‘That is not the arrangement.’ Again the words were slower, more pointed, as though she was clarifying some simple matter for a simple man.

‘I have what you want, Wealer,’ Draywain told her. ‘Cough up the goods or I’m taking it right back out with me.’

‘Draywain-’ Hokiak began, but the Beetle cut him off sharply.

‘Stay out of this, old man!’ he snapped. ‘I’m doing business here.’

That’s all I need to hear. Hokiak rubbed the two claws of his good hand together, seeing his men pick up the signal.

‘So let’s see the rest, Wealer,’ Draywain insisted.

‘You knew the terms I offered,’ she said. ‘I need that information.’

‘I’m a merchant and this is a seller’s market,’ he responded without sympathy.

And she smiled and Draywain took that for a good sign.

Then the sword came out from under her cloak, the whole gleaming length of it that had been held close down the line of her body. The cloth was flung back as she lunged into action, revealing armour beneath that was iridescent blue and green and mother-of-pearl.

She had the blade through the first bodyguard’s gut before he could react, drawing it smoothly out to smash the next man’s crossbow and the half-fired bolt on the back-swing. The crossbowman fell backwards, reaching for his blade, and the remaining bodyguard went for her.

He was not bad, that man. Clearly he had seen a few fights before. It was a waste, Hokiak decided, but that was the nature of this business.

Felise Mienn’s sword was four feet long, but half of that was the hatched and bound metal hilt. The blade itself was straight and double-edged, tapering only towards the very point. She swung it with both hands and in either hand, dancing it round and past and over his guard as the luckless man tried to defend his patron. In a single fluid move she had sidestepped his strike and put the blade across his neck with far more force than her slender arms looked able to muster, half taking his head from his body.

Draywain bolted then, and she flung the sword at him as if without thinking. It slammed into the wall right alongside his head, cutting a line across his cheek. He screamed and stopped there, tugging at the hilt. The point of it had pinned his ear to the wall. His ear? Hokiak had never seen such a throw, and it had been solid enough that the Beetle could not yank the sword free using both hands.

The crossbowman had his blade now and he went for the unarmed woman. She stepped back and back as he came, cloak swirling about her, and then blades flicked out from her thumbs. It was the first Hokiak knew of the weapons that their Ancestor Art gave to Commonwealers. They were two-inch curved razors and she now stood poised with them ready, fingers clenched inwards but thumbs ready to strike.

The last bodyguard paused, weighing up the odds.

‘Kill her!’ Draywain screamed weakly. ‘For blazes’ sake, just kill her.’

He was a professional man now torn between his reputation and safeguarding his health. In that moment Felise went for him, claws slashing across him three times before he could even get his sword between them. He stumbled back, blood trailing from his face. Lunging forwards, Felise caught his head with both hands, as though she was a lover about to kiss him. Then she gashed both claws across his throat and he fell at her feet.

She looked at Hokiak then, and if her eyes had been burning mad before there were whole fiery suns of demented rage there now.

He forced himself to lean peaceably on his cane and indicate, with a twitch of his chin, that not one of his men had moved to intervene. He was not sure that she would understand him, but then she was stalking across the bloody floor towards Draywain.

‘Keep away!’ he shrieked. ‘Someone help me!’ but Hokiak knew that his backroom had thick walls and people around this part of the city always minded their own business.

She put one hand up, stilling the quivering hilt of her sword.

‘Thalric,’ she said simply, conversationally.

‘Thalric, of course!’ he gasped. ‘They sent him away. They sent him west, to the new-found lands. The city Helleron, where the foundries are. He’s Rekef Outlander. You know what that means?’

‘Oh, I know exactly what that means,’ she said. Only Draywain could see her expression just then, and his voice dried up to a whimper.

‘Do you know where this Helleron is, Hokiak?’ she asked, without turning.

‘Sure I do,’ the old Scorpion said. Seems like every month I’m shipping people west.

‘Good,’ she said and pulled her sword out of the wall effortlessly. As Draywain gasped in relief she rammed the point of it double-handed through his chest and then whipped it out, all in one movement. He was dead instantaneously, without even realizing what was happening. Perhaps, Hokiak thought, that was her way of mercy. Or her thanks. Charming thought.

‘You will find me means to get to Helleron,’ she told him. ‘And supplies. A map that I can read.’ That last was because she was not Apt, of course, not one for machines or crossbows or technical drawing.

‘I got an old Grasshopper chart,’ Hokiak said. ‘Ain’t what you’d call recent but I don’t guess they moved the cities that much. Look, this all is going to cost. I earned my one-in-ten for bringing him here, no matter what he did.’

She turned then, smiling, and she was a lovely-looking woman, when she smiled – and more likely to kill a man than any Spider-kinden seductress.

‘But Master Draywain has just chosen not to collect his fee. What’s one-in-ten of nothing, Master Hokiak?’

The Scorpion gave out a sigh, and his men around the room tensed, ready. ‘Now that ain’t how we do business around here. You got what you came for.’

‘Do you think I care about gold?’ she asked him. ‘Do you think that I can’t find more? Do you think for me this is about money?’ She snarled at that last. ‘I would empty the coffers of the Empire and the treasuries of the Commonweal to find this man Thalric. You want money? Take it all.’ She gestured at the pile, the not-quite-a-fortune, that she had left on the table. ‘Just get me what I want.’

A

Five

‘I was right here in my front office,’ Parops told them. ‘I had a crossbow and a telescope, but after I while I just used the telescope. It was quite something to see.’ He indicated the view from his slit window.

‘Nothing’s happening now,’ Totho pointed out. There was a tray of bread and spiced biscuit on Parops’s desk, and he was aware that Skrill seemed to be working her way through it all methodically.

‘That’s war: boredom and boredom and then everything’s far too interesting all of a sudden,’ Nero confirmed. He was sitting on the desk looking at Skrill and obviously trying to decide what she was.

‘So what happened?’ Salma asked.

Parops put his back against the wall beside the arrowslit. ‘Take a look at the disposition,’ he invited. Salma did so, seeing only a large extent of land between the city walls and the Wasp camp, which was dotted with a few tangled heaps of wood and metal.

‘First off, they moved their engines in,’ Parops explained. ‘They started shooting straight off and they must have some good artillerists, because in only a few shots they were sweeping the wall-tops with scrap from their catapults, forcing everyone’s head down. They were loosing some at the walls, too, lead shot rather than stone, I think. We were shooting back from embedded positions like the one atop my tower. You can see evidence of some of our successes out there, but with our lot flinching back all the time it took a while to make the range to them. And of course nobody was getting a peaceful time of it. They had their men flying over the wall amidst the rocks.’