Dragonfly Falling (27 page)

She nodded soberly. ‘I
see.’

‘Oh, and running off
with one of their nailbows isn’t going to make them any happier,’ he added, the
smile returning. ‘You know what the really mad thing is, though?’

‘So tell me.’

‘Even when you’ve escaped,
you find you’ve brought so much of that cursed business with you. You’re never
free of it. That’s why Ant mercenaries are always the best. They’re loyal.
Nobody ever got double-crossed by an Ant. Or precious few, and not without good
reason. So when I got to know Scuto, I got loyal to him. And, now that I’m with
your pack, I’m loyal to you. It’s just the way we are. So you don’t need to
worry about trouble from my direction.’ He slipped the heavy nailbow off his
shoulder and laid it on the table-edge, opening its casing and taking a swab of
cloth from a belt-pouch. ‘You mind keeping your eyes about you while I clean
her?’ he asked, and she nodded agreement, thinking about all he had said.

To Arianna they seemed
so obviously on edge that she was amazed Thalric did not shoot them all on
sight. Her blood and her profession had given her a very good eye to read
people and she perceived the taut bonds of conspiracy between herself, Hofi and
Scadran as though they were bright ribbons binding them together.

Graf sat at his desk, no
doubt dealing with the contracts of the men killed at the warehouse and the few
who survived. He looked in an ill temper, barely glancing at them as they filed
in. Thalric himself was obviously ready to depart for Vek. He had donned a long
coat and there was a pack slung ready on the back of his chair. He did seem to
frown a little as the three of them took their places about the room. Hofi
moved close to Graf, flicking his wings to perch on the corner of the desk.
Arianna herself was leaning by the window, and she knew she was looking casual,
nothing in her stance to betray her. Scadran just stood in the middle of the
room, and to her he radiated tension.

She supposed they had a
lot to be tense about, considering all the changes recently. A lot had happened
and a lot had gone wrong. The future held clouds yet to come.

Thalric nodded at them,
eventually. He seemed tired, which would work well for them. No doubt he had
been busy from the early hours, putting his plans in place.

‘I have your final
assignments before the Vekken get here,’ he told them. ‘After that I will try
to get word to you, but you’ll understand I can’t guarantee it. After the siege
starts I’ll leave it to Graf here, and to your own judgements, how the city’s
defence can best be sabotaged. A quick victory for Vek will serve us best,
although one that kills a great many Vekken troops at the same time would be
the perfect result.’

‘Excuse me, Major, but
what should we do when the walls actually fall?’ Hofi asked. ‘You won’t be able
to provide the entire army of Vek with our descriptions.’

His tone was too
confrontational, and Arianna guessed he was steeling himself to the task.
Thalric’s frown returned.

‘If you can’t extract
yourselves from the situation then you’re in the wrong trade,’ he said shortly.
‘If all else fails, defect at the last moment and drop my name to whoever
chances to question you. I’ve not abandoned my people before and I will not do
so this time, worry not.’

‘What do you have for
us, sir?’ Arianna asked.

‘Well for you, I want
you to work your charms on someone in the Collegium militia. One of their
senior officers, in fact. They’re all old men who like wearing medals and
uniforms. Most of them haven’t held a sword in ten years. I want information
about the military, and you’ll be in a position to throw a wrench into their
gears when the fighting starts.’ He turned from her. ‘Hofi, I want you to start
spreading rumours amongst your clientele and your peers. Rumours about the
military weakness of the city. Rumours that Sarn has become sick of this place.
Rumours that Sarn may even be looking to make Collegium merely the junior
partner in their alliance. A Sarnesh attack – yes, that might sell well.’

‘I see, sir,’ Hofi said.
‘Lower their morale, you mean. Take away their hope.’

‘Indeed. As for you,
Scadran, you must look to the port defences. The attack will surely include a
naval action, or the Vekken are greater fools than I take them for. Look to see
what can be sabotaged at the relevant moment.’

Scadran nodded sullenly.

‘Well, I take it we all
now understand our tasks, and I wish you good luck with them. Now, I have an
appointment with our people in Vek.’

He rose, and just then
Hofi slammed his open palm on the desk, their signal.

Arianna had her dagger already
clear of its sheath as Hofi drove his own into Lieutenant Graf. The Fly-kinden
had been trying to sink the blade over the man’s collarbone, but Graf jerked
back even as he struck, and Hofi ended up driving it up to the hilt into his
shoulder, the Fly’s wings powering the blow. Graf roared with pain and reached
for his sword.

Scadran was already
rushing for Thalric. He had a heavy-bladed sword out, but swung it so wildly
that Arianna could not get close to help him. Thalric swayed back, his face set
and hard, and as the blade came down again he tried to catch Scadran’s wrist.
The force of the blow knocked Thalric back into a corner of the room, Scadran’s
weight and strength pushing him almost to his knees. The big man’s off-hand
fumbled at Thalric’s collar, trying for a hold around his throat.

There was the familiar
crackling sound of a Wasp sting from behind her, and Arianna turned to look.
Hofi was hanging in the air amidst the glitter of his own wings, and Graf had
blown a charred circle into the far wall. Then the Fly slashed savagely with
his blade and Graf was reeling back, clutching at his face and screaming. There
was blood spitting from between his fingers and Arianna realized that Hofi had
gashed the man’s one good eye.

She turned back to Thalric.
The Wasp was stronger than he looked, every muscle straining to keep Scadran
off him, but his halfbreed assailant had the advantage. Thalric’s teeth were
bared and his eyes bulged, not from Scadran’s throttling grip but from his own
sheer fury. They swayed back and forth, but with Scadran always forcing him
into the wall again at last. Arianna saw her moment. She darted in and rammed
her dagger into Thalric’s side.

Or that had been the
idea. Instead, although the stroke was true, she struck something hard beneath
his coat and the blade of her knife snapped at the hilt.

Thalric made a hissing
sound that might have been triumph, and kicked Scadran solidly across his
bandaged calf. The big man roared in pain, his grip loosening for just a
second, and Thalric put a hand under Scadran’s chin and unleashed his sting.

Scadran’s head simply
exploded. There was nothing more to it than that. The body that fell colossally
back to the floor was virtually decapitated. Arianna felt her insides lurch in
fear and horror but she had her Art-made weapons out now, the narrow claws
jutting from her knuckles, and she struck Thalric across the face, gashing his
cheek. She had hoped to snap his head round but he took the blow without
flinching, and then backhanded her solidly, spinning her to the floor.

He walked past her, and
she tried to stand, her head spinning. He had not killed her, which could only
mean he wanted to question her or to prolong her death. The Rekef showed no
forgiveness for treachery.

She saw Hofi, red with Graf’s
blood, rise from behind the desk and see Thalric. The Fly-kinden did not
hesitate. She had never guessed that the unassuming barber was such a fierce
fighter but he hurled himself on Thalric instantly, his wings flinging him
across the room. Arianna was on her feet now, swaying, seeing Thalric’s sword
clear its scabbard and cut across Hofi even as the Fly charged him. The impact
spun the blade from Thalric’s hand, but trailing crimson as it flew, and Hofi
had fallen from the air, striking the ground hard with his hands pressed to the
red stain growing over his tunic.

She looked at the sword.
It lay beyond Thalric, but a concerted rush might capture it.

Thalric stared down at
the writhing Fly for a moment and then raised his arm and finished him with a single
sizzling bolt of energy.

Arianna ran. She flung
the door open and was out of the room, then out of the building, unarmed and
spattered with Scadran’s blood.

Thalric sighed heavily.
He should have seen this coming, but a lot of things had been demanding his
attention recently. He had not thought to look more carefully into the faces of
his own people.

That
will teach me to trust any inferior race
, but in the Rekef Outlander
there was frequently little choice. He went to check Graf, in faint hope, but just
the sight of the man’s butchered body was enough. No help there. Graf had been
a good agent, a loyal subject of the Empire. He deserved a better end than
this.

Thalric reclaimed his
sword, and one hand found the puncture that Arianna had made in the leather of
his coat. Beneath it gleamed the links of his copperweave shirt. Though not
what it once was, having been pieced back together with steel after Tynisa had
sheared it open down the front, it had saved his life again.

Then he stepped out of
the room, following Arianna’s path, for he had unfinished business.

‘Explain to me why these
machines are such a threat,’ demanded one of the Tarkesh tacticians, sounding
irritable. He might even have been the king, for Totho found it difficult to
distinguish Tark’s ruler, to whom he had been briefly introduced, from the
other men on his staff. There were about a dozen of them, men and women, and
they all had the same Tarkesh features that made them look like siblings. The
king wore no special garments or insignia, just the same plate and chain armour
as the others, even here in his war-room, and like them looked as though he was
short on sleep. Totho supposed that, mentally, he kept saying, ‘I’m the king,
I’m the king,’ but for outsiders it was impossible to tell.

‘It’s all to do with
flight: Art flight and mechanical flight,’ he said, looking from face to face
just to be sure. ‘I’m afraid I don’t fly any more than you, so can I ask my
friend here to explain about Art flight?’

One of them nodded, one
of the women, and Salma stepped forwards. Totho glanced around to see Parops
standing to attention behind them, having persuaded the court to see them at
all.

‘Your Majesty,’ Salma
said tactfully, bowing to the correct Ant, ‘may I present myself as Prince Minor
Salme Dien of the Dragonfly Commonweal, arrived here in common cause with your
city-state at the behest of Master Stenwold Maker of the Great College.’

It sounded impressive,
but he prompted no awed reaction from the assembled tacticians. Instead they just
eyed him suspiciously.

‘The Wasps are not
strong fliers,’ Salma continued. ‘With only the wings their Art can summon up,
they cannot fly for long distances. They can just about get from their camp
across your walls, but they could not simply circle over your city for hours,
or even many minutes. Moreover, they could not gain enough height to get out of
range of your crossbows without wholly exhausting themselves. You’ve seen that
for yourselves, I’m sure.’

There were nods and a
few hard smiles around the war table, and Salma thought,
They
actually think they’re winning!

‘I’m sure the Wasps have
some who are better than that, probably scout squads of their best fliers, but
not enough to make a difference. They also have their insect cavalry, and their
machines . . . I forget what Totho called them.’

‘Heliopters,’ Totho
supplied. ‘The problem is that they don’t fly very high either, and they’re
very exposed to your artillery, because they’re big and slow and not as heavily
armoured as you might think, because then they couldn’t get off the ground at
all.’

‘We have seen such,’ one
of the tacticians confirmed.

‘But their airships can
fly much higher,’ Totho explained. ‘So high, in fact, that the only thing able
to threaten them would be something else capable of flying that high. I don’t
even know if your orthopters could do it but the Wasps obviously thought they
could, which is why they mounted the night attack that saw most of them
destroyed. At a great cost to the Wasps themselves, true, but now they can
safely attack your city from the air. They can drop explosives on you, or even
just rocks or leadshot. They can deploy their soldiers, as well, over any part
of the city that they choose. Even though they can’t fly up high of their own
accord they can glide down without much effort. I am afraid that the Wasps have
brought a new kind of war to you.’

Though the tacticians
did not exchange glances or confer, Totho sensed the flurry of thoughts passing
between them. At last one of them spoke.

‘We must destroy them,
then, on the ground.’

‘That would seem to be
your best chance,’ Totho agreed.

‘An attempt at sallying
out with any affordable force would meet with defeat almost immediately,’
another tactician warned. ‘A sally with sufficient force would merely leave the
city wide open, and the potential casualties amongst our troops would be
unacceptable.’

‘A covert attack would
be the only solution,’ a third concluded, fixing Totho and Salma with a fierce
stare. This, Totho realized, must be the King of Tark.

‘We will trust your
analysis of the situation,’ the man continued. ‘You have information and
perspective that we lack in this. We distrust new wars, and we see this
distrust has brought us to this point. We must mount a swift strike tonight to
destroy the airships. Then we must destroy the Wasps in the field before they
can construct or import more of them.’