Salute the Dark

It got a smile out of Taki, and it was almost worthwhile, just for that.

When they had gone, he sat himself on the floor, as Fly-kinden from his part of the world were used to, and thought. After a while he said loudly, ‘You might as well come in now. I’m sure you heard it all.’

Cesta came into the room, head first through the window. He must have been crouching outside in the shadow of the eaves. With a lazy grace he dropped to the floor.

‘They’re right, you know,’ he said, ‘about the timing. I know this city. Let the Wasps have their ceremony, and any resistance will drain away. They’re all about fierce action and regret in this city.’

Nero gazed at him for a long time. Eventually he said, ‘I have no right to ask anything of you.’

Cesta nodded. ‘That’s true. So don’t.’ He wore a small smile. ‘What will you do if you win, Nero? What if the Empire is beaten back on all sides, and Solarno is saved? Back to the Lowlands with you, then?’

‘I’m a traveller,’ Nero said. ‘There’s a whole world out there. I’ll find somewhere.’

Cesta shrugged. ‘Perhaps the Lowlands has need of another assassin.’ His smile twisted. ‘You’ll have your signal, Nero, so don’t you worry. It will be unmistakable.’

Thirteen

It was a long road to Szar, travelling only at the dragging pace of the machine wagons. Drephos’ mobile workshops, his mechanisms and tools, pieces and parts, furnaces and refineries, had all been carefully packed into a convoy of a dozen great hauling automotives. The master artificer himself spent the time cursing the lack of rails, and fitfully designing a rail-laying automotive that would allow him to go anywhere, with his entire surroundings, as fast as he pleased.

His staff received less preferential treatment than his working materials. A single automotive was assigned to carry them, and the huge Mole Cricket, Big Greyv, took up most of that. The others perched on top, or moved between the wagons, or dropped back and conversed with the soldiers who were escorting them.

Kaszaat had no talk, however. If not for Totho’s presence she would have passed the entire journey without one single word. For Kaszaat was going home.

At nights, Totho led her away from the others, to the camp’s fringes sometimes or into one of the wagons. She could not bear to be near Drephos, even to be anywhere he might turn his head and see her.

‘He thinks I will betray him,’ she said.

‘No,’ Totho assured her, and it was no more than the truth. Drephos did not think of her at all.

‘But the others do. They know where we’re going, and why. We’re going now to kill my people. My own people.’

Totho regarded her carefully. Tonight they were in one of the machine wagons, nestled amongst the canvas-wrapped crates and boxes.

‘How did you come to leave your home?’ he asked, hoping that there was some bad blood to uncover, some injustice she could cling to.

‘I was conscripted, sold into the army, what did you think?’ she snapped at him. ‘I had training, so they put me with engineers. I was passed hand to hand. Then Drephos saw me, took me. Now they will kill me.’

Though curled up in his arms, she was tense as a drawn bow. By ‘they’ he did not know whether she meant the Empire or her own people. Neither did he have any simple answers. What will she do, when we face her family? He did not want to find out, but each morning, as the lumbering caravan set off again, it took them closer to that inexorable confrontation.

It was Totho’s first experience of travelling officially through the Empire, rather than as on that hurried and furtive expedition to Myna to rescue Che and Salma. He was not sure that he preferred the change. The Empire was not so dissimilar to the Lowlands. Once they were past the Darakyon and the northern fringe of the Dryclaw, they passed into hilly farming country, with fields being ploughed by hand or with the help of draught-beetles, and with little goat- or sheep-herding villages huddled between the rises. The difference was in their reaction to the convoy. As soon as it was sighted, the locals, be they Soldier Beetles or Bee-kinden or Wasps, turned themselves more diligently to their work. They would not even look on the convoy or its escort, but Totho could read the sense of fear in them. The Empire was a harsh master.

And I am now a part of the Empire. Not a new thought either. If he let himself recall the despite he had suffered for his heritage, he could wash his guilt away easily. It was a constant effort to stave the idea off.