Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

‘It is the work of the outcast, Drephos the halfbreed.’ The major’s voice rang with disdain. ‘Amusing, no doubt, your Majesty, like all of his diversions, but no substitute for crossbow and automotive.’

The Emperor smiled at him, and the retired general prudently stepped back, being wiser in the ways of rulers. ‘Major, we appreciate your professional opinion,’ continued Alvdan. ‘Therefore we have requested a sample of this new weapon to be brought to Capitas for our own amusement.’

‘I am sure that it will amuse you, Majesty.’

‘Excellent. Do you own a suit of armour, Major?’

‘I fail to understand…’

‘You dismiss this new thing so lightly, therefore you will surely stand by your own words.’ Alvdan was still smiling, as pleasantly as ever. ‘We shall therefore look forward to pitting the halfbreed’s craft against your professional opinion and, yes, Major, we do anticipate some amusement.’

As the engineer stepped back, pale and shaken, Alvdan passed his gaze over the rest of them, and Maxin could almost read his mind: It does them good to remember what ‘Emperor’ means.

‘We are not pleased with progress in the Lowlands. We wish to spend the coming summer amongst our new subjects in Collegium. We trust this desire is clear.’

There was a murmur and a nodding.

‘Explain to us where our armies shall assault,’ Alvdan directed, picking out the Slave Corps major to reply. The man was an old campaigner who approached with the proper mix of deference and confidence. Few career soldiers stayed in the slavers to reach his rank, and he had long carved his niche in the human trade that war turned up.

‘Your Imperial Majesty, we are facing a three-sided defence. You have been told, of course, that General Alder and the Fourth have been repulsed by the Lowlander savages along the coast. We have the Second Army marching to Tark from Asta, so as to set out along the coast once spring comes, thus making the best time overland. The Eighth is also listed to march to Asta, for deployment then where it is best thought fit. We plan to sweep down the coast as rapidly as possible, but at the same time we face the problem of the Spider-kinden.’

‘I have made my decision concerning the Spiders,’ Alvdan remarked. A frisson of interest passed through the assembled tacticians, for this was news. ‘We must assume that they have played a part in the destruction of the Fourth,’ the Emperor continued. ‘So I have instructed General Maxin here to have his agents destabilize the local cities of the Spiderlands. We intend to sow sufficient disruption at their borders to ensure that they shall not trouble our Lowlands campaign.’ He smiled at them. ‘The rest is a Rekef matter, and in General Maxin’s capable hands, but no doubt the Second or Eighth can spare time to burn the Spiders’ webs, if the Rekef so wish. Continue.’

The slaver major gestured towards the map. ‘You have already heard how the Sixth and Seventh Armies will be approaching the city of Sarn, but agents in the Rekef Inlander inform us that Sarn is currently allied with a number of lesser cities in that area, making any advance into contested territory dangerous.’ He glanced at Maxin. ‘General, perhaps I range into your territory now?’

Maxin stepped forward to the map, tapping the shining disc that represented Sarn. ‘The mixing of kinden that the Lowlanders are currently engaging in, in their attempts to find an alliance against us, allows our agents much more freedom to act than before. We are well placed to shatter this alliance of theirs by removing key figures and playing on their suspicion of each other. At that point, when the season turns, General Malkan will advance overland and by rail and destroy Sarn before heading north to mop up the primitives living there. Collegium will then fall either to the Seventh coming south from Sarn, or to the Second coming east along the coast, whichever seems most convenient at the time. So ends the war with the Lowlands.’

‘Not another Twelve-Year War then, we hope,’ said Alvdan.

‘We cannot promise on our lives that your Imperial Majesty’s flag shall fly over Collegium this summer,’ said one of the older generals, ‘but the Lowlands, though they have pockets of mechanical knowledge that matches our own, lack the unity and spirit of the Commonweal, or the reserves of manpower. We cannot but think that, by next summer at the very latest, all the Lowlands shall be yours.’

‘ The Lowlands shall be yours ,’ Uctebri murmured to himself derisively. He had not been present at the war council, but that was no barrier to him, for his mind gnawed through the fabric of this palace like a grub. Nothing ever escaped him, and meanwhile the Wasps remained so sure of their material world, so ignorant of the reality that moved invisibly behind it. He was back in his new chamber again, the one with the opening roof. He was allowed outside it only in the company of General Maxin or the Emperor, though he believed that, if need be, his own powers would secure his release. Again that blurring of boundaries and outlines, the hedging over questions of fact. Questions such as: Do I do this for himself or for my kinden?

Originally, of course, the secret masters amongst the Blooded Ones had set him on this path, yet now he had developed a personal stake, a chance to grasp power with his own hands rather than simply bow to the will of his betters. His kinden had never been a unified race. They were individualists one and all. It was why they were now so few.

He ordered his guard to winch the ceiling hatch open for, though it was a simple mechanical operation, he could not master it. The chill air fell into the room and made the fire tremble in the grate. Uctebri saw his own breath, and that of the guard, plume in the sudden cold.

There were no clouds blotting the heavens tonight, but he would not have cared if there were. He could read the clouds as easily as the stars hiding behind them.

He had dreamt long last night, seen many things. Now he stared up at the order of the heavens in order to help thresh through those visions and cast out the chaff of mere fancy.

There had been Mantis-kinden in his dream, and many others of the Lowlands peoples. A man who fought under the badge of the old Weaponsmasters… and a woman whose banner changed and changed, a spy in the way that the old races recognized that word. She was the holder of the Shadow Box.

Last night had been full of faces and blood. He had seen the figure of Emperor Alvdan II cast in gold, presiding over the beginning of a new world. Perhaps he should tell the man of that vision, and whet his ego still further.

The death of the mighty… that was something best left unsaid, but it had been clear last night, and was clear in the stars now. The fall of cities and armies marching. One did not have to be a seer to foresee such things in the future. The Empire had grown great, its borders overflowing with armed men. All the independent powers still left in this tract of world would be troubled by this next season of campaigning. He had seen last night the sails of the Spider-kinden; the white eyes of the Moths who had driven his own people into the wastes; a lame halfbreed crushed stone in a hand of steel; a dead man arose to rule over the lost, with the sun as his queen. Uctebri made his notes and observations, but so much of what he had seen was still shrouded in darkness, even to his penetrating eyes.

He signalled to the guard and the shivering man gratefully winched the shutters closed. Even as he did so, Uctebri saw one last piece leap out at him. Blood, of course. Blood, which was the tide the world ebbed and flowed on, but blood particularly tonight.

He gave a thin and lipless smile just at the thought. There were many traditions of the old magic, Moth-kinden and Spider and more, old and lost and abandoned. Only the Mosquito-kinden understood the true value of blood, and when to reach deep into the minds of others and lay their hands on the knife.