Blood of the Mantis

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Praise for Shadows of the Apt

  ‘Occasionally a fantasy author comes up with a way to break the mould of traditional genre tropes: M. John Harrison’s Viriconium and China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station are two examples that immediately spring to mind. Tchaikovsky, on this evidence, looks like a new addition to that select hall of fame . . . This looks like a series with legs: six of them’

  Death Ray

  ‘The insectile-humans premise is inventive, shaping the world in all sorts of ways’

  SFX

  ‘Empire’s most singular distinction in the genre is its employment of a totally different selection of fantastical insect/human hybrids . . . This allows the author to achieve the unusual feat of creating a new universe populated by unique characters’

  SciFiNow

  ‘Full of colourful drama and non-stop action involving mass warfare and personal combat, Dragonfly Falling brilliantly continues the Shadows of the Apt epic fantasy series that began in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s remarkable debut novel, Empire in Black and Gold’

  Fantasy Book Critic

  Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, before heading off to Reading to study psychology and zoology. For reasons unclear even to himself he subsequently ended up in law and has worked as a legal executive in both Reading and Leeds, where he now lives. Married, he is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor, has trained in stage-fighting, and keeps no exotic or dangerous pets of any kind, possibly excepting his son.

  Catch up with Adrian at www.shadowsoftheapt.com for further information about both himself and the insect-kinden, together with bonus material including short stories and artwork.

  Blood of the Mantis is the third novel in the Shadows of the Apt series. Have you read Empire in Black and Gold and Dragonfly Falling?

  ALSO BY ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY

  Empire in Black and Gold

  Dragonfly Falling

  First published 2009 by Tor

  This electronic edition published 2009 by Tor

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-230-74696-1 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-230-74695-4 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-230-74697-8 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright © Adrian Czajkowski 2009

  The right of Adrian Czajkowski to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  For Jean-Henri Fabre

  Acknowledgements

  Once again thanks to my agent Simon, to Peter Lavery, and to Julie, Chloe and everyone at Macmillan for making this book a reality.

  Also, as an author living in the north of the country has a necessarily nomadic existence, thanks to Andy and Tash, Wayne and Krissy, Helen and Joff, Ledge, Gareth and Frances for at various times providing an itinerant author with a meal and a place to rest.

  Glossary

  People

  Stenwold Maker – Beetle-kinden spymaster and statesman

  Cheerwell ‘Che’ Maker – his niece

  Tisamon – Mantis-kinden Weaponsmaster

  Tynisa – his halfbreed daughter, Weaponsmaster

  Achaeos – Moth-kinden magician, Che’s lover

  Nero – Fly-kinden artist

  Arianna – Spider-kinden, Stenwold’s lover, former Rekef agent

  Balkus – Ant-kinden, agent of Stenwold, renegade from Sarn

  Sperra – Fly-kinden, agent of Stenwold

  Thalric – Wasp-kinden, former Rekef major, now renegade

  Teornis of the Aldanrael – Spider-kinden Aristos

  Gaved – Wasp-kinden mercenary

  Felise Mienn – Dragonfly-kinden duellist

  Destrachis – Spider-kinden doctor and companion of Felise Mienn

  Parops – Tarkesh Ant-kinden soldier, now in exile

  Salma (Prince Salme Dien) – Dragonfly-kinden nobleman

  Prized of Dragons – formerly Grief in Chains, Salma’s Butterfly-kinden lover

  Alvdan II — the Wasp Emperor

  Seda – Alvdan’s sister and one surviving relative

  Maxin – Wasp-kinden general in the Rekef

  Reiner – Wasp-kinden general in the Rekef

  Brugan – Wasp-kinden general in the Rekef

  Malkan – Wasp-kinden, general of the Seventh Army (the ‘Winged Furies’)

  Uctebri the Sarcad – Mosquito-kinden magician, Alvdan’s slave

  Gjegevey – Woodlouse-kinden, imperial advisor

  Dariandrephos (‘Drephos’) – halfbreed artificer and imperial colonel

  Totho – halfbreed artificer in Drephos’s cadre

  Kaszaat – Bee-kinden artificer in Drephos’s cadre

  Big Greyv – Mole Cricket-kinden artificer in Drephos’s cadre

  Scyla – Spider-kinden spy, magician and thief

  Lineo Thadspar – Beetle-kinden Speaker for the Collegiate Assembly

  Plius – foreign Ant-kinden in Sarn, Stenwold’s agent

  Odyssa – Spider-kinden agent of the Rekef

  Places

  Capitas – capital city of the Wasp Empire

  Collegium – Beetle-kinden city, home of the Great College

  Commonweal – the great Dragonfly state

  The Darakyon – forest, formerly a Mantis hold, now haunted and avoided by all

  Felyal – Mantis-kinden hold

  Helleron – Beetle-kinden industrial city, conquered by the Empire

  Myna – Soldier Beetle-kinden city conquered by the Empire

  Sarn – Ant-kinden city allied to Collegium

  Spiderlands – Spider-kinden cities south of the Lowlands, believed rich and endless

  Szar – Bee-kinden city conquered by the Empire

  Tark – Ant-kinden city conquered by the Empire

  Tharn – Moth-kinden hold near Helleron

  Vek – Ant-kinden city-state hostile to Collegium

  Organizations and things

  The Ancient League – recent alliance of Moths and Mantids from the holds north of Sarn

  Arcanum – the Moth-kinden secret service

  Assembly – the elected ruling body of Colle
gium, meeting in the Amphiophos

  Battle of the Rails – recent defeat of Sarnesh troops by the imperial Seventh Army

  Great College – in Collegium, the cultural heart of the Lowlands

  Mercers – Dragonfly-kinden order of knights errant

  Prowess Forum – duelling society in Collegium

  Rekef – the Wasp imperial secret service.

  Shadow Box – a mysterious artefact stolen from Collegium by Scyla

  The Wasp Empire has commenced its great war against the Lowlands, capturing the cities of Tark and Helleron and defeating the Ant-kinden of Sarn in a pitched field battle. Now General Malkan’s Seventh Army, the Winged Furies, waits for reinforcements before pressing on to Sarn itself. Malkan’s victory over the Sarnesh was accomplished by a new weapon, the snap bow, devised by the former Lowlander Totho, now an apprentice of the Empire’s foremost artificer.

  The Wasp Emperor, however, is distracted by the promises of his slave Uctebri, who has pledged him eternal life in return for the blood of the Emperor’s sister, Seda, and possession of the mysterious Shadow Box, a relic containing the power of a twisted ritual that turned the forest Darakyon into its current haunted and lifeless state.

  Amongst the imperial agents sent to retrieve the box from Collegium were the Wasp mercenary Gaved and the face-changing Spider spy Scyla, the latter of whom has stolen the box and intends to sell it for her own profit.

  Stenwold Maker, meanwhile, faces the task of attempting to unite the squabbling Lowlander cities against the Wasp menace before the imperial armies advance once again. His worries are increased by the loss of his niece, last seen fighting alongside the Sarnesh. Unbeknownst to him she has escaped her imperial captors, released by her former friend Totho, and carries with her the precious blueprints of the new snapbow.

  One

  Coasting at a hundred feet above the clear waters of the Exalsee, Taki threw the gears of her orthopter’s engine into place with a tug of a stubborn lever. She listened for the rhythm of the two wings as they suddenly picked up pace from a mere thunderous beating to a steady buzz. Satisfied, she leant on the stick, throwing the Esca Volenti into a low, wide and, above all, swift turn that the fixed-wing giving chase could never match. She caught the brief glitter of bolts shot from its rotary piercer, but they were far off now, no more than specks above the glitter of the waters.

  Below her the two ships were still locked together, but she had no chance to determine whether the crew of the Ruinous was still putting up any resistance, or whether the pirates had already begun their looting.

  She flicked the smoked-glass lenses over her goggles and looked towards the sun. Sure enough, the little heliopter that was her other worry was trying to hide there, now a stark silhouette against the sun’s muted sepia glare. She continued executing her turn, dragging the stick back to gain height. The fixed-wing craft in pursuit had cast itself across the waters too fast for its own good, and was making a ponderous business of turning itself around, arcing high over the distinctive white-walled retreat of the distant isle of Sparis.

  The heliopter suddenly stooped on her, cutting its twin rotors altogether to drop like a stone and then, as she sped past, spinning the left blades a second before the right ones in order to sling the machine onto her tail in a remarkable piece of flying skill. A moment later she felt the Esca Volenti shudder under the impact, but the heliopter was a tiny thing, barely more than a seat and an engine, and she had to trust that whatever crossbow it had mounted before the stick would miss any vital part of her own craft.

  Thinking of her flier, Taki became aware of an ominous clicking from the engine. Running down again – always at the worst possible moment! The fixed-wing was now coming back, fast, swooping low over the waters and then pulling up hard, trying to barrel in for her. She climbed and climbed, so that, with his rotary letting loose in a blaze of wasted ammunition, he passed in a blur below her. They had both left the heliopter well behind. Whilst it could balance and hover on a gnat’s ball, as the saying went, it had nothing for speed.

  She had to wrap this up quickly and then get back to the ships, but at the same time she had to do something about the warning noises her engines were making. Time to do the usual.

  Taki yanked the stick back one-handed, so that for a second the Esca was pointing straight at the apex of the sky, and then she flipped the craft on its wingtip and turned into a steep dive. She saw the fixed wing flash past her again, unable to compete. After all, the Esca Volenti was one of the nimblest machines over the Exalsee and she could even give dragonfly-riders a run for their money on the turns.

  Releasing a catch, she felt the wood and canvas of the flier shudder as the parachute unfurled. This was her second, so if she didn’t close matters here before the engine ran down again, then it would mean a forced landing at best. Taki listened anxiously, above the rushing of the wind, and heard the clockwork mechanism that sat immediately behind her screaming with spinning gears as the drag of the ’chute rewound it. Sometimes, not often, that failed to happen, and at that point she really would have had a problem, for the world before her eyes now was already a sheer expanse of sea.

  She pulled the stick back again, putting all her weight on it, and heard the struts and frame of the Esca give all their familiar protests. Another catch flicked and the ’chute was gone, billowing away into the ether, and the Esca Volenti levelled out over the Exalsee, no more than ten feet over the wave tips, speeding past the jutting Nine Fingers crags.

  The flash of piercer bolts zipping past told her the fixed-wing had found her again, and she led it sideways in a turn easy enough for it to manage, banking left and right erratically to avoid its aim, until, and too late for the fixed-wing to avoid it, they were heading straight for the wooden side of the pirate vessel . . . And then the fixed-wing’s rotary was punching holes in its own ally, both above and below the waterline.

  She pulled up, dancing past the white sweep of the sails, and a glance over her shoulder told her that the fixed-wing had flown wide of the ship’s stern. The Esca could turn like nothing else in the air. Most orthopters around the Exalsee had four wings, some had two, but she had her secret: two wings and a little pair of clockwork halteres – drumstick-shaped limbs whose metronomic beating kept the flier under her control in even the steepest of arcs.

  And now she was following the fixed-wing, which had slowed down to match her speed to accomplish the turn. She lined the Esca up directly behind it, with one hand on the trigger of her rotary piercer, the weapon that had so revolutionized air-fighting over the last ten years. Like an infantry piercer it had four powder-charged barrels with spear-like bolts, but these discharged one at a time, not all together, rotating as they did so while the feeding gears pulled through a strip of gummed canvas that fed new bolts into the machine. It possessed the speed and power of a repeating ballista fitted neatly below the nose of her craft.

  Bang-bang-bang, and the fixed-wing faltered in the air. A moment later it was smoking, the mineral oil in its fuel engine catching fire. She pulled out from behind it, seeing it dip lopsidedly towards the waves.

  The heliopter was right there, over the ships, puttering towards her, and she saw the repeating crossbow loose and loose again, its bolts falling short at first, and then flying wide. It was jinking sideways, trying to throw her aim off, and she missed with half a dozen shots before one, by sheer chance more than skill, struck near the left rotor, sending the wooden blades flying into pieces. The little craft spun wildly for a moment, and she saw the Fly-kinden pilot make a jump for it, darting off under his own power and doubtless hoping she would not follow him.

  Behind her a plume of fierce black smoke began to rise from the waters where the fixed-wing had crashed.

  She took the Esca right over the two ships, and noted that there was still fighting on board the grappled Ruinous. Slinging her machine into another tight turn, she opened up with the rotary again, punching holes down the length of the pirate’s decks. She had
been trying for the foremast and, as she pulled out of her strafing dive, she saw it sag slightly against the stays. Down below there was confusion, and then the pirates, with their aircraft downed and their ship damaged, were fleeing from the Ruinous under archery from the surviving defenders, cutting their grappling lines and trying to get underway.

  If she had been more certain of her engine or her remaining ammunition, Taki would have dogged them all the way to the shore, but, as it was, she kept them under shot until they were committed to flight and the Ruinous had built up steam once again, and then she coasted the Esca Volenti back down, hoping for a landing on the vessel’s foredeck. She fumbled between her legs for her string of flags, finally finding the right signal, but had to make three further passes before an answering flag granting permission was flying from the Ruinous and they had cleared the deck sufficiently for her to land.

  The Esca Volenti, coming in slowly and pitching back, with its wings beating furiously against its descent, almost managed to hover. It was a sharp divide between almost and actually, however, and she had to throw the control stick every which way to stop overshooting the deck and ending up in the sea. The blast of her wings buffeted every loose thing on deck before her, scattering papers and hats and baskets and anything else light over the side. Then the spring-loaded legs she had now deployed were scraping the Ruinous’s wooden deck and she finally stilled the wings, letting the clockwork grind to a halt, as the Esca made its ponderous settling.

  Taki unbuckled and hopped over the side of the cockpit, her wings fluttering a moment as she undertook the drop to the deck. A slight little thing, even for a Fly-kinden; her kind always made the best pilots, because of better reflexes and less weight to drag at their machines, though few of them ever wanted to engage in such a dangerous profession.

  There was a big Soldier Beetle approaching who must have been master of the ship. ‘You, boy,’ he was shouting, ‘you took your sweet time!’

  Boy, is it? Well, in her overalls and still wearing her helmet and goggles, why not? She hinged up the smoked glass, squinting under the sudden glare, and then pushed the goggles themselves up over her forehead.