Stenwold had certainly endured more comfortable journeys in his time, pressed in tight, as he was, between his two bodyguards and the automotive’s crew. Even with Balkus half disappeared into the turret so as to man the repeating ballista, and Tynisa practically squeezed into his armpit, he was still trying to unfold his charts. He finally spread the map as best he could, forcing Tynisa to take one corner herself, while he tried to put in his mind a picture of the conflicting powers: his city’s forces, his enemy and those he hoped would be his allies.

His pieces were all ranked ready for his move. Here was Tisamon, who had taken Stenwold aside and lectured him at length about the responsibility he had taken on: namely the Dragonfly-kinden woman, Felise Mienn. That in turn meant Tisamon had to rub shoulders with her Spider-kinden doctor, which meant more friction as Tisamon and his whole race loathed the man’s breed.

And it was more complicated yet, for Tisamon was the one person Stenwold could trust to look after the Wasp defector, Thalric, who was as murderous a piece of work as anyone could wish to have in custody. Then, on the other hand, Tisamon had no love of Arianna…

Arianna. Stenwold paused at the thought of her: a gem in a sky otherwise denuded of stars, but another defector. He sometimes recognized that look in Tisamon’s eyes that said, I am waiting to prove you wrong.

My friends are driving me insane, thought Stenwold gloomily, and forced himself to concentrate on the map.

There was a Wasp army, or most of one, positioned several miles east of Sarn, but it had not moved since the battle that the Sarnesh had brought against it, and subsequently lost after the deployment of some new Wasp secret weapon.