Salute the Dark

The man was Lineo Thadspar, still nominally Speaker for the Assembly of Collegium. The old man had weathered the Vekken siege but, with that conflict over, he had been fast fading. He had taken to his bed a few days before, barely a few hours after the scouts’ reports had come in.

You knew, Stenwold surmised, and you couldn’t face it.

Lineo was asleep and, without the energy that had burnt in him until very recently, he looked as old as his years at last. Stenwold did not have the heart to wake him. What would be the point, save to put more weight on a life already burdened and failing?

Out of respect, the Assembly had not chosen a new Speaker yet. They would not, in any event, choose Stenwold. His much-loathed title of War Master had instead been confirmed once again.

He smiled in relief at that thought. He did not want to head up the Assembly, for the very notion of tying his future to that room full of squabbling merchants and academics made him shudder. Yet they were frightened he would demand it. A War Master, however, was something that could be made and unmade at will. At the end of this business, if the Assembly was still in any position to do it, they would cast him off. He could not say that he minded very much.

Just now his responsibility felt very heavy, and it seemed he had no shoulders to share it with.

He stood up just as Arianna came in. One look at her face told him the news.

‘They’re here, then?’

‘Within sight of the walls. People want you to come and look. And yes, I know it’s not as though that will make any difference.’

‘Perhaps they think that I’ll see some vital flaw in their strategy just from how they pitch their tents,’ Stenwold said. ‘And I suppose if I was an Ant-kinden tactician, that’s just what I’d do.’

She had asked him, only the night before, if he felt so very bound to stay here. She had known the answer, but she had asked him. It was not too late even now, her look said, for them to go.

Go where? Where does the Empire stop, if not here?

As he followed her out of Thadspar’s house, the sun shone very bright, endowing the white stone of the houses of the wealthy with a special radiance.

There were a lot of people just standing about in the streets, as though they had all received a summons from some city magnate who had failed to appear. When they saw Stenwold, he realized that he had apparently become that magnate. They pointed at him and told each other that, now War Master Stenwold Maker was here, everything would be all right. He assumed that was what they were saying, anyway. Possibly they were telling each other that he was the wrong man for the job, and would doom them all. Possibly they were just commenting on the Spider girl who was young enough to be his daughter. On balance he would have preferred that.

Up on the walls he found Teornis, who had yet to return to his own people despite sporadic reports received regarding the ongoing siege of Seldis. The Spider-kinden noble looked every bit as though the city at his back was devoted to his service, and the soldiers appearing along the east coast road were a parade in his honour. Stenwold envied him his poise.

‘We’ve come to the sharp end, then,’ Teornis said, quietly and for Stenwold’s ears only. On his other side were some members of the Assembly who fancied themselves as strategists, as well as Paolesce Liam, commander of the small Commonweal detachment.

The Wasp army was not looking hurried. Detachments of airborne were lazily spiralling down and taking up position, and Stenwold could make out what must be automotives and beasts of burden following them up. The first few tents were being set, but if there was any great tactical lesson to be learnt from these activities it was lost on him.

‘Reports suggest their numbers to be in the region of eighteen thousand, with slaves as extra,’ Teornis said. ‘They came out of Felyal a little grazed, but nothing serious.’

‘You should leave now,’ Stenwold advised him. ‘You have your own battle to fight.’

‘It’s all the same fight in the end,’ Teornis replied. ‘Moreover, the Kessen navy has decided that the current political situation makes all Spiderland ships fair game for plunder. I don’t honestly see that I’ll be getting away from here in the near future.’

‘War Master,’ began one of the Assemblers, who taught engineering at the College, ‘they’ve come too close to establish their camp I think. If we let fly with light loads, we could bombard them. Just give the word.’

Stenwold looked at the industrious Wasp soldiers, just starting to pitch their camp.

‘Let them get all their tents set up first,’ he suggested. ‘Then, if we decide to do it, we can put them to the most trouble possible. No point in making their lives easy.’

‘Someone’s coming to talk,’ Arianna observed, and Stenwold saw a party of soldiers heading towards the Collegium gate.