Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [212]
She stepped out of the house, away from the incense and the painted signs, and abruptly something seemed to seize her in a grip of iron that made her gasp.
She could not walk away from Leose, it told her. She had unfinished business there. She had made a vow to win Alain, and such vows were inviolable, no matter how much blood was shed over them. That was the Mantis way. That was her way, too. There was no avoiding it.
She fought furiously for a moment, clutching for her free will, for any mastery of her own fate, but that rigid hand was still guiding her, steering an inexorable course. She had a role yet to play in the Tragic History of Tynisa Maker. The closing act was about to begin and her story would be as glorious and terrible as all Mantis-kinden stories were. Salme Alain was waiting for her.
She saw Che and Maure a short distance away, only now noticing her, and for a moment she reached out towards them despairingly, as though drowning.
Then she was marching away towards her tethered horse, heading for Leose and for her destiny.
Thirty-Seven
‘Pride of the Sixth,’ pronounced Lowre Cean carefully. ‘Oh, yes, I remember that.’
‘You were at Masaki, sir?’ Varmen asked him, sipping at the kadith the old man had poured. They were sitting, not in some formal audience hall, but in a little wood-carving workshop, with curls of sawdust underfoot and, on shelves to either side, ranks of miniature figures that the prince himself had whittled: peasants, craftsmen, dancers, all compact and stylized and yet bursting with frozen energy.
‘Some way from the front lines,’ Cean admitted. ‘My son led the charge.’ He was watching the Wasp-kinden carefully. ‘And you were not there?’
Varmen only nodded.
‘Of course you were not. The Imperial Sentinels never run. They fight to the last. Can’t run, in all that armour, I’d imagine. But Darien, my son, told me how the centre held, even when all the rest, all the Light Airborne and artificers and support and the like, had been blown aside. They stood and fought to the last man.’
The Wasp grunted. ‘They’d sent some of us off after some scouts that got holed up. We fought, as well. Pair of your nobles tried to flush us out, over and over. We heard from them that the Sixth had gone.’
‘I recall hearing about that,’ Cean acknowledged. ‘You must have been relieved by the Seventh, I think?’
‘The Second, sir – the Gears, General Tynan’s command. And wasn’t that just a joy for us, to be beholden to them? Almost as bad as fighting with the Seventh at Malkan’s Stand. That time, I didn’t miss the action. Most everyone else of the heavies died. I sometimes think . . .’ Abruptly he decided that he had said too much. The old man’s mild voice had led him into letting his guard down, and now he stood up rebelliously, feeling tricked and trapped. ‘Why have you even let me in here? What if I killed you? We’re enemies, after all.’
‘Once,’ Cean admitted. He had not moved or reacted, save to look up. ‘But now, years later, we have more in common than you might think. We were both there, after all, and although your army won, perhaps you have more right to hate me, as a commander, than I do to hate you, being just a soldier. Would casting you out of my house bring back a single dead man or woman from the war? Would killing me with your sting redeem the fallen Sixth? We are united, Sergeant, by the memories of our dead. That is something we share. You ask me why I let you in, and I ask you why did you come here?’
‘Avoiding the crazy Spider-kinden girl,’ Varmen explained, but Cean was shaking his head.
‘I meant here to the Commonweal. Here to revisit your past and your losses?’
Varmen stared at him stubbornly, but sat back down. ‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.’
Cean poured more kadith, watching him with