The Sea Watch (78 page)

Stenwold himself was glad for the lanternlight crowning walls, but he quickly conceded that his sea-kinden companions had far better eyes than he, and soon it was Paladrya taking the lead. Cautiously scouting the way, raising a hand to them whenever she saw more guards on the path, she sought no cover herself, for her Art hid her. As she moved, her skin crawled with patterns of light and shade so that, when she was still, she became as invisible as she had been in the cell in Hermatyre where Stenwold had first met her. Her warning upheld palm, as the patrols approached, flashed palely towards them or they would never have caught her signal. Sometimes the Dragonflies walked within feet of her, as she stood motionlessly out in the open, and then Stenwold’s own eyes would slide off her, losing her amongst the nocturnal shapes of the garden, until she moved again.

They reached within a short dash of the wall, finding a convenient gap that still jutted with scaffolding and boards. Just as it seemed they would be able to make an unopposed entry, one of the Dragonfly guardsmen appeared around the corner, and chose that moment, and that spot, to stand contemplating the skies, leaning on his crescent-headed spear. Stenwold cursed inwardly, and began to plan if it would be possible to overpower the man without the alarm being raised. He was brought out of his reverie when Fel tapped his shoulder and pointed upwards, directing his eyes to find another man sitting atop the wall, a crooked staff laid across his knees.

Not this gap, then
, Stenwold thought. That was always going to be the most difficult part: breaching this final line of defence and breaking into the palace proper. Of course, every gap in the walls might similarly have eyes on it, and he had hoped that inspiration would strike once he got here. There was still a good fifteen feet of empty ground between them and the walls, though, and Stenwold could see no way of getting past the sentries without being seen.

Paladrya and Phylles were busy conferring, hands moving silently in the sea-kinden sign language, and a moment later the Kerebroi woman had started towards the sentry in a progress of stops and starts, from unseen to a ghosting shadow, as her skin blurred to keep up with her surroundings.

Stenwold turned to Phylles to ask her what was going on, but she was already moving off as well, not headed for the guards, but for a section of the wall that looked complete, and unwatched. Once there, she began inching her way along the line of it, moving with a slow, continuous motion that offered nothing to attract the eye. She was slowly edging towards where the wall finished, the gap where the guards were stationed, and she glanced up at the man sitting above.

The compound wall was not so very high, Stenwold considered. Could she jump up and grab his ankle? Was that the plan? He looked over to Fel, but the Onychoi man was watching intently, tense as a wire.

A sudden thought came to Stenwold as he spotted that what he had seen as a crooked staff borne by the man aloft was in fact an unstrung bow. He realized that none of the sea-kinden would know it for what it was. He opened his mouth to utter a warning, but to call out would be just as fatal.

Then there was sudden shouting in the garden behind them, like a harsh exchange of insults. Stenwold froze, losing sight of Paladrya entirely. The archer above stood up and strung his bow, all in the same powerful motion, and then was aloft and scooting overhead, already reaching for the first arrow. The spearman took a few steps forward and, for a hopeful moment Stenwold thought he might follow. He stuck to his post, though, until Phylles moved a little closer and he saw her.

The guard’s eyes widened, and he made as if to point the spear at her, but then Paladrya was magically beside him, her hands on the weapon’s haft. As he wrenched at it, Phylles struck. The whip-like barb of her Art weapon pierced his neck, and he fell, twitching.

Stenwold hurried closer. ‘What have you done?’ he hissed. ‘What will they think of us now?’

‘He will wake eventually.’ Phylles scowled. ‘A little poison only. He will wake after two days, perhaps. Now, are we going in, or shall we stand here and debate it?’

Stenwold nodded curtly, and they slipped inside the walls of the palace.

‘We keep going further in until we’re spotted. Check everywhere that looks habitable,’ he told them, though it was clear that none of it looked remotely habitable to the sea-kinden. Instead they followed him constantly as he went to the nearest sections that were at least roofed over. A glance behind the curtain veiling an arch showed no sign of occupancy, and so they moved on – skulking from a wall to a pile of bricks, and then to a stack of timbers, peering in each window and doorway they came upon. Stenwold saw sleeping forms in one room – two young Roach-kinden girls by the look of it – but no sign of his quarry. They crept on as quietly as they could, finding only yet more incomplete construction, and occasional sleeping figures huddled in random corners beneath blankets, resembling less the staff of a palace than opportunistic refugees.

And then, emerging into a courtyard, Fel hissed abruptly, his hands coming up with daggers in them. It was a moment later that Stenwold identified the dark figure before them as Teornis.

Fel was already moving before Stenwold could stop him, and Teornis let out a shrill whistle as he drew his own slender blade. With no other option, Stenwold dragged the snapbow out from within his tunic and charged it swiftly. Phylles stepped past him to the other side.

The first arrow flashed from above and slanted off Fel’s helm, staggering the Onychoi for a moment before he dropped into a defensive crouch. The second shaft lanced through his thigh, but by then Stenwold had spotted the archer as the man swooped overhead, and the snapbow in his hand cracked twice. For once, both bolts struck home and the Dragonfly lurched in mid-air, wings faltering, and was carried out of sight over the next wall by his dying momentum. A moment later two more of Teornis’s followers had dropped down beside Fel, their long-hafted swords to hand. A third landed to Stenwold’s left and went for him, just as Stenwold dragged his sword from its scabbard.

‘Mine!’ snapped Phylles, shouldering him aside. Stenwold looked about wildly for Paladrya, spotting her just as she pointed across the courtyard, crying ‘Stenwold!’ There, Teornis was backing away, evidently intent on locating Aradocles while the melee distracted his rival. Stenwold swore and pushed himself into a run.

Fel was ably holding the two Dragonflies at bay, blocking their sword strokes with his bracers and the natural armour of his knuckles, and taking every chance to lash back with his daggers or the spikes of his Art. They were wisely keeping their distance, using their longer reach to hold him at bay, while trying to take him from two sides at once. Stenwold, dashing past, managed to cut a gash across the shoulder of one, a minor wound but enough of a distraction. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Fel snapping forward in a full-extension lunge, one fist smashing past a Dragonfly’s sword, to crunch into shoulder and collar-bone. Then Stenwold’s attention was wholly focused on Teornis.

The Spider had paused in his escape as he saw his enemy running for him. Now he had adopted a relaxed stance in the entrance to the courtyard, his rapier lowered so that its point almost touched the ground. His face, visible in the lanternlight, wore a crooked smile.

‘Is it come to this?’ he asked softly and, as Stenwold stopped to compose an answer, the rapier leapt and touched his cheek, drawing a mere pinpoint of blood, though Teornis barely seemed to have moved at all.

‘A warning,’ Teornis told him, whereupon Stenwold cast aside conversation and went for him, his shorter, broader blade thrusting in and very nearly getting past the Spider’s guard by pure surprise. Teornis shifted sideways a few rapid steps, sliding Stenwold’s sword aside each time the Beetle made a jab for him, keeping to the defensive for a little while, and giving ground along the line of the wall. There was a mess of bricks and loose stones at his back, where the workmen had left them, and Stenwold tried a sudden rush forward to force his opponent on to them. An instant stab of pain shot through his shoulder, and he stumbled back, seeing his own blood on the last two inches of Teornis’s rapier.

Then the Spider stopped playing at being wrongfooted, and instead went on the offensive. His narrow sword flickered and darted in the uncertain light, now at Sten-wold’s face, now cutting stripes in his artificer’s leathers, feinting at his knee, his stomach, his groin, making Stenwold lumber backwards awkwardly, with his own blade deflecting barely half the strokes that Teornis whipped out at him. The expression on Teornis’s face changed constantly, as though each attack and defence was a conversational gambit that he hoped Stenwold would respond to.

In the courtyard’s centre, Fel turned on the spot as Varante probed at his guard, trying to draw him out. The lunge that had dealt with Varante’s lieutenant had made a mess of Fel’s arrow-wounded leg, and the Onychoi was now concentrating on fending the blade off, unwilling to expose himself to further injury.

‘Hold out!’ Phylles called to him. ‘I’m coming.’ Her opponent would not let her get near him, though, retreating into the air whenever she tried to lash out at him with her stingers. It was clear he had no idea what she was but he wasn’t taking any chances. He held her off at the length of his sword. Phylles gritted her teeth, knowing that she was running out of time. Paladrya . . .

Where was Paladrya?

The rapier’s point left a shallow track down Stenwold’s side, another thimble-full of blood soaking his under-tunic. Teornis was taking him apart a morsel at a time. Furiously, Stenwold tried to beat past the other man’s defence. He was stronger than the Spider, certainly, and the other man could not have blocked a solid strike by Stenwold’s sword, but he never tried to. Every attack was met with a sidestep, a neat deflection, allowing Stenwold’s energy to waste itself against thin air. Another flick from his opponent, and Stenwold felt a spike of pain in his right calf.

Then something moved behind Teornis: the glint of a dagger’s blade. Stenwold pushed forward, watching the Spider sidestep and sidestep, unknowingly getting closer to that near-invisible presence.

‘My lord, behind you!’ cried Varante, with the benefit of his kinden’s keen eyes. He broke off from Fel abruptly, even as the other Dragonfly also kicked into the air, away from Phylles, to come to his master’s aid. Fel bunched himself and leapt up, catching Varante by the ankle and dragging him back down. His opponent’s sword chopped down at him, striking his shoulder hard enough to shatter the armour, but Fel’s right fist rammed home hard enough to bury his Art-spike entirely beneath Varante’s chin.

The other Dragonfly, coming from behind, struck Fel a savage blow between neck and shoulder, putting every ounce of strength behind it, and the Onychoi tumbled forward voicelessly over Varante’s body.

Teornis had dodged aside at Varante’s warning, so Paladrya’s desperate stab at him missed entirely. His rapier lashed out at her, more to give himself room than as a serious attack, forcing her back. Stenwold tried to take advantage of the moment, but Teornis got his weapon back into line just in time to catch the Beetle’s sword on the quillons of his own. Then the last Dragonfly had landed between Teornis and Paladrya, with the clear intention of finishing the woman off.

Stenwold’s stomach lurched at the thought and, before he could think about how unwise this was, he threw himself forward at a full charge. Teornis was caught by surprise, flinging himself out of the way with ease but catching Stenwold only a glancing blow across the shoulder. Then Stenwold had cuffed the Spider across the face with one wildly swinging fist, batting him aside, and was lunging past towards the Dragonfly, whose sword was already raised.

He knew he was already too late, that he could not save her.

He saw the Dragonfly twist, heard the man’s grunt of pain as Paladrya stabbed him under his guard, ramming her dagger in up to the hilt as she bowled into him, the two of them tumbling over each other. Stenwold saw the man’s hands jab in too, wicked Art claws curving from his thumbs. Paladrya screamed.

Stenwold was suddenly on the ground and rolling, and there was a fierce line of pain down the back of one leg to join all the other nagging wounds suffered that night. He lurched to his feet, tripped down on one knee again, then managed to stand up, feeling his mauled leg trembling beneath his weight. Teornis was driving straight for him, the point of his rapier dancing in the air like a gnat.

Wholly off balance, Stenwold tried to get his blade back between him and his opponent. The rapier swept over his parry to whip across his face, opening a cut above one eyebrow. Teornis’s face was wiped clean of all mockery now, down to the bare bones of his expression: not the cold distance of a killer, but infinite remorse.

‘You had to force me to this,’ the Spider hissed and his rapier bound effortlessly past Stenwold’s own blade, aimed so as to pierce the Beetle between the ribs with merciless precision.

He held off, in the end. Something changed in his face, some expression of bitter regret, and he hauled the sword aside, so that it only scored Stenwold’s flank rather than running him through. Stenwold did not possess the same finesse, however, or perhaps that final reserve of restraint, and his instinctive counter-strike jammed his blade up to the hilt between the plates of Teornis’s hauberk.

The Spider gasped, a hollow whooping of air, and then he fell, and Stenwold dropped to his knees beside him, bleeding from a dozen wounds and utterly exhausted.

Paladrya!
something inside him wailed, and his eyes desperately sought for her body.