Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis

‘And with your gifts you will do nothing?’

‘Do you mean to recruit me, Bella Cheerwell Maker?’

‘And if I do?’ She knew she was over-bold and put a hand to her mouth, too late to stop the words.

‘You have not the gold to buy me,’ he said softly. ‘Besides, why should I take up arms in your cause? I am no idealist to jump to another’s drum.’

‘Then you must leave Solarno and the Exalsee,’ she warned him, without force, her tired conviction coming from bitter experience. ‘You must go south or east of here, and then keep running, Master Cesta. The Wasps have need of killers but they’ll bring their own, Rekef-branded. I had a word with a Wasp, not so long ago, who tried to make a living as a freelance within sight of the Empire’s borders, and he was not a happy man. The Empire beats a loud drum. You will have to run a long way not to hear it.’

His lips twitched, but he offered no come-back, standing there in the wreckage of his inheritance. A moment later they heard the distant sound of a flier’s engine, far off over the Exalsee, and Che jumped up but then hesitated. Wasps? Or Taki come back for me?

‘Do you want me to find out who?’ Cesta asked her, reading her expression.

‘Why would you help me even in that?’

‘Nothing I have said means that I can’t like you,’ he told her. ‘I would kill you if I was hired for it, but it would still not mean that I cannot like you.’

With that he was gone into the trees, leaving her to work his last words out.

When it was clear that it was the Esca Volenti passing low over the island, Che expected Cesta to simply melt away into the forest, but he was content to stand out on the beach with her as she waved at the repassing orthopter. Taki threw the machine into a tight turn and brought it down for an impeccable water landing. Moments later Che heard the drone of another engine, and a much bulkier machine rumbled down to the water, still managing to touch its surface as gracefully as a falling leaf. She recognized it immediately as the big, armoured fixed-wing belonging to the Solarnese pilot called Scobraan.

Taki put her head up out of the cockpit and was about to call over, when she spotted the assassin. For a second she had nothing to say but then she had hopped out and flitted from the Esca ’s wing onto the beach.

‘What in the pits are you doing here?’ she asked the killer, sounding none too friendly.

Cesta’s smile was cold. ‘I’m sorry, Bella te Schola Taki-Amre,’ he said smoothly. ‘Is this your island? Am I not welcome on it?’

‘As far as I’m concerned you’re welcome nowhere near me,’ Taki told him. He might have been almost twice her height, and a feared assassin as well, but she muscled up to him as though she was going to lay him flat. ‘You leave Che alone, you hear me?’

‘Have I done her harm?’ Cesta pointed out.

‘Nothing you do turns out any good. Perhaps you forget that,’ the Fly replied hotly.

Che glanced between them nervously. ‘He hasn’t done anything to me,’ she said. ‘We were just talking-’

‘This isn’t about you,’ Taki said sharply. ‘Just you remember that there are no depths that this bastard won’t stoop to. None . He has no morality, nothing in him to make him care about others.’

In answer to Che’s uncertain glance, Cesta said, ‘True. All of it entirely true. The curse of our blood.’ She was not sure whether he was being genuinely flippant or hiding a deeper hurt.

‘Are you coming or what?’ bellowed Scobraan, his cockpit now open. He was looking up at the skies nervously. ‘Don’t want to get caught on the water if they come back!’

Taki nodded. ‘Are you expecting a lift?’ she asked Cesta drily.

‘I have my own boat,’ he said. ‘No doubt I shall see you in the city, one of these days.’

‘Don’t try to frighten me,’ Taki told him.

‘Oh, come on!’ shouted Scobraan, and Taki nodded, turning away from Cesta and visibly dismissing him from her mind.

‘You’ll travel on the Mayfly Prolonged ,’ she said to Che, who recalled this as the name of Scobraan’s craft. ‘Sieur Nero’s there as well, he’s got some bad news.’

‘Why do you hate Cesta so much?’ Che whispered. ‘He’s a murderer.’

‘That’s not it.’

‘Then whatever it is, it isn’t your business,’ Taki told her. ‘I’m just glad to find you safe, Che.’

‘Did he kill… what was it, Amre? Your lover?’

That stopped Taki short, halfway into her seat on the Esca . ‘He was my half-brother, Amre, and the Wasps killed him with their own hands. No, Cesta killed his own lover, for money. She happened to be a friend of mine, too, but that’s not really the point.’

The Mayfly Prolonged had hold-space that just fitted Nero and Che crouching, comfortably enough for him but exceedingly cramped for her.

‘So what’s the bad news?’ she asked.

‘You know that Empire airship you had all the problems with,’ he began.

‘Yes?’

‘Well we reckon it was dropping off,’ said Nero. ‘Because there’s a whole load more Wasp soldiers in Solarno now, enough to get everyone worried. I think it’s starting.’

She had walked into the garrison at Jerez without a word, picking up a guard to escort her as she did so. She looked like any stooped old woman in a dark robe, some emaciated grandmother hobbling with her cane, save that her eyes were red and glistening.

The guard from the gates then passed her on to a watch sergeant, who passed her to a duty sergeant, and she made no introductions or explanations, just latched onto each man in turn like a leech. Eventually they brought her to the man she sought, the man she had already sniffed out through the sloping corridors of the fort.

‘Lieutenant Brodan,’ the duty sergeant began.

‘What is it?’ Brodan was at his desk, sifting reports dictated by his Skater agents. The sheer volume of fabrication had been wearing on him.

‘Lieutenant Brodan…’ The sergeant’s face went slack. ‘I…’

‘A message? A visitor?’

‘A… visitor, yes. A visitor.’ The sergeant blinked, made a vague gesture at the robed woman. ‘This is… is…’

‘What’s wrong with you, Sergeant?’ Brodan snapped. ‘Nothing sir, I…’ The man reeled slightly. ‘Excuse me, sir, I feel…’

Brodan looked from him to the gaunt face of the old woman he escorted and a cold shiver went through him. ‘Excused, Sergeant,’ he said quietly, and let the man get out of earshot before he inquired, ‘And what was that all in aid of?’

‘Why, in aid of you, Lieutenant Brodan,’ she said, sitting down. Her voice was little more than a whisper.

‘And who decided that sending me a hag was the best way to help me?’

Her lipless mouth curved mirthlessly. ‘There are those in the capital very interested in your success. They feel sooner is better than later, Lieutenant. So they have sent me to you. If it will help you, my name is Sykore.’

Rekef? he thought momentarily, but she was surely not Rekef. This was no Rekef approach or technique. She was something else entirely.

‘What help can you be?’ he asked reluctantly.

‘I can lead you to your enemies,’ she told him. ‘Do not think that I have been idle here in Jerez.’

‘I see no reason to trust you,’ Lieutenant Brodan said. Indeed, it was hard to see anything positive about his new acquaintance. She sent a distinct shudder through him, even though he was a Rekef officer, which was not a profession for the squeamish.

‘Then you must make your choice. I am only offering you, after all, what you are here for, and no more. How easy to turn that down?’ The creature’s hissing voice was getting on his nerves. Pallid and hollow-cheeked she was, and with red, staring eyes like something from a children’s story. ‘I shall take you to your enemies,’ she repeated. ‘I know exactly where they are.’