Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

There was only one Spider-kinden ship in Collegium’s harbour now, but it was Teornis’s personal vessel, the craft on which he had weathered out the sea battle, rather than on the great flagship that had been so prominent. Spiders always preferred guile and speed to strength. The sailors, too, were Spider-kinden mostly. Stenwold had never thought of them as a maritime breed but, then, the waters around Collegium were new to bloodshed. Eastwards were to be found the longships of Felyal and the Kessen navy, giving the Spiderlands plenty of reason to man their fighting ships and protect their trade routes. Stenwold watched as the great grey sails of spun silk were hoisted slowly, billowing in the wind, strong as iron and yet light as air.

It had been easy enough, in the end, to choose who he would send off to Teornis’ newly threatened land.

‘I’m grateful to you for doing this,’ he said. ‘I know you’re no agent, to be sent hither and thither as I choose.’

‘You know, I’m really rather looking forward to this,’ Nero told him. ‘I have been in every Lowlands city east of Collegium, and three or four in the Empire, too, but there’s always somewhere new. Solarno is somewhere I always meant to pay a visit.’ He grinned broadly. ‘The world just goes on and on, doesn’t it?’

‘Just be careful,’ Stenwold warned him.

It was true, though, that Nero was the best-travelled of any of them, and he had done his time in the Spiderlands too, been flavour of the month in Siennis one season, his daubs hung on everyone’s walls. Stenwold glanced back in time to see Che hugging Achaeos tight. She, too, was attired for travelling: an artificer’s leather coat and hard-wearing canvas breeches, and a big pack slung over her shoulder. She had insisted that she could not sit at home while Achaeos was off working for Collegium. Looking at her now, Stenwold still saw her as so very vulnerable, in a way that Salma and Tynisa were not. Was that just his wish to protect his own kin, or something truly powerless within her? Still , he forced himself to think. Look at what she has come through. Look at what she has accomplished. To deny her this chance and send some other simply because they were not blood-kin would be hypocrisy on his part.

‘You look after her well,’ he told Nero sternly.

‘Sten, you couldn’t have chosen a better unless you called up another Fly-kinden,’ Nero assured him, knowing that Sperra – Stenwold’s other Fly agent – had adamantly refused to go anywhere near the Spiderlands. ‘Look at it this way,’ the Fly continued. ‘Me and a Beetle-kinden, it’s perfect – you could go anywhere, two people like that. You could go into the Empire, even. I’d worry instead about the Moth-boy and his crew. They’ll stand out just about anywhere they go.’

‘True enough.’ Stenwold sighed. ‘You know your route? You’re sure enough of it?’

Nero nodded. ‘Ship to Seldis, overland south on the trade route to Siennis, Mavralis, and then by ship across the Sea of Exiles apparently, to Solarno. Fires your blood, doesn’t it, hearing all those names?’

‘Travel in the Spiderlands…’

‘Isn’t new to me, remember? And we’ll have letters of introduction from your man the Lord-Martial there.’

‘Nero, he’s not my man,’ Stenwold corrected. ‘He’s nobody’s but his family’s and his own. Don’t relax, and don’t rely on him either. Cut loose from him as soon as possible and make your own decisions.’

‘Right,’ Nero confirmed, and grinned again. ‘I love the Spider-kinden. Never a dull moment.’

One of the sailors called them, just then. They were ready to cast off, and the wind and tide were with them.

‘Che,’ Stenwold called out.

‘I know. Be careful. Look after Nero.’

‘That isn’t quite -’

She came over and hugged him briefly. ‘We’ll be all right, Uncle Sten.’

‘Just do whatever you can,’ he said, ‘but don’t take risks.’

His wings a blur, Nero was already touching down on deck. Che reached out to Achaeos, brushing fingers, and then she dashed after the Fly, thumping up the gangplank to turn briefly at the rail and wave down at them.

For Achaeos the route was harder still: across the whole of the Lowlands, all the way to the borders of the Empire, and then further still. No ship, no rail could take him there, nor even a road untramped by imperial boots. This was where Jons Allanbridge entered the story.

Jons Allanbridge was an adventurer, a fortune-hunter but, despite this, a good son of Collegium. He had fought in the air when the Vekken attacked, piloting his airship over their fleet to drop boxfuls of grenades – until the wind swept him too low and a catapult put a man’s weight of metal scrap through the balloon.

Now, in return for a purse of gold and repairs to his craft, he would provide transportation for Achaeos and his companions. His airship, the Buoyant Maiden , would feel cramped with six aboard but she was a fleet little thing and Allanbridge had been flying her unnoticed over borders for years. Even a months-long jaunt like this was all part of the life of a merchant adventurer.

Like most Beetles, Allanbridge was squat and broad, a decade younger than Stenwold, with the hair already receding from his dark brow. He wore artificer’s canvas, and a woollen robe over that, a long scarf bundled about his neck.

‘These all of your lads, are they, Maker?’ he asked. He was not one for titles, and Stenwold was grateful for that.

‘All present,’ Stenwold agreed. About them the wind was up, tugging at the flags of the airfield, striking up a constant clatter of lines against the metal of scaffolds and flying machines. Stenwold turned to Tisamon and clasped hands with him, wrist to wrist.

‘Sten, I must ask…’ the Mantis began awkwardly.

Stenwold, who had noticed what company his friend had kept in the city, volunteered, ‘This is about the Dragonfly, Felise?’

‘You must watch her,’ the Mantis warned.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t suggest taking her with you,’ Stenwold remarked, thinking of Felise’s skills and the advantages of having a capable Dragonfly’s sharp eyes and nimble wings.

‘No.’ Tisamon’s expression became opaque. ‘She is not ready yet. She would not… I do not think she would always remember our objectives.’ But then there was something more in his face, a sudden tug at its composure.

‘Tisamon, what is it?’

‘Nothing.’ Too quick an answer.

‘Tisamon…?’

The Mantis checked him with a look, eyes filled with an emotion outside Stenwold’s experience. ‘I will go and she must stay. Do not ask me to take her – not yet. I will return to her. Remind her… I cannot… She…’ The Mantis’s breath caught. Uncomfortable truths were crawling just beneath the surface of his face.

‘She would lose control, and then start killing Wasps indiscriminately,’ Stenwold finished for him.

‘It seems likely,’ Tisamon agreed, in that instant burying everything that had been about to rise to the surface. ‘So you must find her a home here – and that Spider doctor of hers. He seems… able to help her.’

Stenwold frowned. ‘In turn you must promise to watch Thalric.’

‘I’ll consider it a wasted trip if I haven’t killed him,’ growled the Mantis, on firmer ground here and without a hint of humour.

Tynisa, next, did not embrace Stenwold as Che had done, just clasped his hand in the manner of her father. She has grown up now. She is no longer my ward. The sword-and-circle badge of the Weaponsmasters glinted on her breast, a twin to Tisamon’s own.

‘This is important, Master Maker,’ Achaeos told him as his turn came. ‘I know you cannot see it, but I thank you for your trust.’ Of them all he wore no special cold-weather clothing, born to the mountains as he was.