Stenwold looked from him to Arianna. A child of Collegium after all. ‘What do you want, General?’

‘You know what I want.’

‘I cannot give you the city. I have no authority to do so, nor will I betray Collegium.’ Seeing Tynan nod resignedly he hurried on, ‘But I will take her place on the pikes, where all the city can see. Surely that will mean more to you?’

Arianna cried out, tried to push him away from her, fighting desperately against the chains. He held her in, begging her to be quiet. Through it all, General Tynan stared stonily at him, saving his breath. When at last there was quiet, he merely said, ‘What’s to stop me putting up another pair of pikes?’

Stenwold stared him in the eye. ‘Nothing, General. Nothing whatsoever. What else do I have that I can give you, though? Not my city. Only me.’

Tynan stood up, wincing from his injuries. A Fly messenger had come to the tent’s flap, aviator’s goggles pushed up his forehead, and was signalling to the general urgently. ‘If this is your city sallying out, you shall both regret it,’ the general croaked, and pushed himself over to hear the message.

‘Oh, Sten, why did you come?’ Arianna demanded quietly.

‘And why did you go?’ he countered, raising the ghost of a smile.

‘I had to do something.’

‘And I see just how close you got.’

‘He’s going to kill us both.’

‘That seems likely.’ He held her tighter as General Tynan re-entered the tent. His expression was strange, twisted by more than the pain of his wound. Without even looking at Stenwold he beckoned the other Wasps towards him, giving them hurried orders and watching most of them depart. Only then did he glance back at his prisoners.

Stenwold met his scrutiny, seeing a world of thought move behind it: this was the man who had crushed the Felyal and was well on his way to bringing Collegium to its knees. He was no fool.

‘The pikes, sir. It has to be now,’ urged one of the other Wasps. ‘We still have the time.’

Tynan just stared at Stenwold and Arianna, on and on, while his officers grew impatient.

‘Unchain her,’ he rasped at last, and one of them pushed Stenwold roughly away and released Arianna’s bonds. Standing, shaking still, she clung to the Beetle.

‘You will return to your city,’ Tynan said, ‘and you will instruct your army to stay within its walls. If the least Fly-kinden emerges from Collegium in our sight, we will destroy it.’

Stenwold frowned. ‘I don’t…’ he started but he was drowned out by the protests of Tynan’s own officers, demanding immediate death for both the prisoners. Tynan simply glared them into silence, and even struck one across the face when he would not be quiet.

‘Outside,’ he ordered, and led the way into the morning light. Stenwold emerged after him to see the Imperial Second Army stood down and already about the business of striking their tents with hurried efficiency.

‘What in the wastes is going on?’ Stenwold demanded.

‘If I did the decent thing and had you and your Spider whore properly excruciated, what would it profit me, save to make me worse enemies that I have not the time to crush?’ Tynan rasped. ‘Perhaps I could even take the city this day, but I can no longer spare the men to hold it. When we meet again, General Maker, you remember what I could have done.’ He blinked, staring at the white walls of Collegium, seeing where his army had blackened and scarred them. ‘Now get your men behind your city gates and take your woman with you.’

Looking out from the wall now, it seemed impossible to believe that there had been a Wasp army camped here such a short time ago. Stenwold had to admit that the enemy were neat in their leaving.

It was only days later that they had heard the news from the Empire: the bloody event that had savaged the imperial capital a tenday before Tynan arrived at the gates. The news which had summoned General Tynan, and every other senior Wasp officer, back home.

He leant his elbows on the wall. ‘I have seen so many sieges and battles,’ he said, ‘and I’m not sorry to have this one cut short.’

‘Nor I,’ said the Spider-kinden man beside him.

‘But you’re Lord-Martial,’ Stenwold pointed out. ‘Surely war is what you do?’

Teornis chuckled. ‘Purely a ceremonial title, War Master. One I’m happy to be stripped of. I’m merely a man. They’ll put me back in my place when I go home.’

‘No hero’s welcome?’

‘You don’t know my people very well,’ the Spider pointed out. ‘I have defeated an army and won a war, and brought my people new allies, and if I’m very, very lucky they’ll post me somewhere so far away that nobody can even remember what that place is called. I took risks with my family’s wealth and station, Stenwold, and with the very sovereignty of the Spiderlands. Even though the Wasps have withdrawn from Seldis, my family won’t easily forget. No, I’ll be taking my time in going home to face the music.’

The Collegium airfield was still quite bare. Between the Vekken siege and the war with the Empire, the air trade had yet to regain its hold on the city. There was a chill wind gusting off the sea, and Stenwold wished that he had thought to bring a cloak. Getting old, he thought. Arianna would claim differently, and he would know she was lying and love her for it. She, at least, was one of the people determined to profit from the end of the war. It was a Spider-kinden’s natural instinct he supposed. She was somewhere in the city even now, probably trying to talk people into appointing her a member of the Assembly.

The broad-shouldered Sarnesh man was waiting for his response. ‘Come on, Master Maker, what do you think?’ At least he was not still saying War Master. The title otherwise showed alarming longevity.

‘I don’t know if I can imagine it,’ Stenwold said. ‘A new city in the Lowlands.’

‘I don’t need to imagine it,’ said the big Ant. ‘I’ve seen it already being laid out. All of Salma’s people that survived, and a whole load more from the Foreigners’ Quarter in Sarn. They’re all out digging the foundations right now. They want a free city. A city without a kinden.’ Balkus shook his head in wonder. ‘I’ve never heard of anything like it, but it’s happening. He made the Sarnesh promise, you see, and he made sure everyone else knew it.’ His hands squeezed the shoulders of the frail little Fly-kinden woman with her head nestling against his stomach.

‘Who’s running it?’ Stenwold asked.

‘Oh, you’d certainly approve. They got a kind of a council of people chosen by all the other people, like you got here. Some old boy, Sfayot, he’s Speaker there – or at least, they call him the steward or some such. Her steward. You know, that colourful girl.’

Stenwold nodded. He had never really met Grief in Chains, the woman who had become Salma’s lover. ‘How is she taking it?’

‘She doesn’t see anyone,’ Balkus replied sombrely. ‘Anyone except her advisors, I mean. They love her even more than the Sarnesh loved their queen. They say they’re doing it all for her – and for him. He was a good man.’

‘Yes, yes he was.’

‘They’re calling the new place Princep Salmae.’

Stenwold had to take a moment to fight down the lump in his throat. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t stay there. It sounds quite remarkable.’

‘Oh, I’m going back,’ Balkus said, with absolute conviction. ‘I just came to pick up Sperra, then we’re both heading back. After the fight with the Wasps, I reckon I can live that close to Sarn again without them wanting my head, or me wanting to go back, but I’ll never be properly Sarnesh, and…’ And Sperra would never go to Sarn again. He did not need to say it. ‘Only I thought, before I went there, I might go with Parops to see them retake Tark from the Wasps. They reckon now, with things being like they are in the Empire, that as soon as the Tarkesh get word that an army’s on the way to relieve them, they’ll rise up and throw the Wasps out. They know nobody’ll be coming to set fire to their city again any time soon.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Some of them are saying Parops’ll be king, but that’s rubbish. The man’s a commander, no more, no less.’