Her head jerked up. Was that. .? Had she heard some faint voice on the wind, something distant as a dream?
The night was coming on, though. It was time for dreams.
She stood up, hands still dripping with Terastos’s blood, and walked out from among the ferns.
And into another forest, another place.
Twenty-One
I’ve had this conversation before, on a smaller scale. Not a reference to Laszlo’s size, but here were Balkus and Sperra, freshly arrived from Princep Salma, both complaining about exactly the same man.
‘What do you expect me to do?’ Stenwold asked them.
Balkus folded his arms. ‘I don’t know. Something. Thinking of what to do is supposed to be your strong point.’
Stenwold crossed to the window of his current office, staring out over his city, with special reference to the scars of the bombing, the conscripted soldiers below being taught battle formation, the factories turning out Stormreader parts and new artillery for the walls. This is what my home has become.
‘Seriously, Master Maker,’ Balkus persevered from behind him, ‘it’s an attack on Princep’s sovereignty, is what it is. He just about annexed us on behalf of Sarn. You’ve got to do something.’
‘Why me?’
‘I can’t think who else that man might listen to,’ Sperra put in, speaking from around Balkus’s waist level.
Stenwold took a deep breath. ‘He is the military leader of my city’s foremost ally. He is dedicated to fighting the Wasps. What am I supposed to say? Do I tell him we’re not his friends any more because of one girl?’
‘One what?’ Sperra and Balkus exclaimed almost together, high and low like two-part harmony.
For a moment Stenwold lost track of the present conversation. He had been making do with perilously little sleep this last tenday. Not the girl this time, that was Laszlo. ‘For just one city. Princep Salma. Do I call off the alliance?’
‘Threaten to do it,’ Sperra insisted.
‘And he’ll know I’m bluffing, and all I’ll achieve is to alienate the Sarnesh.’
‘Then don’t bluff!’ Balkus had his turn now.
At that, Stenwold turned round, sitting back on the windowsill. Something in his expression tapped the big Ant’s anger and drained it, leaving the man almost fearful.
‘It would be a bluff, because we cannot afford to do without Sarn,’ Stenwold said simply. ‘They cannot do without us, it’s true, but our need is mutual. It’s an alliance, after all.’
‘But it’s wrong,’ Sperra said, sounding almost childlike.
‘We need to win this war, Sperra. We need to defeat the Empire, or what has it all been for? We need to. . somehow we need to bring this to a close. I’m being frank with you. Believe me, Sarn could go much further down that path, and I’d still back them. I have to.’ And good sense told him to stop there, but his mouth continued speaking. ‘And a lot of people would ask whether Princep should not be expected to fight to defend its freedom.’
Balkus stared at him. ‘They came to my city and they turned my people into their soldiers, under their orders, at their command. How is that different from the Auxillians of the Empire?’ And then, before Stenwold could riposte: ‘Maker, I thought we were friends. Is this it, then? Were we only ever just hirelings of yours? To be cast off when you don’t need us?’
Of course not.
It’s not like that.
You’re not seeing the whole picture.
Balkus, just see sense for once. This is bigger than. .
But Stenwold said none of those things; he just looked at Balkus and Sperra and said nothing at all, with no real idea of how cold and hostile his expression might have become. He saw Balkus balling his fists, Balkus the Ant mercenary, with a sword at his belt and a nailbow slung over his shoulder.
But he knew Balkus. The Ant was no danger to him. They were friends, after all.
The Sarnesh renegade’s face twisted in some strangled expression obviously taught to him by living amongst other kinden. Then Sperra was tugging gently at his arm, her eyes regarding Stenwold sadly.
‘Bye, War Master,’ she said. ‘We’ll leave you to your war.’ She did not even remind him of the time the Sarnesh had tortured her on his account. Not a word, not a facial tic to recall it, and yet the thought might almost have leapt straight from her mind to his. And as for Balkus: the Ant had led Collegium’s own forces in the last war, had been a hero to the people of Stenwold’s city.
But I don’t need them now. I need Tactician Milus and the Sarnesh. So he simply watched them go, the two of them, and knew that he had betrayed them utterly, unreservedly.
Tactician, we have each considered your plans.
Milus waited, standing on the battlements of Sarn, whilst all about him a city was preparing for war. Not an army but a city. Every Ant-kinden became a warrior in time of need, and now the artisans, the labourers, the merchants among his people were being kitted out with hauberk, crossbow and shortsword, forming a citizen militia to hold the walls and support the main army.
His mind was linked with the Royal Court, the King and the other tacticians, those who had given him oversight of the campaign against the Empire. That they were not instantly agreeing with him was a point of concern, but he allowed them time. They had shown their faith in him when they appointed him. His was a rare mind for an Ant, able to chew over many problems at once, able to see unusual solutions to difficult problems — and often to simplify those problems by tearing right through them where a lesser man might get mired in detail.
We could have done with the Collegiates pressing their advantage after they drove the Second off, one of Milus’s peers mused. A relief column from the Beetles would be very welcome now.
For the record, the Collegiates have done their best with what is available to them: superior artifice and inferior warriors, Milus stated firmly. It was not his place to speak thus, but he had little care for propriety now. It was all part of that same eccentricity of mind that saw some Ants exiled and a very few raised high. He had made few friends and yet, to date, nobody could disagree with his methods or his results.
Within the mental space between him and the Court hovered a dream of their forces, represented simply and surely: the Sarnesh main army, the citizen militia, the auxiliary militia from the Foreigners’ Quarter, the makeshift warriors from Princep — present but palpably unhappy to be so — and several hundred Mynan warriors who had fled the fall of their city — basically the great majority of their remaining land army. Of the non-Sarnesh forces, it was only those same Mynans that Milus had any great faith in, and even then they were an expendable resource. They would fight well, but their long-term aims did not necessarily chime with those of Sarn. Best therefore to spend them now.
We cannot see that there is anything more that can be done. We have gathered all we can, made every preparation. That was the voice of the King himself. All about Milus, the wall was crowded with engines, every piece of artillery mounted and ready to strike at the enemy as they approached. Much of it was antiquated, but Milus was bleakly aware that this would not matter, because even the most modern Sarnesh engines possessed only a fraction of the range of the new Imperial machines, if the Mynans could be believed.