‘Your boldness astounds me,’ said a dry voice, ‘but I presume that would be the Mantis blood.’

She could see no source for the voice, but her blade was in her hand instantly, impotently.

‘Once you have been marked by my kinden,’ continued the thin voice, ‘we can always sense you.’

‘Show yourself,’ she hissed.

She was abruptly no longer alone. There was a dark-robed shape in the room’s corner that she had somehow missed. She rounded on it with her blade drawn back to strike, but then darkness rose about her on every side, clawing at her and dragging her down. She felt the rapier fall helplessly from her grip, and then she too was falling, dropping further and futher and away.

Tynisa awoke.

There was a pain in her head, but not suggesting she had been struck, unless it was possible to sustain a blow from within the skull.

She opened her eyes. She saw only black and yellow.

She cursed, kicking herself to her feet from the cold stone floor, but there were chains clasped about her ankles and she stumbled back against the wall of… of a cell. She was in a cell with a single barred window high up, one so small that a Fly-kinden child would have difficulty squeezing through it even without the bars.

‘Well now,’ said a dry voice.

There were two Wasp-kinden guards in full armour, motionless and faceless behind the full helms of the Slave Corps. Between them stood a slight, robed figure, face hidden within a cowl. Pale, long-nailed hands were folded demurely before it.

Tynisa said nothing. Even to ask, Who are you? or What happened to me? would be to show weakness. She forced herself to remain calm. Her mind held no memory at all of what had befallen her.

‘We meet formally at last,’ said the robed figure. ‘I have previously had only my subordinates’ reports about you, and they have not done you justice. Tynisa Maker, I suppose they call you amongst the Beetle-kinden, but it’s clear to me that the name is only borrowed.’

‘You have me at quite an advantage,’ she replied, finally, and her voice was at least steady. She had no idea who this thin creature was, but there was no reason she could not win it over.

The fragile-looking man approached her, and she could now make out some of his pale face beneath the cowl. ‘You have shown yourself remarkably gifted in reaching Capitas still a free woman,’ he said. ‘Aside from a little push, initially, I have not needed to assist you in your journey at all.’

She felt something uneasy twist inside her. ‘A… push?’

‘Oh now, who do you think brought you here? Who gave you the idea? None but my servant, working according to my plan. Still, you have proved remarkably able. After this is done, perhaps I can find a use for you, if you survive.’

‘And for what possible purpose could you want me here?’ she asked, but her voice was less steady now that he was so close. There was something about him that frightened her, for no reason she could have named.

‘Insurance,’ he explained simply. ‘You see, your father is due to die for me tomorrow, and I thought that he might need motivating.’

She went for him then, clawing for his face, but the chains that restrained her brought her up short. As he caught one of her wrists in his thin-looking hand, she found his grip was far stronger than it had any right to be.

‘As it happens, our dear Tisamon seems more than happy to cast his life away. He considers it his destiny, and perhaps it is.’ The half-seen lips, bluish in that white face, twitched. ‘It is such a shame that my people never discovered the Mantis-kinden in the way our enemies did. They were the Moths’ private army of fanatics for centuries: superstitious, malleable, easily led for all their pride. And you, my dear Tynisa, have inherited all that from your poor doomed father. I barely had to extend myself to bring you here. You practically locked your own shackles.’

‘You’re going to kill Tisamon.’

‘No, no, he can see to that himself, being the expert after all. It seems likely though, that after all your travels you may not be needed after all.’ His eyes were red, she noticed. She could see them bloody and glistening under the shadow of his hood. He smiled at her, avuncular. ‘But still, why leave even that to chance? I shall keep you close to me, tomorrow, the slave of a slave, and if his heart turns before he steps on to the sand, then his daughter’s blood shall provide sufficient leverage to change his mind.’ He smiled. ‘It seems you will get to watch him die, after all.’

They set him against scorpions.

It was the anniversary of the coronation of his Imperial Majesty Alvdan the Second. There were public games being held throughout the Empire and the populace was encouraged to celebrate. On the whole the people did so willingly.

There would be a half-dozen separate arenas shedding blood across the city of Capitas alone but the Emperor would be present at this one only, the grandest and the largest. It was a great open space of sand surrounded by high barriers, with tiers of seats beyond, entirely roofed over with silk rendered luminous by the sun. Ult and his fellows, the trainers and jailers, had devised an ever-mounting spectacle of contests: men against beasts, men against machines but, more than any other matching, men set against men. Slaves had killed each other with awkward desperation to the crowd’s amusement. Experienced pit-fighters had slaughtered deserters. Rebels and criminals had died at the hands of imperial soldiers. There were those who had never held a blade before being cast out on to the sand, but also there were veterans of a score of fights, their brief moments of celebrity written in the scars on their bodies.

And then there was Tisamon. Few had ever seen a Mantis-kinden fight, for they did not submit themselves to capture and slavery often. Above all, none had seen a Mantis Weaponsmaster.

They had given him first the animal: a great pale-shelled scorpion, old and cunning. It had lain with its belly close to the sand and waited for him to come to it. He had stalked it, wary of those heavy claws held so tight to its body, but it had struck with its sting only, the claws providing shields to ward him off. The crowd had known it well, and called it ‘Opalesce’ and expected it to win. They had called out its name frenziedly until the moment when Tisamon had vaulted over those protective claws to land on its back and, catching the lethal sting in one hand, had driven his claw down between its eyes.

He was back now, having rested for the space of five contests, and a murmur went through the crowd when they saw him. He heard his own name on their lips.

Ult sat close to the gladiators’ gate, and Tisamon caught his eye briefly. The old Wasp merely nodded, a neutral gesture, but Tisamon saw doubt in his face. This was to be the promised unarmed match and Ult was not entirely sure that Tisamon was up to it.

Tisamon’s opponent was already waiting: Scorpion-kinden instead of scorpion animal. He was built on a massive scale, twice as broad across the shoulder as Tisamon himself, barrel-chested and with arms almost contorted with muscle. His hands formed claws, thumb and forefinger grown into long blades of bone. He was stripped to the waist and the physiology thus revealed looked something beyond human.

Tisamon shrugged off his slave’s tunic, looking like a child or a toy before the Scorpion, but his own blades flexed in readiness from his forearms. He dropped into his fighting stance, perfectly balanced and waiting.

The Scorpion moved faster than someone of his bulk had any right to, a sudden scuttle across the sand, claws driving for Tisamon’s face, trying to run him back against the wall. Tisamon swayed to one side, feeling the man’s finger-blade cut the air just an inch from his eye, while thrusting a leg out to trip the man in his charge. The Scorpion stumbled, but held his feet, delivering a murderously swift backhand blow as he passed. Tisamon disengaged, stepping out of range and back into his stance, watching to see how the other man had taken it.