They would camp within the village boundaries, Salma explained. They would chop the promised wood, draw the promised water, all the other meaningless tokens of their agreement. The headman tried to wave it away, but Salma had insisted.

He had not intended to become a brigand, but it seemed that it was easier than he had guessed to slip into that trade.

He had not intended to defend the village, either, but nevertheless it had happened. He had less control over his fate than he had ever imagined.

The real brigands had come thundering down on the settlement at night, with swords and burning brands. There were a score and a half of them and they were not here to make deals, or even to threaten or intimidate. They came for quick loot, a handful of whatever they could grab.

Instead they found Salma and his followers. Even while the villagers were putting their children out of the way, reaching for their staves and spears, Salma was rousing his band, sending them out with blades and sticks and bows. He went out himself, too, seeing by the slice of moon far better than the attackers, making savage work with the staff that Sfayot had made for him, and then ultimately just with the claws of his thumbs.

He discovered he was strong enough to fly again, using his wings to leap into his enemies, kicking and raking, and then jump back before they realized what was happening.

These were the sort of mixed ruffians he remembered from h.e.l.leron: Beetles and rogue Ants and halfbreeds, driven but disorganized. The fighting was fierce.

When they were finally chased away, at least half their number struck down, Salma walked amongst his own people to a.s.sess the damage. Two of Phalmes's men were dead, and one of the Fly-kinden youths. Others were wounded, and Sfayot and his daughters did what they could with charms and herbs and bandages made from torn and boiled cloth.

Then Salma went to face the headman.

'We did not bring them down on you,' he said because, all through the fight, that had been his thought, of what the villagers must surely believe.

'I did not believe you had,' said the headman, a Beetle-kinden, like most of the villagers. There was a cut across his balding scalp that one of his own people had bandaged. 'Why did you come here?'

Salma shrugged. He was feeling haggard and worn down and his wound ached. 'We saw your houses and we were hungry.'

'Take the food,' the headman said. 'I have some money, too. We have done well here until the troubles.'

Salma wanted to refuse, but he thought of Phalmes and knew that he had at least that much responsibility even to bandits and deserters.

The dawn brought a sight that made him shiver. Without ever discussing it, his followers had taken the arms and armour of the slain bandits. The Fly-kinden had swords and daggers now, and the Beetle-kinden farmwife had a crossbow. The three slaves had covered their tunics with studded leather hauberks. Sfayot's eldest daughter had a short-hafted axe thrust through her belt. She had accounted for herself well with slung stones, the previous night.

Phalmes approached Salma and held a shortsword out to him, hilt first.

'I saved this one,' he said. 'I know a bit about swords and here's a good one. h.e.l.leron-made, and they know their business there.'

Salma accepted it gratefully. The balance was good, better than the Wasp-kinden weapon he had carried for so long. It felt good to have a proper sword in his hand again.

Two nights after the village he dreamt of home: riding out of the elegant palace of Suon Ren in the Princ.i.p.ality of Roh, and seeing the landscape spread out before him in gentle tiers that centuries of careful cultivation had made into a picture of perfect beauty: the green and gold of the fields under the blue of the sky. It was autumn, near harvest, and the cold breeze that was blowing promised an early end to those warm days. The northern landscape revealed more snow on the mountaintops than a tenday ago. The Lowlanders knew nothing like this in their dry land of bronze and dun and yellow.

He had ridden out and through the fields, and through the small villages built of golden wood that stood safe within sight of the castle. On the horizon was the shadow of the Gis'yaon Hold where he had guested twice with the Mantis-kinden, renewing the bonds of fealty and solidarity between them and the Princ.i.p.ality of Roh and through Roh to the Monarchy itself.

As he pa.s.sed through these villages, the people bowed to him in honour and respect, and his horse tossed her head in reply.

Last winter the predators had come down from the hills, and Salma had ridden out with Felipe Shah to deal with them. The body of the Commonweal was groaning with parasites, and those parasites were brigands. In its thousand-year history there had been times of strength and times of recession, but never such a difficult time as this. The Monarch's realm was patchworked with rot like a blighted leaf. Some roads were so preyed upon that even the Crown's own messengers could not pa.s.s safely. There were loyal princ.i.p.alities cut off from the court by lawless lands. Some castles were the home only of robber barons who played at the prince but were nothing more than bandits grown fat unopposed.

Where now is that golden sound our strings once gave unto the dawn? had sung the old minstrel at Felipe's court. had sung the old minstrel at Felipe's court.

Where now is the ancient blade for many years so boldly drawn?

The mist of autumn leaves its tears, The weeping of the ending year, Of maidens for their husbands lost, of children into darkness born.

And Felipe and Salma and their men had gone to fight, from horseback, from the air, with spear and punch-sword and bow, because the princ.i.p.ality was like a garden, and a gardener had a duty to ensure the health of his charges.

Duty and responsibility, of course. A duty to protect those in the princ.i.p.ality who could not protect themselves, because Salma was a Prince Minor of the Commonweal.

The next day, Phalmes rode along next to Sfayot's cart and spoke to Salma, although it was at Sfayot's eldest daughter that he looked most. Nero sat up beside Sfayot himself, in between his occasional flights about the surrounding countryside.

'Did you ever hear about the Mercers?' Salma asked.

'How could I not?' Phalmes said. 'While fighting in the Commonweal, you got to hear a lot about the cursed Mercers.'

'And?'

'And what? I could never work them out. Your people, your peasantry, seemed to worship everything they did, but the p.i.s.sing Mercers Mercers weren't averse to cutting throats when it came to it. n.o.body wanted to fight them. At least there weren't so many of them.' weren't averse to cutting throats when it came to it. n.o.body wanted to fight them. At least there weren't so many of them.'

'Thousands, really, but you would have seen few enough' Salma said. 'They do more than fight invaders, though. In fact that's barely what they do at all. They protect the Commonweal, and that means mostly from its own worst impulses. They go wherever brigands have made the roads unsafe, where princes are cruellest to their subjects, or have rejected the wisdom of the Monarch. And they work against invaders, and their agents, but they defend the Commonweal first and foremost. They are heroes.'

Phalmes shrugged. 'Well, you asked me what I knew about them. So what of it?'

Salma smiled slightly. 'Where will you be in five years, Phalmes?'

'In an unmarked grave, probably,' replied the ex-bandit. 'Possibly the same in just five days. It's an uncertain time. I'd prefer to go . . .'

'Home?'

'Myna, yes. But I can't see that happening.' A shadow crossed his face, and Sfayot's eldest inched forward to look at him more closely. 'Ever,' he added. 'Even if Kymene starts a revolution, the Wasps will only put it down within a month, or even a year, and what difference would that make? And then everything will just be worse. So, if I do live out five years? Who knows? I don't feel that I myself have much of a choice in the matter.'

'And if I gave you a choice?' Salma said.

Phalmes frowned at him. 'Meaning what?'

'I'm a prince,' Salma reminded him.

'Good for you, Your Worship. So what?'

'In the Lowlands they don't understand it. In the Empire too I'd guess. I'd almost forgotten it myself, but I am a prince and that still means something, wherever I am.'

The messenger brought Totho to a long practice hall attached to one of Drephos' newly commandeered factories. There were targets of wood fixed to the far wall down a long arcade, scuffed and scratched and painted with range-markers.

The master artificer was there already, along with his entire cadre of followers and a few Wasp soldiers as well. Totho found himself the last to arrive. There was no resentment, though, only a barely concealed excitement about them. Totho sought out Kaszaat but her expression conveyed a warning.

Drephos was smiling, as lopsided as ever. He had his hood fully back, with no cares about his malign features amongst his own people. In his hands was the snapbow.

Totho had originally called it an airlock bow in his designs but, after the sound that it made, the term snapbow had stuck, from the artificer's old habit of calling any kind of ranged weapon a 'bow' of some sort, despite the lack of arms or string. This was the tweaked and adjusted article, perhaps destined to undergo another iteration, perhaps to be presented as finished. Each of Drephos's artificers had been given a chance to make further changes and test them. The last day or so had already seen a dozen separate prototypes tried and forgotten.

Now Drephos proffered the weapon and he took it, feeling how light it was, a sleek and deadly-feeling creation, like a predatory animal that found its prey by sight from on high. The curved b.u.t.t fitted to his shoulder and armpit to steady it, and he was able to look down the slender length of the barrel, using a groove in the folded crank of the air battery itself to correct his aim.

'Any complaints, Totho?' Drephos asked him.

'It's beautiful, Master,' Totho said, wonderingly.

'You have the best of them, as is only fitting,' Drephos said. At his gesture the big Mole Cricket-kinden began handing out the others, until all the artificers had a newly finished snapbow in their hands.

'We are almost at the end of our stretch of road with this device,' Drephos told them all. 'Next will be the training sergeants. General Malkan is preparing to march, but he is leaving me two thousand men here and every factory in h.e.l.leron if I need it. When we walk out from here, if we are satisfied, this entire city will be devoted to your invention. It's a rare privilege.'

'I understand, Master.' There was something he was missing, he knew, some underlying tension he could not account for. He glanced at Kaszaat and saw that she alone of them was not smiling. 'We're here for the final tests?' he asked.

'We are,' Drephos said, and signalled to the soldiers. One of them went to the far end of the range and pulled a door open.

There were two dozen people behind the door, and they were pushed out onto the range quite quickly by Wasp soldiers, who closed the doors and stood nearby, hands open and ready. Totho frowned. Afterwards it would appal him that it took him so long to work out what was going on.

They were Beetle-kinden, mostly, with a few halfbreeds or Flies, and they looked as though they were going to a costume party all dressed like warriors. Some wore leather cuira.s.ses or long coats, others had banded mail, or breastplates, or chain hauberks in the Ant style. There was even Spider-made silk armour and a suit of full sentinel plate that the wearer could hardly move in. None of them was armed.

'What . . . what's going on?' Totho asked.

'We are going to test your invention,' Drephos explained, 'and you should have the honour of going first.'

He knew even then, but he said, 'I don't understand.'

'You have made a machine for killing people, Totho,' Drephos said gently. 'How else can it be tested?'

It was a long time with him staring at those confused men and women before he said, 'But I can't just . . . shoot at them. They're . . .'

'Troublemakers,' Drephos said crisply. 'The lazy, the malcontents, the unskilled, the grumblers all those picked for me by my foremen, though fewer than I had hoped. Still, it will have to be a sufficient sample for this test, because we have little time.'

'But they're people! people!' Totho said.

'Are they any more people than the soldiers your weapons will be used against? Did you think you could bring such a weapon into the world and keep your hands clean?' Drephos asked him. 'I hate hypocrisy, Totho, and I will not tolerate it. Too many of our trade are ashamed of what they do, and try to distance themselves. You must be proud of what you are. War and death are the gearwheels of artifice, remember? This is meat, useless and replaceable meat, no more.' His gauntleted hand fell on Totho's shoulder paternally. 'You have made this beautiful device. You must be the first to give it purpose. Now load it.'

His hands trembling, Totho thumbed back the slot at the breech of the weapon and slipped a finger-length bolt into place, the missile's presence closing the slot automatically. He remembered a sleepless night designing that very mechanism, with Kaszaat breathing gently beside him. He was thinking, I will not do it. I will not do it I will not do it. I will not do it, but his fingers completed the now-familiar task with a minimum of fuss.

'Charge it,' Drephos said quietly. Totho's hand was already on the crank, and five quick ratchets of it pressurized the air in the battery.

'Ready your bow,' Drephos said, and slowly he raised the snapbow, feeling its snug and comfortable fit against his shoulder. I will not do it I will not do it, his mind sang again.

'Shoot,' Drephos said, and Totho was frozen, his fingers on the release lever. 'Shoot!' the master artificer said again, but he could not. He was shaking, his aim veering. The range of targets at the far end of the hall had not yet realized what was going on.

'This is a test, Totho, a test to see whether what I purchased was worth the price. Remember our bargain. Your friend is alive and free, and in return you are mine mine.' And on that word his metal hand clenched on Totho's shoulder like tongs, and Totho pressed the trigger.

The explosive snap of the release of air echoed down the length of the hall. He had been aiming, perhaps unconsciously, at the most heavily armoured target, the man (or was it a woman?) in the heavy sentinel plate. Now he saw the clumsy figure fall backwards. He could hope that just the impact against the metal might have knocked it over, but there was no movement, and he thought he saw a clean hole had been thrust through the steel.

'Loose at will,' Drephos decided, quite satisfied, and all around them the artificers loaded and shouldered their weapons.

Totho lay sleepless in the dark and he shook. His mind's eye was glutted with the work of those few seconds, the ears still ringing with the discrete 'snap-snap-snap' as his inventions the work of his own mind and hands had gone about their purpose.

Drephos had been ecstatic, declaring the test a complete success. Even at the range they were firing, the bolts had not scrupled to pierce plate armour or punch through rings of chainmail. Only the Spider-kinden silk armour had at all slowed them down, the fine cloth twisting about the spinning missiles and preventing them penetrating. They spun, of course, because of the spiral grooving Totho had inst.i.tuted on the inside of the snapbow barrels, giving the weapons greater range and accuracy. It had been an innovation that Scuto had made to Balkus's nailbow, he recalled.

A skilled archer, Drephos estimated, could make five or even six accurate shots within a minute, a novice perhaps two or three. Their use was easy to learn, and in h.e.l.leron they were even easy to make. There were factories working day and night now to produce the quant.i.ty Drephos wanted. As soon as they were manufactured and tested they were handed to the waiting soldiers that Malkan had detailed to Drephos' project. It took barely a day of constant practice for them to be smoothly loading and shooting as though they were born to it. The snapbow was a weapon for the common man, just as the crossbow had been, which had thrown off the shackles of old mystery centuries before.

But all Totho could think about now was that armoured figure falling, some innocent Beetle man or woman who had caught the foreman's ire. And then they had all been dropping, and the spears of the soldiers had stopped them fleeing, and in the end the last few had tried to rush towards the waiting line of artificers, giving Drephos his chance to see the damage of a point-blank shot.

I did this. He, Totho, had brought this thing into the world. He, Totho, had brought this thing into the world. I have found my place here now. I have earned it. I have found my place here now. I have earned it.

He clutched at his head. He felt as though that part of him he had always thought of as himself was dropping further and further away, slipping down some well or shaft, never to be seen again.

He must flee. He must escape from h.e.l.leron.

And do what? His own mocking voice in his head. His own mocking voice in his head. And go where? And go where?

I will find Che.

Who is in the arms of her savage lover even now, and does not think of you.

I don't care. I love her.

Fine way to show it, joining her enemies and sleeping with a Bee girl.

His fingers knotted in his hair, unable to blot the thoughts out. I love Che! I always have! I love Che! I always have!

You cast-off. You sorry failure. All your life you have been nothing, despised and ignored. Now you have been offered something real: a place, a reason to live. Drephos understands you.

He cannot. He doesn't even know what love is.

Of course he does. He loves with a pa.s.sion you have never known. He loves his work. He loves progress. All the things you once professed.

I am not like him.

You are his heir in all things.

He threshed on his bed, kicking at the blanket. The voice in his head was like a person there in the same room, calmly and patiently dismantling everything he had ever thought. It was all the worse because the thoughts came from nowhere save within him. This cold world that had opened up to him in Tark, when he had seen what war and artifice could really do, had become the world he must live in.

I cannot go on, he insisted. The guilt will destroy me. The guilt will destroy me.

Guilt? hissed the voice in his head. hissed the voice in his head. Do you not realize that you can let go of guilt now, and shame, and love? You have been clawing at them all this while, when there was a chance you would return to what you were, but you have taken the final step now. You can never be the man you used to be. Your hands have become true artificer's hands, to build or destroy without conscience or remorse. You can let go of guilt, now, and relax. You are across the barrier of mere humanity and over the other side. It's all meat now, expendable and replaceable meat. Do you not realize that you can let go of guilt now, and shame, and love? You have been clawing at them all this while, when there was a chance you would return to what you were, but you have taken the final step now. You can never be the man you used to be. Your hands have become true artificer's hands, to build or destroy without conscience or remorse. You can let go of guilt, now, and relax. You are across the barrier of mere humanity and over the other side. It's all meat now, expendable and replaceable meat.

And Totho writhed and twisted, but had no answer to that.

Thirty-One.

Master Graden had taken his own life.

Stenwold sat in the War Council's chamber with his head cradled in his hands and thought about that.

They had put the sandbow, Graden's much vaunted invention, up on the wall. The enemy crossbows had raked the battlements even then, and shafts had stuck into shields and sprung from stone, or punched screaming men and women off the edge of the wall. Kymon had been shouting for them to ready themselves for the strike. The tower engine had almost reached the height of the walls, with sixty Ant-kinden warriors waiting on its platform and more ascending from below. Another two towers were close by, the Ants hoping to swamp and then hold this section of the wall. Ant artillery was pounding at the wall emplacements which were returning shot, or scattering loads of sc.r.a.p and broken stone into the Ant soldiers below.