The Sea Watch sota-6

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Out over the water again. Stenwold found himself remarkably unwilling to step even on to the boards of the jetty. It was not just that they were worm-eaten, and complained creakily about his weight. It was the sea itself beneath. He felt that it was waiting for him. I escaped it once, and it wants me back. And he thought: Yet do I not wish to go back? ‘Return to me’, she had said… He shook himself irritably and led the way down the pier’s uneven length.

  He was more than halfway to the end before his eyes could pick out even the suggestion of shape ahead. If something went wrong out here, he would be at such a disadvantage that he might as well just throw himself into the ocean. Irritably he unlatched a lamp from his belt. He had hoped not to have to use it, as whoever was out here obviously valued their moonlit privacy. He struck the steel within, and a wan gas flame ignited, almost white and turned as low as it would go. Despite his misgivings, he felt a great deal better after it was lit.

  He approached with caution, Paladrya and Fel shadowing his footsteps and Laszlo hanging slightly back. The lamp illuminated the pier’s end, flaring palely on the rotten boards of the storage shed, before touching on the back of the figure at the very end of the pier. It was indeed a Mantis woman, as far as Stenwold could tell, sitting on a barrel and staring out to sea… no, she was fishing. As he drew nearer, he spotted that she held a reel of line that was dangling into the midnight waters.

  He heard her sigh, and he stopped a prudent distance away, with the shack right by his elbow.

  Her voice drifted across to him, sounding weary: ‘I’m selling nothing and I’m buying nothing, and I carry no coin, strangers. You’ll get precious little from me.’

  ‘We don’t mean to rob you,’ Stenwold addressed her, ‘only to ask you a question, if we may.’

  She had a stick in one hand, he now saw, a thick, four-foot length of wood. Without looking round, she leant on it, pushing herself off the barrel with a curiously lopsided motion, turning as she did so. He realized that she was younger than he had thought, her pale hair cut brutally short. Her face had a lot of lines on it, the evidence of pain and bitter feelings.

  ‘Cynthaen,’ he addressed her.

  ‘Most of her.’ She stepped forward, not Mantis-graceful but with a rolling lurch, and he saw, belatedly, that one leg was just a wooden stump from the knee down. When he lifted his eyes again, she met his gaze with keen cynicism, looking for the pity.

  ‘The Wasps?’ he asked her.

  ‘Gift of the Empire, yes,’ she said, ‘and of a surgeon of your own kinden. Trimmed me and seared me and told me how lucky I was, to be alive. So what do you want to ask me, Master Beetle? Have you found me a foot that needs a new owner?’ There was a humour in her voice, but it was sharp-edged.

  ‘I want to ask you about the sea-kinden,’ Stenwold told her. ‘Your people sent me to you.’

  ‘They remember me, do they?’ She lowered herself back on to the barrel, balancing herself between the stick and her sound leg. ‘Sea-kinden? Stories, Master Beetle, just stories.’

  Stenwold glanced towards his companions, and Cynthaen followed his gaze. When he turned back to her, her face had become closed, resigned.

  ‘So,’ she said.

  ‘Your people, your family, made a pact, I am told,’ Stenwold explained. ‘And some years ago, that pact was called upon.’

  ‘Was it, now?’ she said blandly, hunching forward over her stick.

  ‘There was a boy brought up from the sea,’ Stenwold prompted. It was clear she knew exactly what he was talking about, but her face would admit none of it. All she would say was, ‘Was there so?’

  ‘He would have seemed like a Spider-kinden to you,’ the Beetle went on, a little desperately, as Cynthaen simply arched a sceptical eyebrow.

  Stenwold opened his mouth, wondering what he could say next, just as Paladrya pushed past him, stepping far too close to the Mantis-kinden woman: almost within reach of the jagged spines on her forearms.

  ‘Please,’ the Kerebroi woman declared, simply, ‘we have come to take him home. Are there any of your people who might remember?’

  Cynthaen had gone very still, and at first Stenwold thought it was because of finding a Spider-kinden woman before her, and was within an inch of striking out at her, but the expression on the Mantis’s face was not one of hatred, as he would have expected. Instead it was puzzlement slowly being replaced by something like recognition.

  ‘You,’ the Mantis said, and left the single word unqualified for a moment, before adding, ‘Was it you?’

  Paladrya was now frowning, as the other three gathered closer, trying to work out what was happening here.

  ‘We were few and far between, those of us who kept the Watch, even before the Wasps came,’ murmured Cynthaen, very softly indeed. ‘Five, perhaps? Six? Dying traditions, they were: the offerings into the deep, and the harvest of the sea. As for now? I don’t know if anyone keeps the Sea Watch now. I am the only blood of my house remaining, what’s left of me. I recognize you, though. You’re of his kind, all right, and no Spider.’

  Stenwold heard Paladrya’s breath catch. ‘You…?’

  ‘Do I remember you?’ Cynthaen frowned. ‘There in the shallows.. . not the two long bastards who came with him, but there was one other. I was watching from the trees. I remember. It could have been you, at that. It could have been. Nigh on five years ago, but I almost think it was you, after all.’

  ‘Do you know…’ Paladrya’s voice was shaking. ‘Do you know.. . whether he lives? My Aradocles, does he live?’

  ‘The Wasps came.’ Cynthaen’s voice went hard again, and she tapped her stick against her wooden leg. ‘They burned us out. Torched every logging camp and trading post along the edge of the Felyal, and then carried on till they hit Collegium’s walls.’

  ‘Is he here?’ Paladrya asked her. ‘Please, you must tell me, I have to know. I sent him on to the land, all those years ago, to keep him safe…’

  Cynthaen gave a barking, incredulous laugh. ‘Safe? You chose the wrong place and time, woman. But your lad did fight, I give him that. Fought at the Felyal, and then with the Prince. Went and joined the Landsarmy, he did. Most of the villagers, the traders and the loggers, they couldn’t make it here. They moved too slow, had no boats, and the Wasps were already standing in the way. So they went north instead. Signed on with the Prince of the Wasteland.’ She nodded at Stenwold. ‘You know who I mean.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Stenwold breathed. ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘Then you’ll know where they ended up,’ Cynthaen told him. ‘In that new place of theirs. You want your lad? If he lives at all, he’s there.’

  ‘Princep Salmae,’ pronounced Stenwold.

  ‘Mar’Maker!’ Laszlo shouted an abrupt warning, and Stenwold whirled round to see a figure kick off suddenly into the air, from the roof of the storage shack. Stenwold’s hand came up automatically, tugging the little snapbow out of his coat and loosing both bolts, one after the other. One of them must have struck, through luck more than any skill, for the flying figure faltered in the air and then crashed to the pier, smashing through the old boards and vanishing almost instantly into the dark water below.

  Almost immediately two others were upon them: lean, scarred men with long-hafted swords glittering, swooping down to avenge their comrade. One of them went straight for Paladrya, and the other stooped on Stenwold.

  Fel got himself in the way of that second one. The sword sparked off his bracer, then he and the attacker were trading blows. Dragonfly-kinden, Stenwold saw – and not just Dragonflies but men of a look he had seen before. The swordsman had reach, and kept himself half airborne, swarming about Fel trying to find an opening. The Onychoi warrior left him no gap, pivoting and spinning to keep his opponent in sight, hands raised in a high guard, with their spikes jutting forward. Those blows he could not dodge, he took on his mail or on his Art-armoured knuckles.

  Stenwold drew his own blade, turning to aid Paladrya. A second Dragonfly was already crouching low befo
re her, sword held vertically before him. Cynthaen had come to her rescue, balanced on her good leg, both hands resting on her stick.

  The Dragonfly struck a cleaving downward blow that should have lopped the Mantis’s weapon in half. Cynthaen twisted it a little as she brought it up, though, pulling it apart to reveal a ribbon of steel between a wooden hilt and scabbard. Then she had the blade fully drawn, keeping the sheath in her offhand to block with. Paladrya cowered behind her.

  ‘Mar’Maker, look!’ Laszlo was pointing urgently. Up on the shack’s roof there was another man, standing tall with a bow in one hand, an arrow just being put to the nock. Cursing at his own stupidity, Stenwold fumbled for more snapbow bolts.

  Cynthaen was keeping up a steady defence, but she could not move fast enough to take the initiative, and slowly the Dragonfly’s relentless assault was forcing her back, her wooden foot dragging. Stenwold crouched, reloading frantically, and then, in front of him, Fel’s opponent was suddenly doubled over. A murderous barbed fist snapped out faster than Stenwold’s eyes could follow, ramming four inches of piercing bone under the man’s ribs. The bowstring thrummed and Fel was already turning towards the sound, the arrow striking into his armoured chest with enough force to send him to one knee. The mail had taken the worst of it, though, and he was already lurching back to his feet. Stenwold rushed forward, pointing the snapbow wildly in the archer’s direction, and the man lifted off, wings flickering in the lamplight before they carried him back down the length of the pier.

  The conflict had stilled behind them, and Stenwold turned to see Cynthaen and Paladrya at the pier’s very edge. Their opponent lay at Cynthaen’s feet, with two deep wounds driven into his back, while Laszlo was cleaning his dagger with an unaccustomedly grim look on his face.

  ‘We’ve seen these lads before, Mar’Maker,’ he pointed out.

  Stenwold nodded, drawn unwillingly back to the fatal fight on the barge. Teornis’s men, they had to be, which meant that either some other Aldanrael agent was on his trail, or…

  Or Teornis had got to shore before him. It would surprise Stenwold not at all if that was true. He was a capable man, Teornis, and he would have found some way to manipulate Claeon into freeing him. Abruptly Stenwold felt certain that the Dragonflies had not been sent as assassins, only as spies – that their true prize, the knowledge of where Aradocles might be found, was even now winging its way back to their Aldanrael liege.

  ‘Fel,’ he said. ‘You’re wounded?’

  The sea-kinden was staring down at the arrow, looking slightly perplexed now the fighting was done. He tugged at it experimentally and winced, but Stenwold had the impression that the shell mail had done its job and that the wound must be only shallow.

  ‘Never saw that before,’ the Onychoi murmured, baffled, and Stenwold was reminded that the sea-people were not well known for archery.

  ‘We need to get to Princep Salmae as quickly as possible,’ Stenwold decided. ‘If Aradocles is there, we have to find him before they do.’

  His last glimpse of Cynthaen was to see her staring down at the dead Dragonfly in a kind of helpless frustration, as though she had been robbed by him, as though she would rather have died as a Mantis-kinden should do, than live on as she was.

  Varante finished his report, looking sour and vengeful about the death of his kin. They were a proud lot, the Dragonfly-kinden of Solorn, descendants of the retinue of an exiled prince before they became the subjects of the Spider Aristoi. Teornis was only glad that his vassal had retained the self-possession to deliver his report rather than drawing a blade and wading in himself.

  Ah, well, there’s no such thing as a perfect slave, as they say. ‘Do you know,’ he remarked to Helmess Broiler, ‘I have never yet had cause to visit Princep Salmae. Have they even finished it?’

  ‘That place never much interested me.’ The Beetle shrugged. ‘Just some band of uprooted peasants and former slaves pitching a few tents in the wilderness. Still, I understand the Sarnesh are busy cultivating them, for whatever reason.’

  ‘Well, now it would seem that I must make the visit. Maker will have agents there, of course.’

  ‘Oh, probably. The fellow it’s named after was one of his students, after all.’ Helmess smiled unpleasantly. ‘You’ll have your work cut out for you, my lord Spider. Who would talk to you there, when they’ll love and revere Maker as a war hero, a saviour? Won’t you be at something of a disadvantage?’

  ‘You forget, I’m also a war hero.’ Teornis’s teeth flashed in a grin. ‘Moreover, a Spider-kinden Aristos is never at a disadvantage. Stenwold may simply have countered some of my natural superiority, that’s all. Secure me a flying machine – for me and Varante and his people.’

  Helmess frowned. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘It’s what you Beetles are good at, isn’t it? Machines, logistics? I’ll take your man Sands as well. He’s nicely inconspicuous. There may be a few too many Commonwealers about for Varante’s people to pass unnoticed. What? Don’t look so sour, man. After all, we’re on the same side, aren’t we? We want the same thing,’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Helmess heavily. His eyes flicked towards Elytrya, and Teornis smiled.

  ‘While you’re making the arrangements, I’ll keep your lovely mistress company, shall I, just a little insurance for your good behaviour? After all, we wouldn’t want you getting any unprofitable ideas.’

  Thirty-Seven

  There were few things that might have roused this middle-aged Beetle willingly from his sleep, past midnight, after a late night spent tinkering with the innards of an airship engine. When the rapping had begun at his window, he had done his best to ignore it. The lodgings by the airfield were cheap, frequented by all manner of tramp aviators, small traders and cack-handed artificers. Drunken guests trying to break into the wrong room were not unknown. Yet the noise had continued, and then he had caught, through the pillow he had hauled over his head, the sound of his own name.

  Cursing, he had arisen, draped awkwardly in a blanket. A tightness about his head informed him that he had gone to bed with his goggles still on. He took a heavy wrench in one hand and hauled the window shutters open, glaring balefully at the Fly-kinden youth clinging there.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ the Beetle said flatly. ‘Now you bugger off or I’ll brain you.’

  ‘Stenwold Maker needs you,’ the Fly told him.

  For much of a minute the Beetle just stared at him, as though trying to unhear those words by sheer effort of will, but then he swore and threw the wrench into a corner. ‘At his place?’

  ‘He’s on his way here now,’ the Fly said. ‘Ten minutes away, maybe.’

  ‘Fine.’ The Beetle sighed deeply, then shook his head. ‘I’ll meet him out on the field, bastard nuisance that he is.’

  The Fly dropped from the window ledge, his wings flurrying him away as though a strong wind had caught him. Feeling sour and tired, the Beetle-kinden man began to dress himself, hauling on the hard-wearing leathers of an artificer.

  He stumped downstairs to the door of his lodgings. The woman that ran the place, a boot-faced Ant and Beetle halfbreed, was inexplicably waiting ready for him in the obvious belief that he intended shirking payment of the bill. He had stayed at this place on and off for seven years, and yet she still would not trust him an inch or advance him a clay bit’s worth of credit.

  ‘I’ll be going for a while,’ he told her, after settling up. ‘Hold the room for me.’

  ‘Where to this time?’ Her tone suggested that only the congenitally mad would contemplate a life of travel for themselves.

  ‘No idea,’ he replied, confirming her in her conviction. Then he was out of the door, into the night, stamping across to the airfield.

  There was a faint mist that had come in off the sea, and the great lamps delineating the airfield’s perimeter turned it into a shimmering, silver-red haze. Within it, the shapes of flying machines loomed like the relics of monsters: orthopters with wings folded upwards or back along t
heir sleek lines; lumpen heliopters with their rotors drooping and still; aggressive-styled flyers with two or even three banks of fixed wings. Over them all loomed the grand hulks of the dirigibles, like a convoy of moons strung over the airfield, and the beached ship-hulls that were gondolas awaiting the inflation of their balloons.

  The Beetle first went to the hull of his own airship and, with quiet practice, started the pumps that would see her own gasbag fill up. Then he perched in the vessel’s prow and watched, waiting for the inevitable, until he saw the promised Stenwold Maker. The old man had changed little since they had last done business: a bit leaner perhaps, but just as strung out with energy and tension. There were a couple of Fly-kinden and a few others clustered about him, but Maker always had possessed a strange taste in friends.

  The Beetle aviator let himself down from his airship to the ground, aware that the time had come to put aside – for the night or for the tenday or who knew how long – his commerce and his freedom, and instead dance to Maker’s tune once more. A combination of guilt, remembrance and his personal honour meant that he never even thought of just walking away.

  ‘Master Maker,’ he acknowledged gruffly, when the man reached him. The Assembler’s straggling entourage, he noted, looked even more miscellaneous than usual.

  ‘Jons Allanbridge,’ Stenwold named him, with a slight smile. ‘It’s been a while since the war.’

  ‘Since the last one,’ Allanbridge agreed. ‘Not dead after all, then?’

  ‘Not for want of trying.’

  The two Beetles clasped hands solemnly. Stenwold looked into the other man’s face and read enough to guess at secrets – at recent revisions to the man’s life that Allan-bridge was none too keen to bring to light.

  ‘Where do you trade these days, Jons?’ he asked, watching for a shadow to cross the man’s face. He had encountered this situation before: a trusted agent left to go wild, and who could know what you would find, when you went back? And Allanbridge had never been Stenwold’s man, precisely, just a patriotic free-trader willing to sail where Stenwold asked in return for a fair price and repairs to his vessel.