They had not come there for nothing at least. So far so good. They had come there, it seemed, for the snapbow. How glad he was that he had been so honest with the Sarnesh on the subject, for it seemed that everyone, even the blasted Moth-kinden, knew that Collegium had engineered one. Instead of any serious debate on the Wasp Empire, everyone had come with their demands for it, regarding who should have it and who should not.

The Sarnesh wanted it, and perhaps, as its first victims, they even had a right to it. He had known that. Of course, the Sarnesh did not want anyone else to have it. The Kessens, on the other hand, demanded that the Sarnesh should not be given access to the weapon unless they could have it too, and Stenwold could see their point. How long would Kes stand if the Sarnesh gained such a military advantage? He was so used to seeing Sarn as Collegium’s staunch ally that he must now learn to view them as an Ant-kinden city-state in their own right.

Teornis, having lounged through most of the proceedings with an amused look on his face, had then taken the opportunity to say that, if Kes got it, then shouldn’t the Spiderlands have the thing as well, whatever it was and whatever it was supposed to do? On the other hand, if the Lowlands could not agree on how to deploy this wretched machine, and yet still needed it in order to defeat the Wasps, he had suggested, mockingly, that perhaps it would best be given into the sensible hands of his people alone.

The Moth-kinden had, with a sharp word, restrained her Mantis allies from attacking Teornis across the tabletop. The Ancient League’s argument was that nobody should have the snapbow, that the Wasps, as its sole holders, should be immediately defeated, and then all plans and examples of the weapon must be destroyed. They were obviously considering what great effect the device might have, employed against their own forces afterwards. The Fly-kinden seemed divided on the subject, but one of them did have the initiative to ask whether a smaller version might be constructed. Only Parops and the white-bearded Sfayot had shown no great interest in the device, for the disposition of their forces was such that it barely mattered to them.

Of actual diplomacy, of alliance, of the war itself, precious little had been discussed. Instead Stenwold had become the anvil for all the hammers of the Lowlands, and his head was still ringing.

‘They will change their tune when spring draws close,’ Arianna assured him, ‘Then they will realize.’

‘I am not sure this council will last until spring,’ Stenwold told her. ‘If I cannot solve this, then the snapbow may turn out to be the weapon that destroys the Lowlands after all, and before the Wasps even get a chance.’

Elsewhere in Sarn, a servant waited in the Foreigner’s Quarter. He was waiting by the rail-line leading to Collegium, but not for a train. Instead, he glanced at the sky. He seemed, though was not, Sarnesh Ant-kinden, dressed in a simple servant’s tunic, therefore nobody paid him much heed.

The messenger came without a word: a fat black fly the size of his fist, meandering over the bustling crowd of locals and visitors until it caught the scent the man had dabbed on himself. It dived for him, and he caught it in his hands, to scattered admiration amongst those standing nearest. He took it away to one side.

He was no Sarnesh, or at least not quite. A half-breed, but one of the rare kind where the face was that of either one parent or the other. He could walk unsuspected amongst the Sarnesh. His given name, Lyrus, was an Ant name. He could even hear their mind-speech, but he was none of them. He was Rekef.

He held the insect long enough to pluck the tiny rolled message tied between its legs. An uncertain way of communicating, this, but his handler was only a mile outside the city walls, a short enough sprint for a well-trained animal. He let it go, and the fly blundered aimlessly about the nearest wall for a moment, before buzzing away, understanding, in some crude fashion, that its task was done.

Lyrus had been well schooled. It only took a moment to decode the message.

Lowlander alliance must be stopped soonest. Destabilize Sarn as alliance centre. Sarnesh Queen must die. Approach Avt depot for details and wherewithal.

He folded the note and went over to a Fly-kinden food vendor, feeding the paper to the charcoal flames even as he haggled over the price of a meal. He then set off for the city gates. The Avt depot was two miles south down the Collegium line, a brisk enough walk for any Ant-kinden, or even for one who just resembled them. There he would take a delivery from one of the station’s traders, and in that delivery would be included his further orders. As a servant attached to the palace, he had many duties that took him to many places. The beauty of his pretence was that no suspicion would attach to him. He was, even in the minds of his foes, a dutiful son of Sarn.

It was evening by the time Lyrus paused at the gates of Sarn, just another Sarnesh Ant coming in with a basket on his back, just another Ant doing the everyday business of the city. There were plenty of soldiers about, but they were all for keeping their eyes on the new influx of foreigners and nobody spared a second thought for Lyrus. After all, he was one of them within his mind. They addressed him as brother and he hailed them in turn, smiling derisively at them in the hidden recesses of his head. They had no idea they were deceived, and most of them could not even conceive of it.

Loyalty: it was ingrained into the Ant mind. There were always mavericks, rogues, those who could not live inside the tight lattice of orders and duty. They left or were cast out, but they never quite lost their loyalty totally. Even those who were hunted down across the Lowlands, to die in some seedy alley on the swords of their brothers, did not quite lose that tie. In the moment of their deaths, Lyrus had no doubt, they found themselves reunited with what they had given up.

But he was different: Lyrus the halfbreed and son of a halfbreed sire on a Sarnesh mother. That part of him that was not Sarnesh was so mongrel that he had never bothered to untangle his antecedents. The one thing he had known, growing up in the Empire, was that the halfbreed side of him made him automatically a slave, but the Sarnesh side of him got him cursed and whipped.

It had been easy enough, after that, to associate Sarn with all that was worst in the world. Then he had been found by the Rekef, and they had explained that he could yet serve the Empire and thus blot out the stain of his heritage. The younger Lyrus had been desperate for the chance.

He had spent seven years in Sarn since then, just being one of the locals, becoming known. He had worked patiently and tirelessly, a true Ant indeed, but all for the Rekef cause. He loved the Rekef. It was not just that they had given him a purpose, but he also loved their ingenuity, their resourcefulness. He knew that, back in the Empire, it was the Rekef Inlander they feared more, but the Outlander branch had to be twice as clever and find its tools in the most unlikely places.

He had met with his masters as instructed, outside the city. A few words had been exchanged, and a gift. As soon as he had hidden himself away in a storeroom at the palace, he took a closer look at it. It was a beautiful example of the weaponsmith’s art: dark wood bound with brass, possessing four arms of sprung steel. It was a double-strung repeating crossbow, and the finest example he had ever seen – a fit weapon for a regicide. It was Collegium-built, and that could hardly be accidental. He was to be dubbed a Collegiate assassin, then. He knew there were already tensions between Sarn and its old ally, and this was where a wedge was to be inserted.

He knew that the Queen would want to meet with the fat man from Collegium soon. That would be his moment. He would have everything ready for then.