With that in mind, and the Netheryen issuing from their forest to form up for the march, he turned his mind to the next diplomatic challenge – for here came Stenwold Maker.
Even Ants needed to sleep, and the great regimented host of the Sarnesh force was just setting camp as Stenwold and his immediate escort arrived. The bulk of the Collegiate force would catch up with the Sarnesh over the next few days – some coming from the city itself, others direct from Sarn, using the restored rail lines to make up the time. Stenwold had travelled ahead in the hold of a fixed-wing hauler with an escort of Stormreaders, in case the Wasps were trying anything clever in the air. He had Kymene with him, and Paladrya, Laszlo and a handful of the Tidenfree Fly-kinden that the man seemed to have co-opted as his personal retinue.
There was an unfamiliar tightness to Laszlo that Stenwold was concerned about. The ex-pirate had played his role perfectly, liaising between the surface and the Sea-kinden, but there had clearly been some personal business on his mind all this time. With the death of the Tidenfree’s skipper Tomasso, Laszlo had become a grimmer man than Stenwold was used to. It was as if he had finally grown up and accepted his responsibilities. Stenwold could only hope that this change in him would not get in the way of the campaign ahead.
In his heart, he could make a solid guess at what was motivating Laszlo, and he knew he should do something, because if the man put any of that pent-up resentment into action, then there would be trouble that Stenwold – and the war effort – could do without. He said nothing and did nothing, though. The invaluable aid that Laszlo and his family had tendered, and the price they had paid for him, stayed his hand.
I will regret it. But Stenwold regretted a great deal already, and the deeds of Fly-kinden seemed a small enough burden to add.
‘Kymene,’ he beckoned.
‘War Master.’
He glanced at the Mynan woman, iron-hard and lean, and still an arresting figure despite the lines of wear and hardship on her. The first time he had set eyes on her, he had been newly released from a Wasp cell, and she had been one of the most striking women he had ever seen – though hers was a statue’s beauty, to be admired without being touched. The struggle for her city remained her life and her sole purpose. In that brief time when she had not been fighting the Wasps, she had been fighting her opponents within the Mynan Consensus.
Paladrya walked at his other side, her hand resting on his arm, carefully cowled and shawled against the sun that would crack and burn her pale skin.
Tactician Milus received the three of them in his tent, arrayed in full armour, a man with his hands full of war sparing some of his valuable time for his allies. Stenwold knew him, though: for unlike most Ants, Milus was good at putting himself behind the eyes of others and predicting how they thought. It gave him a tactical edge over his peers. And it makes him very dangerous.
‘War Master,’ Milus acknowledged. ‘Commander Kymene, Adviser Paladrya.’ That last name, which should have been unfamiliar to him, was pronounced perfectly. ‘Congratulations on your victory over the Second. It was an immaculately executed campaign.’
‘Thank you, Tactician,’ Stenwold said, waiting for more.
‘I’m told that you might have dealt the Second a stronger blow, had you followed them up.’ The mild voice was just as much of an affectation as the un-Ant-like preface: ‘I’m told’.
‘I’m sure your subordinates have explained my reasoning,’ Stenwold replied. No games, please.
For a second Milus displayed no expression, and Stenwold could not have guessed what he was about to do, but then he nodded. ‘It was your battle to direct, War Master,’ he conceded pleasantly. ‘I myself might have played things differently, but “if” is the scourge of the tactician. The Second is in full retreat, anyway, and we’re closing on the nearer Wasp force that was to have been the Collegiate garrison, as I understand it. I anticipate that either they’ll break or we’ll catch them within the tenday. My scouts report that they are currently sabotaging the rails as they depart, but we can re-lay them almost as fast, and once the Wasps are out of the way the road to Helleron should be clear unless the Second head north to intercept us.’
‘I take it you have strategies ready for either eventuality.’
‘Of course.’ Milus smiled slightly. ‘Although, as the composition of our forces changes and our numbers grow, they must be modified.’ His eyes flicked from face to face: dark Beetle, grey-blue Mynan, the startling pallor of the Sea-kinden woman. ‘War Master . . .’ His tone seemed to mull the title over and examine it. ‘I understand that your Collegiate contingent is sizeable. Your soldiers will prove invaluable in prosecuting this war.’ Sizeable still meant less than the Sarnesh, of course, and they both knew it. ‘Also we have Mantis-kinden, Mynans, the other Ants that you are bringing –’ this was said without a suggestion of hostility – ‘and a small number of troops from Princep Salma. This is the largest single force that the Lowlands has ever mustered. Even our logistics are going to be stretched tight, keeping such a number supplied and moving fast.’
Stenwold nodded, still waiting.
‘We are more than equal to any one Wasp army. Given our varied capabilities, I would stake us against two. Do you appreciate the scale of the military might we have amassed, War Master?’
Put that way, it was an oddly chilling thought. Stenwold looked into Milus’s face and read the thought, What might we not do?
‘Even so,’ the Ant went on, ‘we are still less than the Empire. If they concentrated their forces against us, we would be heavily outnumbered, and we will be moving closer and closer to their home ground – our supply lines becoming increasingly stretched and vulnerable.’
‘I am sure you have plans for all of this,’ Stenwold suggested, because it was evident that the man did. Come on, Tactician, no more games.
‘I do – and they are plans on which I am staking the lives of everyone here,’ Milus confirmed. ‘And for that reason, War Master, I need something from you.’
Here it comes.
‘War Master, I understand how Collegium organizes its affairs. Your Assembly is an admirable system, truly. But an army needs one tactician, one man to command all, you understand?’
‘And you are that man.’
‘I must be, if we are to prevail,’ Milus replied, with a touch of passion in his voice that Stenwold couldn’t pin down as real or just for show. ‘For us to succeed against the Empire, against that great wealth of men and machines, we must be unified. You are War Master of Collegium, and I respect that, but this army must have a single War Master. Will you follow my orders? Will you commit your followers to my direction? If not, then we cannot rely on you, and your presence will do more harm than good.’