Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

‘We are — but with weapons drawn,’ he decided. ‘I don’t trust any of this.’

Approaching the grove they saw there was a sizeable body of people within it, and making no attempt to hide themselves. There was enough armour visible for them to see that none of it was in the Empire’s black and gold. They paused at the very edge of the trees, uncertain whether their stealthy approach had been observed or not.

‘Head west as fast as you can if this goes badly,’ Tisamon decided. ‘If it goes really badly, get yourself to Merro and send a messenger to Stenwold.’

‘Assuming Stenwold is in any position to receive one,’ Tynisa said, remembering the Vekken army.

Tisamon shrugged. ‘We must make that assumption.’ Then he stood up and walked forward openly, his claw folded along his arm. Rapier held loosely in her hand, Tynisa followed.

There was an instant stir amongst the guards on the perimeter, but they obviously knew to expect visitors. The Ant-kinden there drew a little closer at the sight of Tisamon, and the Spiders lounging beneath the sideless tent smirked a little, and murmured barbed comments to one another. But when Tisamon stood proudly before them, looking down his nose at them all, not one was willing to challenge him.

‘I believe someone wanted our company.’ Tisamon pitched his voice so as to carry to all of them. Tynisa looked about them, reading their stances, their faces. They were not expecting a fight, she noted. Not an ambush, then, or not immediately. She turned to see a richly dressed Spider-kinden stand up from amongst his fellows. He was a strikingly handsome man, neatly bearded and with a very white smile. Something about him sent a shiver through her, though, not one of attraction but of warning. If it was her Mantis blood that governed her battle instincts, now her Spider blood took over. This was a man to be reckoned with, she knew. He was Aristoi, therefore political through and through.

When he smiled at her, though, she liked him despite herself.

‘Won’t you come a little closer?’ he offered. ‘It would be crass of me to conduct my business at the top of my voice, but I’m loath to scald myself beneath this wretched sun.’

‘I do not fear you,’ Tisamon informed him, and stepped on until he was just outside the little pavilion. He left enough room around him for fighting unhampered, Tynisa noticed. The legendary Mantis dislike of the other man’s entire race was rigidly evident in every line of his body.

‘My scouts shall be disciplined,’ the Spider said. ‘They told me two Mantids, but I see only one, albeit as much a Mantis as one might wish to encounter, and one remarkable woman. Pray allow me, sweet lady, to have the honour of naming myself.’

He was expecting a response, but she did not know what to offer, and so she shrugged. He took that as satisfactory, and made a remarkably fluid and elegant bow while never quite taking his eyes off her. ‘I present myself as the Lord-Martial Teornis of the Aldanrael, and I offer you the solemn bond of my hospitality.’ He saw the twitch in Tisamon’s face and his smile turned rueful. ‘Ah well, I admit that in certain circles the Aristoi’s iron word bears a trace of rust, but you would accept wine, surely, if I offered it? And some refreshment. If you will not trust my open intent, you may rely on my love of indulging my own luxuries.’

Tynisa smiled at him despite herself. ‘I am Tynisa, and this is Tisamon of Felyal. I will drink and eat with you, Master Spider, on the condition that you do not ask my companion to.’

‘A lady of compromise,’ Teornis observed. ‘Delightful.’ With a gesture he caused a cloth to be laid out on the ground, with silk cushions strewn around, and a low table bearing an assortment of dishes, most of them not immediately familiar. The other Spider-kinden had moved back a little to make space, and were now sitting or lying, watching the two newcomers slyly.

Tynisa knelt at the table, knowing that Tisamon would stand there like a hostile statue until this ritual was done, or until something went wrong. She decided it would be best if she herself spoke for them.

‘This seems an unusual place, and time, for an Aristos of the Spider-kinden to ride out merely for pleasure,’ she remarked. A Fly servant put a goblet in her hand and she sipped, finding wine as rich and potent as any she had ever tasted.

Teornis settled down facing her across the table. His gaze on her was still admiring, though just as certainly she knew that it had been donned with as much care as his shirt or his boots. ‘Pleasure, my lady Tynisa? Why this is a military outing. Surely you won’t deny we make a fearsome spectacle?’

‘Military? To what end? Have the Spiderlands been invaded as well?’

‘Because my curiosity is raging, first please tell me how a Spider-kinden lady comes to be travelling with one of those who have, all unjustly, declared themselves our mortal enemies?’

Best not to put any further weapon in his hand. ‘We are simply old friends, Tisamon and I.’

‘You are rich in your choice of friends, obviously,’ Teornis remarked. His fingers hovered over the spread of food, and he plucked at a mound of candied somethings. ‘Tisamon of Felyal, you say. Is it Felyal you have now come from? I have an ulterior motive in asking, as you see. I seek someone to carry word for me. I fear Felyal would be of little use, since none there would credit a word I have to say.’

‘Surely you have followers enough to bear a message, Lord-Martial?’

At the sound of his title, no expression crossed his face, no pride at her using it. ‘Alas, I am caught in my own nets. These are wicked times, and when word comes from the Spiderlands, who will accept it at face value? Hence I hoped to convince you of my pure heart and true motives, and send you back to your home or your employer with my news, and hopefully your own words to plead my suit for me.’

‘Well then,’ she said. ‘I am come here from Collegium, my home.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Far abroad indeed, and shame on me, I should have marked the accent. I now see how you must have overcome the age-old hatred of my kin to allow this man into your confidence. Collegium? My lady Tynisa, perhaps you may be of use to me, if you would?’

He is very carefully stopping himself from calling Tisamon my servant or slave, or my possession in any way. It had been a long time since she had sat and sparred like this, weighing every word spoken, but the skills came back to her, as much part of her as the lunge of a sword.

While she considered, Tisamon interrupted shortly, ‘What do you want of us?’ His tone made it painfully clear that his trust was far from won.

‘I cannot believe that you’re travelling in these parts and have not heard of the Wasp Empire’s recent actions,’ Teornis explained. Noting their reactions he nodded. ‘More than merely heard, I see. Well then, if you were, in a moment of childish enthusiasm, to climb to the top of the tallest tree in this grove, you would see from there some thirty thousand Wasp-kinden soldiers and their followers, who have been camped for some time, and whose destination is Merro and Egel first, Kes second, and one imagines the world, from then on, in any order they please.’

‘What keeps them there?’ Tisamon growled.

‘You are a Mantis, and therefore a fighting man,’ Teornis observed. ‘Yet I claim a glorious piece of military history for my own kinden, since I have stood their thirty thousand off in open country with just two hundred men — and I still do.’

That breached Tisamon’s reserve, and for a moment he forgot that he was talking to an enemy, a hated deceiver. ‘It can’t be done.’

‘All the same, I have done it. If my kind were remotely impressed by such entertainments I would be taught in the academies. My problem now is simply that I cannot go on doing it for ever. They are currently waiting, I am informed, for word from their leaders. My people are meanwhile doing their best to make sure that word is slow in coming, but come it will, and then they will move.’