Piraeus dropped into his own favoured stance and saw Tynisa do the same. He had been waiting for this moment. She should realize his kind never forgot. She had blackened his reputation, slurred his previously untarnished name. When she now disappeared, no finger could accuse him, but everyone would know.

And blood-fighting, that was his kinden’s game. Let the Spiders dance and prance and win their false battles, he decided. He was a champion duellist in the Prowess Forum, but he was also Mantis-kinden. Revenge and murder were imbued in his very sinews.

He lunged forward, a simple move to start with, noting her style, her steps, as she backed away from him. Perhaps he should have killed her when he stood unnoticed behind her, but that would have given him scant satisfaction. He wanted her to know. To know who and to know why.

He had never challenged her with a rapier, only the clumsy practice blade of the Prowess, but it was a weapon that both their kinden knew well. She was some Spider dilettante, though, while he had been fighting since his tenderest years. He was a warrior from the Days of Lore, when his kind were acknowledged as the iron fist of the old ways.

He pressed his advantage, driving her back, enjoying the frown of concentration on her face. Go on, try your tricks on me, he sent his thought to her. He quickened his pace, his sword constantly testing hers, batting it from side to side, making his opening.

He blinked suddenly, staring at her. She was abruptly much closer than she had been a moment ago and his sword… she was inside the reach of his sword, which must mean that he was inside the reach of hers.

He glanced down, but he saw no more of her sword than the hilt. His own, in the meantime, was no longer in his hand.

He frowned at her, at that expression of concentration that had seemed so ludicrous before.

‘What?’ he said and began to fall backwards.

She had been fighting for blood, he realized at last, and he had still been playing.

Tynisa drew her blade from Piraeus’s body, already looking around. Tisamon was still making heavy work of the last two, the Spider and the man with the chain. The Ant-kinden lay nearby, having been gashed across the throat over the rim of his shield.

Tisamon glanced at her, and shouted, ‘Go get Stenwold out of there!’

She turned instantly and kicked her way through the doors to the warehouse. There was a scene of utter confusion, several bodies on the floor already. She located Stenwold, though, or at least his back. He was crouching behind a great box, but he had his sword in his hand and looked ready to make an unwise move any moment. There was a scattering of men across the warehouse from him, busy taking what cover they could, but it was not the threat of Stenwold Maker that had sent them there, for a great roar erupted from a broken window high on one side, and she saw wood splinters spray from the floor three, no, four times, punching a line of shot towards them.

‘Come on, Stenwold! We’re going!’

Stenwold heard her, then threw himself to one side, his sword clattering away from him, as the box he hid behind cracked in half. The unseen bowman high above loosed another shuddering round of bolts at the Wasps, making them duck away, and Stenwold reversed his course yet again, running for her and the door.

Tisamon was done when they emerged, standing over the two last bodies, and waiting for them.

‘They could have more men nearby,’ he said, his breath ragged. ‘We have to go.’

‘Not quite yet,’ Stenwold wheezed back, looking as though he could no more run than fly just then. A few moments later, Balkus came running for all he was worth round the corner of the warehouse, his nailbow in his hands.

‘Now… now we go,’ said Stenwold, as the Ant joined them. ‘I hope it was worth waiting for,’ he added, to Balkus’s sudden grin.

Back in Graf’s office they remained quiet for some time, watching their leader. Thalric stared into the fire, his hands clasped behind him, and it seemed that he was fighting to repress a great deal of anger that might spill out at any moment.

Lieutenant Graf stood to attention, his eye staring fixedly across the room. It was his hired men that had let them down, and it was obvious he expected the worst of the lash. The other three sat cowed and quiet. Scadran was attempting to staunch and then bandage the gash across his leg that a nailbow shot had made, grimacing as he struggled to tie the knots but not letting anyone else help him. Hofi and Arianna exchanged silent glances. Hofi, for his part, was strictly not a fighter and had not even been there, while Arianna felt she could claim that her task, at least, had been completed to specification.

Or had it? Stenwold’s glance at her had suggested genuine betrayal, but they had been ready for the trap nonetheless, with one of their men waiting on high to ambush the ambushers. What had tipped them off?

Or had Stenwold just been more cautious than she expected? After all, he was an old campaigner in the intelligence trade. Perhaps that nailbowman had been hanging out of a window every time that Stenwold went to meet the students. In Stenwold’s business it was not whether things would go wrong, but when.

And she knew, as Hofi knew, that this was all immaterial. If Thalric now decided to take it out on them, because of some dislike of them as individuals or lesser kinden, or simply to safeguard his own career, then reason need not enter into it. Graf would be only too glad to offload the blame onto them.

At last Thalric spoke. ‘Playing your enemy in his own city is always a risk,’ he declared. ‘I had hoped that we could at least strip a few of his bodyguards away from him, but the Mantis and his girl seem to have survived this as well. So where are we now?’

He turned to them. Arianna noticed a muscle in Graf’s jaw twitch.

‘There are plans and plans,’ Thalric said. He no longer seemed angry, had clearly conquered that. ‘I was sent here with two, but one has come to nothing. Stenwold will be speaking his piece at the Assembly soon enough. Now, we have our own people on hand in the Assembly, who have taken our gold, but the Empire has seen how those old men and women of Collegium cannot leave well alone. Look what they did to Sarn. They think they have all the answers, and yet the philosophy they peddle is an enemy to the Empire in its own right.’

He sat down at last, and only then did Graf allow himself to relax.

‘I had hoped to take Stenwold tonight,’ Thalric said. ‘This next part would be so much the easier if we could pick over his brains. I still hope the Assembly will refuse him. All that is now effectively irrelevant. We have a greater matter at hand.’

Arianna and Hofi glanced at one another again, because this meant something Thalric had not mentioned, and the comment surprised even Graf.

‘I sent a messenger to Vek two days ago,’ Thalric told them. There was a thoughtful pause at that, and he knew that he stood on a very narrow line, and must cross it soon enough. There was little expression on Graf’s scarred face, compared with the wary looks of the other three, but it was Graf who spoke.

‘The Ants of Vek, sir?’ They all knew how difficult Ant city-states were to infiltrate in the spy trade, for it was nigh impossible to place agents within a city’s power structure where everyone knew the inside of his neighbour’s head. They had to kick about the edges like any other foreigner.

‘Do we have agents in Vek, Major?’ Hofi asked.

‘Not spies as such,’ Thalric said. ‘An embassage, however. Official, formal, very respectable. They got there about a tenday before I arrived in Collegium. Nothing underhand, merely trade deals, talks of a possible compromise between their city and the Empire. After all, Vek is a long way from our borders and, like all the Ants, they are vain about their strength. Our envoys have been taking things leisurely but now I’ve sent them word, they’re going to change pace. They’re going to arrange for me to see that city’s Royal Court, and I’m going to put a proposal to them that they won’t turn down.’