Blood of the Mantis

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Long journeys are soonest started was a Fly-kinden maxim. It seemed to Stenwold that his plans, for once, fell into place all too easily. A few days after his words with Teornis, and everyone seemed to be leaving except him.

  There was only one Spider-kinden ship in Collegium’s harbour now, but it was Teornis’s personal vessel, the craft on which he had weathered out the sea battle, rather than on the great flagship that had been so prominent. Spiders always preferred guile and speed to strength. The sailors, too, were Spider-kinden mostly. Stenwold had never thought of them as a maritime breed but, then, the waters around Collegium were new to bloodshed. Eastwards were to be found the longships of Felyal and the Kessen navy, giving the Spiderlands plenty of reason to man their fighting ships and protect their trade routes. Stenwold watched as the great grey sails of spun silk were hoisted slowly, billowing in the wind, strong as iron and yet light as air.

  It had been easy enough, in the end, to choose who he would send off to Teornis’ newly threatened land.

  ‘I’m grateful to you for doing this,’ he said. ‘I know you’re no agent, to be sent hither and thither as I choose.’

  ‘You know, I’m really rather looking forward to this,’ Nero told him. ‘I have been in every Lowlands city east of Collegium, and three or four in the Empire, too, but there’s always somewhere new. Solarno is somewhere I always meant to pay a visit.’ He grinned broadly. ‘The world just goes on and on, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Just be careful,’ Stenwold warned him.

  It was true, though, that Nero was the best-travelled of any of them, and he had done his time in the Spiderlands too, been flavour of the month in Siennis one season, his daubs hung on everyone’s walls. Stenwold glanced back in time to see Che hugging Achaeos tight. She, too, was attired for travelling: an artificer’s leather coat and hard-wearing canvas breeches, and a big pack slung over her shoulder. She had insisted that she could not sit at home while Achaeos was off working for Collegium. Looking at her now, Stenwold still saw her as so very vulnerable, in a way that Salma and Tynisa were not. Was that just his wish to protect his own kin, or something truly powerless within her? Still, he forced himself to think. Look at what she has come through. Look at what she has accomplished. To deny her this chance and send some other simply because they were not blood-kin would be hypocrisy on his part.

  ‘You look after her well,’ he told Nero sternly.

  ‘Sten, you couldn’t have chosen a better unless you called up another Fly-kinden,’ Nero assured him, knowing that Sperra – Stenwold’s other Fly agent – had adamantly refused to go anywhere near the Spiderlands. ‘Look at it this way,’ the Fly continued. ‘Me and a Beetle-kinden, it’s perfect – you could go anywhere, two people like that. You could go into the Empire, even. I’d worry instead about the Moth-boy and his crew. They’ll stand out just about anywhere they go.’

  ‘True enough.’ Stenwold sighed. ‘You know your route? You’re sure enough of it?’

  Nero nodded. ‘Ship to Seldis, overland south on the trade route to Siennis, Mavralis, and then by ship across the Sea of Exiles apparently, to Solarno. Fires your blood, doesn’t it, hearing all those names?’

  ‘Travel in the Spiderlands . . .’

  ‘Isn’t new to me, remember? And we’ll have letters of introduction from your man the Lord-Martial there.’

  ‘Nero, he’s not my man,’ Stenwold corrected. ‘He’s nobody’s but his family’s and his own. Don’t relax, and don’t rely on him either. Cut loose from him as soon as possible and make your own decisions.’

  ‘Right,’ Nero confirmed, and grinned again. ‘I love the Spider-kinden. Never a dull moment.’

  One of the sailors called them, just then. They were ready to cast off, and the wind and tide were with them.

  ‘Che,’ Stenwold called out.

  ‘I know. Be careful. Look after Nero.’

  ‘That isn’t quite –’

  She came over and hugged him briefly. ‘We’ll be all right, Uncle Sten.’

  ‘Just do whatever you can,’ he said, ‘but don’t take risks.’

  His wings a blur, Nero was already touching down on deck. Che reached out to Achaeos, brushing fingers, and then she dashed after the Fly, thumping up the gangplank to turn briefly at the rail and wave down at them.

  For Achaeos the route was harder still: across the whole of the Lowlands, all the way to the borders of the Empire, and then further still. No ship, no rail could take him there, nor even a road untramped by imperial boots. This was where Jons Allanbridge entered the story.

  Jons Allanbridge was an adventurer, a fortune-hunter but, despite this, a good son of Collegium. He had fought in the air when the Vekken attacked, piloting his airship over their fleet to drop boxfuls of grenades – until the wind swept him too low and a catapult put a man’s weight of metal scrap through the balloon.

  Now, in return for a purse of gold and repairs to his craft, he would provide transportation for Achaeos and his companions. His airship, the Buoyant Maiden, would feel cramped with six aboard but she was a fleet little thing and Allanbridge had been flying her unnoticed over borders for years. Even a months-long jaunt like this was all part of the life of a merchant adventurer.

  Like most Beetles, Allanbridge was squat and broad, a decade younger than Stenwold, with the hair already receding from his dark brow. He wore artificer’s canvas, and a woollen robe over that, a long scarf bundled about his neck.

  ‘These all of your lads, are they, Maker?’ he asked. He was not one for titles, and Stenwold was grateful for that.

  ‘All present,’ Stenwold agreed. About them the wind was up, tugging at the flags of the airfield, striking up a constant clatter of lines against the metal of scaffolds and flying machines. Stenwold turned to Tisamon and clasped hands with him, wrist to wrist.

  ‘Sten, I must ask . . .’ the Mantis began awkwardly.

  Stenwold, who had noticed what company his friend had kept in the city, volunteered, ‘This is about the Dragonfly, Felise?’

  ‘You must watch her,’ the Mantis warned.

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t suggest taking her with you,’ Stenwold remarked, thinking of Felise’s skills and the advantages of having a capable Dragonfly’s sharp eyes and nimble wings.

  ‘No.’ Tisamon’s expression became opaque. ‘She is not ready yet. She would not . . . I do not think she would always remember our objectives.’ But then there was something more in his face, a sudden tug at its composure.

  ‘Tisamon, what is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Too quick an answer.

  ‘Tisamon . . . ?’

  The Mantis checked him with a look, eyes filled with an emotion outside Stenwold’s experience. ‘I will go and she must stay. Do not ask me to take her – not yet. I will return to her. Remind her . . . I cannot . . . She . . .’ The Mantis’s breath caught. Uncomfortable truths were crawling just beneath the surface of his face.

  ‘She would lose control, and then start killing Wasps indiscriminately,’ Stenwold finished for him.

  ‘It seems likely,’ Tisamon agreed, in that instant burying everything that had been about to rise to the surface. ‘So you must find her a home here – and that Spider doctor of hers. He seems . . . able to help her.’

  Stenwold frowned. ‘In turn you must promise to watch Thalric.’

  ‘I’ll consider it a wasted trip if I haven’t killed him,’ growled the Mantis, on firmer ground here and without a hint of humour.

  Tynisa, next, did not embrace Stenwold as Che had done, just clasped his hand in the manner of her father. She has grown up now. She is no longer my ward. The sword-and-circle badge of the Weaponsmasters glinted on her breast, a twin to Tisamon’s own.

  ‘This is important, Master Maker,’ Achaeos told him as his turn came. ‘I know you cannot see it, but I thank you for your trust.’ Of them all he wore no special cold-weather clothing, born to the mountains as he was.

  ‘I learned a long time ago that there is more to this
world than my eyes can see,’ Stenwold said. ‘Just you get the thing, whatever it is, and bring it back.’ Doctor Nicrephos had died for this box: another Moth who had been frantic about its importance. Stenwold noticed that Gaved had already gone aboard along with Allanbridge, gliding up onto the airship’s deck with a flick of his wings. That left one man only.

  Stenwold turned to him, a thousand warnings on his lips, but all withering in the face of that slight, mocking smile.

  ‘What can you say to me, Master Maker?’ Thalric asked him. ‘Why not stop me now if you are so very concerned?’

  ‘I am only glad that my niece Che is not going with you,’ muttered Stenwold, at which Thalric smiled slightly.

  ‘You mistake me Stenwold. I would not hurt her. If fate gave me the Mantis’ life, well, that would be different, but in deeds done for my own sake, it would injure my honour to hurt such as her. I do not, however, expect you to believe me.’

  Stenwold was not sure he did, despite this apparent candour. ‘If you hurt any of these – Achaeos most of all, but any of them – you will hurt her. So consider that.’

  ‘Farewell, Master Maker.’ Thalric’s own wings flared, taking him upwards.

  After it had slipped its moorings, Stenwold stood and watched the receding bulk of Allanbridge’s airship. He could make out Tisamon at the stern, as a pale, green-clad figure staring back at him from the gondola

  Be safe, old friend, Stenwold thought. Be safe, Achaeos. Che will not forgive me if something bad befalls you. Be safe, Tynisa, and do not follow so much in your father’s path that you cannot find the road back if you need to.

  On turning, he started, finding someone standing only a few paces behind him, up until now silent and unnoticed: Felise Mienn, unarmoured but with her sword gripped in both hands, point downwards. She ignored him, for her eyes, sharper by far than his, were still fixed on the diminishing dot of the Maiden.

  It was a long, cold trip for the passengers, and the routine aboard the airship quickly became one of silence and antipathy. They were such a mismatched crew that they had little to say to one another. Achaeos kept to himself, bundled in his thin robe and standing out in the open air in most weathers, staring at the horizon and fighting against the constant swell and sway of the gondola that unsettled his stomach. Tisamon watched the two Wasps suspiciously, always somewhere in sight of one or other of them, giving the impression that, had either of them tried to fly away, he would have leapt from the side to catch and kill them, for all that the fall would be his death too. Sheer fervent anticipation was writ large in his face for them to read. He spoke only with Tynisa, and they needed few enough words. Now they were underway on a venture once again they resumed a bond between them, a fighting bond. Wherever Tisamon did not watch, his daughter’s gaze was liable to be found.

  Allanbridge and Gaved were both used to a loner’s life, each having had livelihoods that sent them off to many places in furtive solitude: the Wasp hunting and the Beetle shipping. By three days into the voyage Gaved had begun to regularly assist the aviator in small ways, with the ropes, with the mechanisms, even helping him cook on the airship’s burner-stove. An easy understanding had developed between the two of them – without need for speech since they thought alike. Save when Allanbridge brought the Maiden down for supplies or repairs, the company passed whole days in quiet routine.

  Thalric leant on the rail, watching the Lowlands pass below him, wreathed in cloud, seeming so distant as to resemble nothing he had ever seen. He was a fair flier, for a Wasp, but he had never ventured so high, and it was so cold that he wore a greatcoat with two cloaks draped over it. Despite that, the odd freedom, the leisure of it here, in the upper reaches of the air, had all the appeal of the unfamiliar.

  Earlier that day he had watched Jons Allanbridge rewind the Buoyant Maiden’s motor by releasing the great weight in the base of the gondola, the unreeling of its wire trace tensioning the spring of the airship’s clockwork heart. Then Thalric, Gaved and Tisamon together had, simply by muscle power, hauled the weight back in. Allanbridge boasted that he could do it on his own with a crank, if he needed to, and Thalric supposed that must be right, even though his own muscles were still burning with the strain of it. The whole business had become a regular daily ritual for them, over the tendays they had been aloft.

  Mind you, he was no longer as strong as he had been. The wound that Daklan had inflicted on him, during the Empire’s attempt at executing him, still leached at him. Halfway through the winding process today he had seen spots before his eyes and had been forced to step away beneath Tisamon’s contemptuous stare.

  The gondola was mostly open to the elements, with a low, flat hold beneath it where Allanbridge would normally stow whatever contraband he was currently smuggling. Some of the passengers were sheltering below even now, but Achaeos remained at the stern, talking in a hushed voice to their captain, who was obviously unhappy with whatever he was being told to do. The Moth was another invalid at the moment, still walking with a stick, but he wore nothing but his usual grey and darned robe, whilst Thalric and the rest were swathed in every piece of cloth they could get their hands on. Up here the sun was bright but the air was icy cold: the harsh winter everyone had predicted was coming with a vengeance. Some days back, passing over the hilly terrain between Sarn and Helleron, Thalric had even seen snow falling, snow that must be descending like dust down around the Seventh Army, which was currently encamped somewhere below. The Lowlands seldom saw snow and most of the Wasp Empire was likewise blessed, but Thalric had his own memories, bitter for many reasons, of winters endured during the Twelve-Year War in the Commonweal with snow lying a foot deep and unprepared soldiers freezing to death by guttering camp-fires.

  Even thinking of those frozen days brought a great lump of loss into his throat, because all that was gone now. He was an outcast, a hunted man. First the Empire had betrayed him and now he was betraying it in return.

  Or was he? This fool’s treasure hunt the Moth had set them on hardly seemed a betrayal. A hunt for some trinket, some curio of a raided collection, and yet the Moth had decided it was the be-all of creation. But what did it matter, really, if some imperial courtier had decided to suborn the Rekef into acquiring for him a choice antique? Was that not the precise degree of rot that Thalric had uncovered at the heart of the Empire? Could he therefore not reinterpret this mission into something that was ostensibly even to the Empire’s benefit? Of course I can. You always can. The Empire would not appreciate his help, though, and he suspected the others did not realize just what danger he might land in by going back there. Gaved was right about Jerez, though: if he could hide himself anywhere, it would be there: that shifting town was the bane of imperial bureaucrats, governors and tax-collectors, a vast lawless pond of Skater-kinden who paid lip-service to the Empire and then ambushed its tax caravans. Just the sort of place Scylis would run to, if he now had something to sell.

  Would Scylis be aware of Thalric’s disgrace? Having counted the days since, Thalric suspected not. It seemed mad that, on recognizing Thalric, Scylis might take him for the avenging hand of the Empire.

  Or Scyla. Achaeos swore that Thalric’s old agent had been a woman all this time. The Wasp did not know what to think about that. Or perhaps I do not want to admit I didn’t know it.

  Complications, complications. He shook his head. Allanbridge was shouting at Achaeos now, claiming that something or other was too dangerous.

  ‘You have me aboard,’ the Moth argued. ‘I shall shield you.’

  ‘And what if his lot are there?’ the artificer demanded, pointing at Thalric. ‘Who shields us then?’

  ‘Are they likely to be?’ Achaeos turned to the Wasp. ‘Had the Empire taken Tharn, when last you heard?’

  ‘Tharn?’ It took a moment for Thalric to recall the name of the Moth-kinden mountain retreat that was situated just north of Helleron. ‘There were no plans afoot when last I heard,’ he admitted. ‘It will happen, though. I take it you wish to bid
your home farewell while you still can.’

  ‘A farewell of sorts,’ Achaeos replied.

  ‘If the Empire is there, you will see flying machines aplenty as we near the mountain,’ Thalric suggested.

  ‘If we catch any sight of them, we’ll instantly steer clear,’ Achaeos promised Allanbridge, who grumbled for a moment but acquiesced.

  By the time they were in sight of the Tornos Range they were starting to make very heavy going, Allanbridge was wrestling with the engines to combat the force of the crosswind and the airship was slipping northwards, so what had seemed a leisurely course towards a distant skyline became a battering progress that soon could see them dashed against the mountain peaks.

  ‘I’m taking her lower!’ Allanbridge announced with a shout. The airship’s bag was filled with a gas he had called distillate of sphenotic, which could carry the ship’s weight but would take them higher when it was heated. Now he was stifling the burner, that served as a stove on better days, and the airship began to descend through the layers of cloud even as it gusted towards the mountains.

  The first they knew of company was an arrow that sang across the gondola’s bows and lanced into the balloon.

  Achaeos began waving his arms, a flick of his wings took him up onto the rail, then either the wind or his own volition whisked him off, and he was airborne. The shimmer of his wings ghosting from his back, he circled the gasbag, gesturing and shouting, while the rest clung to whatever they could find, waiting for their flying machine to begin its plummet to the ground.

  Allanbridge laughed at them. ‘One arrow?’ he called. ‘Even your worst ship can take a dozen before it falters, and Collegium kitted me with Spider-silk! See, arrows just stick in her!’

  ‘But will they stick so happily in you?’ Thalric yelled in return.

  Then Achaeos was back, clinging to the rail doggedly until Tynisa helped him on board. Looking pale and exhausted even from that brief flight, he pointed towards the mountains.

  ‘Mount Tornos,’ he announced. ‘Take us there.’