Ygor dropped into the seat across from Mordrec, his lanky companion standing behind the chair and ignoring his kin.
“Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news,” the Scorpion declared. “The good news is, I got a good look at them. In fact I offered to take up with them.”
Mordrec looked sour. “Well it’s good that one of us has options.”
“Listen, I know we all look the same to you,” Ygor snapped, clearly put out, “but they’re Aktaians and I’m an Aranai, and that means they wouldn’t have me, and I wouldn’t take up with savages like them. Still, it let me get close and sound them out. Got me this as well.” He gave a bristling grimace, indicated his lacerated scalp. “Bad news time: there are nine of the sods. Our three were just the bait.”
“But they were calling Hokiak out. A duel, wasn’t it?”
Ygor snorted. “Listen. I know you Wasps love the idea of battle-honour, soldier’s codes, noble savages. Forget all that. They want him dead because he used to be a Big Name back in the Dryclaw, and your man Ecta there wants to be the man to have killed him. Nothing to do with dead grandfathers and honour. Forget all about honour – mine, Ecta’s or Hokiak’s for that matter.”
“And they’re in tight with the Slave Corps, so... The only chance we’ll get to do anything about them is when they move out for Hokiak,” Mordrec mused. “So they’ll set an ambush?”
“I’d guess so.”
“We can’t do it with two,” Mordrec decided.
“Nor three,” Ygor agreed. “Modrec, formerly of the Empire, meet Soul Je, formerly of the auxillians.”
The Grasshopper nodded. He was the leanest, most angular man of his kind that Mordrec had ever seen, lantern-jawed and with his hair gathered back in a tail.
“You’re in whatever trouble he’s in?” the Wasp asked.
“Bad career decisions,” said the Grasshopper quietly. The hostility of his fellows was palpable but he shrugged it off coolly. “Three of us, nine of them. Hokiak might thank us for evening the odds, but he’d be thanking our corpses. We need more help.”
“Well the locals hate us and the Empire hates him,” Ygor pointed out, “and because of that we can’t trust freelancers.”
Mordrec put his head in his hands, not despairing but building his courage. “Right, listen,” he said at last. “There’s one group of clowns who’d do anything to get out of the city, and who aren’t going to have any better offers.”
The other two looked at him blankly
“I don’t know what the Corps have in their stockade right now, but some of them are bound to be fighters,” the former slaver explained.
“I thought you didn’t want to show your face there,” Ygor pointed out.
“I’ll wear my helm. He has a uniform, and they’re used to Scorpions around the place. We’d go by night. We’d be quick.”
“Freeing slaves is a little more than just desertion or bad debts, Mordrec,” Ygor pointed out. “You’re an Empire man, still.”
Mordrec stared into his mead-bowl moodily. “I’ve pissed off the Rekef. I owe what I can’t pay. It’s slavery for me at best. Any idea how well a Slave Corps sergeant does, when they put the shackles on him? It’ll be the arena, if some other slave doesn’t do for me. I need out, Ygor, some way that they can’t trace and they can’t follow.”
The Scorpion exechanged a look with Soul Je. “Well we managed to overachieve to the extent that nobody likes us and we’re on the same road as you. So...”
“Three of us, nine of them.” Modrec threw his hands up. “A day and a half, now, to get it done. It must be tonight. Then tomorrow we bring every cursed thing we have down on Ecta and his mates.”
“Just so we’re clear, I’m going in as a freelance slaver,” Barad Ygor hissed, as they neared the stockade. “Only, I knew a man who had the bright idea that he’d get snuck in to a place like this done up as a slave. Did twenty years down a mine, he did.”
“Relax.” Mordrec’s voice sounded hollow and anything but relaxed. The full-faced Slave Corps helms were designed to give their wearers an intimidating facelessness, to strike fear into the hearts of slaves. Now, for the first time, Mordrec felt it restricting and close.
The three of them approached the Slave Corps depot with all nonchalance. There were a couple of the Corps on watch at the outer wall but they took no great notice of their visitors, just nodding to whoever they imagined was behind the helm. Inside was a Mynan townhouse that the Corps had converted into a barracks, and a warehouse that held their stock in trade, a constant flux of human traffic that was a link in the great Imperial chain.
To Mordrec it felt as though every eye must be upon them, these three patent intruders trespassing on sacrosanct imperial soil. Ygor was right about one thing: people who visited the Corps unlooked-for were usually invited to stay. However the handful of Wasp-kinden present paid them no heed, and the bulk of the slavers were clearly in the barracks. With all appearances of confidence, Mordrec led the others into the converted warehouse, where there would be a hundred likely slaves worth the freeing.
Except there were not.
He had to force himself to complete his journey inside, rather than just stopping dead in the doorway and letting the other two run into him. There were no slaves. Every cage was empty. They had come at the worst possible time. Either some grand buyer had just cleaned them out, or a Corps caravan had set off for the inner Empire earlier that very day.
He could feel the accusing stares of the others on him. The helm, which had been his companion for seven years, began to feel like a prison.
“Him.” Soul Je was striding past him, stalking towards the back of the barred space. One man: the Grasshopper’s eyes had spotted one man remaining. A tug of warning jerked through Mordrec: Why was he left? But they had come here with a purpose and it wasn’t as if they had any better options.
The man was a Commonwealer, a Dragonfly-kinden, a little stockier than they usually were, a good few years Mordrec’s senior with the faintest peppering of grey in his hair. He regarded the trio impassively.
Mordrec looked the man over: he looked capable. “Show me your hands,” he directed. Sourly, the Dragonfly jammed a palm towards him, mimicking the threat of a Wasp’s sting. It showed the calluses that Mordrec had been looking for, though. “Archer,” he noted. “You want out of here?”
The Dragonfly said nothing, but shrugged.
“Out of this city,” Ygor prompted in a low voice. “All the way home, if you want it. Willing to kill for it?”
“And what are you doing with my prisoner?”
There was a Wasp in the warehouse doorway, a tall, smooth-looking man with fair hair. He held himself with an utter certainty as he strode towards them, as though swords and stings meant nothing to him. Modrec’s heart lurched and a chill rash ofsweat broke over him. It was Lyker, the holder of Modrec’s gambling debts: Lyker of the Rekef. That was why the Dragonfly had been left behind. He was being saved for Rekef questioning.
For the moment, Lyker was ignoring the helmed slaver, staring instead at Igor and Soul Je. “He’s not for sale, Scorpion,” he snapped. “Now get back to your rabble of friends before I see what price your waxy hide might fetch. You,” he directed at Mordrec, “why’d you ever bring him in...” And then the dreadful moment came, Lyker’s eyes narrowing. “Name, soldier.”
There were dozens of Slave Corps soldiers just a shout away, and Lyker would shout. Mordrec’s former comrades would be all too happy to turn on one of their own. The slavers bred no great loyalty amongst their number, only cruelty and greed. Perhaps that’s why I’m in this mess, because I never really fit in, Mordrec considered. Or perhaps I’m just a rotten gambler.
“Mordrec...?” Lyker growled and Mordrec felt his palm flash with fire, without even consciously deciding on it. The flare of his Art lashed between them, taking the other Wasp directly in the chest. Lyker was without armour, and the distance was mere feet.
A silence followed, save for
the sound of the men in the barracks laughing and drinking.
Well there’s no going back now, Mordrec thought numbly. He reached for his keys and unlocked the Dragonfly’s cage, his hands performing their tasks by long habit, without the need for thought. None of them spoke as they exited the warehouse. The slaver stockade was as before, and nobody was paying them any attention. The dead Rekef man was a secret that the night still kept, for all that Mordrec felt the corpse behind him like a hot iron against his back.
There was a sudden blur of sound and motion beside them, and the Dragonfly was gone, his Art-conjured wings taking him straight up into the night. Mordrec started after him, and it was a good thing that helm hid his utter chagrin from his fellows.
They left the slaver compound as quickly as possible, and trailed their way back to the nameless auxillian drinking hole. Few words were exchanged until, at the door, Ygor gave a great sigh and said, “Well, three against nine. Maybe we’ll be very lucky. I have a trick or two.”
Mordrec opened his mouth to reply and there was a sudden scuff of feet behind them that had all three whirling. The Dragonfly stood there, arms folded.
“Out of the city, you said,” he reminded them. “Killing, you said. Fine. I’ll need a bow. The name’s Dal Arche.”
In the still of the night, Hokiak drank and waited. The stuff in his bowl bore the same relationship to wine as a rusty saw blade did to a rapier. Hokiak, whose cellar had all manner of delicate vintages, had gone back to the drink of his youth, a vitriol his people called sak, although proper sak was traditionally drunk from a helm or a skull. There was no great mystery in that: it showed the drinker had triumphed over the world for another day. Hokiak had once heard a Beetle scholar expound on how the Scorpion-kinden lived in harmony with the rhythms of the desert. Hokiak’s people had never lived in harmony with anything. They fought the land around them and they fought everyone else and they fought each other.
It was past midnight now, and past time, in Hokiak’s estimation. The Exchange was silent around him. There were lamps lit still, in the shop front, but little light spilled into the backroom. Scorpion-kinden eyes were adapatable, from sun’s glare to the dark of the moon, but these days Hokiak’s own were failing. He saw best at dusk, and dusk was long gone.
At last it began. He heard a rattling, just long enough to check the door was locked, and then an explosion of shattered wood. His people were not known for subtlety. They struck hard and fast and were gone.
He sat there, sipping his sak and scratching at the tabletop with one claw as the fighting started, letting the individual details of it wash over him: the clash of steel, smash of wood, crossbows’ clack and the hoarse yelling of the wounded. If things went unexpectedly badly then Ecta’s people would burst into his backroom in a moment and do for him. Otherwise...
In under a minute the skirmish was played out, the only voice remaining was the strained swearing of one of Hokiak’s Mynan employees. It had been hard to muster any number of guards, once Ecta had bearded him. The local resistance was in an uproar over their recent reversal, the Empire disdained to lend a hand. He had fallen back on the local gangs, freelancers, mercenaries, men unreliable and untested. Still, it seemed that his precautions had been enough.
Gryllis came in, dusting his hands off theatrically. “Well, old claw, I’ll keep the lads on watch, but I reckon that’s the lot.”
“What damage?” Hokiak asked him.
“Three came in. One of our lads got ripped up badly. One of theirs is dead. The other two made their exit when they saw we were ready for them.” The Spider-kinden’s face twisted. “Only thing is, the Scorpions that came in tonight weren’t any of them the fellows who were with your friend Ecta yesterday.”
Hokiak nodded safely. “These tonight will be his youngest, the least experienced. He’ll have set them a challenge to win his respect. Or perhaps it was even their own idea, to steal the glory of taking my head. So much for whatever their plans were, then. But Ecta won’t weep. All he’ll care is that I’ve been sent a message. No quiet nights until this is over.”
“Lovely,” said Gryllis drily. “You’re still going ahead with this tomorrow?”
The old Scorpion nodded. “Oh to be sure,” he said, with a trace of iron in his voice. “After all, any more of this and I’ll start taking it personally. We’ll pay the men a bonus, for tonight, and tell them to spread the word.”
Gryllis nodded. “And I’ll get a better door put in.”
The next day Mordrec, weighed at one side with a lumpy package wrapped in oilcloth, crept his way to the drinking den. The small hours had seen him turning up, unannounced and unfriendly, at a Consortium merchant’s door: The Beetle-kinden man had obviously heard that people wanted to speak to his former associate but Mordrec gave him no time to raise the alarm. Instead, keeping the palm of his hand almost in the panicking man’s face at all times, he retrieved what he had put by in the man’s care during better times. Thus fortified with a purse of money, a little pilfered jewellery and his heavy burden, he made a quick escape to the skies before the Consortium man could fetch help.
The Dragonfly Dal Arche had been hidden by the Auxillians who apparently approved of his rescue, although not so far as to change their dislike of Modrec or their absolute despite of Soul Je. It was quite an education, in fact, for Mordrec to discover just how much the conscripts got up to behind the backs of their Wasp masters. When he rejoined them, Dal and Soul both had a bow: man-high, recurved pieces of elegance that Mordrec remembered from the war.
Dal had strung his, and was running his hands down the sculpted lines, the lethality inherant in the tensioned wood. His face had a thoughtful expression to it. “To think, some master bowyer spent months to craft this for the hand of a prince, perhaps, and now it’s war loot. You can see where the gold inlay’s been pried out.”
“Your sort of bow, then?” Mordrec said cautiously, unsure where this man had been while the Empire pillaged his Commonweal.
“Me?” Dal Arche gave a hard smile. “Not a bit of it. Give me a brigand’s shortbow any time. This’ll have to do, though. Where’s your Scorpion got to?”
Mordrec shrugged. “He should be here.”
“He’s coming now,” Soul Je stated with a nod. “Brought a friend.”
Glancing past the shutters, Mordrec saw that someone resembling the Scorpion was indeed approaching, but swathed in an enormous cloak, considerably bulkier and inexplicably affecting a pronounced hunchback.
“Is he in disguise?” he murmured.
Soul Je had a slightly amused look. “He’s bringing everything he’s got to the table, gambler,” he replied softly.
Barad Ygor stumbled through the doorway and descended heavily onto a bench, which barely survived the experience. “Right,” he announced. “I’m ready.”
“Armour?” Mordrec asked him, baffled.
The Scorpion-kinden glanced left and right conspiratorially, before slinging his cloak back.
“Light’s fire!” Dal Arche spat, and Mordrec leapt back from him, almost tripping backwards. Ygor had come with a friend: it was coiled about him, eight legs clasping his chest and stomach, burnished pincers resting on his collarbones like hideously oversized jewellery, and about his waist the segmented tail, with its needle-tipped stinger nestling companionably over his navel. Mordrec had seen big scorpions before, of course. They were popular in the arenas, a good match for a handful of badly-armed slaves or one skilled fighter, but to have such a dangerous animal loose within a city was unthinkable. To have one just across the table made him sweat and, as for having one actually draped, all claws and tail over someone’s body...
“You’re mad,” he told Ygor flatly. “Even that brute Ecta would say you’re mad.”
“Let him,” Ygor replied. “Scutts and I understand each other.” He put a hand on one of the beast’s fierce pincers, which shifted slightly under his touch. “Back home, the speaking Art isn’t so rare as around here. You can’t even get to
be a proper Stalker unless you can take a wife.”
“A wife? You’re ill. What if it...”
“She,” Ygor corrected. “And consider her one of us, our fifth. Now what have you brought?” He shrugged the cloak on again and nodded to Mordrec’s parcel.
“Ah well.” Slightly shamefaced afer his outburst, Mordrec drew back the cloth to reveal an ugly, lumpy weapon as long as his arm, something like an armless crossbow but with a boxy mechanism over the trigger lever.
“Right,” Ygor said levelly. “And I’m mad, am I?”
“What is it?” Dal Arche asked blankly.
“It’s part of my winnings from an eighteen-hour game of toppers with an Engineering Corps captain, who must have had a lot of explaining to do the next day. We call them nailbows. They’re quite new.”
“And quite loud,” Ygor pointed out. “Do you even know how to use that thing?”
“As I understand, it’s mostly a matter of pointing it in the right direction and waiting for the noise to stop,” Mordrec said blithely.
“Well it’ll give Ecta a shock, as well as most of the city,” Ygor decided philosophically.
The marketplace Ecta had picked out was mostly abandoned some time before dusk. Those traders who had intended to remain were soon discouraged by a band of big, heavily-armed Scorpion-kinden, at first by means of a few words, and then with broken stalls and goods. The Empire, which might have been expected to take an interest in this lawlessness, was conspicuous in its absence. It was clear to Mordrec that the Scorpions had made a donation to Slave Corps coffers, and they in turn had leant on the auxillian militia, Soul Je’s kindred, to keep away. Soon enough, even before the sun was falling behind Myna’s city wall, the place was deserted save for Ecta’s people. At a signal from their leader the Scorpions broke up, each finding cover amongst the stalls, spreading out through the deserted lanes of the market. Mordrec saw, then, that Ygor had been right about his own people. This was no matter of honour. Ecta might be standing out in his full glory, leaning on his man-high sword like a noble barbarian prince, but the others had fanned out into a pincer ambush, fingering their axes and blades. They hid well, too, for big men. Soon only Ecta was left, but the jaws of the trap were trembling, waiting for one old man.
Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt Book 1) Page 27