought mindlinked pilots into the army!’ General Lien snapped.
‘And they have served us well, Lien,’ Tynan stated. ‘And, yes, some of them are halfbreeds, and some of them are women – my own chief of aviators even – and yet they still serve the Empire.’
‘No,’ Lien protested. ‘Tynan, this is treason and, worse, it is a fool’s treason. The Empress has her . . . irregularities, perhaps, but I have faith in her. The Engineers will not sign. I will return to Capitas and prepare to man the wall artillery against the Lowlanders.’ As he turned away he bellowed, ‘Varsec!’
He left the tent, striding out into the night air, and Tynan wondered, Can we do it without him? What would the Engineers do – elect their own Emperor if we deposed Seda?
‘Lien!’ he called, but then he heard the clatter of steel from outside, and a scream.
Did someone stab him? Instantly, Tynan was pushing his way out of the tent, too. He saw a cluster of men fighting in the firelight, trying to keep something from approaching him. Even as he watched, that single figure scythed through them, cutting down anyone within reach of its blade, shrugging off or stepping aside from stingshot and snapbow bolts.
The Empress’s Mantis.
Tynan’s blood ran cold just to see it, but the armoured figure was already picking up speed, cutting down any soldier luckless enough to get in its way and coming directly for him.
The first wave of the Worm’s soldiers had fallen on both sides, buried beneath the rockslides that Thalric had prepared. They had used that weapon to the very best of their ability, leaving scores of the attackers crushed and broken. But that was it, for there was no more they could throw down. Now the slingers were working, casting stones into the advancing mass of the enemy as fast as they could, but it would not hold them back long. Nothing would hold them for long.
‘Are you ready?’ Che asked Tynisa.
‘As I can be,’ her foster-sister replied. She was standing up straight, right now, sword in hand and feeding off the strength it lent her. The tide of the Worm would not have to advance far before she was a cripple once more and Che was again just a Beetle girl with delusions.
If this is my last act, let it be the right one – but she had gone beyond the ability to judge.
She reached out – with her arms and her mind both – searching for that connection with Seda, that conduit through which the Empress would absorb her power. The cries and shouts of the fighting, Thalric’s exhortations to the slaves, trying to shout some backbone into them . . . she did her best to blot it all out. Concentration was everything, as she tried to focus on that ephemeral sense that had been gifted to her, when she had lost her Aptitude.