Blood of the Mantis

Che nodded slowly. ‘I won’t be able to tell you anything you haven’t guessed at, I’m sure,’ she said, ‘but I’ll tell you what I know. We’ll start with what you may think, which will be mostly what they want you to think. They’re a military kinden, certainly, but they talk a lot about only being interested in trade and peace. They just want a little certainty with how they stand regarding your city, so they can concentrate on their enemies elsewhere. They like your flying machines, and they have gold to spare, so they’re everybody’s best friend.’

There were enough nods around the table for her to continue.

‘That’s certainly what your leaders will have thought at first. And then the Wasps will keep coming, more and more filtering in, and people will start realizing that they really are a very military kinden indeed, and there now seem to be great numbers of them. By that time you’ll have heard from some of their Auxillians – slaves by any other name, of many kinden, from many different conquered places. Your leaders will start to understand that the Empire collects cities, and how the Imperial boundaries are closer than they realized, probably just north of your mountains. You’re aware your maps are out of date? And speaking of maps, you’ll begin to understand just how many times the Exalsee could fit within the Empire. And then the Wasps talk pleasantly to your leaders and start to explain how best Solarno and all the other places here can keep the Empire happy.’

Taki smiled, without much humour. ‘I can vouch for that sort of talk. They had some Wasp bigwigs visiting in the Destiavel house, and I heard some of the servants talking about it. You could write their speeches for them, Bella Cheerwell.’

‘And… well, this is where I need local knowledge. Your politics here seem very complicated.’

The Creev spat, which Che took to mean that his home politics back in Chasme were simpler, but Scobraan laughed briefly,

‘Sure enough. They’re trying on each of the parties in turn, to see which is the best fit. And when they’ve got their feet in, and wiggled their toes a bit, they’ll want to make sure their party controls the Corta Obscuri. And stays there.’

‘And the Empire will thus control Solarno,’ Che agreed. ‘And then one day you’ll wake up and they’ll introduce you to the new governor and garrison the Empire has been so kind as to gift you with, and Solarno will join the Empire without even a fight. And then the rest of them, every city around the Exalsee, with Solarno as a base to fly from. All of you, with no exceptions.’

After she had finished talking they glanced at one another unhappily. She could see them wrestling with the scale of the problem. Their world was solely the shores of the Exalsee, just a dozen communities and the wide sky above the waters. The world beyond the northern ranges had always been a joke, to them: foreign people doing silly things.

‘An Empire,’ said Niamedh with distaste. ‘All that – so many cities – all under one man’s command?’

‘It is you Solarnese who are strange,’ said Drevane Sae. ‘Your factions and families, pah! A body has one head, and a people one ruler. These Wasps, though… We thought of them as perhaps a few cities or nests or whatever-they-have. Somewhere beyond the Dryclaw, we thought. But not this.’

‘If they came against Solarno…’ Scobraan downed his drink and waved Chudi over to provide more.

‘They will come,’ said Taki. ‘They are laying their ground even now. Be honest with yourself: you know it. More and more of them will come. Right now, they’re fighting the Spiderlands somewhere to the north.’

‘Capture Solarno and you can have a fleet at Porta Mavralis before they even know what’s going on,’ te Frenna agreed.

The halfbreed known as The Creev cleared his throat. ‘How are they getting in?’ It was the first thing he had yet said. Che now saw that what she had taken for an armlet was in fact the iron band of a slave, ostentatiously loose enough to be pulled off his wrist and over his hand at any time.

‘In?’ Scobraan asked, bewildered.

‘How many in Solarno?’ the Creev asked, and then answered the question himself with, ‘Two hundred soldiers? Four hundred, perhaps? But who has seen five hundred soldiers cross the peaks? Even one by one, there would be talk. I fly often to the Toek Station, trade with the Scorpion-kinden there. No word do I hear of Wasps coming through in great numbers – and the Scorpions are good door-keepers. So how do they get in? And how many more?’

He left them all in an uncomfortable silence.

‘The Wasps in Solarno have already tried to kill Che once,’ Taki said, for she had not doubted the hand behind the attack at the Venodor for one moment. ‘Now we know what the Empire means, how great a threat they really are, the knowledge that they killed Amre for. We have to let people know. We all have ears who will readily listen to us – in Solarno, in Princep and Chasme. We can let people know the Wasps are coming.’