‘True words,’ Che corrected.
‘Those are often the harshest. What do you want, child of Collegium? What is it you want from us?’
Che glanced back towards Ceremon and Amalthae. ‘When I came to your forest, it was for two reasons. I needed to stop the Empress finding Argastos and assuming his power, and that’s my personal goal still. I also came to help the Sarnesh and the Etheryen fight off the Empire. If the Sarnesh leader was here he’d tell me to try and persuade you to fight the Empire too — as you did under the Ancient League. But I won’t.’
The Loquae cocked an eyebrow, waiting.
‘I’m not going to tell you what to do. Being told what to do has already done too much damage to your kinden, whether it’s by heeding the Moths or the Empire. I’m asking you to consider your options while you still have them, but I won’t beg on behalf of the Sarnesh. I won’t even beg for Collegium. I am not a child of Collegium any more.’ It seemed only as she said it that she realized it was true. ‘I am here as the inheritrix of the old ways, for all that I never chose to be. Amalthae has asked me to intercede, to try and help you, not Sarn, and not myself. I want you to live. I want there to be Mantis-kinden in the Lowlands in a generation’s time.’
‘Why do you care?’ It was an accusation, the way the woman said it.
‘Because what I have become carries a responsibility. Because it was Mantis magic as much as anything that made me this way. Because it’s right.’
The woman’s hand rested on her sword hilt, but there was no suggestion that she meant to draw the blade. Despite her age and her warrior’s bearing she seemed lost, almost bewildered. ‘We must speak about what you have said, and we are only one hold here.’
‘Then I ask that you pass my words on, to all the others, Nethyen and Etheryen alike. And maybe some will choose to live and some prefer to die. Or all to die. I don’t know.’ She tried a brittle smile. ‘And what do you yourself intend, now I’ve said my words?’
The old Loquae looked about the firelit clearing as though seeking volunteers, but there seemed no will for violence amongst the Mantids, for once.
‘We will talk,’ she said. ‘And you should go. Your presence is like salt on a wound. Perhaps that is what we need, but I am not sure.’
Che glanced at her fellows briefly, as though canvassing their unspoken thoughts. ‘You know where I must go.’
The Loquae nodded unhappily. ‘You go to Argastos.’
‘Not for myself but only because the Empress must not have him.’
For a long while the Loquae’s eyes searched Che’s expression over and over. Tynisa was waiting for Che to give some reassurance, to draw out some proof of her virtuous intent, and yet the Beetle girl seemed momentarily frightened that she could find no such evidence within herself. Magicians and power, came the unwelcome thought. Can she be so sure she will not use it?
The Loquae plainly saw the same, but merely shrugged. ‘You go wherever you must. The Nethyen will not stop you.’
‘Will they open the way for me?’ Che pressed.
The old woman’s eyes widened. ‘The way is open for you, Beetle Skryre. How can you not know that? The blood price has already been paid, for you and yours.’
Che mastered her expression quickly, perhaps with a queasy twitch over just whose blood that might have been, which had opened the gate.
‘Your followers, though, have further business with us.’ And was that the sharp edge of a smile on the Loquae’s lean face? Tynisa sensed the lurching moment that Che stumbled over her own ignorance.
‘Explain,’ the Beetle got out.
‘The duel,’ Amnon stated flatly, and Tynisa echoed him a moment later.
‘What have you done?’ Che demanded of them.
‘Bought time by issuing a challenge,’ Thalric drawled. ‘The Commonweal trick.’
And now we come to pay for the Commonweal trick, Tynisa decided. ‘Well that’s fine,’ she declared, loud enough to draw all eyes. ‘So let’s get it over with now, and we can be on our way. Which of you is champion?’
‘Tynisa. .’ Che started, but this was Mantis business, and she could not prevent it.
‘Amalthae stands for us,’ the Loquae stated, and Che froze.
Tynisa had heard the name, and not quite connected it with a face. ‘Fine, so which of you is she? Let’s see her.’ She looked from face to pale Mantis face, as they shuffled aside, expecting to see a human opponent revealed by their eddying movement. Instead. .
‘Ah.’
The cleared fighting ground stretched from her to the trees, and she saw the great mottled shape that swayed there, glittering eyes casting back the firelight.
Tynisa felt her bravado dry up. She would face any human opponent without flinching, but she knew full well the creature’s sheer speed and strength. She was Mantis enough to know the creature at once as something not merely physically powerful, but supernatural as well, an incarnation of her father’s kinden made armoured flesh.
But she stood, blade outstretched, and in a quiet, calm voice got out, ‘Well come on, then, for my sister would be gone.’
The long-haired Mantis beside the creature cleared his throat. ‘Amalthae bids you: go with your sister, for she will need you. A duel pledged cannot be taken back, and she and you shall meet. But not now, nor at dawn. Go, for she knows you will return to honour your word.’
Tynisa lowered her blade slowly, and the very character of the air seemed to change around her, the Mantids reacting to this validation of her badge and her blood. They might still hate her, but never again could they deny her.
Che glanced about, testing the quality of the silence. ‘Then there is one thing I will ask, then, if you can grant it.’
The Loquae’s eyes narrowed and she waited.
Che drew herself up as tall as she could — not physically, but gathering together the trailing folds of a power that, here at this pyre, Tynisa could almost see. ‘Give me your blessing on my journey,’ the Beetle asked. ‘Let my steps be light until I find the Empress, for if I catch her before she catches Argastos, then we need never know what I might do with him.’
‘Our blessing?’
‘These are your lands,’ and it was a recognition of sovereignty the Empress had surely never granted them. ‘I walk here as your guest now. Give me your blessing, wish me well, speed me on my way.’
And Tynisa saw, at last, something like approval in the old Mantis woman’s face, because Che had said the right thing. Just words, but words have power. Ancient compacts had been brought to light, a respect for the Mantis-kinden that the ages had not shown them — and so elegantly expressed.
‘I give you our blessing,’ the Loquae breathed, and the forest breathed with her. ‘Now go on your way.’
Twenty-Five
That morning, Major Oski turned up before his general. He was out of uniform, wearing dark, baggy clothes and with his face blacked like a comic artificer in a play.
‘General.’ The little man saluted. ‘Apologies, I’ve not had time to change.’
A horn sounded — in the last few days it had become a familiar and miserable call. It meant the Collegiate orthopters had been sighted on their way for another bombing run, under skies still grey with dawn. The Farsphex pilots and ground artillerists would be scrabbling to ready themselves, but those repeating ballistae with which the Empire had been threatening the slower enemy bombers had themselves become the prime targets, and each time the Collegiate machines flew over once again — several times a day now — the resistance offered was that much less.
Tynan kept an eye on the sky. ‘Explain.’
‘I’ve been over to look at the walls, sir,’ Oski told him. ‘Trick I learned from the Colonel-Auxillian — he always went for a look in the dark in person. Anyway, I thought I’d take a look at the closest gate, shooting arcs and the like. I’ve got a plan of attack now, if you’ll have it.’