Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

He reached for her hand and squeezed it, and she managed a wan smile. Before them, just then, the walls of Sarn opened up to swallow the train of open-roofed carriages in which they travelled.

When the automotive pulled in, they were ready waiting for him: it was hard to fault the Ant-kinden for organization. A small delegation had obviously been passed his mental image by some Ant that had once met him, and so they singled him out easily even as his little company disembarked.

‘War Master Stenwold Maker.’ He found himself addressed by a Sarnesh woman robed in the Collegium style, which counted as a token of high respect.

‘I suppose I must be.’

‘You have requested an audience with our Queen,’ he was further informed. ‘It is granted. Even now rooms are being prepared at the Royal Court for you and your fellows. Kindly follow me.’

Nothing would have singled the Queen out from her fellows, save for the ornament that she adopted out of pity for the foreigners’ confusion. She had not been born royal. Unlike Spider Aristoi the Ant-kinden put no stock in hereditary dynasties. The Queen’s childhood had displayed in her an aptitude for command, decision-making, leadership. Such traits were watched out for, among the Ant-kinden. They were discouraged, in most cases, but sometimes these gifts shone in exactly the right way, and in such children they were cultivated.

She had been young for the post when made an officer, and very young when given her commander’s rank, stepping easily up through the simple hierarchy that was all the Ants needed. Her ability, and the soundness of her judgment, marked her as exceptional in a race where conformity was the rule, but it was that rare breed of ‘exceptional’ that managed to complement the whole rather than challenge it.

At thirty they had made her a tactician. She had been chosen from a hundred candidates, her every thought and action having been carefully scrutinized without her ever knowing that the Court was watching her. Never let it be said that the Ants could not keep any secrets from their own.

When she was thirty-eight the old King had died, and she had joined his other tacticians as they put their minds together even as his body cooled. The decision had been unanimous. In putting herself forward she had showed no personal ambition. They had simply measured one another by the standards of each other, and she had stood taller than the rest.

The absolute trust of an Ant city-state was a burden she was proud to bear, for all it weighed on her heavily. For eleven years she had lived with such iron responsibility, but never to this degree. It was the time of crisis that any Ant regent dreaded.

The Queen of Sarn now sat at her war table, on which maps and charts were pinned in immaculate order, updated daily by the clerks of her army. Eleven years ago she had been chosen as the supreme voice of Sarn, the fount of all authority, the ultimate origin of all orders. She knew that outsiders considered the Ant city-states to be merely autocracies but the truth was richer than that, infinitely more complex. The mindlink that laced them all together did not exclude her, nor did it make them her unthinking slaves. She was constantly present in the minds of her subjects as they were also an influence in hers. The Beetles of Collegium thought they had achieved government by the people in choosing their quarrelsome leaders by the casting of lots, but in reality they had no idea, no idea at all.

And speaking of Beetles, here was one arrived to see her, she was informed, and it was a name she had heard before.

She did not even need to glance at them for their reactions. She felt the presence of her tacticians supporting her. They were eight Ant-kinden men and women, the keenest military minds in the city, with a pair of Beetle women, an artificer and a merchant, to advise on matters less warlike. There would, she guessed, be little need of those last two in the next months.

Stenwold Maker , she reflected, seeing the doors open to reveal a stocky, bald man dressed in the folded white robes of a College master but looking as though he missed a sword at his side, approaching with a walk that still compensated for the blade he had not been allowed to bring in.

Tell me about him , she directed.

– He has been quite a maverick, causing trouble for the Assembly , came the first voice from among her tacticians.

– Reports confirm that he has been spreading warnings of the Empire for at least fifteen years.

– He was in Sarn six years ago, starting an agent network. We have the details of some of his contacts here, but not all.

– Reports suggest that he was in the thick of the fighting during the Vekken siege.

– His position at the College was in the department of history, but prolonged absences have punctuated his teaching. Known associates…

The Queen waved that information away in her mind, and all this time Stenwold had been approaching the war table, hearing none of it, not guessing how he was being weighed up. His character, then? she said.

– Resourceful. Charismatic. He has been able to control the Assembly.

– He inspires loyalty in others. A good officer – for a foreigner.

– Do not forget that Beetles endure. He has endured a great deal.

‘War Master Stenwold Maker,’ she began, and he gave her a stiff, somewhat paunchy bow. ‘Your Majesty,’ he acknowledged, and then gave a brief nod left and right to her council.

‘We are pleased to find our allies in Collegium still in possession of their freedom,’ she said to him.

‘We are pleased to still be in possession of it. I see you anticipate a siege here, your Majesty.’

‘We do, but no siege such as these walls have ever known. We have sent Fly-kinden scouts to investigate the Wasp army. It seems they have made fortifications for the winter, and their defences are intended against both an air and ground assault. We have therefore borrowed from their designs.’

Stenwold nodded. ‘Clever,’ he admitted.

‘And it may be that we can borrow from them even further,’ the Queen remarked, almost casually, and then fixed him with a steel gaze. ‘We understand an agent of yours who fought beside us may have escaped the Wasp forces with something of immense value.’

‘The reports of agents…’ began Stenwold, holding up a hand, but she forestalled him.

‘We mean the new weapon, that the Wasps turned on us at the Battle of the Rails.’ Even as she spoke her advisors were in her mind.

– Reports suggest that Collegium has been constructing their own version. It was unclear whether this was purely from first principles or…

– There is a Spider-kinden now waiting in the antechamber with a wrapped bundle of the correct size and shape, according to battlefield recollection.

She saw the Beetle glance sideways at her expressionless Tacticians, obviously guessing at their constant exchange and yet deaf to it. ‘War Master Maker?’ she prompted.

‘They call it a snapbow,’ he told her at last, bowing to necessity and the accuracy of her own intelligence. ‘Your own soldiers have seen its efficiency. My agent was able to bring me the original plans.’

– There is more to this, though. He is holding back information.

He is entitled to , the Queen responded. He is an ally, not a citizen.

– We cannot risk the future of Sarn on the squeamishness of our allies.

– If we merely requisition the sample weapon he has brought, it could be reverse-engineered by our artificers.

In offending Collegium we would lose more than we gained , the Queen decided. ‘You can recreate this marvel?’ she asked.