Dragonfly Falling (14 page)

‘Brother—’ Seda’s voice
shook but she did not care. ‘What is this?’

‘Some small diversion,’
he told her. ‘Merely an entertainment. Fear not, dear sister. You have your
part to play, but need learn no lines or dance-steps. Come, bring her.’

She was bundled after
him back into the antechamber, where the pale servants waited.

‘What is he?’ she
stammered.

‘Can you not guess,
sweet sister?’ Alvdan’s smile was now broad indeed. ‘Think back as far back as
childhood, when we sat by the fire together and listened to stories.’

And it was worse that
she knew what he meant, that he did not need to explain. ‘He cannot be . . .’

‘Quite a discovery by
General Maxin’s Rekef, is it not?’

They
come at night for the blood of the living, the ancient sorcerers, the terrible
night-dwellers, who steal bad children from their beds, never to be seen again
. . .

‘But there are no
Mosquito-kinden. There never were. They were just tales . . . surely?’

But confronting that gleeful
smile of his, she knew otherwise.

Collegium was a city of
laws. The underhanded could not easily purchase respectability, nor were they
of great service or use to the Assembly. Such businesses as Lieutenant Graf had
been practising were therefore done by word of mouth and behind closed doors.

Graf’s office sat behind
a small-package exporter run by a copper-skinned Kessen Ant who had long been
renegade from his native city. The exporter’s own work was on the shady side of
the legal line and he asked no questions nor answered them. Behind his store
was the back room where Graf bought and sold the talents of swordsmen to
whoever required them. He was well known. He had a good reputation amongst
buyers and sellers of blades.

Regular business was now
closed for the evening, though, and he set out five bowls, poured wine into
only one. His true line of work was a more uncertain business. There was no
telling which of the chairs would sit out the night empty.

Thalric came first,
unpinning his cloak and casting it off. ‘Concerns, Lieutenant?’ he asked,
straight away.

‘All going like
clockwork, Major,’ Graf confirmed. Thal-ric took the bowl of wine he was
offered and swallowed deeply.

‘Local?’ he asked, and
when Graf nodded, remarked, ‘They have good vineyards hereabouts.’

Graf shrugged. ‘Never
was much of a man for it myself.’ The lieutenant’s speech and accent told
Thalric that here was someone who had risen through his own efforts, without
any help from family or friends. A doubly useful man, then. Mind you, merit got
you further in the Rekef than it did in the regular army.

Scadran and Hofi, large
and small, arrived together. At a gesture from Graf, the Fly-kinden barber
hopped up onto a stool to pour two more bowls of wine.

‘We’ll start,’ Thalric
decided. ‘Your report first, Scadran.’

‘Arianna’s not here,
sir?’ the big man asked.

‘I’ve had word from her.
She’s in place and the plan is working well enough, but she decided it was best
not to arouse any suspicion by breaking cover. The hook is set and the fish
looks to be gaping for it, so to speak.’ Thalric shook his head. He had only
met Stenwold the once, and he had rather liked the man – as much as he could
like any enemy of the Empire. Stenwold was a man who took his duties seriously,
even when they might endanger those closest to him. Admirable, perhaps, but he
was a tired old man, whereas Arianna was Spider-kinden, born to be devious, sly
and cunning from her first breath.

Poor old man, but who
would not be flattered to have an innocent young girl like that hanging on his
every word? Who would not be swayed?

But it was for the good
of the Empire, and that was the first rule of Thalric’s life. Stenwold was
altogether too much of an obstacle to ignore.

‘So, Scadran, report,’
he said, slightly irked that he needed to ask twice.

‘Lot of news about
Tark,’ the dockworker began. ‘Spider ships are coming in saying the north road
from Seldis is cut, impassable. They’re saying that they can sell to the . . .
well, to us as well as they could to the Tarkesh. The slave trade and the silk
trade haven’t been dented. That’s what they’re most bothered about.’

‘Anything more?’

‘Nothing but the usual
trouble,’ Scadran continued, and then, as Thalric gestured for him to explain,
‘Mantis longboats from Felyal are on the rise. Spider shipping is being
attacked. That happens every few years, then the Spiders get some mercenary
navy in and everything quiets down.’

‘Could be to our
advantage, Major,’ Graf remarked, and Thalric nodded.

‘The more little wars
being fought in the Lowlands right now the better,’ he agreed. ‘Hofi, the news
with you?’

‘All good as gold.’ The
Fly-kinden barber grinned happily. ‘I snip a few grandees from the Assembly, in
my place, and they love to boast about their doings. With a few words dropped,
I can have them talking about anything I like. In this case, I got them – two
or three of them waiting for the curl – talking on the subject of our dear
friend Master Stenwold Maker.’

‘In your own time,
Hofi,’ Thalric said, finding the little man long-winded.

‘Of course, Major, of
course. He’s not a well-liked man, because they don’t appreciate troublemakers.
They don’t think he takes the College seriously enough. There’s even a motion
tabled to strip him of his Masterhood. That’s not the first time, but it could
be passed.’

‘Are they going to give
him a hearing?’ Thalric asked pointedly.

‘Oh, of course they’ll
see him, in the fullness of time. For now, though, they’re still debating just
when. That debate alone could last thirty days.’

‘Or?’

Hofi blinked. ‘Or what
sir?’

‘Or it could be decided
tomorrow?’ Thalric suggested. ‘And then they’d see him in a day after that?’

‘Not likely, sir.’

‘It’s just as well I
don’t deal in likelihoods, then, when I can avoid it. I’ll let Arianna know
that the trap needs to be ready to spring at any time. Let’s hope she has had
the chance to worm her way fully into Stenwold’s graces.’

‘Rely on her,’ Graf told
him. ‘She’s a good agent.’

‘I’m sure.’ Thalric
nodded again. ‘What about
your
duties, Lieutenant?’

‘I have men for you,’ Graf
confirmed. ‘This city’s never brimming with fighting men, but I have a dozen
confirmed reliables so far.’

‘Let’s hope they’re
better than those last two you sent at him,’ Thalric said.

‘They’re as good as I
can get without compromising our position here, Major. And I have one special
treat – one with a particular grudge against Stenwold’s girl.’

‘Against Cheerwell?’
Thalric frowned. He could hardly imagine it.

‘Not her, sir. The
Spider girl. I’ve hired us a Mantis duellist.’

Thalric felt his heart
skip despite himself.
No of course he hasn’t hired
that
Mantis-kinden
. But the reaction was automatic.
He had taken that man down, he had burned him and yet, after the Mantis’s
wretched daughter put her sword through Thalric’s leg, he had seen the same man
get up and fight like a monster.

He forced himself to
stay calm. They would meet again, he assured himself, and the Empire would
triumph over the backwoods belligerence of the Mantids.

But secretly he hoped
they never met again.

‘Our man’s name is
Piraeus. Apparently the daughter, or whatever she is, gave him a public
whipping at one of their little fencing games, and for once we’ve found a
Mantis who doesn’t care just how he gets even. He’s more than happy to stick
her from the shadows. Or her old man, come to that. He’s not particular.’

‘Thalric,’ she said, ‘a
Wasp-kinden. That is who I’m looking for.’

The paunchy
Beetle-kinden looked down on her from his throne. It was meant to be a throne,
anyway. A built-up chair atop some steps with gold and stones hammered into it.
Perhaps he had been aiming for barbaric splendour.

‘Name rings a bell,’ he
allowed. This seated dignitary was known as Last-Chance Fraywell. Felise
understood this name came from his final words to those who crossed him. ‘I’m
going to give you one last chance,’ he would say to them, and then proceed to
kill them in whatever way appealed to him. So she was led to understand,
anyway.

Fraywell leant down from
his throne, peering at her suspiciously. She was standing a fair way back and
she had come without her sword but, even so, there were a dozen of Fraywell’s
bullies carefully watching her. She looked from face to face: Beetle-kinden,
Ants, halfbreeds . . . there he was, the man she was told to watch out for: a
tall Spider-kinden, the only one here of his kind. His was the face she knew.

She moved in worlds far
from home these days, always amongst the faces of strangers. It was better that
way, for she could not have guaranteed recognizing faces from the Commonweal
any more.

‘Why do you want him?’
Fraywell asked her. ‘I’ve got no brief for Wasp-kinden, but this doesn’t ring
true.’

‘Why I want him is my
own business,’ she replied flatly.

‘Well then maybe where
he’s gone is mine.’ Fraywell sat back, looking pleased with himself. He was one
of the smaller gangsters in Helleron, and his fief, as they called a criminal’s
holdings, was pitiful, but it had been expanding recently. The word was that he
had done well out of the recent visit by imperial troops, peddling all kinds of
muck to them: drink, drugs, women. Certainly he had the clout to jostle for
elbow room now.

‘I must know,’ she said.
‘I
will
know. I have followed Thalric a long way and
I will not give up now.’

‘Well maybe your
business can stay your business if only you’ve got the wherewithal,’ said
Fraywell, sounding bored all of a sudden. ‘Come on, let’s wrap this up. You’re
taking up my valuable time, woman. Show me the stamp of your coin.’

She found that she was
smiling, and it was disconcerting Fraywell and his men. ‘I am not here to buy,’
she explained. It was such a simple concept and yet the Beetle had still not
grasped it. ‘I am here to make payment.’

Fraywell glanced at his
men, baffled, and she now was advancing on his seat smoothly, so smoothly that
two of his people barely got in her way in time. Her hands flashed out, the
razor edges of her thumb-claws folding forwards, and she cut them down with
swift economy.

Fraywell screamed and
kicked away from her so hard that he toppled his would-be throne backwards,
leaving only his boots showing. She turned, looking over the room of stunned
thugs and held a hand high.

The Spider-kinden that
she knew stepped back and took her sword from within his cloak, pitching it to
her above the heads of his fellows in a smooth arc. She hardly had to move her
hand at all to catch it.

With her blade restored
to her, she let them all draw their own weapons. That seemed only fair. Ten of
them, and they tried to rush her, but she was already leaping forwards from the
steps, descending on them with blade first.

They were not skilled
but they were many. She made their numbers her ally, as they crashed into one
another, fouling each other’s blows. Her blade moved among them like lightning,
like sunlight. She sent them reeling back in bloody arcs, and moved – quicksilver
past lead – to evade their clumsy thrusts and grasping hands. Behind them the
Spider-kinden traitor had a long dagger out and was picking and choosing his
targets, putting the point in with the care of a surgeon.

And suddenly there were
none left. It was so sudden she could not quite work out where they had gone
until she saw the bodies. She was used to that now: the jarring of cause and
effect, the sudden returning to herself to discover blood on her blade and the
fallen around her. There was some part of her, some innocent part, that had
come loose inside her head, leaving only cold skill to hold the reins and whip
her on.

She stalked over to the
throne where Last-Chance Fray-well was now clambering to his feet, his broad
face a-sheen with sweat.

‘Whatever they’re paying
you, I’ll double it,’ he gasped, but they were paying her with the next chapter
of Thalric’s story, and how could he double that?

‘I will not take up any
more of your valuable time,’ she said, and ran him through. Only afterwards did
she notice that he had been holding a sword. It had not done him much good, she
supposed.

Then she turned, like a
performer to her audience.

The Spider-kinden man
clapped politely. ‘So much for the Last-Chancers. My employer will be over the
moon. Serves them right for getting above themselves, say I.’ He was a man past
middle years, hair long and greying very slightly, wearing clothes whose
flamboyance had been cut down, she guessed, to suit his purse. His voice was
cultured, though, and she could only wonder where he had fallen on hard times
from.

‘Thalric?’ she said
questioningly, the sword still very much ready in her hands.

‘Do you want it from my
employer’s mouth, or mine?’ The Spider’s name was Destrachis, she recalled,
although she could not exactly remember now who his employer was.

‘Tell me,’ she directed.

He nodded, taking a seat
on a bench there. ‘Well our man Fraywell was here with a whole load of
Wasp-kinden not so long back, and they got involved in something bad. Some
people say they destroyed some big Beetle machine called the
Pride
, although that doesn’t make much sense to me. They
were kicked out in a hurry, though, and your man along with them. They went to
Asta, which is a Wasp-kinden—’

‘I know Asta,’ she said.
‘So he is there? Or at least that is where I travel next.’

Destrachis raised a
hand. ‘We pay in good coin in this fief, lady. He’s not at Asta, we’re sure of
that. There’s a fellow known to us, trades secrets all over, and to the Wasps
as well. He’s heard of your man. Thalric’s a name that’s being talked about
after the wheel he knocked loose here. You’re not the only one who’s keeping
him fingered.’