Dragonfly Falling sota-2

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Scuto had found them a taverna going under the sign of the Sworded Book, which suggested that its owner, past or present, had been a duellist at the Prowess Forum. Certainly it was decked out in Collegium style, with a great clock perched over the bar in imitation of the Forum itself. Now Che sat at a window and watched the foreign-quarter marketplace, a bizarre halfbreed venue that seemed wrenchingly close to home and yet completely distant. Meanwhile, only three streets away, the Sarnesh proper continued to hold their normal silent communion with one another.

  ‘I’ve never really visited an Ant city before,’ she admitted. ‘It’s not at all what I expected.’

  Sperra, virtually sitting in her shadow, snorted. ‘This isn’t just any Ant city. Sarn’s different. I’ve been in Tark and Kes before and it wasn’t fun.’

  ‘But they have their foreign quarters too,’ Che recalled from her studies.

  ‘They do, only there’re guards watching every wretched thing you do, waiting for you to take a step out of line, and nobody talks any more than they have to, so’s to be like the locals. And if you’re Fly-kinden like me, you’re on double guard, because if something goes wrong and they don’t know who did it, they just hang the first person they don’t like, and they always assume it’s us. And, ah! The slaves. There are slaves everywhere, and what their masters overlook, the slaves’ll spot. And you just know they’ll tell their owners, because the Ants don’t have any use for slack slaves.’

  Che grimaced. However bad Ant-kinden masters might be, a severity surely bred of frugality and efficiency, she had herself become a slave to the Empire, and she was willing to wager that was worse. ‘Your kinden don’t keep slaves — do you?’ she enquired. The Fly-kinden fielded no armies, nor had any great repute as artificers, scholars or social reformers. They tended to slip off the edge of the College curriculum.

  ‘Oh they’d tell you that in Egel or Merro,’ Sperra said disdainfully. ‘But don’t you believe them. It’s all about the money — families owing other families. And if your family can’t settle what’s due, they’ll sell you. Indenture, it’s called, only basically it’s slavery.’

  ‘Was that what happened to you?’

  ‘Would have done,’ the Fly replied, ‘only I was smart enough to skip out. Everyone thinks it’s so homey to be one of my kinden: all family and sticking together and everyone mucking in, all rosy cheeks and cheeky banter. If it’s so wonderful, why do you think so many of us are living anywhere but home?’

  The two of them silently watched the ebb and flow of Sarnesh business for a little while, until Sperra added, ‘But here, I could like it here. No slaves here in Sarn, and out-landers seem to get a fair deal.’

  ‘If you’d come here three generations back, it would have been just like Tark and Kes,’ Che observed, and instantly saw that Sperra did not know what she meant. ‘It’s all down to a man called Jons Pathawl. A reformer.’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ Sperra said. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He came to Sarn from the College and started preaching about freedom and equality and all that.’

  The Fly stared at her. ‘You’re telling me that one man just talking did all this? And they didn’t lock him up or anything?’

  ‘Actually they did lock him up, and he was going to be hanged as a warning to other outspoken scholars. He had a band of followers, though, and they made a bid to free him. In the process they got in the way of Vekken assassins come to wipe out the whole Royal Court prior to one of their wars. So, as a mark of thanks, the Queen and her court agreed to listen to what Pathawl had to say. That was what changed everything. He must have been a very persuasive speaker. Still, look at Sarn now. There’s more money here than in any of the other city-states, and instead of a force of slaves who are a liability as soon as things get hot, you’ve got a resident population of experts and advisers who will fight to defend what they view now as their home. Plus, Sarn gets all the best of the Collegium scholars after Helleron’s had its pick.’

  Achaeos slipped into the taverna at that point, sitting down at their table with a quick glance towards the door.

  ‘I have made contact,’ he began.

  ‘With the — the Arcanum?’

  He nodded, his expression suggesting that it was a name best not spoken openly. ‘We can speak to them. I have a name now. A place to go.’

  ‘You want me to come?’

  ‘I have thought about it. To them I will be only an intermediary. A Moth bringing the word of Collegium will seem wrong, to them. It is best that you speak for Stenwold.’

  The ‘place to go’ turned out to be a tall-roofed house almost beside the wall of the city, just where the foreign quarter met the river. Sarn had no inferior districts as such, and Che understood the appeal to foreigners of doing business where the Ant militia was always tough on robbery and double-dealing. Even so, the place that Achaeos had found stood in the murkiest district that the city had to offer.

  There was no sign, no indication of the building’s use, but they went along at dusk when the street was nearly deserted, a pair of Ant soldiers on patrol just turning off at the far end.

  ‘Is there going to be trouble here?’ Che asked him cautiously.

  ‘It’s possible,’ he admitted. ‘I have not been told so outright, but I believe that the Sarnesh are inclined to turn a blinder eye here than they do elsewhere in the city. I suspect their rulers benefit somehow — perhaps their own spies can deal here for information, or goods not sold openly. This place is a gambling house, also a brothel, where the rougher kind of foreigner comes to deal and talk. I’d guess every so often the Sarnesh raid it, and no doubt the owners arrange in advance who gets caught and who is given warning to flee. A dangerous line to walk.’

  She nodded. ‘I hate to remind you, but we’re not exactly the rougher kind of foreigner.’

  He gave her a smile that was almost rakish. ‘Try me,’ he suggested.

  Inside the place was dark. There were two half-shuttered lanterns hanging low on the walls but, if she had not had the Art to see through the gloom, she would have tripped over every projecting foot and every chair. As it was, although Achaeos slipped between the tables deftly, she had to push her way through the narrow gaps. The occasional patron gave her a baleful look, but she realized that it was those who minded their own business and did not look up who were likely to be the more dangerous.

  The clientele were a ragged pack. She saw plenty of Fly-kinden, who always seemed to throng these kinds of places. There were a couple of Spiders, too, and several Mantis-kinden who looked perennially ready for a fight. There was even a Mantis warrior in attendance on a sly-eyed Spider lady, a partnership which stretched Che’s imagination, and two robed Moth-kinden, who watched them pass with blank white eyes while sharing a sweet-smelling pipe between them.

  There was no bar as such; instead a Beetle-kinden sat at a small table by the rear door and sent a young Fly girl back for beer when it was requested. Achaeos went up to him and exchanged a few words before palming a gold Central to him, whereupon the man nodded to one of the occupied tables.

  It was a gaming table, five-handed, with cards being snatched, turned and discarded almost faster than Che could follow. There was something nearly Ant-kinden about it, for none of the players spoke, each just following the course of the game by mutual consensus. There was no room to stand back a step, so she ended up right at the shoulder of one of the gamblers. He was holding his cards at such an acute angle that she wondered how even he could read them.

  One of the players was a Mantis, who also seemed to be the dealer. Her hard face, with its pointed chin and ears, should have been attractive, except it was frozen with the cold disdain of her race, which made her seem only hostile and bleak. As her hands made automatic motions with the cards she glanced up at Achaeos and nodded briefly.

  ‘Last hand, last hand,’ she said, ‘then break for drinks and begin again.’

  They ante’d up, and Che noticed the stock lying in the mid
dle of the table was partly coins and partly rings, brooches and other small items of jewellery that had probably recently changed ownership. There was a flurry of cards, back and forth with increasing urgency, and the hand fell to a copper-skinned little man seated to the Mantis’s left, someone resembling a Fly-kinden but not quite. When he had scooped up his winnings, three of the gamblers rose and took their leave, with curious glances at Che, leaving only the Mantis and the diminutive man with the winning streak.

  ‘Sit,’ the woman instructed. ‘Master Moth, you’ve been spotted, and you’ve been asking some questions. I’ll have your name.’

  ‘Achaeos, Seer of Tharn,’ he replied easily, taking the seat across from her.

  ‘Who’s your doxie,’ the small man asked. ‘Are you selling or renting her?’

  ‘My patroness,’ Achaeos said pointedly, ‘is Cheerwell Maker of the Great College.’

  The little man snorted, but the Mantis nodded thoughtfully. ‘An interesting pairing, Master Achaeos. My own name is Scelae. This creature is Gaff. You understand that those whom we serve have greater emissaries than we. We are merely convenient to greet new arrivals.’

  Achaeos nodded, as Gaff produced a pipe from within his leather jerkin and lit it — Che blinked in surprise — by a flicker of flame issuing from his thumb. Some Ancestor Art of his kinden, she realized, whichever kinden that was.

  ‘She’s your patroness, let her talk,’ said Scelae, leaning back in her chair.

  Che looked to Achaeos for support but he remained without expression, waiting for her to speak. She swallowed uncomfortably. ‘You. You and your masters have heard of the Wasp-kinden, of course,’ she began.

  Eyes hooded, Scelae nodded. The little man stopped puffing on his pipe for a moment and then started again.

  ‘Your business is information, I’m sure,’ Che continued, hearing her voice tremble with nerves, ‘so you’ve heard the news from Tark.’

  ‘And from further,’ Gaff agreed. He glanced from Scelae to Che. ‘If Tark’s your high card, lady, then I’ll raise you.’

  ‘Quiet,’ Scelae told him. ‘Assume we are aware of the Wasp-kinden, their armies and their Empire, and assume, as you say, that information is our business. What would you say to our masters?’

  Che screwed up her courage, trying to present the words as Stenwold would have done. ‘That old divisions must be put aside,’ she said. ‘We need your help, and you need ours.’

  ‘Who is “we”?’

  She was about to say her uncle’s name, which would surely mean less than nothing, and then Collegium, but what should that matter to the Moths of Dorax living so many miles away?

  ‘The Lowlands,’ Che said at last.

  Scelae looked at Gaff, and the little man shrugged.

  ‘Nobody tells me anything,’ he said, ‘but I hear on the wind that the big men in Tharn have done a whole lot of considering of their position recently. But then I hear all sorts, and most of it’s rubbish,’ he added conversationally to Achaeos.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ Scelae asked Che.

  ‘I-’ Che stopped, torn. The Mantis smiled sharply.

  ‘You are asking us to trust you. In return, you will have to trust us. We reserve the right, Cheerwell Maker, to take what action we will. If that means that we are told to aid you, then you will receive our aid. If instead that means that a Beetle-child who should not even be aware of our name disappears from Sarn then that also shall happen, and in which case do you really think we could not find you?’

  ‘I’m at the sign of the Sworded Book,’ Che said. ‘But I tell you that not because of threats, but because you’re right: somebody has to make the first move, with trust. I trust Achaeos to have brought me to the. ’ Just in time she swallowed the name ‘Arcanum’, ‘to the right people. And I trust the right people to consider seriously that the Lowlands is no longer in the same position as this time last year. And whether you’re in a College by the coast or in a city up a mountain, that’s just as true.’

  The other gamblers were returning now, and Gaff began shuffling the cards.

  ‘We will speak with our masters,’ Scelae told her. ‘No more than that.’

  Thirteen

  She was very nearly too quick for it, Tynisa turning as she heard the faint scuffle, but the arrow sliced across her shoulder nonetheless, making her yell with pain and shock. By the same token she was very nearly too slow. So thin was the difference between a clean escape and a fatal strike.

  The archer was up on a rooftop and Tynisa was already moving towards the building’s shadow to put her out of sight. There were men bursting out on them, though, eight or so of a varied and well-armed crew. The leader, a rangy halfbreed, had an axe already raised behind his head and hurled it even as Tynisa spotted him, the weapon spinning end over end towards Tisamon. The Mantis did not sway aside from it but caught it in his left hand, the force of its impact spinning him on his heel. Then the axe had left his hand, flying at an angle to embed itself in the chest of the archer.

  Tynisa’s rapier was now in her hand and she fell into line behind it. The ancient weapon, Mantis-crafted from before the revolution, took her straight at a barrel-chested Beetle-kinden in chainmail. He swung his great mace at her, flicking it through the air faster than she expected and then dragging it across her approach on the backswing, forcing her to keep her distance. He had a buckler shield in his off-hand and, when she drove towards him, he tried to take her point with it. She turned her wrist and snaked the rapier past the shield’s edge, gashing his arm and then dropping back as the mace swept over once more.

  There were two other men shifting to either side of the mace-wielder. One was a Spider-kinden spearman, his face painted with darts of white, and the other was the tall halfbreed axe-thrower who held a second axe now, a two-handed piece. She gave ground before them, watching their approach. She decided they were all skilled, but not used to working with each other. She could exploit that.

  Tisamon passed behind them, keeping ever on the move whilst a full half-dozen men tried to pin him down. He closed for a second, his claw cutting and dancing, making them scatter, and one of them went down, blood spurting from over his steel gorget.

  Abruptly Tynisa went sideways, slipping under the thrust of the spear to lay open a line of blood across the Spider’s ribs. The axeman tried for her but held his stroke as the mace-wielder stepped in its path. Grimacing with pain, the spearman was lunging for her, anticipating she would continue her move further out.

  She stayed close to him, still within the reach of his weapon, coming up almost within his extended arms to put an elbow across his nose. He reeled back and, while the mace-wielder tried to avoid hitting him, she drove her sword past the man’s shield.

  He twisted aside and the point struck his chainmail, but it clove through the metal rings with only a little more force and went deep into him, so that the mace fell from his hand. He tried to clutch the blade but it sheared across his fingers. Then she was darting away, the greataxe sweeping past where she had just been. She rounded on the two of them, seeing the spear coming in towards her. Instead of staying back she moved in and caught the spearhead with the guard of her rapier, driving it towards the ground, using her sword-hand as a pivot for her whole body, dancing over the spearhead and bringing a knee down on the shaft. It was too good a piece to snap, but it bent and then sprang back, and she leapt past the spearman’s startled, painted face and, when she had passed, her sword followed and slashed his throat.

  Tisamon was still fighting, one against four now, so she turned to the axeman, who was staring at her and backing away. She fell into her duelling stance, began advancing step by step. To her surprise and gratification he turned and ran away.

  She looked round for Tisamon, saw him trading blows still with three men. They were obviously the pick of the lot. There was another Spider whose rapier moved like light and shadow, the second a rogue Ant-kinden complete with shortsword and tall shield, and the final man was some kind
en she did not recognize, white-haired and whirling some kind of bladed chain about his head.

  As she moved to join Tisamon something cut across her back, just a brief slash of the blade. She whirled, ducking into a crouch, silently cursing herself that she had not heard the newcomer.

  He stood there sneering, a rapier in his hand, a tall, angular figure that she recognized.

  Piraeus the Mantis-kinden, and he had a lean and hungry smile on him.

  ‘Enough play, Spider-girl,’ he said. ‘Let’s try it for blood now. Then we’ll see who’s best.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to ring a bell?’ Stenwold said softly, holding them at his sword’s point, trying to keep his eyes on both the men who were trying to reach for him.

  ‘A bell?’ Thalric asked, wrong-footed for a moment.

  ‘Oh you know, sudden betrayal, with Tisamon about to kick the doors down to save my sorry hide. It just reminded me of poor Elias in Helleron. Never mind. If you want my sword you’ll have to take it, and I’ll make that point-first if I can.’

  Thalric glanced at Scadran, who began to move forward on Stenwold, his two companions going left and right so that the Beetle was now in a circle of five. He kept turning and turning, sword first this way and then that, waiting for the moment when everything turned to chaos.

  ‘Master Maker,’ Thalric said, ‘I would rather take you alive, but that’s just personal sentiment.’ Arianna had joined him there, alongside Lieutenant Graf, and he saw the way Stenwold’s eyes followed her for a moment. ‘You’ve been in the trade too long,’ he said harshly, ‘to lament over that. Sentiment is folly, Master Maker.’

  ‘Perhaps I just have higher expectations of people,’ Stenwold spat. He lunged at Scadran abruptly, making the big man stumble away, then he dropped back into the centre of the circle.