Blood of the Mantis (51 page)

It was over before she knew it, the Wasp orthopter ripping into fragments without warning, as Scobraan’s incendiary struck it and exploded, and for a hundred yards the blazing wreck continued on its course before losing its integrity and dropping from the sky.

Then the
Mayfly Prolonged
shook and shuddered, and Taki saw a line of holes being punched in its wing as Axrad dived on it from above. Scobraan threw the fixed-wing in a straight dash across the rooftops, trying to use his engine’s greater power to offset the nimbler orthopter, and Taki put the
Esca
pointedly behind Axrad, not shooting, but inviting attention. He broke off his chase of the
Mayfly
and made a surprisingly tight turn, so that they were for a moment heading straight at one another.

Perhaps he thought that she would be the first to flinch, but they shot at the same time, repeating ballista against rotary piercer, bolts flashing swiftly between them.

There were very few Fly-kinden amongst the fighting pilots, as the martial mindset did not sit well with their race. Those there were, though, were very good indeed. They were lighter than other pilots, so they could fly defter machines. Their reflexes were second to none.

A bolt ripped into the
Esca
’s hull, ripping apart the canvas and narrowly missing the motor beyond. Another gashed the right wing, and a third shuddered to a halt somewhere amid the folded landing legs. She saw the impact of her piercer bolt even before the ensuing flash of flames, and knew that she had landed a successful strike in Axrad’s engine. Only then did she dart aside, pulling the
Esca
round in a steep turn to come back and check what she had done.

She spotted Axrad’s machine by the smoke, as she came back to it, saw it falter in the air, and held off her attack. Before she had flown past, she spotted the man as he climbed out of his cockpit and jumped, wings flaring to catch him, and she found that she was glad he had survived.

Another time
, she told herself, and went to look for Che and Nero in the
Cleaver
.

They found land at Porta Mavralis, the sole outpost of the Spiderlands situated on the shores of the Exalsee. Here Taki called on favours and raised credit in the name of the Destiavel, and obtained barrels of mineral oil for the
Cleaver
and a winding engine that the
Cleaver
could carry to retension the
Esca Volenti
’s clockwork engine.

‘We must fly to your home, you and I,’ Taki explained to them. ‘We have a common cause now.’

‘Ain’t you worried about what’s going on back home?’ Nero asked her.

‘I shall return to Solarno, but first I want to see your war. I want to understand what the Wasps are fighting. And perhaps I want to find help for us.’

While she was waiting for her fuel, the battered bulk of Scobraan’s
Mayfly Prolonged
dragged itself into port, listing dangerously. The burly Solarnese had only bad news: names of the pilots killed or fled, the well-known buildings burnt, the imperial flag of black and gold unfurled over the houses of the great and the good.

Taki asked him to come with them, but he declined. ‘I’m for Chasme,’ he told her. ‘That’s where we’re mustering and gathering allies. We will strike back when time gives us our chance. I hear Niamedh made it out, was heading to Princep Exilla even. The sea . . .’ He stopped for a moment, shuddering with fatigue and emotion. ‘The whole cursed Exalsee will run red with blood before those Wasp bastards get away with what they’ve just done.’

Taki nodded vigorously. ‘Hold out, then,’ she said. ‘Che and me, we’re going for help. Her people, who are fighting the Wasps already, they’ll see us right, I’m sure. It’s a long haul, but for a couple of fliers it’s not so very long. I’ll be back, Scobraan. So you just wait for me.’

Che’s return to Collegium was so much faster than the sea voyage of her departure. The
Cleaver
might have been slow for a fixed-wing but it danced effortlessly down the coast, and Nero had found a hatch in the underside to peer from, and call out landmarks for navigation.

‘There’s Kes,’ he said at one point. ‘Looks like a navy gathering there. Wonder how far away the Empire is right now.’

At last, and after many stops to refuel and rewind, they had sight of Collegium. Che was leading the way with the
Esca
following docilely behind, and Che wondered how Taki was taking it. She was so far from her home now, seeing more of the world in this frantic flight than she had witnessed in her whole life. The Exalsee and its independent cities lay far behind them now.

There were more lines on Stenwold’s face than she remembered, and his greeting was full of simple joy at seeing her so well when others were not.

‘Uncle Sten, this is . . .’ Che paused to get the complicated name right, ‘te Schola Taki-Amre, an aviatrix of Solarno. Taki, this is my uncle, Stenwold Maker.’

Taki squinted up at the bulky Beetle. ‘You’re the one who set her onto our city, are you?’

‘I am sorry for your loss, but you know we all fight the same enemy now,’ Stenwold told her. ‘The Wasps will acknowledge no borders or limits to their ambition.’

‘Yeah, well, I saw that all right,’ Taki said. She kept blinking about her at the buildings of the College, so very different from the red-roofed houses of Solarno. ‘Sieur Maker, I mean to return to my city soon, and I’d be glad of whatever you could spare me. Consider: the more trouble the Wasps get from Solarno, the more their attention is taken off you, right?’

In reply to that, Stenwold took her to see Teornis, and Che explained haltingly that their mission had failed. Instead of allies they had found only another Wasp conquest.

Teornis had merely nodded sympathetically.

‘It may not be so hopeless as you think,’ he said gently. ‘After all, Solarno is a Spider city – not Spiderlands, perhaps, but it has a sentimental place in the hearts of many of my people. If things get so very bad, they say to one another at home, there is always Solarno to retreat to. Solarno is a place where my people can play their games in miniature, for smaller stakes, so I rather think that there are some who might take its invasion poorly. Perhaps this will finally motivate some of the Aristoi families to take a stance on the issue of the Empire.’

Stenwold had been watching him closely as he spoke and, with those last words, something seemed to break through on Teornis’s face, some little window onto the mind that lay within. Stenwold was not sure whether he had been shown it deliberately, or caught that rarest of things, an unguarded thought from a Spider mind, but it seemed to him that Teornis was privately delighted with the news that Che had brought.

And then, five days later, while the Assembly was still collating news of Wasp military movements, the
Buoyant Maiden
was sighted drifting towards Collegium.

They were all there to greet it, even Sperra, who had found herself able to fly a little the day before, just a dozen yards before exhausting herself. Jons Allanbridge’s airship touched down with unusual solemnity aboard, though, and the faces of its passengers were dour.

Tynisa was first out, and it was to Che she went.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trembling, almost falling into her foster-sister’s arms. ‘Che, I’m so very sorry.’

Night brought no peace to the shores of Lake Limnia. The slap and ripple of the water was underscored by the chirr and buzz of a thousand insects that raised a racket enough to drown out anything that had happened further out on the water.

Every so often the water would take one of their chorus, either by the flier’s own clumsiness or through the predatory skills of some lake-dweller. There would be a deep plunk punctuating the nocturnal serenade, a few errant ripples not caused by wind or weather, then no more.

Then something more substantial struck the water near its edge, raising a great sheet of spray that battered against the reeds. For a second there was nothing but the waves washing back and forth, and then something was crawling out of the shallows, dragging itself through the mud, tearing at the lakeside vegetation for purchase. The insect choir was joined by the gasping and choking sound of a man fighting for life.

And then stillness, save for his ragged breath. His wings had failed him at the end, but close enough to shore that the water had not claimed him. He had stretched himself out there with his feet still in the lake, every muscle strained, his wounds burning with a slow fire.

Lieutenant Brodan lay on the lakeshore and felt out the extent of his injuries. The Mantis had scored a long gash across his right arm and side, raking him with pain, but it had only sliced shallowly over his ribs and not cut into anything vital. He lay still and tried to breathe, wondering if life was even worth it now that he had failed the Rekef. Better to die, surely, than face whatever repercussions his superiors would dredge up for him.

His men were dead, every one of them. Only a superior prudence garnered from experience had kept him alive, and that would prove a double-edged sword when the accounts came to be tallied.

There was a rustle nearby and he craned his neck to see the shabby, shrouded form of Sykore picking his way towards him. He tried to stretch an arm out towards her, to burn her for her betrayal, but she hissed at him disdainfully, planting the end of her walking stick on his chest, causing an agony so severe that he nearly passed out.

‘Foolish,’ she said. ‘Foolish Wasp. Fool of a Rekef. Can you accomplish nothing by yourself?’

He glared at her, furious but impotent. The haggard creature sighed and removed her stick from him, baring her pointed teeth in annoyance. ‘We must have the box. You only want it for your silly games, but my master
needs
it. He shall have it. I shall save you and your reputation, Lieutenant Brodan, since it falls to me.’ Sykore hissed. ‘I shall risk more this night than I would like to but, just as you, I must account to my superiors, and their punishments for failure throw the devices of your Rekef into shadow.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Brodan got out.

‘You would not understand,’ Sykore told him. ‘Nor would you believe.’ Inwardly, she steeled herself. Spying on the Spider-kinden girl was easy enough, thus seeing the world through the link of blood that she had forged. How much could she borrow, though? How far could she take it? Could she hold the Spider long enough to have her bring the box?

She thought not. The link had become fragile and, besides, the Moth seer would surely detect it if she borrowed so heavily.

She needs must expose herself, her own body, to danger. None of her kind relished that, for by nature they were lurkers in the shadows. She was loathe to risk so many decades of precious life in such an attempt, but the tools available to her were now few. She had only her own hands with which to take the box.

‘Await me near here,’ she told Brodan. ‘I shall come to you with the box, if I can.’

He stared at her sullenly, mistrustfully. She scowled at his ingratitude.

‘I shall save you, Lieutenant,’ she told him flatly, ‘both from your own stupidity and the wrath of your lords. Think simply of that.’ And with that she was hobbling off into the night.

The
Buoyant Maiden
had received a few new scars from Wasp sting-shot, most notably a smashed steering vane that had made even their return to Jerez problematic, and so Allanbridge had taken her away for emergency repairs. The next morning would see them sailing for Collegium, leaving this sodden town behind them at last.

They would not be sorry to leave it.

‘For me,’ Gaved informed them, ‘this is as far as I go. I won’t be on the airship with you tomorrow.’ Sef was cradled in one arm, wrapped in an ill-fitting robe that Nivit had somehow been able to procure.

Nivit regarded his old partner doubtfully. ‘No way you can keep her here,’ he pointed out.

‘Not here,’ Gaved agreed. ‘We’ll find somewhere, though. Somewhere . . . somewhere beside some lake that has no cities in it.’

Nivit chuckled scratchily. ‘Never thought I’d see you become smitten.’

Gaved shrugged. ‘I’m just sick of the life, Nivit. I need a break from it.’

‘You’ll be back at it, wherever you go. You’re a hunter born.’

Sadly, Gaved agreed that it was probably true.

Nivit’s offices were getting crowded now. Thalric was asleep, or feigning it, recovering from the stress he had put on his wound, having commandeered Nivit’s own bed. Tisamon sat in one corner, perhaps meditating, perhaps just keeping an eye on the two Wasps. A frown on her face, Tynisa was bandaging her hand, which was bleeding yet again. Achaeos watched her until she met his gaze, then he gave up on looking at anything else within the shack but the object he held in his hand.

Shadow Box. Box of Shadows. Soul of the Darakyon.

He had not expected it to be so beautiful, so very elegant, its surface intricate and twisted, wrought of unknown wood, layer on later of carvings, so that within the outermost cage of briars there were deeper and deeper details to be discerned, creatures and trees and mere suggestions of form. Form and
movement
.

He blinked, he whose eyes knew no darkness. Yet here it was, this mythical concept he had heard so much about but never seen, for there was no box within the carvings, no core to it at all but merely a darkness at the box’s heart. His seer’s senses were blinded by it, a caged piece of night that was likewise to magic as staring directly at the sun was to the eye, so great and potent that it could not be properly viewed.

What am I to do with this, now I have it?
What would the Wasps have done with it, ignorant as they were of the magical arts?

What indeed?
Was there merely some demented collector in the Wasp Empire, some man of great political power and no true knowledge, who had somehow set his heart on this thing that held the death of an age within it? Or perhaps . . .

Perhaps someone in the Empire truly understood what it was. A Wasp magician? Surely that was impossible.

In the shadows of magic, however, there was so little that was impossible.