The stingshot that struck him had been aimed hurriedly, catching him across one arm and spinning him about, but not knocking him down. The second came even as he tried to swing his weapon about, seeking this new adversary. Then Thalric had him — the searing bolt smashed the snapbow’s air battery and punched into the man’s chest, hurling him, already dead, from his feet.
But he was hunting the Empress. She could not know whether Thalric had come back for her, or just become lost in the greyness, but she had a task for him now. ‘Thalric, follow me! The Empress, she’s. .’ But what is she doing? Che cast her mind out again, fighting for a clear picture of what was going on. There was the furious melee between Amnon, Tynisa and Tisamon. There was the Empress, now barely in sight of it. There. .
The killer, Icnumon, that Tynisa had run through, had been bleeding his last out into the thirsty forest floor, but was not dead, not quite. A spark had remained in him, guttering and flickering with every moment.
Seda had fanned it.
Even as she watched the man haul himself unsteadily to his feet, Che was thinking wildly, Can that be done? as though the evidence of her own scrying was not enough. Blood still pumped from the wound Tynisa had given him, even more now than before, but there seemed an inexhaustible supply. And then Che understood: this was Mosquito-kinden magic run backwards, something that had surely not been achieved since before the Revolution, but more likely had never been done at all. If blood was power, so too power was blood. Seda was clawing up handfuls of the cold energy of this place and channelling it through the wretched Icnumon, her last remaining soldier still clinging to life. Now she had him on his feet, blades to hand. . and a moment later he was running.
For me? But, no, Seda was looking to her own defence. Tisamon was hard-pressed, and she was sending the revived assassin to settle matters there.
‘We have to go!’ Che could not just pick up Thalric like a game piece and move him towards the fight. She would have to lead him there. She dashed off into the forest, half running, half flying, without another word, knowing that he would follow, with Maure trailing behind them both.
The skirmish ahead was as bright as a lantern in her mind compared to the ghostly trees which loomed and lurched suddenly out of the mist, so that she was constantly moments from running into them or being tripped by their roots. She could see the battle, feel each move of it: Tynisa’s straight-arm lunge that Tisamon stepped aside from, even as he caught Amnon’s descending blade with his claw and bound it aside, almost wrenching it from the Beetle’s grip. The answering sweep of the revenant’s blade sent both of his opponents a step back, and he whipped it up and lashed at Tynisa’s face, Che choked, already seeing the attack carving another brutal mark there, but Tynisa had fallen back before it, ducking so far that one knee was level with her chin. The seeking steel fell short, then was dragged back sharply to deflect Amnon’s next lunge, giving Tynisa a chance to find her balance again.
But the other dead man, the tortured form of Icnumon, would be there at any moment. And beyond, Seda was out there but further and further away, joined by two more allies and shepherding them towards Argastos, and there. .
There was the spy, the impostor, and Che sensed a sour reek of doubt arising from him: a man who did not know what to do. Even as she pelted through the forest, she was crying out to him, Do what is right! This is your one chance!
She was moving as fast as she could, but not fast enough, caught out by Seda’s vicious use of blood magic. Even so, the fighting ahead must have been visible to the mere eye, for Thalric had abruptly taken wing, hurling himself forwards far faster than she could.
Icnumon was weaving his way through the trees, leaving a trail of impossibly still-gouting blood behind him, the poisoned blades in his hands just moments from striking. And Che had no choice. She reached out to grab Tynisa’s attention, showing her the threat, knowing that this distraction itself might be fatal.
Tisamon’s scything blade cut at her neck but her rapier was there to catch it, and Tynisa pushed against it hard, sending the revenant a pace off his mark, and using the resistance provided to throw herself out of his reach. . already turning as the ghastly near-corpse of Icnumon leapt towards her.
Amnon did not hesitate, driving his blade in but reaching for Tisamon’s weapon arm as well. Briefly he had it, and tried to bear the slighter man down, but that slender armoured form was like iron, just as strong as Amnon was. For a moment they were locked together, and then Thalric dropped in, hand extended but denied a clear target.
Tisamon spotted him, and that the dark helm snapped about in clear and murderous recognition, and he cast Amnon aside almost contemptuously. Thalric got one sting off, which vanished past the revenant’s mailed shoulder, and then the dead Mantis was rushing him. Plainly there were some enmities that had carried over quite readily into this new incarnation.
Icnumon moved like a spider on its web, all sudden jerks and stops, nothing so predictable as a living opponent. He lunged and cut with the same speed and skill, but made no attempt to defend himself, and Tynisa had holed him three more times, each one running red, before she realized that she was getting nowhere. The man’s face was twisted in terror and agony, the lips twitching, eyes rolling madly in their sockets.
And Che was there, pausing in horror, in time to see Thalric suddenly backing up, wings flowering from his back, then a second stingshot striking Tisamon in the chest but barely staggering him, boiling off that old Mantis plate.
The clawed gauntlet stabbed out. Thalric’s sword was out of line and too slow to parry, and yet the killing stroke never reached him. Amnon had lunged and hooked a hand about Tisamon’s pauldron, dragging him back, his sword stabbing down.
The point scraped off Tisamon’s mail, the dead man twisting in time to shrug off the force of it, and backhanding Amnon with a faceful of spines, sending the Beetle staggering away, clutching at his eye. Thalric struck again, only to have his sword slapped aside, and then Tisamon kicked him solidly in the chest, pitching him over backwards — and took Amnon’s lunging sword on his forearm, the edge savaging his gauntlet, the blade of his claw drawn back along the line of his arm, inside Amnon’s guard.
It flicked out with a spasm of Tisamon’s fingers, the point resting for a second on the rim of Amnon’s breastplate, before he drove it in with one sure, sudden motion, its keen edge cleaving halfway into the big Beetle’s neck.
Che cried out in horror, and for a second she was fumbling at the last traces of Amnon’s life, fully intent on turning the man into an abomination akin to the thing that Tynisa was battling. But she did not know how, and she could not replicate the magic — and a moment later she was glad of that.
Tisamon paused a moment, whether in respect or simply receiving new instructions, and Che reached out to Icnumon — all power and no subtlety, just like the Empress herself — and unravelled him, pulling apart the knot of blood and magic that was keeping him in motion, so that his body collapsed with a final gasp of relief, and he was allowed to die.
By then Tisamon was on the move again, and coming straight at her, but Tynisa was there to defend her, and Thalric as well. . and Che cast her mind out towards that errant false Wasp whom she could still sense out there and gave him an ultimatum.
Act now, she ordered him, allowing no room for negotiation.
And he did.