The meaning was plain. Word of his parting of ways with Vrakir had flown ahead of him. That, or she really does know. Tynan’s world seemed to be fraying at the edges, the impossible bleeding into it. Who could say, any more?
He called up his underlings – Major Oski of the Engineers and a handful of others he trusted to keep order. The soldiers of the Gears ringed them round, the veterans, the survivors, a great mass of fighting men worn out by their long retreat, but all staring now as their commander made his farewells.
‘I will be entering the city alone,’ he told them. It was a ridiculous statement, for a general needed an escort, a personal guard. He would not give a bent coin for the lives of any who accompanied him, though, and so he would preserve his followers, and walk without companions into the trap. For a moment, he saw in his mind the image of Stenwold Maker leaving Collegium, walking towards Tynan’s camp to save his Spider-kinden lover, with an honour guard behind him that the man had plainly been trying to shake off as he stepped out through the gates.
A brave leader inspires brave followers. The difference was that Tynan’s orders were obeyed, and that the Wasps had the discipline to do as they were told. There would be no wasted heroics from the men of the Second, though he knew that, if he asked for volunteers, there would be no end to them.
But it’s better this way. And had he not been waiting for this moment since that first time he had fallen back from the Beetle city? He truly was the man who had lost Collegium. He was owed a rebuke from the throne, and if that came with a brace of crossed spears, then he would accept it.
‘It’s been a privilege to command the Second,’ he told them, lifting his voice so that it echoed over the heads of his men, and his words were passed back and back further by the murmurs of his soldiers. ‘And you and your new commander will have to do your best, because the Lowlanders must be driven back from the Empire’s borders. The fate of the Empire is in your hands!’
‘In your hands, Tynan!’ snapped out a new voice, and then there came an arrowhead of soldiers pushing forwards. For a moment there were hands thrust out, swords drawn, snapbows levelled, but Tynan recognized their leader and shouted for calm.
‘General Marent, what is this?’ And the humiliating thought, Is he here to arrest me in front of my own men?
The leader of the Third Army looked about him at the assembled host of Tynan’s followers.
‘Do not go into Capitas, Tynan,’ he stated, and he too was pitching his voice for the crowd.
‘Explain.’
‘General Tynan, the Empress’s Red Watch is waiting to arrest you as a traitor,’ Marent stated.
Tynan nodded soberly. ‘I had thought as much. That doesn’t change—’
‘Yes, it does!’ Marent snapped, his tone sending a ripple of anger through the men of the Second. ‘Tynan, do you think men like yourself come so cheap that the Empire can do without you now?’
‘If we do not follow our orders, then men like me are worthless, Marent,’ Tynan told him stonily.
‘It is because you killed a Red Watch man,’ Marent stated. ‘You silenced a voice of the Empress. That alone is sufficient to turn the Empire’s most able general into a traitor!’
Tynan could feel the temper of his soldiers rising, their loyalty to him leading them on dangerous paths. ‘Quiet, you fool!’ he hissed. ‘Every word you speak is a danger to you and to everyone who else hears it.’
Marent shrugged. ‘Tynan, my hands are red with the same blood.’
Tynan stared at him.
‘How do you think I know all this? They sent a man to me to tell me I might have to command my soldiers against the Second Army. That man’s dead now, but not before he told me all he knew. And, yes, I’m sure she knows, but I have an army, and so do you, and we have more real soldiers between us than the rest of Capitas can muster. And we’re not alone.’
‘Treason, Marent. You’re truly talking treason.’
The General of the Third had the honesty to lower his gaze at that. ‘I am loyal to the Empire,’ he said quietly. ‘The Empire needs you, Tynan. We have nobody finer to take the field against the Lowlanders. And I would happily proclaim that the Empress has been misled by evil counsel, that these Red Watch men are like the Rekef under Alvdan, the rot at the core that must be cut back. I would be the gladdest man alive to strip them away and find the Empress behind them, innocent of their evil.’
Except that . . . said his expression, and Tynan nodded wearily.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I have my—’
‘You do not know!’ Marent insisted. He seemed to have forgotten his audience, now. ‘Tynan, you have no idea what has been done in the Empress’s name while you have had the fortune to fight a clean war against an honourable enemy. The slaves, the prison camps . . . I have heard such news that even I don’t know what to believe. And her voices, her Red Watch, her Mantis bodyguard, wherever you hear of some insanity, always they are there. Tynan, we can’t . . .’
‘Marent—’
‘No.’ The younger general looked up again, his face set. ‘They will kill your general!’ he shouted out for every ear to hear, the voice of an officer whose commands can be heard through the tumult of battle. ‘They will execute him as a traitor! Do you men believe the charge?’
The angry roar of the Second Army must have been audible deep within the city.
‘Do you believe he should give himself into their hands?’ Marent yelled.
Again that fierce denial.
More quietly now, Marent said, ‘Tynan, if you bear the Empire any love, then you will keep camp here, and you and I will hold the bloody city to ransom if we must, because they need us. Piss on their Red Watch and their orders. If this city isn’t to be the prize of the Ant-kinden then they will need your soldiers and mine, and they will need you to lead our forces.’
Tynan closed his eyes, and there was a host of voices in his mind: every commander he had served under as a young man; every order he had received; every subordinate who had taken Tynan’s own words and gone off to a soldier’s death because it was necessary; all of his understanding of the way the Empire functioned. Because we obey orders. That is our strength. That is what we have had to learn. Empress to generals, generals to colonels, and so on down to the lowliest Auxillian and beyond – even to the slaves themselves.
And does that make us all slaves, save whoever sits on the throne?
He wished – bitterly wished – that fortune-telling was real, just this once, so he could call up some shabby conjurer and have his future told, because all the tomorrows from this day were an unreadable grey mystery to him, and yet he must make his choice.
And at the last, in his mind, he heard her – not the Empress but that other her, Mycella of the Aldanrael, whom he had betrayed and murdered in obedience to his orders. How often, after that fact, had he bowed his back to the Empress’s demands, thinking, If I could not break this bond for you, what other cause is worthy of it? But now he asked himself what Mycella would advise, and he knew that no Spider-kinden ever born would put her head into this noose.