Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

‘You killed my wife,’ repeated the Scorpion, his hands clenching the spear shaft.

‘Ygor, not now-’ Dal started, interposing himself between the pair.

‘Out of my way, Dala.’ The Scorpion hunched his shoulders, as if readying himself to rush at Tynisa.

‘No, not now,’ Dal insisted. ‘Look, she’s not running from us, and she’ll be happy to hack it out with you any other time. Right now we need to get out. Later, Ygor, later. She’s up for it, that I guarantee, but not now.’

For a moment it looked as though no amount of calming words would do, but then something went out of the belligerent Scorpion-kinden, with a long hiss of breath. ‘Then let’s move,’ he snarled.

‘There’s some way of getting out front?’ Dal asked.

Tynisa glanced at the doors to the courtyard, barred on the outside of course. She herself had come here via the narrow stairwell leading from the guards’ quarters. In truth her planning ended here: free the prisoners, undo the results of her meddling, then leave. She had not thought it through. Indeed thought barely came into it.

Something in her said fight. Rouse the guards, slay the Salmae, avenge the insult. But surely she had done enough avenging already, enough for a lifetime and a half.

‘I will go out and open the doors. Just stay here, and be quiet.’

‘Oh, no,’ Dal told her straight away. ‘You think this makes us your followers, to stay or go at your say-so? And what if this is just some game of yours, or of the nobles? You slip out of here and suddenly they come down on us, catch us trying to escape, have a little sport?’

The Scorpion, Ygor, rumbled deep in his chest, and she sensed the brigands weighing up the odds, a pack of them against her, their stolen blades crossing with a single rapier. She felt her smile grow, and was helpless to stop it. Why not? Free them, kill them – what’s the difference? Be but true to your own nature, wherever it takes you, and then you need bear no guilt nor blame. She suppressed the insidious feeling, but something of it had communicated itself to the brigands, and none of them made a first move.

‘Soul, you go with her,’ Dal directed. ‘Besides, the bar on these doors is huge, a two-man job at least.’

Tynisa looked the Grasshopper up and down. He was a tall, lean specimen with his kind’s usual lanky frame, but there was a stillness to him that marked him out as dangerous. He nodded to her and, when she ascended the stairs, he fell into step so naturally that it was as if they had worked together for years. He was silent too, padding past the sleeping guards with barely a scuff of his bare feet. The one sentry still awake saw Tynisa coming, recognizing her and not challenging her, just as he had let her pass through on the way down, no doubt imagining her to be on some errand of the princess’s. This time Tynisa made herself nod, forcing a smile, while Soul Je crept past unobserved, as though the pair of them had spent an hour planning the move.

The castle beyond was quiet, at a time when only a few of the most menial servants would be abroad and about their tasks. Tynisa led the way, passage to passage, heading for the open air: not using the main gates, which were closed, with guards close at hand within, but a window on the first floor, the shutters drawn back and just large enough for her to squeeze through. In truth she was not sure if he would be able to follow her, but with a twist of his shoulders he was out, too. While she let herself down the wall hand over hand with her Art, he simply dropped straight down, crouching for a moment all knees and elbows, before straightening up and making his swift way across the courtyard to the hatch leading to the prison.

They heard the fighting from the other side of the trapdoor even as they approached. Clearly, at least one of the Salmae’s guards had decided to see what Tynisa had been up to, or had simply wandered down to check on the prisoners. Sharing a glance, Tynisa and Soul Je took hold of the bar and hefted it out of its rests, letting the heavy wood thud to the ground. The doors burst open almost at once.

Tynisa saw the Spider-kinden, Avaris, fall back with a mailed Dragonfly poised above him, his punch-sword drawn back to strike. She did not stop to think, and any distant guilt she might have entertained about causing the deaths of innocent servants simply doing their jobs vanished on the instant. Her blade took the man between shoulder and neck, where his armour was weak, and she killed him in that one surgical strike. Avaris scrambled out from under the corpse, and wasted no time running for the main gates to the courtyard.

The brigands came piling out into the open air without plan or rearguard, spilling the Salmae’s guardsmen in their wake. Tynisa counted a mere half a dozen of the latter here, with a couple lying dead around the empty pit, and at least one of Dal Arche’s people fallen too. There would be more, though, for the alarm would have been raised, and Elass’s forces here were bolstered by the retinues of her early-arriving guests.

Her sword lashed out again, and they fell back before her, even as the brigands rushed for the main gates. She was left alone to face the guards, but they stayed back and would not engage her, and their faces showed only fear. In that moment she finally saw what Salme Elass had made of her: not a champion, not a huntress, most certainly not a fit match for her son. Instead, a tame monster was what Tynisa had been cast as, to terrify the Salmae’s enemies and keep their allies in line; just a pet killer to be let off the leash for special occasions.

Well, I am off the leash now, and she retreated back towards the gates, even as another flight of Dragonfly-kinden dropped down, armed retainers of the Salmae and her visitors.

‘Get the gate open!’ she shouted, and risked a brief glance over her shoulder to see that the brigands had the bar off, but were being attacked even now. Airborne guards began swooping on them, and she saw Soul Je’s little bow sing, spitting shafts through the night air with a calm, sure aim, backed by the fierce flash of Mordrec’s Wasp-kinden sting.

She went after them then, turning her back on her opponents and trusting to her reputation and her reflexes to keep them at bay for just long enough. Half the brigands were already through the gates now, and running, and she saw Dal Arche trying to muster the rest to get them moving. She arrived in a flurry of steel, picking one of the attackers from the air even as he swooped down. ‘Go!’ she heard herself yelling. Dal’s expression made it plain that was exactly what he was attempting, but then his eyes fell on something behind her, and she read his face and turned.

There was a pale figure emerging from the hatch leading to the prison: a white-haired Mantis-kinden that she knew well.

The guards dropped towards them again in renewed numbers, and for a moment it was all they could do to defend themselves. Most of the brigands kept going, getting clear of the castle, putting more and more of a burden on those few that remained. The first few guards flying over the courtyard wall, in pursuit of the escapees, met with Soul Je’s bow as he kept watch and picked them off.

‘Go!’ Tynisa shouted, and then realized that they had, that even Dal Arche was now backing away as Isendter Whitehand approached, and that there was only one left there beside her to hold off the guards. It was Ygor the Scorpion-kinden, the short spear bloody in his clawed hands. Behind them there was a flurry of wings, an arrow singing through the air, as Soul Je waited on to keep the fliers at bay.

A reverent hush fell over the guards of Leose, and they started backing off, giving room for Isendter himself. Imperial soldiers would have brought Tynisa and Ygor down by now, with these superior numbers, and sent Light Airborne out to kill the fleeing brigands, but they did things differently here in the Commonweal, and as the Salmae’s champion took the field, he was given time and space to act.