Gorrec shifted closer to Icnumon, meaning to question him, but the halfbreed’s look warned him off.
‘If I could tell you, I would,’ the man said, ‘but there are no words.’
Then there was a sharp sound — a real sound — and the three Pioneers leapt to their feet, weapons to hand. Tegrec was sitting down, one hand clamped to his face, Seda standing over him.
‘No more discussion,’ the Empress declared. ‘You will follow my lead or you will die here.’
‘Your Majesty,’ came Tegrec’s thin voice, ‘Gjegevey and myself, we have both sought for the path, and in doing so we have seen where it leads. Majesty, this is not. . this is what we wished to avoid! The Seal. . it is here. No records, no stories even, but-’
‘You pair of blind fools,’ Seda snapped back. ‘Of course there is a seal here. Which war did Argastos win? Which enemy was he victorious over, except the Worm? And you thought that they would just set him as a guard in the wilderness? Oh, there are seals in many places, but Argastos guards the greatest.’
Gorrec would not have credited the paunchy Wasp turncoat with much courage, but holding his argument against the Empress must have required all of it. ‘But we brought you here. .’
She planted a booted foot on his chest, her hand out with palm directed towards his face. The old Woodlouse made a convulsive, aborted movement as though about to intervene, then stepped back.
‘I know you sought to divert me from the Worm by dangling Argastos before me. I sought advice, and this was yours. And you were right, for Argastos is power, and a power I had best claim before my sis- before that damned Beetle can do so. But if I cannot do so — if I must destroy Argastos, or if his power is truly nothing more than a shadow — then how convenient that I shall be in place to follow my original plan, hmm?’
Tegrec goggled up at her, but he had run out of words.
‘And what about you?’ she demanded of the old slave. ‘Anything to say?’
Gjegevey shook his head and looked away.
Gorrec had been convinced that the robed Wasp was already a dead man, but Seda turned away from him, letting him stand up. ‘This place still resists us,’ she snapped. ‘Even though Argastos himself tries to smooth the way, there is a will here that contrives a maze for us. Go find me the path, the two of you. Prove to me that you have value yet. Lead me to Argastos.’
Icnumon straightened suddenly, starting a pace forwards, then stopping.
‘What?’ Gorrec demanded. Not that any of them exactly liked it here, but the halfbreed was taut as a bowstring and jumping at shadows. Or at things that were very real but that Gorrec and Jons were unable to see. Nasty thought.
‘Thought I saw. .’ Icnumon grimaced. ‘A person. A Beetle woman.’ He spoke the words quietly but Seda — a good fifteen feet away — whirled round instantly.
‘You saw what?’ she exclaimed, storming over. Behind her, Gorrec saw Tegrec get well out of the way, no more willing to help the Pioneers than they were to assist him.
Icnumon tried to mumble something and dismiss the matter, but Seda was staring at him and, whilst Gorrec was quite scared enough of the woman, his comrade plainly knew enough to be fully terrified.
‘I thought I saw a Beetle, Majesty. . a Beetle woman, just for a moment.’
‘The girl is here already?’ Seda demanded. Again, Gorrec thought she would lose hold of her temper and just kill the nearest target, but again she reined it in — an admirable trait in a commander, he had to admit.
‘Wouldn’t call her a girl, Majesty,’ Icnumon said hoarsely. ‘Older. . going grey. Old as Jons’s mother might be.’
Seda frowned. ‘Then she’s not. .’ It was plain that she made no sense of it. ‘No matter,’ she decided. ‘We press on. If you see such a woman again, bring her down if you can. Kill her if you must.’
The Mantis-kinden were silent killers, of course, and there would be no warning when they struck. That was plainly what Thalric and Amnon were thinking, anyway, for Tynisa could read the tension in every move they made.
When the drum started beating, they jumped, poised to take on the wave of killers that must surely be about to descend from the darkness.
She realized she had been expecting it. It was not loud, a soft, slow rhythm like a heart, and it spoke to her at a deep and primal level.
Thalric started speaking, some suspicious, nasty-minded comment no doubt, but she hissed him into silence. The glower of the fire lit up the woods ahead, yet always further through the trees as they approached, until it was revealed as a far greater blaze than they had expected. But, then, they have many dead.
When the singing started, she felt her own throat tighten with it, moments from joining in. There was no hint of words to it, and it felt older than speech to her: something preserved by the Mantis-kinden from the depths of time, and not heard by any outsider since the revolution. The last ebb tide of the old ways.
The voices, three of them, climbed like vines about each other, each with its own song, each complementing the others without seeming to intend it, as though three independent singers had somehow come together by impossibly prolonged coincidence. The voices soared, but never joyously, and the depths of their grief and loss stuck daggers into Tynisa, because she could share it. She had been born to it, and no amount of Collegium years could rid her of that burden, and that birthright.
She felt a hand on her arm: Maure, regarding her solemnly. She understands. She has Mantis blood too.
And Tynisa strode onward towards the blaze, drawing the rest in her wake. And they were already amongst the Nethyen, spread out amongst the trees with blades to hand, staring at these intruders, these unthinkable trespassers on their rites.
‘No weapons,’ Tynisa murmured, because her own rapier was clinging to its scabbard and showing no signs of leaping to her hand. ‘Fists closed, Thalric.’
‘These are Mantis-kinden,’ he argued. ‘Weapons and fighting are the only things they respect.’
‘Then I’ll let them kill you. Here and now, I say no weapons. There is more to my. . to their kinden than you know.’
‘Not much more,’ he muttered, yet his sword stayed sheathed.
The Nethyen were approaching cautiously, from behind and on either side, but ahead there was only the fire. She could now see the singers, three women, old and young and middle-aged, their voices drifting into silence as the intruders stepped out into the clearing surrounding the blaze.
Bodies on the fire, of course, and Tynisa counted one short of a dozen corpses, and beyond the flames stood one of their idols, this one a ten-foot giant whose rotting wood was enlivened with bone, clusters of skulls giving it makeshift compound eyes.
She was aware of many eyes fixed on them, tens of Nethyen, seen and unseen, staring silently. She felt their despair — not outrage but despair — at this intrusion. The presence of the enemy here in their heartland confirmed to them what they had feared for some time now. She could read it fluently on each face. The future is here for us. What else was ours alone, save the fire, save the blade’s point? Are even these things robbed of their power and sanctity?
They could not kill these outsiders, not yet, for they were bound by the duel, bound by their own agreement to stay their hands. And, despite Maure’s fears, that code still held them. Instead they just stared, and Tynisa felt suddenly mean and guilty. This ceremony, this wake, it was all they had, more important to them than she could appreciate, and she had pushed in and denied them even that.
Then Maure knelt down by the fire, not far from the three singers, and drew a deep breath. And Tynisa reminded herself just what sort of magic the woman was skilled in.