Adrian Tchaikovsky - Empire in Black and Gold

They were barbaric raiders, she reminded herself. They were enemies of progress. As a good Beetle, that was how she should see them. If they had not been so fanatic, they would have been ludicrous, a pack of old mystics lurking in their caves.

She thought of Salma. He was her friend and she respected his opinions. Yet he did not see things as she did.

The door burst open behind her and she whirled round, hand to her sword, half-expecting some mad Moth assassin. Instead it was one of Elias’s two domestic staff.

‘You’re to stay inside the house, miss,’ the man said, as though she had been contemplating jumping out of the window.

‘They’re not going to come here, are they?’ she asked.

‘Nobody knows, miss,’ said the man, plainly himself in the grip of fear. ‘They could do anything.’

She returned her gaze to the window. The flames were lower now, the oil stocks burning dry. She thought she could see the shadowy bulk of one of the repeating ballistas being cranked round, spitting out a man-length bolt every few seconds. There would be guards out there with good crossbows, perhaps even piercers. They had strong armour there and she wondered what weaponry the Moth-kinden possessed to assault such a force with. Spears and stones, perhaps. Bows and arrows.

They had accomplished something already, though. Hundreds of Centrals’ worth of fuel had now gone and the mine works would be set back for days, at least.

And what is the point? The industrialists of Helleron were not going to go away. They would only return with more soldiers, better protection. One day, perhaps, they really would muster a fleet of fliers and airships and attack the Moths at their very homes, if that was the only way to stop their raiding.

And would that be the answer? She had the uncomfortable feeling that she had been assigned a role in this conflict without ever being asked. There had been a few Moth-kinden at the College, she recalled: strange reserved creatures like Doctor Nicrephos. She had not spoken to any of them but she knew the history. Before the revolution the Moth-kinden had held most of the Lowlands in chains. With the Mantids acting as their strong right hand, they had terrorized the other races with their superstition and charlatanry, or so the history books now claimed. Then the revolution had come: the rise of the Apt, the fall of the old ways before the forge-fires of innovation. It had all started in Collegium, which had been called Pathis when the Moths ruled. The revolt had then burned its way to every corner of the Lowlands, leaving only a few Moth haunts and Mantis holds untouched.

Surely they can see progress.

She thought of the way Salma had reacted to the factories, the mine workings, how it had struck him almost like an illness. He had kept his smile hoisted for all to see, but she knew the sight had appalled him. After all, they were not enlightened people in his Commonweal. They still thought magic existed. No factories, no artificers, no machines.

And, of course, to the east the Wasp-kinden were stoking their own furnaces to turn out weapons of war. Those they had not bought from the clever smiths of Helleron, that is.

After such thoughts she could not watch any longer, and went to join Salma in the main room of the house. Elias had locked himself in his study, so as best they could they played a few hands of cards with the trembling servants, everyone endeavouring to ignore the continuing sounds from outside. Even when the commotion was right at the outer walls, with soldiers running past, the harsh clack of crossbows loosing, they shuttered the windows and pretended not to hear.

In the morning it was all over. She awoke and spent a moment regarding Salma, in the next bed, still smiling slightly even in sleep. She rose, dressed, and went into the dining room to meditate again.

And she then remembered the previous night, sleep falling from her fast like a veil. Opening the shutters showed that a plume of smoke still twisted from the mine workings.

She wondered how many had died. Then she wondered how many had died on both sides. The thought shocked her. At the College she had learnt that the Moth-kinden, for all the faults laid at their door, were not a warlike race, quite the reverse.

There were evils everywhere in the world, Che supposed, and, once she had admitted that, she would have to allow that her own race was responsible for some of them.

There was a well out in the house’s yard, between it and the stables. Taking up her sword for good measure, she wandered outside and drew a bucket of water up, feeling the chill of morning on her. The ground was flecked with ash, and she wondered what else had burned in the night. Perhaps they had set fire to the winch or the smelting shed? It was all like prodding some great beast with a stick, one of the big hauling beetles or something. You would annoy it and annoy it, and sooner or later it would turn round and you would discover it was far, far stronger than you had ever imagined. The Moth-kinden could not know what they were inviting down on them.

There was a squad of guards, five of them, poking about the perimeter of the yard, perhaps totalling up all the damage done during the night. They paused expectantly to watch her, and her original idea of washing there, in plain view, became suddenly less attractive.

She gave them a hard stare and an imperious gesture, for she was the cousin of their employer, after all. Reluctantly they went about their business, and for good measure she carried the bucket of water into the stables for her ablutions. A pair of messengers’ horses would make more bearable spectators.

She closed the stable door behind her and heard a soft whisper of sound from deeper within. Steel on leather, a blade being unsheathed. Her reaction, without thought, found her dropping the bucket and dragging her own sword half out.

There was a man in the shadows at the far end of the stables. He was slight, grey-skinned, a Moth she realized, and even in the gloom she saw the glint of a knife.

Markon Crosthwaite, who revelled in the name Markon the Friendly, rose from the table and made encouraging gestures to his men until they cheered him to the echo. The kneeling man before him, one of Sinon Halfway’s more expendable specimens, crouched even lower. The man was some kind of Fly-kinden halfbreed, an insult in itself, but Markon was feeling glutted with his own success. Besides, if he cut this man’s ears off and then hung him out of the window, who would be able to go to Sinon and tell that piebald freak just how happy Markon was?

He reversed his hands and his men faltered to an expectant silence. ‘Now, creature,’ he said. ‘On your feet, if those lumps on your legs’ ends are feet.’

The halfbreed got up, head still held low, waiting for the blow or the lash or the knife in the back. And so he should, the filthy little mixed-blood , Markon thought approvingly. ‘Want to go, do you? Business taken care of?’

There was a barely perceptible nod.

Markon beamed at his people. ‘But my friend, you haven’t thanked me for my hospitality. If there’s one thing I can’t abide it’s bad manners.’

The little man flinched and muttered something. Without needing the nod, one of Markon’s men balanced a dagger on his shoulder.

‘Thank you, Master Markon,’ the Halfway House man got out, in a shaking voice.

‘Master Markon what?’ Markon snapped at him.

‘Markon the. . the Friendly.’ The halfbreed’s shoulders were up by his ears, waiting for the strike. Markon’s lip curled with contempt for him.

‘Your good friend Markon the Friendly,’ he told the man. ‘And if your uncle Sinon is wise, you’ll tell him that he should do a little more business with his good friend Markon the Friendly. It doesn’t do to forget one’s friends when the money’s going round. You tell him that, you hear?’