Blood of the Mantis (12 page)

‘That’s easy enough. Any idea who they’ve sent?’

‘Every idea, Captain.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘A Beetle-kinden named Cheerwell Maker, and a Fly named Nero. She is like most of her kind, too short and too fat. He is bald and really quite ugly. General Reiner would like this situation taken care of personally.’

‘I’ll send him their heads packed in salt if he wants,’ Havel offered. Already he was beginning to relax. What had seemed like an unwelcome intrusion on his authority was now a chance to reassure his superiors that everything was going according to plan. Two dead Lowlanders and his position would be secure again. With that settled in his mind he relaxed more comfortably opposite her, his smile becoming more genuine. ‘Are you staying long in the city, Lieutenant . . . ?’ He glanced at the papers but she forestalled him.

‘Odyssa,’ she said. ‘And only overnight. Then I must return for further orders. However, if you have a place for me to stay in a safe house . . . or perhaps even just a bed?’

Although well used to dealing with Spiders, Havel felt his heart skip as she gazed at him, and he called out for a slave to bring them more wine.

Wasp-kinden!
Odyssa laughed inwardly. Their Empire was the greatest power in the world, and yet they were such children. A little touch of her Art on this one and she could have him strip naked and let her ride him all around the outskirts of Solarno.

Teornis of the Aldanrael would be delighted when he received her report.

There was a strange hush amongst his fellow Moth-kinden as Achaeos returned through the lightless halls to his fellows. His thoughts were so soured by the Skryre’s words that he barely noticed, barely even registered, that here, in his birthplace, something was very badly wrong.

He had expected to find his comrades crouched shivering against the walls, but they were on their feet and ready waiting for him, practically dragging him into the room.

‘Where have you been?’ Allanbridge demanded.

‘Never mind that. We should leave now. There’s nothing for us here,’ Achaeos said heavily.

‘Blasted right we should leave!’ the Beetle said. ‘They’re coming!’

Achaeos stared at him. ‘They?’

‘Some of your people flew in just now,’ said Thalric. He was sitting in one corner of the room, the only one not standing, and as far away from both Tisamon and Gaved as space would allow. ‘The Empire is coming, Moth. As of a few hours’ time, this will be imperial territory.’

A hammer struck somewhere in Achaeos. He had known, surely he had known, and yet it was a different thing to be told of it as a certainty.
I have to help them fight
was the only thought that came to him. His hands already itched to string his bow.

He glanced at Tisamon, because he found that of all of them it was the Mantis whom he trusted most. Tisamon nodded once. His clawed gauntlet was on his hand, and he was spoiling for battle.

‘Your people are just . . . standing about,’ Tynisa added. ‘They’re not even armed. They’re just standing there, crowds of them, just waiting.’

They have a plan.
The Skryre had said as much. He only hoped it was a good one. ‘I don’t think they’re going to fight,’ he announced.

‘Well, your people are supposed to be wise,’ Thalric said. ‘I once saw an air-armada during the Twelve-Year War. They pitched up against a castle on a hill and pounded it with leadshotters until it had become a castle in the next valley. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of fragile carving on this mountain of yours.’

‘I don’t mean to sound tactless, but can we bloody go?’ Allanbridge demanded. ‘Look, they’ll have glasses scouring every inch of your fancy stonework out there. What do you think they’ll do, if they see an airship leaving this place?’

‘You’re right,’ Achaeos decided. Allanbridge’s
Buoyant Maiden
was tethered closely, only a precipitous scramble. ‘Come on.’ Achaeos skipped out into early-morning air that was just lightening.

Allanbridge clambered next out through the wall-opening, clinging to the sheer mountainside by Art alone, and Tynisa followed behind him, then came Gaved who flew straight to the gondola and began preparing to cast off. Tisamon stayed back, having seen the pensive look on Thalric’s face.

‘You’ll get on that flying machine or I will kill you,’ the Mantis warned.

‘You think I’d jump ship now?’ Thalric snorted. ‘There’s nothing for me here. They’d hold me until they worked out who I was, then I’d be just as dead as the rest of you.’ Still, there was clearly a tinge of regret in him as he climbed through the window and made his way along the narrow ledge, wings flicking occasionally to retain his balance. Tisamon watched him, wondering whether he was really too injured to risk taking flight, or whether this was just an act.

As soon as the Mantis had finally joined them, running lightly along the ledge and jumping for the gondola, Gaved cast them off. Allanbridge instantly released the clockwork driving the engine and the propellers flew into life amid a delicate whir of gears. He then put the tiller into the wind and adjusted the vanes, and the
Buoyant Maiden
slowly began to tack away from Tharn.

‘Look,’ pointed Tynisa, who was at the rail, leaning out. Beneath a cloudy sky there could be seen distant flecks of darker matter. The Wasp air-armada was on its way.

‘Airships,’ Allanbridge observed. ‘Big ones too, a half-dozen at least. Can’t see any small stuff from here without my ’scope.’

‘I can,’ Tynisa told him. ‘I can’t count them up, but I think three dozen fliers.’

‘Not to mention probably about two thousand of the light airborne,’ Thalric added. He had not even come over to look. ‘They’ll have them clinging to the dirigibles, everywhere they can, all wrapped in their woollies. I would, too, if I were in charge.’

‘Do you know who will be leading them?’ Achaeos asked him, ‘and what . . . what will they do to my people?’

Looking back, they could see crowds of Moths lining the balconies and entrances of Tharn, hundreds of robed figures standing, blinking in the unaccustomed daylight. There were others amongst them: Fly-kinden and Mantis warriors. Way below, even the farmers had not gone to bed with the moon but now stood silently in their tiered fields, waiting, waiting.

‘That’s no proper army,’ Thalric said, almost contemptuously. ‘An expeditionary force – that’s all your city merits. They’ll have picked some officer to appoint governor of this place, if your people roll over. Nobody important, though. It’s not as though this backwater has anything anyone would want.’

Achaeos rounded on him, fists clenched. Thalric raised an eyebrow.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘Remember, you brought me along as your imperial advisor. Don’t ask questions if you don’t want the answers.’

‘I hate to break up a pair of friends,’ Allanbridge told them, having come back abovedecks, ‘but we’ve got a problem.’ He had a telescope out now, and had been raking it across the distant airfleet. ‘They’ve spotted us sure enough.’ Seeing Achaeos’ expression he continued, ‘You forget we’ve got a real big balloon above us, and the dawn catches it just lovely. I count a couple of fixed-wings now coming to pay us a visit.’

‘Then make this machine go faster,’ Achaeos demanded.

‘It doesn’t work like that, boy. They’re just plain faster than we’ll ever be.’

‘But what will they do?’ Achaeos remembered flying machines duelling during the Battle of the Rails. ‘How can we fight them?’

‘Ah, well, that’s the real problem,’ Allanbridge replied. He opened up a locker and brought out a big repeating crossbow with a latched hook that he now rested on the gondola’s rail.

To Achaeos it seemed impossible that they should ever be caught. The airship was sculling along with a brisk wind, passing perilously close to the mountainside yet always being gusted past it. He himself would be hard-pressed to fly this fast for very long. So how fast could the Wasp machines be?

It was an agony of waiting, but soon he could see the fliers as twin dots against the sky, keeping close together, imperceptibly growing in size as they neared. But still the
Buoyant Maiden
clipped ahead, making more and more distance from Tharn, and yet not widening the gap at all.

Tisamon had gone down into the hold and now he reappeared with a bow, a proper Mantis longbow as tall as he was, and strong enough that he was forced to lean heavily into it to bring it to the string. On seeing this, Achaeos strung his own bow, which seemed pitiful in comparison. Nearby Tynisa stood with her hand on her rapier, looking angrily impotent.

She spoke to Achaeos but her eyes were on the growing specks. ‘What happened with your people?’ He sensed she merely wanted to blunt the edge of her frustration.

‘Precious little. They will not help us. They would prefer to cast me out. They are . . . they’re scared.’

‘Of the Wasps, you mean?’

‘Of the box.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I’d have thought that would be their very thing.’

‘I thought they would help – that they would appreciate what I’m trying to do. But no, they . . . they, who are wiser than I am, are afraid of it. They paint it as something that twists anything it touches. And . . .’ He stopped, suddenly uncomfortable.

‘And?’ she prompted.

‘And they may be right. I think it has begun to work on me already.’

Something zipped overhead, and they ducked simultaneously. Looking over the stern rail, Achaeos discovered the two flying machines were now close enough for him to see two men riding in each, one that must be directing it, while the other, sitting above and behind, was aiming some kind of big crossbow. The nearest of the two had begun loosing a few ranging shots.

Tisamon joined the pair of them at the stern, pulling his bowstring back level with his ear and waiting, his arm unflinching.

A crossbow bolt ploughed into the balloon above them, and then two more as the enemy repeater found its range. Tisamon loosed, sending an arrow flashing through the open air, but the shaft shattered against the hull of the enemy machine, and he cursed and reached for another.

‘Will the canopy hold?’ Gaved shouted.

‘I told you, it’s Spider silk and those bolts are just hanging in it. That’s not what I’m worried about,’ replied Allanbridge. He had repositioned his own repeating crossbow on the back rail, but then Gaved suggested, ‘You stay with the engine. I’ll do the shooting.’

‘Against your own folk?’

‘They won’t make any allowances for me if they catch us.’

The two fliers were diverging now to pass by the airship on either side. Tynisa saw that they had two sets of fixed wings and a rear-facing engine, not so different from a craft she had ridden in once, when escaping another airship. She ducked as a crossbow bolt clipped the rail beside her, and just then Tisamon let fly his second arrow. The distance was considerable, but the Wasps had pulled in close to be within crossbow range, and Tisamon’s great bow proved equal to it. The shaft flew true and the man handling the crossbow reeled back with its thin spine jutting from his shoulder.

Achaeos now loosed too, watching his shaft fall short and vanish into the air. On the other side, the second craft was drawing closer, the crossbowman tilting his weapon upwards, still engaged in pumping shots into the balloon, whilst the pilot stretched out a palm towards them. In the next moment the Wasp’s sting flashed at them, but it was nothing more than light by the time it reached them. They saw the flier pull in closer still.

The machine to port was falling further away but overtaking them, with the crossbowman trying to pull the arrow from his body. On the other side the flier was getting recklessly close, and when the sting lashed out again it charred the railing. Then Gaved was shooting back, exchanging shots with the crossbowman on the fixed wing. A bolt ploughed into the imperial flier’s hull up to the fletching, and the flier reeled with the impact, a fine spray of liquid misting from the hole. Then Gaved himself fell back with a cry as a bolt split the rail and peppered him with splinters.

Tisamon and Achaeos were both loosing arrows now but the Wasp pilot swung the flier in and out erratically, letting the curve and plate of the hull take their arrows.

Thalric stepped forwards, his jaw set, and threw an open hand out towards it. summoning the Art of his people.

With this step, I sever one more tie
. His own sting lashed out, not at the men but at the machine itself, where the crossbow bolt had pierced the fuel tank. Instantly the flier was trailing fire. He had time enough to see the horror on the face of the pilot, his own kinsman, before the man pulled the fixed-wing into a dive, trying to get to land before the whole fuel tank caught. Thalric followed them with his eyes as far as he could, but the flier was soon out of sight beneath the airship.

Then the second machine was coming back, the cross-bowman trying to manage his weapon one-handed and shooting erratically. Tisamon ran to the prow and nocked another arrow.

The flying machine was speeding straight for them. Tisamon held his breath, string pulled back all the way, and then let fly.

The arrow almost clipped the lip of the pilot’s seat before piercing the man’s armour and burying itself in his chest. The flying machine suddenly went arcing upwards, performing an absurdly graceful loop before plummeting earthwards. The wounded crossbowman kicked out, letting his own wings carry him down. Soon they were both out of sight.

‘Will they send more?’ Tynisa asked Allanbridge. ‘If they’re so much faster than we are?’

‘Faster indeed,’ he said. ‘But they’ve got just the smallest tendency, those fancy fliers, to run out of fuel. My girl’s got a good westerly blowing her the right way, you see, and even if her engine winds down, well, we won’t drop from the sky. No, they’ve had their chance. They’ll not catch us now.’

I am so very far from home
, was his thought now, so many days after their escape from the flying machines, as Achaeos felt the encroaching of the night that, for most of his life, had been a time for waking and doing, rather than trying to sleep.
I am so very far from her.