Blood of the Mantis (30 page)

‘I won’t believe that,’ Stenwold said, with more force than hope. ‘I can’t believe that. This
must
work. We have no other option. Everyone is thinking about what might happen after the war is won, but without an alliance we won’t win the war! How can they not see that?’

‘Because they’re Lowlanders,’ said Arianna. She went to stand behind Stenwold, putting her hands on his shoulders and kneading the tension there. ‘I hate to say it, Sten, but you Lowlanders all look out on the world with one eye closed. Even you, Sten. You look a little further, but it’s still mostly inwards. In the Spiderlands we look in all directions, see all possibilities. Our brand of politics teaches us that. Even the Empire looks outwards: it’s young, aggressive, pushing at the borders all the time. That’s why it’s here.’

‘So what are we going to do?’ he asked quietly. ‘What do I say, when the Queen of Sarn demands this wretched invention? Who do I betray?’

‘So long as it’s not me, and it’s not yourself,’ Arianna told him, ‘I trust you to make the right decision.’

A Sarnesh servant arrived then, almost on cue.

‘Master Maker,’ he announced, ‘the Queen is ready for your private audience.’

Stenwold glanced at his fellows and took up the prototype snapbow.
Who do I betray?
There was no answer, and yet he was running out of time to avoid that question.

‘Lead on, Master . . . ?’ he said, because he had no idea which of the Sarnesh this servant was.

‘My name is Lyrus, Master Maker,’ the servant said cordially. ‘If you would please come with me.’

Taki had used her second chute to rewind her engines, and Che was beginning to wonder how much longer her own machine would keep running. They were currently out over the middle of the Exalsee, a broad and island-studded expanse of sun-dappled water. That was when Taki suddenly pulled back, and Che could see her gesturing wildly, shouting something that could not be heard over rush of wind and the
Stormcry
’s low growl.

What? I’m clear of the water
, was Che’s first thought. Taki was still gesturing, though, swinging closer and then further away to try and convey some urgent message. Che almost thought she could hear her Fly companion’s high voice over the engine’s throb.

Despite herself, she looked down, and felt a chill as she noticed a shape in the water, a great dark ellipse. It was not some fish or water monster, though, but simply a huge shadow.

She looked up to see an airship drifting high above them, shimmering blue and silver and reflecting all the colours of the sky. The words of the Creev came back to her:
How are they getting in?
But, of course, an airship the same colour as the sky might go many places and not be seen.

At first she thought its pontoons bore four engines, but then she saw them fall away from the main craft, accelerating towards her. Orthopters: four of them.

A moment later she saw a finger-sized hole punched through the fabric of the
Stormcry
’s wing and realized they were shooting at her.

Taki threw the
Esca Volenti
round in a tight turn, wings beating furiously. Without thinking, her hands were releasing the catches that engaged the cogs of the rotary piercer mounted in front of her. With a low whine the weapon began to spin.

The sky arced round before her as, in her mind, Taki began working out how long she had left before her engine began to run down.

She could see Che making swift headway in the
Stormcry
, but two of the Wasp orthopters were stooping on her fast. Even in that moment of crisis, Taki had to admire the steepness of their approach. It looked as though the Empire could muster a few decent aviators, and that would make this contest more interesting. If Che had not been caught in the middle of it she would be enjoying herself already, but Che was no fighting pilot, not one ready to perform the dance of the dragonflies over the waters of the Exalsee. Even now she was dropping lower and lower, casting the
Stormcry
towards the nearest island in the hope of some kind of cover, but Taki was well aware that she would not be able to win out that way. This was not like land-fighting, and cover was good only for moments at a time during a dragon-fight.

She saw a minute glitter as the lead Wasp orthopter loosed its weapons, and she prepared to dive in on him. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she put two and two together and came up with four. Four imperial orthopters had dropped from the airship’s mountings, which meant that the other two were . . .

She flung the
Esca
sideways in the air, virtually spinning on a wingtip. One orthopter rushed past her and a bolt of energy flashed from its pilot’s hand, scorching a smouldering line across the wood and canvas of the
Esca
’s wing. Then the long darts of ballista bolts were slanting past her, and she danced her craft back and forth, ducking the other orthopter’s shots. In her mind a clock was running, calculating just how long Che could hope to last without Taki’s intervention.

The orthopter stayed right behind her, its missiles going wide. The flier had twin repeating ballistae bulking out its bow, alternate-strung so that the release of the one fed into the loading of the other. She got a good look at this arrangement as she backed the
Esca
’s wings without warning, hanging and then falling out of the air so that the Wasp flier surged above her, and then throwing her wings into a blur to catch up with him. Repeating ballistae: the idea of it amused her. It was heavier and less efficient than her own weapon, but it was getting there. These Wasps were obviously worth watching.

She opened up with the rotary piercer, the firepowder-charged bolts whipping through the air far faster than the torsion-powered shafts of the ballistae, so that, just when he thought he had room to dodge, she punched through his hull with half a dozen separate shots. She had no idea whether the damage she had done was to the pilot or to the craft, but the Wasp orthopter abruptly faltered in the air and then dived dizzyingly out of the sky towards the unforgiving waters below.

Taki looked about wildly, trying to pinpoint Che again.

There!
Almost skimming the water, just what her instructor had always told Taki never to do.
When you’re that low, where can you go next?
But they had forced her down and, though her fixed-wing should have been faster, the two of them kept shooting and shooting, forcing Che to bank and turn in a desperate attempt to throw them off, squandering her speed for the fickle privilege of staying alive.

There was still one more orthopter pursuing Taki, and she felt the
Esca
shake all about her as she saw a hole ripped through the fabric of one wing. She swung her own craft around but the Wasp pulled out of his dive quickly, still keeping above her. She threw her machine at him and the two of them spiralled higher and higher, neither of them getting a shot in, each of them urging their machine to get above its rival. All this time they were getting further and further away from Che.

Another bolt lashed close past Che, gouging a furrow in the
Stormcry
’s side and throwing her into an involuntary yaw that nearly put one wingtip into the water. The Exalsee was dashing past so fast beneath her that she could only hope that any waiting monster-fish would be unable to take advantage of this swiftly fleeing meal.

Che craned backwards, trying to see her pursuers, but the rear of her cockpit blotted them out of view. The
Stormcry
groaned again, and she knew another bolt had slammed into some part of it behind her. She hoped it was nothing too important.

There was a little chain of islands ahead, most of them just jagged rocks jutting bare and grey from the water.
Taki, where are you?
She hurled the
Stormcry
forwards, because she presented an open target here, over the water, and one that the Wasps were gleefully making use of.

Past the first island, just a barren spur of stone, and she sent the
Stormcry
sideways, trying to take advantage of its shadow. The bolts slanted down to her left, though, and she realized that one of the Wasps had gone high to continue lancing down at her, while the other was grimly following whatever paces she flung her machine through.

She had never thought that it might end like this: high-speed death in a flying machine, while fighting for her life. Surely that was a death for heroes and warrior-artificers, not for poor untrained scholars. The thought entered her mind that this was a death Achaeos would not approve of, and she had to clamp down on the hysterical giggle that followed.

Left around another jag of rock, and then right behind a proper island worthy of the name, that had a single stand of trees to screen her. The
Stormcry
suddenly faltered, a great gash carved into one wing, and she felt the differential drag from left and right. Her machine was not going to last that much longer, even though they had yet to strike anything directly connected with the engine. Or with herself, for that matter.

Something flashed behind her and, craning backwards, she saw smoke being whipped away by the rushing air, and a sputter of flame that extinguished almost immediately. For a second her mind went blank, and then she realized:
He shot at me with his sting! How close
is
he?
Frantically she cranked her engine into a new gear, forcing the ailing machine to go faster. There was now a much larger island ahead, an entire hill of green rising from the Exalsee, with some kind of building perched on top. She would make for that.

There was another flash from behind, while ahead—

Che screamed on spotting, almost too late, a vastly long shape in the approaching shallows that was even then surging forwards and upwards. She flung the
Stormcry
skywards and sideways, nearly losing control entirely, watching the waters break and foam to either side as the monster lunged upwards.

No fish, this, however. She had assumed it was just a similar spitting monster to the last one, but what broke through the waters was the jawed head of an enormous insect, surely three times the size of the
Stormcry
itself. She had a brief glimpse of an ugly, jointed snout, vast glittering eyes, as the monster lunged further, and its jaws gaped and gaped and gaped, unfolding and unfolding, telescoping outwards until they rose high enough to pincer the Wasp orthopter’s retreating tail. The speed of the flying machine dragged another ten feet of monster out of the water, its delicate legs folding close to its body, and for a second they both hung there, impossibly suspended. Then the jaws snapped closed, recoiling with irresistible strength. In another moment there was only the roiling water, no sign of monster, machine or pilot.

Che’s heart was hammering so hard in her chest that she thought she might die. Then the other orthopter sent a bolt straight through her engine, which promptly exploded.

Taki felt the heat as the Wasp pilot launched his sting at her, but the
Esca
was moving too fast, and in the brief moment where his concentration was divided, she had flung her machine virtually across his path.

How brave are you?
she asked him, as he had jerked his flier out of her way. A moment later she had loosed a single bolt into his machine, which was all that she had the time for. Her turn swept him out of her sight in the next instant, so she had no idea what she had achieved, if anything.

Taki came plummeting back now, looking for Che, letting the Wasp follow her if he dared. The sound of the
Esca
’s engine was not encouraging, for she was running out of stored power in the springs and had already used both her chutes. At this rate she might not even make it back to Solarno.

Ahead of her now she saw the remaining Wasp orthopter stooping on Che with its ballistae launching. She caught it utterly unawares and just let the rotary shoot, sending bolt after bolt into the orthopter from behind. After the second bolt she knew she was too late, as the
Stormcry
became obscured by smoke, and then by the brightness of flames. Taki screamed in frustration, seeing the Wasp orthopter virtually disintegrate ahead of her. The plume of smoke that the
Stormcry
had become was now diving straight towards the large island that she guessed Che had been meaning to slingshot around.

The
Esca
’s motor was sounding increasingly desperate, pitched higher and higher. That place ahead was . . .

That was Stokes’ Island, she recognised, and it had a bad reputation. Che could still be alive, though, as the
Stormcry
was heading for a dry landing. Taki anxiously looked around for other Wasp orthopters, seeing none of them.

I have no time.
It was agony, but she could not even land the
Esca
to go looking for Che, because she would never take off again if she did. With Che’s help she might have been able to wind the motor, but never on her own. Nor could the little
Esca
carry Che, if she was hurt.

With a sob, she slung the
Esca
straight over Stokes’ Island, and cast herself towards the northern shore of the great lake, and Solarno.

In the end the
Esca
did not have quite enough stored tension left in her to keep her wings beating and, 200 yards from the airstrip over Solarno, they stopped.

This was not the first time and, with a great heave, she threw the lever that fixed the wings in place, before resorting to her back-up power source, which was her legs. She felt for the pedals and began working them furiously, gliding in on the
Esca
’s slightly tattered wings, with only a single small propeller at the back providing her with a touch of extra lift as she ran it as fast as she could. She was not strong, being Fly-kinden and unsuited to this kind of strenuous work, so it took every ounce of effort to keep the orthopter from undershooting the landing strip and just ploughing straight into the city streets below her. But finally she saw the smooth stone of the landing field beneath her, and she hauled back on the stick, putting the breadth of the
Esca
’s wings against the wind, while kicking the orthopter’s landing legs out ready. Her landing was not graceful, and abused components of the machine made noises that worried her, but for now she had no time to think about maintenance.