And here they were, a thousand years later; she was the most meagre of magicians and he was a tormented, brooding and bitter man whose aim – if he even had an aim – was not to be reunited with his true love but to show her, to prove her wrong, to win the argument that he had been conducting with her inside his head for years. The woman who rode his shoulders and ate through his mind like a maggot was no more the Che that Maure knew than she was some great Skryre of legend. And is this what Aptitude has brought the world to?
And even with that thought, and despite everything, the responsibilities of her role were on her, now that she had recognized how fate had cast her.
‘Do you . . . I could foretell your future, cast for omens . . . Advise you.’
He did turn at that suggestion, just enough to look at her past the armour of his shoulder. ‘You have nothing to say to me,’ he told her, but not harshly, more as a recognition that their worlds were too far apart for any mutual understanding. And then: ‘Who-ever dwells in that cave, they are just men.’
She woke at dawn, alone, the fire burned down to nothing. There were tracks, heading towards the broken rift in the earth, but nothing in the world could have persuaded her to follow them.
Instead she set off northwards up the Silk Road. The Commonweal was out there somewhere, and she would make it home eventually if she kept putting one foot in front of another.
Nobody knew what was happening, or at least Straessa didn’t, and if any of the Collegiate soldiers under her command did, they weren’t telling her. Obviously there was supposed to be some manner of signal, and with luck Kymene or the Sarnesh or someone knew what it was, because everyone had advanced to a point where it looked as though they were going to make some mad dash for the city walls, and then they had stood about past dawn, making no attempt actually to fulfil that promise. The Wasps, in turn, made no attempt to come out and do anything about them.
A single one of their enormous airships had risen from the city earlier and lurched off across the sky; Taki’s aviators had been ready to take a shot at it, had it shuddered its way over the Lowlander forces with a bombardment in mind. It had kept its distance, though, and despite fierce debate, they had let it go. The Second had plainly remained in command of the city; nobody had wanted to waste time and resources on an enemy that seemed to be going away, and risk an assault by the enemy still very much in evidence.
So, is our being here all a bluff? She could see the impatience down the line. Even the Sarnesh were plainly raring to go; if it was a bluff, and a single one of them knew it, then all of them would know.
And now this: the messenger from out of the city, and Straessa found that she knew him. She knew him and was not even particularly surprised to see him. It was that loudmouth Fly, the one who got everywhere: Laszlo.
He strutted out quite on his own, as though he wasn’t coming from a city held by the enemy, asking to speak to the leaders of the Sarnesh force. Straessa found herself ranged beside Kymene of the Mynans and Commander Lycena of Sarn.
Laszlo beamed up at them with a face Straessa wanted to slap, and then told them how things were.
An hour later they stood watching as a delegation marched out of the city to meet with them. Behind them, the city bustled with black and gold, but if it was an attack it was the most elegant piece of misdirection Straessa had ever seen. The Second Army was giving every indication of abandoning Collegium to its new masters, as represented by the approaching delegation.
And the city’s new masters are us, Straessa reminded herself. Looking on them, however – indeed looking on this whole gathering – she had to work hard to quell her concerns. There was precious little that looked Collegiate in this mess, not even the leader of the approaching forces, for all that he was Collegium to a great many people.
She sensed a similar disquiet from her troops, the Company soldiers squinting and pointing and muttering. The Sarnesh Ants were standing stiffly, plainly still all bowstring-taut and mistrustful of the situation, especially given who else was turning up around now. The Mynans, though . . .
Kymene broke from the pack, striding forwards.
‘Stenwold Maker.’ She stopped before him, shaking her head with a rare grin. ‘Look at you, old man, back from the dead.’
The face was Maker’s, Straessa had to admit. He was carrying less weight and had made up for that by wearing far more armour, of a material and design she could not place, all spiral and flute patterns moulded out of something brown and shell-like.
He smiled at Kymene, but it was not an overly sentimental expression. Purpose burned in Stenwold Maker’s face like a furnace.
‘We have much to discuss,’ he told them all.
‘Why can we not attack the Empire as they leave?’ the Sarnesh commander, Lycena, demanded. Imperial airships were floating over the city, along with a cloud of Light Airborne. The gates had opened, and already the first automotives of the Second Army were outside the walls, with soldiers marching behind to join them.
‘We have much to discuss,’ Stenwold Maker repeated. ‘But this thing is simple: the Wasps are leaving because I have requested that they leave, and I promised them safe passage if they did.’
‘And how long does that last?’ Lycena asked furiously. ‘Do you think that we shall not have to fight them again, once we march?’
‘Of course we will,’ Stenwold confirmed, ‘but we will fight them as soldiers. I will not have my city turned into a battlefield. I will not have the war fought over the bodies of civilians.’
‘Tactician Milus will not be pleased,’ she warned him.
He shrugged. ‘Tactician Milus can take it up with me himself. Now, gather round, give me leaders from every contingent. You have questions. I have answers. Then we march to meet Milus, who, if I can second-guess him, is already leading the main Sarnesh army against the Wasps who are dug in north-east of here.’
There was much jockeying then, shouldering and elbowing for precedence, and she would gladly have given up her place at the front if only someone had come to demand it. Instead she found herself standing there, feeling as though she had gatecrashed a horribly inappropriate party, while Stenwold Maker introduced his allies.
The Tseni Ants were led by a stern-faced woman with blue-white skin, and Stenwold explained how they were maintaining a presence on the Collegiate streets, keeping order until the Beetles themselves were ready take that mantle from them. Why them? Because, compared to the forces that had won Collegium against the Second, the Tseni were practically familiar faces.
The little contingent of Vekken were meanwhile keeping well away from the Sarnesh. They would also be marching east against the Empire, in a symbol of the newfound solidarity between their city, Tsen and Collegium. Straessa was watching Lycena carefully for her reaction then: surely the Sarnesh would go berserk on hearing that two enemy Ant city-states – and all other Ant city-states were surely theoretical enemies at all times – were now allied to the Beetle city whose affections they had been monopolizing. Her face was blank, though, any whirl of emotions hidden well away inside.
Laszlo was fully reintroduced, as though anybody would not know him, but Stenwold said he was from the Tidenfree, and named the little muster of Fly-kinden with him as that vessel’s crew, although Straessa spotted Sperra in their number.
Then Stenwold turned to his other allies, upon whom most eyes had been fixed since they turned up.