Icnumon collapsed, shuddering but still silent, and Tynisa was already running back to support Amnon.
Che sensed the very moment that Seda understood what was happening. Perhaps because she exercised such autocratic control over her subordinates in the world outside, the woman had come to this new form of battle moments too late. And now her forces were in disarray and fallen, and here came Amnon, led to her by Che’s firm governance, and only Tisamon stood between him and the end of an Imperial rule.
Only Tisamon.
Jons Escarrabin had been a Pioneer for many long years. He had cast in his lot with the Empire during the Twelve-year War, after a stint of fighting against it, because he recognized what winners looked like. He had not looked back since. A loner and an opportunist by nature, the life of a Pioneer suited him well, and being a servant of the Empire provided him with the latest toys — like his snapbow — and the opportunity to use them.
But he had never been anywhere like this, even in the Commonweal. The forest around seemed bizarrely inconstant, nothing ever quite where it should be when he took a second look, and since they arrived they had been stalked by fleeting enemies, never quite seen but always sensed.
Now those enemies had become a reality, though, and he was inching forwards with his snapbow levelled, trying to flank a skirmish that he could hear far too distantly and not pin down. I hope you’re doing your job, Gorrec. But he had a cold feeling that this clash was not one that could ever go well — not in this place.
He was trying to follow a curving course so as to take the notional enemy in the back or the side, as Icnumon should be doing opposite him, but still he had encountered nobody, and the actual fighting seemed to have drifted away, leaving him seemingly the last man alive in this forest.
This is ridiculous; pull yourself together. Just another Mantis forest. But he could not quite make himself believe it.
He pushed onwards, because even the illusion of progress was better than nothing, his eyes scanning the dingy greyness of his surroundings for. . anything, any sign of life. Show him a Sarnesh soldier right now, and he would be glad of it.
And then there was a shadowy figure in the drifting fog that seemed to hang in rotting sheets in front of his eyes. Surely, there was someone there — or, no, perhaps two of them? His eyes ached from squinting, and he had a terror that, if he just loosed now at those nebulous forms, they would be gone and he would have no evidence that they had ever been.
Keeping his eyes fixed firmly on them, and hardly daring to blink, he inched forwards, straining for any detail. For all he could be sure, he might have simply trodden in a grand circle. He could even now have a snapbow levelled on the Empress himself.
No, too short and stocky for the Empress. He wasn’t sure about one of them, but the other was more like a woman of his own kinden. .
A Beetle girl? Hadn’t the Empress been cursing some Beetle girl?
Jons swallowed, and crept still closer, step by careful step, stalking the two women as painstakingly as he would hunt an animal.
Tisamon was faster than Che could follow, each movement appreciable only in its aftermath. Amnon had discharged his snapbow even as he ran forwards, aiming straight at the ornate Mantis breastplate, but Tisamon was already moving, the bolt vanishing between the trees Che was thinking, No, the Empress! Shoot the Empress! But too late, for Tisamon had closed the gap between them, his bladed gauntlet lashing out with blurred speed — and it was over.
She was so convinced of it, of the inevitability, that she could not even watch. She missed Amnon’s skidding to a stop, his sword catching the darting metal claw and knocking it aside, even managing a weak riposte that Tisamon swayed aside from. For a moment the two were poised, drawn back to just outside each other’s reach: the living Beetle — former First Soldier of Khanaphes — against the risen Mantis Weaponsmaster.
Tisamon struck out, making nothing of the distance, his crooked blade driving down like an axe, but Amnon had read the move somehow — not Che’s doing, since she was neither fast nor fighter enough to help him — and twitched to one side, the weapon slicing at the sleeve of his buff coat but not quite drawing blood. His answering lunge met only air. They circled.
Che saw the Empress, then. The woman had sidestepped the duel neatly, her eyes fixed on Amnon and her hand outstretched. Empress and magician, yes, but she was still a Wasp, and she could sting.
Amnon had not noticed her, but with Che watching over him he did not need to. Without knowing why, he had ducked aside, breaking away from Tisamon and drawing the revenant almost into the bolt of gold fire the Empress had loosed He let the Mantis come to him, staying on the defensive, sacrificing his attack to keep Tisamon between him and Seda.
And even as the Empress tried to find a clear line towards Amnon, Tynisa came rushing between the trees. Che sensed her sister’s loathing and rage that this thing was what the Empress had made of her father — nothing but a fighting puppet of blood and old armour. There were no words: the anticipated oaths and threats never came. Instead the girl drove straight for Seda.
Tisamon was faster, taking a blow of Amnon’s blade that dented his mail, but placing himself between Tynisa and his mistress. Then the battle was truly joined and, incredibly, the risen Weaponsmaster was on the defensive, unable to press his advantage lest he let one or other of his enemies past him, dancing and whirling with inhuman speed, and yet giving ground an inch at a time, contending all at once with Amnon’s strength and long-honed experience, and with Tynisa’s speed and skill.
The interplay of blades had been too fast for Che to follow from the first, and she knew Seda was experiencing the same. It was down to the skill of the three combatants now, as to who lived and who died.
For a moment, she felt herself face Seda directly, each looking into the mind’s eye of the other. The bitter loathing there did not surprise her, but there was fear, too. In her innermost heart the Empress of all the Wasps feared this implacable girl from Collegium.
Then Seda was backing off through the trees, retreating behind Tisamon’s fierce defence — but not yet defeated, for she had worked out some use for her magic that Che could not follow, some target. .
Then Che was dragged back to herself, the world wheeling around her, and Maure had crashed into her, knocking her to the ground.
Che shook her head, unable to work out what was going on. The halfbreed was standing over her, blade extended, directed at. .
There was a man there, another Beetle-kinden, a stranger. She almost took him for some ghost of this place, but he had a snapbow and it was levelled at the two of them. It was plain that he would prefer to shoot her, but that he would take Maure if need be, and trust to his speed in reloading.
Che tried to twist him, to deflect him, but she was rattled, and he was Apt. He had managed to walk like a ghost through her battle without her ever realizing he was there. A little magic will destroy him, she thought, for being Apt he would have no defence against it. Surely here, where the land was so fit for it, she could drive this man mad, force him to flee in fear, control his muscles, stop his heart?
But she was frightened now, and the sudden disconnection had scattered her concentration. Maure was already trying something, she knew, but the other woman’s skills were with the dead, not the living. Even so, the snapbowman hesitated, as if for a moment he saw some familiar face before him, or perhaps nothing at all.