‘You could-’

‘Never another, Sten. It’s the Mantis way. When we clasp hands, it is for life. We do nothing lightly, and least of all taking a mate.’

Stenwold had never quite thought of such things. Even now, it was hard to contemplate. ‘But… seventeen years…’

Tisamon shook his head. ‘For life,’ he repeated. ‘And who could there ever be to stand in her place? But you saved us in the end, Sten. You preserved our daughter. And once I would have killed you for it. I’m sorry for that.’

It was embarrassing to see the man so maudlin. ‘She was beautiful,’ Stenwold recalled. ‘I remember, at the time, how the envy was all mine. Mine and everyone else’s. We were all in love with her, a little. Even Marius, whose true love was his city. But it was you she saved her love for.’

For a long while Tisamon stared at the tabletop, while Stenwold looked blankly at his own hands, and they both remembered friends gone and times past, all the moments that time’s river carries away, never valued until their absence is discovered.

‘We are,’ murmured Tisamon at last, ‘a pair of old men. Ten years older, surely, than our true ages. Just listen to us, gumming over the past.’ He stood up abruptly. ‘And tonight you have young minds to corrupt.’

Stenwold levered himself up, making the table groan a little. ‘I have indeed. And an Empire to foil. Shall we go?’

‘We shall.’

Arianna joined them at the door and Tisamon dropped back tactfully, at least nominally out of earshot. As they traversed Collegium streets towards the quay quarter and the docks, there was little enough said between them. She named those students she hoped would be appearing, and she spoke of slogans scrawled on the College walls that were strongly in his support – all the rigmarole of falsehood that was expected of her, until she became aware that he was saying nothing.

And at last, after many covert glances, Stenwold said to her, ‘About last night, Arianna…’

She cocked an eyebrow and walked on in silence, waiting.

‘I should not have done what… I mean, I had no right-’

But she was smiling now. There was an edge to that smile, of course, because, knowing what she did, the incongruity of the situation made it impossible to restrain. A smile, nonetheless, and she said, ‘Stenwold, what I did last night was by my will, no more and no less.’ At that she saw relief on his face and, yes, pleasure. A candle lit just for him that was about to be so brutally snuffed.

‘After all,’ she could not help adding, knowing that it would not be taken for the warning that it was, ‘I am Spider-kinden.’

And here was the warehouse she was taking him to. A secluded enough place on the edge of the docks quarter. Somewhat run-down and just the place for a clandestine meeting of the disaffected. Or an ambush.

She glanced behind, where the Mantis had now been joined by Tynisa. There was a puzzle there that Arianna had not been able to work out, because the girl was clearly as Spider as herself, and yet she had passed from being Stenwold’s ward to Tisamon’s. There would be no time now to work it through, and shortly it should not matter, not if the plan went right. Arianna bore Tynisa no malice, though she would shed no tears over the Mantis’s corpse. The plan demanded that both of them be laid in the earth and that was what must happen tonight.

She tugged at the door, and Stenwold stepped forward to help her open it. There was a young Ant-kinden waiting inside, who recognized them and nodded. He looked plausible for a student, one of the older ones at least, and there were hundreds of young scholars that Stenwold had never taught or even met. No clue therefore that he was no student at all but a mercenary on Graf’s books.

‘You’ll keep watch out here like last time?’ Stenwold murmured to Tisamon, and the Mantis nodded.

So Stenwold went in alone, just like the other times, leaving the Mantis with Tynisa under the evening sky, all of it happening as smooth as a blade drawn from its sheath.

Although he was not alone, of course, because Arianna was with him.

In the gloom of the warehouse three lamps were lit, and Stenwold stopped short, for the people ahead were not the youthful faces he had expected. A handful of men and one woman, but all with no need of any College lessons in their chosen trade. Scadran loomed at their centre, a large man even amongst large men. Arianna found the distance between her and Stenwold was growing as though a tide was pulling her from his side.

And it was Thalric himself who flared into view as he lit a fourth lamp. Two men lunged for Stenwold from the shadows even as he heard Tynisa crying out in pain outside. The first grabbed his left arm but he was already hauling himself away and the other man missed his catch. And then Stenwold had his blade out, lashing it across the arm of the Beetle-kinden mercenary who held him, making the man let go and fall back.

‘Master Maker!’ Thalric snapped out, one hand extended, fingers splayed. The sounds of steel on steel carrying from outside were increasing.

‘I can’t offer you a drink this time, Master Maker,’ Thalric said. ‘But I’ll have your sword.’

There was smoke on the air but, at this distance from the walls, Alder knew that it was not the fires of the city in his nose, but the pyres of the dead. Many of the wounded had not survived the retreat, although the surgeons had this time at least been given a chance to work on them. It had not been the same scrambling rout as last time, having to abandon their fallen so shamefully.

There would be a lot of bloody faces to see, if and when he chose to. The dawn was lighting up an ugly scene in the camp, but that was the countenance of war. Alder had lived with it for decades now and it held few horrors for him any more. He was willing to bet that the scene within Tark was worse. At night, with surprise and three holes punched in the walls, the Ant-kinden losses had for once been greater than those of the attackers.

Which means that Drephos has done well, curse the man. Alder was a good soldier, though. He would happily postpone the pleasure of having the Colonel-Auxillian hoisted up on crossed spears, in return for the taking of this city. He would even add to the man’s long list of commendations, all equally grudgingly given.

Colonel Carvoc found him just then, thrusting a hurriedly tallied scroll into his hand. The assault was over and the Ants still held the walls, but taking them had never been the objective. The idea had been to inflict as much damage as possible whilst keeping the bulk of the imperial army intact. Alder surveyed the first lists of Wasp casualties and the estimates of Tarkesh losses, and found himself nodding. I can live with this. My record can live with this. We have done well, this past night.

‘Have we achieved enough, General?’

‘It wasn’t cheap, Carvoc,’ Alder admitted. He recalled that Captain Anadus had brought back less than a quarter of his men, bitterness etched deeper into his face at the fact of his own survival. The Moles he had sent out were all dead, and Captain Czerig was assumed dead as well, or at least he had not been seen amongst the living.

Colonel Edric was dead, for sure, though Alder found himself only mildly surprised that it had not happened before. When a man chose to live with savages he was likely to die like one, and they had died in their hundreds. The dregs of them that were left were barely worth using.

‘Send word to all captains involved in the attack,’ he told Carvoc. ‘I want the men congratulated for their discipline and order. Night attacks are normally a chaos, but they did well, all of them.’

‘Of course, sir.’

Alder’s eyes passed on across the list. ‘Half a dozen of the heliopters are down,’ he murmured, knowing that left eight still able to take to the air.