Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

When the arrow struck, it was swift enough that Che had no sense of its passage, only the missile suddenly sprouting from the same archer’s jaw, the force of it knocking him back. She saw Thalric start aside at the last moment from a sword stroke, then step in to grapple the attacker, the two of them wrestling in near-pitch darkness but every movement clear to her. Another Dragonfly, a woman in partial armour, landed with a spear levelled, trying to get a clear strike at Thalric, but an arrow struck her breastplate, staggering her. Che craned back and saw newcomers, a little pack of vicious-looking men darting between the trees. Most had bows, though one was a Wasp, and, as she watched, his hands flashed with a fire that looked pure white through her Art-vision.

A boot came down on her chest with shocking suddenness, and she saw another of the Salmae’s people standing over her, eyes narrowed as he drew back a spear, plainly intending to run her through and then escape while he could. She reached for the spear shaft, missed it and cut her fingers on the blade. Then a thin lance of steel had struck its way into her attacker’s armour, punching through as though it were made of eggshell, and he fell back, the spear clattering aside. Che looked up at her rescuer, and a jolt of mixed emotions ran through her.

Tynisa.

With Che an increasingly stumbling weight in his arms, Thalric took in very little of their new companions. It was all he could do to keep up, pelting ahead into the dark, through the trees. Che’s wings flickered in and out as she tried to keep weight off her injured leg. He could feel her tense each time, gathering her waning strength, and after the second blur of wings he timed his bursts of speed to coincide with them, staying just on the heels of the fleeing Spider-kinden man ahead of him.

Abruptly he was alone, his escorts vanished like spectres. He skidded to a halt, Che crying out in pain, and someone tugged at his boot. He had a moment of fumbling Che’s weight, trying for a free hand, before he realized that there was a hollow here, excavated amongst the tree roots, where his guides had taken shelter.

He dropped obediently down, then was suddenly tumbling forwards as the hole turned out deeper than he had thought. His wings slowed him partially, then Che’s weight wrenched onwards, so he ended up on his knees, with the girl clinging to him.

For a moment all was dark, Che’s whimpering breath his whole world. Then he noticed a flicker of light, a familiar crackle that had him extending his palm into the dark, a single candle guttered into a wan glow. The Wasp who held it had just touched it to life with the slightest ember of his sting.

That Thalric recognized him instantly came as no surprise now. It seemed that the Commonweal formed a web of strange chances, of elaborately intertwined destinies. No wonder the superstitious bastards believe so many stupid things. But he could not hold to such a dismissive thought with a clear conscience any longer. He had witnessed too much of the wrong side of the world. Give me a month in a sane man’s town, with automotives on the streets and gaslight at night, and I’ll recognize all this as a bad dream.

‘Mordrec, isn’t it?’ he recalled wearily.

The other Wasp eyed him blankly for a moment, then cursed. ‘You. .. and the Beetle girl. Why not? Where are the others that were with you?’

‘Expected any moment,’ Thalric replied, although he felt a cold certainty that he would not see Varmen again.

‘We were just creeping out to take a look at the Salmae, see what the bitch had brought with her.’ Mordrec’s free hand was by his side, but Thalric sensed the threat implicit there. ‘And how come we found you setting fires and causing chaos?’

‘Because of her.’ Thalric nodded past the man’s shoulder. There was a whole cave nestling here, a rent in the earth left where the roots of some vast forest giant had withered and died. Towards the rear he could make out a huddle of figures lit by a further candle, a good ten feet away. Between the two lights, though barely touched by either, he could make out the figure of Tynisa.

When Mordrec noticed her there, and saw her expression, he stayed well clear of them, ducking off to one side, holding his candle out like a talisman.

Her blade was drawn, Thalric saw. He would almost have been disappointed otherwise.

‘What have you done to her?’ Tynisa hissed, the words he could have put in her mouth, given two guesses. He glanced pointedly at Che’s leg and saw, with a wince, that the arrow’s fletchings had snapped off at some point during their escape. ‘Yes, that’s right. Obviously I shot her myself. I’m that well known for my archery.’

Her narrow blade was lined up with his throat, the tip of it within his arm’s reach, but something about this woman had always brought out in him a need for bitter words, and he felt too tired to restrain himself.

‘I rescued her from the Salmae, who seized her for reasons I can’t guess at unless, as they’re hunting you, they wanted to use her as bait.’ He felt his Wasp temper slip its leash. ‘She says your father’s ghost sits on your shoulders like a cloak but, frankly, I don’t know. After my getting you out of Capitas after the war, bringing your sister halfway across the known world, and then snatching her from the Commonweal nobility, of fond memory, I don’t think even that bloody menace Tisamon would display quite such a level of ingratitude.’

He tensed as he said it, his wings and sting both at the ready, but the light of Mordrec’s candle caught an unexpected look on her face: stricken and lost.

‘He wants to kill you,’ she whispered, and it seemed that she lowered her sword only by great effort of will. ‘He doesn’t remember gratitude. He doesn’t remember his friends even, or barely, but he remembers his honour, and the Mantis way – and his enemies. Keep clear of me, Thalric. I don’t know if I can stop him. I couldn’t before.. .’

‘Before what?’ he asked, suspiciously.

‘You killed their prince.’

Both of them looked down at Che, now almost forgotten.

‘We killed him, both of us,’ Tynisa confirmed. ‘I don’t know where I end and Tisamon starts. You were right, Che, and your magician was right, too, and now… I missed my chance, and it’s too late.’

‘Not yet. Not quite.’

They started, all of them, and Mordrec swore fiercely as Maure dropped down into the cave with a flurry of wings.

I remember his face, Tynisa considered. In stories she had heard of berserking warriors from the Bad Old Days – after the fit left them they would recall nothing of what they had done. The climax of a dozen Mantis tragedies was when the hero discovers too late whose blood is on her blade. That would be a mercy, Tynisa decided. Let their fabled heroes weep and gnash their teeth. Remembering is worse than finding out second-hand. She recalled Alain’s expression as he had looked back and seen her there, the faintest shadow of guilt quickly brushed away, to be replaced by an all-too-ready smile. It was an invitation for her to forgive his dalliance, born from his confidence that he would talk her round, and that the world would continue dancing to his tune. He had mistaken her, though. He had thought that she was lovestruck, enamoured of him. He had never realized that she had loved him only for the image of his dead brother. Later, after the hunt, after Tisamon had lodged inside her like a poisoned arrow, she had not loved him at all. She had claimed him, made his approval the justification for her every bloody act, and he had used her, his mother had used her, and both of them had thought of her as a tame beast.

The Butterfly-kinden girl had read Tynisa better than Alain ever did. As soon as he was no longer pinning her down, she had fled in a flurry of golden wings, holding her ripped garments to her. By then Alain was dead.