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By Root 1617 0

day wore on, it became clear why he had set himself aside as the only one who would reach Leose. Little detachments of the makeshift soldiers were constantly abandoning the column, their ranks thinning and thinning as time wore on: the peasants were returning to their farms and villages, their herds and crops, Che realized, and clearly glad to be putting the military life behind them. It was spring, after all, and a farmer had better things to do than go chasing about with a spear. She thought of those soldiers of Collegium, who were re-purposed tradesmen, artisans and shopkeepers, yet had still accounted for themselves well enough during the war. Then she thought about the Empire, whose every male son was given a uniform and a weapon, and allowed no other trade but fighting.

How did we ever beat them? she asked herself, but then had to admit, We did not. They were not beaten: they just stepped back to deal with a little infighting. And they have since whipped their rebel governors into line, and they now have their new Empress, and surely I can hear the sound of a thousand thousand swords being drawn even now. What is to stop them?

‘Che?’ Thalric touched her arm and for a moment she wanted to run away from him and from his brutal birthright. Instead, she hugged him tight because he was surely proof that redemption was possible, even for the Wasp-kinden.

Thirty-Four

Che had the impression that Whitehand was a man who spoke little, yet he broke his rule to ask her about Tynisa, and through his few terse questions he managed to prompt from her a great deal of the curious story of Stenwold Maker, of Cheerwell, and of Tynisa’s mother. Che approached the subject of Tisamon carefully, never quite naming him as Tynisa’s father in case Isendter held any great grudge against halfbreeds, but making the strength of their relationship clear. Whitehand’s face remained impassive throughout, but Che had the impression that he had been waiting for a figure such as Tisamon to turn up in this account.

As she recounted what she knew of Tisamon’s death, Isendter nodded fractionally, but that small movement spoke volumes, the only acknowledgement he had made. ‘And they were close?’ he put in.

‘Very,’ Che agreed. ‘And I believe . . .’ For a moment the old Collegium Che rebelled against the words, or perhaps felt embarrassed at speaking them before Thalric, but she pressed on. ‘I believe that he is haunting her now. I think that his ghost takes its duties as a . . .’ she almost said ‘father’, ‘. . . as a mentor very seriously indeed.’

‘It may be as you say,’ was all Isendter Whitehand replied, but Che knew that he had sensed something or seen something in Tynisa. ‘There was a shrine of my people, in the woods, out west. We came upon it while hunting. After that . . .’

Che nodded, seeing the perfect gateway through which the ghost could have stepped, directly into Tynisa’s mind.

By the time they came to Leose, most of the impromptu army had disbanded, hurrying back to lives that had no need of conflict or bloodshed in them. Che found herself and her companions quickly abandoned in a great courtyard, lined to one side with ranks of stables, and roofed by a wooden lattice that Maure explained was for dragonfly steeds to land on. They had just enough time to wonder if they had been forgotten, when a lean Grasshopper-kinden woman wearing dark colours came out to them, looking them up and down with that crisp and slightly disapproving expression of senior servants the world over.

‘The champion tells me you are here to see the Spider-kinden girl,’ she remarked. ‘Which of you is her sister?’

‘Her foster-sister.’ Che raised a hand. ‘Cheerwell Maker of Collegium. This is Thalric, this Varmen, and this—’

‘Maure,’ said the mystic quickly, cutting her off, and Che wondered if magicians were supposed to introduce themselves, or whether being named by another might diminish their power, or some such. And is that real, or just superstition? There’s so much I don’t know.

The Grasshopper stared at the halfbreed necromancer for a long moment.