She stood stock still, trembling, having stepped into a world that was crowding in on her with knowledge.
Thalric she had already lost track of, somewhere off in the trees and acting on his own recognizance. She reached for him but felt only a shadow, an echo of him that she could not pin down.
Then the killing began, as swiftly as that. A Mantis woman was abruptly rushing Amnon, breaking from the greying ferns too rapidly for him to bring his snapbow to bear. He caught her blade-arm with one hand and her off-hand spines raked down his breastplate before he cast her aside. His snapbow swung back on its strap and, when she leapt for him again, he had his sword out, fending off two jabbing lunges. Che felt the woman’s astonishment at finding a Beetle so swift, and yet still strong enough to snap her in half. The Mantis fell back a pace, daring Amnon to follow her, darting in again as he tried to make more distance between them. Che found herself almost rehearsing Amnon’s moves as he made them, even though he was out of her sight, even though she had none of his skill and experience.
Her own hands twitched as the big Beetle twisted at the woman’s next lunge, letting the metal claw gouge a furrow in his backplate. When his sword came in, the Mantis was ready for it, her free hand slapping his strong, lumbering stroke aside — just the sort of artless stabbing she expected from a Beetle — and Che saw the thought as if it had been her own — but then a solid blow from Amnon’s left hand thundered into the juncture of neck and shoulder, sending the woman staggering to one knee.
He did not hesitate, kicking her in the chest with all his strength, enough to send her sprawling six feet away. She was on her feet in moments, but he had his snapbow aimed and the trigger pulled in the same space of time, and the bolt snapped her head back before she knew it.
Che’s attention jumped elsewhere, because Tynisa had found an enemy that she herself had almost missed. To her, he seemed barely there, just as Thalric had become a thing of glass and shadows. This man came to her only through Tynisa’s focus on him: a big, burly Wasp-kinden, almost a match for Amnon, and more than happy to meet Tynisa one on one. He had a pair of huge axes and he danced with them, never letting them fall still, so their whistling passage made a steel maze for Tynisa to step through. She was faster, but the man was an old hand, and Che could read in his defences a long experience of fighting against swift Inapt blades, Mantis and Dragonfly both. Tynisa was forcing him back, evading his explosive counter-attacks, but he turned any retreat in a circle, losing individual steps but never giving any real ground.
And elsewhere: here was a stealthy half-Mantis killer stalking her. . here was another Wasp — no, what was he-? - watching Tynisa’s fight without stepping in. . there was the Empress, with Tisamon the revenant as her shield. And behind her, some others, making a crippled escape — but who was so important that the Empress herself would cover their escape?
How do I know all this. .?
Then came to her a sublime understanding that allowed her to master all this mental clamour. She was in a place of magic, as perhaps so much more of the Lowlands had been once upon a time. She was a magician facing another magician, each with their cadre of loyal followers. She was waging a war the likes of which this land had not seen, perhaps, since the Revolution. She was fighting as a wizard fought.
Chess, she realized. This was where chess came from, and the Tactician piece — or Arista, or Emperor, whatever name was given to it — so vulnerable and powerless, that was her. But of course the Tactician was not powerless, because she governed and controlled the other pieces.
And the implication was plain: magicians did not care about the deaths of their pieces so long as they won; but the only pieces Che could advance were her friends.
For a moment she fought against it, ready to let them act according to their own direction. But, of course, the Empress would not hesitate, and surely Che understood this, or must soon grasp it.
And the halfbreed killer was getting close now.
Che reached out and made her move.
Amnon, stalking forwards, suddenly changed his course, coming upon Tynisa’s battle with the Wasp. Too close together for a snapbow shot, he broke in with his sword, no doubt assuming that the two of them could take the man, but Tynisa was already falling back, knowing only that she had to, until Che had drawn her to confront the halfbreed — Icnumon. His name is Icnumon.
The man abandoned his bow in an instant, the paired blades sliding silent from their sheathes to meet Tynisa’s rapier. Now I leave her and must trust to her skill. Amnon and the big Wasp were circling, both slightly wounded, the big Beetle’s direct style a better match than Tynisa’s for the Wasp’s two gleaming axes. But that other man, the officer. .
Still watching, and his mind -
Che touched his mind, and for a moment could name him Ostrec, Rekef man. And she would have passed on, save that. . how is it that I can touch him at all? The axeman and Thalric were transparent to her; even Amnon was a shadow barely illuminated by the distant, fading glories of Khanaphes that had shaped him. Tynisa and Icnumon were both fierce fires: Inapt and therefore fitting tools for a magician. But this Ostrec. .
And she pressed, and Ostrec broke like an eggshell beneath her touch. Then she and the man behind that mask were standing looking at one another. He drew new veils, too swiftly and skilfully for her to find out who he was, but he was no Wasp. He was Inapt, he was an impostor, and she knew beyond question that Seda was not aware of it.
If you are an enemy of the Empress, now is your moment. Her own voice sounded weak and timid in her mind, but he trembled when he heard it, as though some great warlord had spoken.
She had a momentary awareness of Thalric, full of purpose, skirting the flanks of the battle. Seda, he is hunting Seda, but Che couldn’t be sure, and then he was gone.
In her absence, Amnon had hacked the big Wasp across one hand, shattering bones and leaving an axe buried in the forest floor. Now the man was falling back, and Che could sense the Empress and her guardian waiting there. Amnon was faster, though. He hurled himself forwards, getting an elbow across the man’s jaw, and then the two of them had toppled over, crashing into the briars. The finish was brutal artistry, with Amnon pinning the man’s good arm, his own sword drawn back. Its descent was clean and final.
The officer, the impostor, the not-Ostrec, just stared at him, then a moment later he had vanished into the woods, absenting himself from the skirmish entirely.
Tynisa kept pressing Icnumon hard, keeping clear of those shorter blades that Che could virtually taste the poison on, but denying herself an opportunity for a telling blow. The man was good, but he was no great duellist, better suited to striking from the shadows and in the back. Che reached for his mind, but it was slippery and venomous, and she could not get a hold on it.
Then he broke through Tynisa’s guard, sending her hopping back a handful of steps — Surely a feint? — but no, she was off-balance; one honed edge sliced a shallow line across her arming jacket as she dodged away. Che witnessed the Weaponsmaster’s mystery then, that perfect unison of sword and wielder. Even as Tynisa fought for balance, her arm was coming about, knocking her opponent’s lunge aside with her rapier’s curved guard and, though her quillons kept winding round, her weapon’s point was just hanging there between them, the long blade angling and angling to keep itself there so that Icnumon almost ran on to it, trying to follow her up. In that moment, when he had skidded and twisted to a halt to avoid being impaled, and both of his weapons were coming together to bind her sword aside, she lunged, arm snapping out straight to ram the point into his stomach, razoring through him halfway to the hilt and then out again in another smooth motion that left her well beyond his reach.