Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

It was hard work, draining in a way more than merely physical, and in the end the only thing that got her to the top was the thought that she would be letting Amnon down if she gave up. At last she reached a window recess that was high enough for her purposes and hauled herself, gasping, onto the sill. There was a swift whicker of wings at that moment, and she froze as an unseen flier passed by, doubtless a Wasp on some scouting errand. A moment later she turned her eyes towards the river and the gate. It was a grand piece of machinery, as she already had cause to know, and absurdly old by all accounts. The Khanaphir had a vast, metal-shot gate buried in the river bed, that chains and drop-weights could haul up in order to block any attempt to leave the city by water. Perhaps the Empire did not know about it, or had not yet found the mechanism, because the gate was still sunk beneath the surface. One road at least was left for those wanting to leave Khanaphes.

She saw movement by the pillars, and beyond the gate something was on fire. Parts of the covered market known as the Marsh Alcaia had already been put to the torch, the city’s criminal element displaced by a more disciplined band of thugs entirely. There would be soldiers watching the river, too, and surely every boat at the nearby docks would have been seized or even sunk.

I hope you know what you’re doing, Amnon.

The fires burning at the Marsh Alcaia cast a leaping and unreliable light over the Estuarine Gate, but they also inevitably drew the eye. Somewhere in that warren of stalls and tents there was fighting going on. Although Praeda could make out a fair few Wasps, they were all looking away from her, waiting for the denizens of the Khanaphir underworld to counterattack. Here, at least, they had found a substitute enemy to take out their anger on, in the absence of the Empress’s presumed kidnappers.

And what can have happened? That the Empress would come here at all was frankly absurd, but for the most powerful woman in the northern world to have somehow vanished beggared belief. And yet the proof was all around them in the punishment the Wasps were now inflicting on Khanaphes.

Praeda dropped down and let him know what she had seen concisely, and Amnon squared his shoulders, plainly readying himself for some plan of action, more than likely a rash one.

‘Amnon,’ she murmured warningly, because the Wasps ahead of them were not so distracted that the two of them could just walk past. He was scanning the quays, though, and the various docked vessels. One ship was actually on fire, but the Wasps had evidently suffered a change of heart, maybe realizing that their vandalism could get swiftly out of hand. Even as she watched, the blazing two-masted Spider-kinden trader was cut loose from the docks, and airborne Wasps armed with long spears began trying to herd it further out into the river, where the current would take it swiftly away from the city.

‘We must act quickly,’ Amnon declared, and for a moment she thought he was proposing they get aboard the burning ship. With the city being stung so savagely all around them, the suggestion did not sound all that outrageous. Then Amnon had crept to the waterside, and was hanging his head over the edge of the docks, apparently inspecting the underside of the nearest quays.

‘Amnon, what-?’ she started, but then he grunted in satisfaction. ‘Can you swim at all?’

Childhood summers spent swimming in Lade Sideriti surfaced briefly in her mind. ‘Probably. I certainly used to be able to.’

‘That will make this easier. I cannot. See there?’

She followed his pointing finger, but it was a long while before she spotted them: a few small boats moored right underneath the arches supporting the jetties themselves. From her last visit here, she was familiar with their construction: narrow craft of wooden planks held together only with taut ropes, gathered at bow and stern into a raised carving that mimicked bundled reeds. Amnon was already creeping along the waterfront to try and snag one. It seemed that the Wasps must spot him at any moment.

With a curse she kicked off her sandals, hesitating a moment on the brink before letting herself down into the water. She had expected cold, but the sluggish river retained the day’s heat, and the flow was not so strong that she could not brace herself against the quay before kicking her way towards the nearest boat. It almost tipped over as she wriggled into it, scrabbling about inside it for an oar. In the end she gave up on actually paddling, but by pushing against the stonework she levered the craft to beneath where Amnon was waiting, and held it steady while he clambered down.

There followed the slowest and most agonizing minutes of her life, as Amnon took the slender boat out on to the river, just catching the swell created as the burning Spiderlands trader lurched past. There were Wasps darting overhead almost constantly, and if just one of them looked down, or if the eyes of their fellows on the shore had strayed from the blaze, then Praeda and Amnon would have been dead in short order. A ship on fire provided sufficient distraction, though, and Amnon was able to bring their tiny vessel into the hulk’s shadow, paddling until their two hulls scraped, and letting the river’s current then draw them sluggishly out past the Estuarine Gate, even as embers started drifting down about them.

That should have been the end of their difficulties, and Praeda never did understand why the Wasps had patrols flying out over the marshland, save perhaps that they were expecting some attack from the natives there. In any event, they were not quite out of sight of the city walls when the cry went up above them, and a moment later a sting sizzled into the water in a flash of gold.

Amnon was instantly paddling for the shore – on the water they offered too much of a target. Praeda scanned the skies but, with only a sliver of moon, she could not work out how the Wasps, as night-blind as she was, had ever spotted them. Stingshots came lancing down erratically, still off the mark but getting closer, and she could hear one high voice shouting instructions to the shooters, correcting their aim.

Abruptly their boat was grating on mud, and Amnon leapt out, pulling her with him. They had beached on a mudbank with only a few gangly, spider-rooted trees for cover, and he was leading her towards deep marsh, into a twisted maze of ferns, horsetails and gullies that could swallow an army.

Two more blazing shots pursued them, still nowhere near, then a sharp snap that whipped the water almost at Praeda’s heels. She recognized that distinctive sound instantly, and whoever wielded the snapbow clearly had a much better idea of where they were.

They splashed on through clear, shallow water for a moment, then there was plantlife all around, more mud underfoot, and a fog of gnats that seemed almost solid. Amnon began slowing down, and Praeda only hoped that he had some destination in mind, rather than just charging blindly into this maze of mud and vegetation. She could hear the enemy voice shouting directions again, and sensed the Wasps coursing overhead, still searching.

There was no real silence in the swamp, for the stridulations of hundreds of nocturnal denizens kept up a constant racket, but still she felt that the enemy had lost their trail, their wings lending them too much speed and sending them ahead of their quarry.

‘Where now?’ she hissed.

‘Come dawn, we shall work our way back to the river,’ he told her. ‘If we see a ship, we shall warn them of the Wasps, and with luck they shall carry us to the stone town.’

‘To Porta Rabi, yes,’ she agreed. ‘And what about until dawn?’

She did not find out what his reply might have been, because that same voice above suddenly cried out, ‘I see them! Get the lamp on them!’