Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

‘I learned a long time ago that there is more to this world than my eyes can see,’ Stenwold said. ‘Just you get the thing, whatever it is, and bring it back.’ Doctor Nicrephos had died for this box: another Moth who had been frantic about its importance. Stenwold noticed that Gaved had already gone aboard along with Allanbridge, gliding up onto the airship’s deck with a flick of his wings. That left one man only.

Stenwold turned to him, a thousand warnings on his lips, but all withering in the face of that slight, mocking smile.

‘What can you say to me, Master Maker?’ Thalric asked him. ‘Why not stop me now if you are so very concerned?’

‘I am only glad that my niece Che is not going with you,’ muttered Stenwold, at which Thalric smiled slightly.

‘You mistake me Stenwold. I would not hurt her. If fate gave me the Mantis’ life, well, that would be different, but in deeds done for my own sake, it would injure my honour to hurt such as her. I do not, however, expect you to believe me.’

Stenwold was not sure he did, despite this apparent candour. ‘If you hurt any of these – Achaeos most of all, but any of them – you will hurt her. So consider that.’

‘Farewell, Master Maker.’ Thalric’s own wings flared, taking him upwards.

After it had slipped its moorings, Stenwold stood and watched the receding bulk of Allanbridge’s airship. He could make out Tisamon at the stern, as a pale, green-clad figure staring back at him from the gondola

Be safe, old friend , Stenwold thought. Be safe, Achaeos. Che will not forgive me if something bad befalls you. Be safe, Tynisa, and do not follow so much in your father’s path that you cannot find the road back if you need to.

On turning, he started, finding someone standing only a few paces behind him, up until now silent and unnoticed: Felise Mienn, unarmoured but with her sword gripped in both hands, point downwards. She ignored him, for her eyes, sharper by far than his, were still fixed on the diminishing dot of the Maiden .

It was a long, cold trip for the passengers, and the routine aboard the airship quickly became one of silence and antipathy. They were such a mismatched crew that they had little to say to one another. Achaeos kept to himself, bundled in his thin robe and standing out in the open air in most weathers, staring at the horizon and fighting against the constant swell and sway of the gondola that unsettled his stomach. Tisamon watched the two Wasps suspiciously, always somewhere in sight of one or other of them, giving the impression that, had either of them tried to fly away, he would have leapt from the side to catch and kill them, for all that the fall would be his death too. Sheer fervent anticipation was writ large in his face for them to read. He spoke only with Tynisa, and they needed few enough words. Now they were underway on a venture once again they resumed a bond between them, a fighting bond. Wherever Tisamon did not watch, his daughter’s gaze was liable to be found.

Allanbridge and Gaved were both used to a loner’s life, each having had livelihoods that sent them off to many places in furtive solitude: the Wasp hunting and the Beetle shipping. By three days into the voyage Gaved had begun to regularly assist the aviator in small ways, with the ropes, with the mechanisms, even helping him cook on the airship’s burner-stove. An easy understanding had developed between the two of them – without need for speech since they thought alike. Save when Allanbridge brought the Maiden down for supplies or repairs, the company passed whole days in quiet routine.

Thalric leant on the rail, watching the Lowlands pass below him, wreathed in cloud, seeming so distant as to resemble nothing he had ever seen. He was a fair flier, for a Wasp, but he had never ventured so high, and it was so cold that he wore a greatcoat with two cloaks draped over it. Despite that, the odd freedom, the leisure of it here, in the upper reaches of the air, had all the appeal of the unfamiliar.

Earlier that day he had watched Jons Allanbridge rewind the Buoyant Maiden ’s motor by releasing the great weight in the base of the gondola, the unreeling of its wire trace tensioning the spring of the airship’s clockwork heart. Then Thalric, Gaved and Tisamon together had, simply by muscle power, hauled the weight back in. Allanbridge boasted that he could do it on his own with a crank, if he needed to, and Thalric supposed that must be right, even though his own muscles were still burning with the strain of it. The whole business had become a regular daily ritual for them, over the tendays they had been aloft.

Mind you, he was no longer as strong as he had been. The wound that Daklan had inflicted on him, during the Empire’s attempt at executing him, still leached at him. Halfway through the winding process today he had seen spots before his eyes and had been forced to step away beneath Tisamon’s contemptuous stare.

The gondola was mostly open to the elements, with a low, flat hold beneath it where Allanbridge would normally stow whatever contraband he was currently smuggling. Some of the passengers were sheltering below even now, but Achaeos remained at the stern, talking in a hushed voice to their captain, who was obviously unhappy with whatever he was being told to do. The Moth was another invalid at the moment, still walking with a stick, but he wore nothing but his usual grey and darned robe, whilst Thalric and the rest were swathed in every piece of cloth they could get their hands on. Up here the sun was bright but the air was icy cold: the harsh winter everyone had predicted was coming with a vengeance. Some days back, passing over the hilly terrain between Sarn and Helleron, Thalric had even seen snow falling, snow that must be descending like dust down around the Seventh Army, which was currently encamped somewhere below. The Lowlands seldom saw snow and most of the Wasp Empire was likewise blessed, but Thalric had his own memories, bitter for many reasons, of winters endured during the Twelve-Year War in the Commonweal with snow lying a foot deep and unprepared soldiers freezing to death by guttering camp-fires.

Even thinking of those frozen days brought a great lump of loss into his throat, because all that was gone now. He was an outcast, a hunted man. First the Empire had betrayed him and now he was betraying it in return.

Or was he? This fool’s treasure hunt the Moth had set them on hardly seemed a betrayal. A hunt for some trinket, some curio of a raided collection, and yet the Moth had decided it was the be-all of creation. But what did it matter, really, if some imperial courtier had decided to suborn the Rekef into acquiring for him a choice antique? Was that not the precise degree of rot that Thalric had uncovered at the heart of the Empire? Could he therefore not reinterpret this mission into something that was ostensibly even to the Empire’s benefit? Of course I can. You always can. The Empire would not appreciate his help, though, and he suspected the others did not realize just what danger he might land in by going back there. Gaved was right about Jerez, though: if he could hide himself anywhere, it would be there: that shifting town was the bane of imperial bureaucrats, governors and tax-collectors, a vast lawless pond of Skater-kinden who paid lip-service to the Empire and then ambushed its tax caravans. Just the sort of place Scylis would run to, if he now had something to sell.

Would Scylis be aware of Thalric’s disgrace? Having counted the days since, Thalric suspected not. It seemed mad that, on recognizing Thalric, Scylis might take him for the avenging hand of the Empire.

Or Scyl a . Achaeos swore that Thalric’s old agent had been a woman all this time. The Wasp did not know what to think about that. Or perhaps I do not want to admit I didn’t know it.