Blood of the Mantis sota-3

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  She shuddered and went higher still, following Taki as she skipped the Esca further over the Exalsee, pausing only once near the far shore to let a parachute out in order to rewind her engine.

  The shore here was trimmed with jungle, and indeed the deep and knotted green extended as far inland as Che could see, punctured here and there with the glitter of inland lakes. Taki was already bringing her machine down, circling and circling as if looking for something. Che decided to fly in a wider circle above, waiting for Taki to settle.

  They passed along the coast a little way, and then Che noticed a river mouth where the trees had been hacked away a little, producing a narrow strip of the work of human hands against that vast ocean of green. Just there, the Esca was already descending in steep circles, and Che swung the Stormcry out over the Exalsee again, only to bring her back, coasting low, towards the village.

  It was hardly a village, though: a trading post, she supposed, would be the closest description. It consisted of three wooden buildings that seemed to have fought their way momentarily clear of the hungry green of the jungle, and then some rabble of canvas huddled around them. A good dozen long piers extended out from the shore and, while some had boats moored to them, there were at least seven flying machines hitched there also, including the Esca.

  Like the rest, the Stormcry was equipped for a water-landing, and Taki had explained earlier that as long as she did not come in nose-downwards Che should be fine. It was a rough experience all the same, as she bounced the fixed-wing from the waves a couple of times, then managed to bring the engines down to an idle as she virtually paddled the machine in. Taki was already waiting on the pier to help her tie up.

  ‘Welcome to the worst-kept secret on the Exalsee,’ the Fly announced, as Che alighted from the fixed-wing. ‘Welcome to Aleth.’

  ‘This place has a name?’

  ‘This is a city as far as the locals are concerned,’ Taki told her. ‘The Alethi are nomads, Ant-kinden, and they’re off in the jungles for months at a time, camping for a tenday and then moving on, always hunting and gathering. Their tribes all come here at some stage, though, and so do the traders from Solarno and Princep and Porta Mavralis. When there are natives in town, this is the busiest trading spot on the Exalsee, believe me.’

  ‘How?’ Che demanded. ‘How could you even accommodate any reasonable number of people here?’

  Taki laughed. ‘The traders live on their boats, while the Alethi build their little tree-houses off in the jungle. Over there’s a joint called the Clipped Wing, where everyone goes to drink and deal, and that next to it there’s the big storehouse, where the goods get stowed until they’re picked up. You see, you don’t really need buildings – not when everyone knows what they’re doing.’

  ‘So what are we doing here?’ Che asked her. Whatever Taki might say about this place at its height, there were a few people about now, mostly green-tinted Ant-kinden who she supposed must be Alethi.

  ‘We’re going to visit the Clipped Wing,’ Taki replied. ‘I want you to meet some friends of mine.’

  The taproom of the Clipped Wing was barely that: a big open space, shutters flung open along the riverside wall, and the window space screened off with cloth mesh to keep out the insects. At one end of the room a few planks had been nailed to the tops of some barrels to provide a makeshift bar. Behind the bar itself…

  Che ran forward a few steps, feeling instantly absurd because it could not be him. Indeed, when she looked again, this man was older, darker of skin and longer of nose. Still, it had been quite a shock. She stopped in the middle of the taproom, feeling foolish and upset.

  ‘Why are you lookin’ at me like that?’ the barman growled. ‘I owe you moneys or something?’

  ‘No, it’s just…’ Che bit her lip. ‘I had a friend who was… one of your kinden.’

  ‘That right?’ The barman did not seem much interested, but amongst all those spikes and hooked thorns it was hard to judge his real expression. He was only the second Thorn Bug-kinden she had ever seen.

  ‘Two, please, Chudi,’ Taki told him, flipping a coin onto the counter. The barman gave her a leer.

  ‘Thought we’d be seeing you, once that bunch o’ reprobates made it. Was just thinkin’ to mesself, who could turn up that’d be more trouble than all o’ them put together?’

  ‘I love you too, Chudi,’ said the Fly, accepting two wooden mugs from him, and then heading off for one of the low tables that were shoved up against the walls. The mismatched band already sitting on the floor around it were currently the Clipped Wing’s only other clientele, and they had chosen the table with the best view of the water.

  Taki simply dropped in amongst them, leaving Che hovering awkwardly until the Fly used her elbows to make some room for her larger companion. As Che sat down, she was aware that all eyes were on her, weighing her up, perhaps wondering what use she was.

  ‘This is Bella Cheerwell Maker,’ Taki told them. ‘She’s come a long way, from the other side of the Spiderlands, she says, and she’s heard we’ve got a Wasp problem here. Che, these ladies and gentlemen are some of the best pilots anywhere about the Exalsee. A little siblinghood, you might say.’

  Che nodded blankly, looking from face to face as Taki named them in turn. Scobraan was a heavy-set Solarnese Soldier Beetle wearing a leather breastplate on which golden wings were painted. Niamedh was a woman of the same kinden, her hair shaved close to her skull and the edges of an old scar reaching from either side of an eye-patch. Te Frenna was another Fly-kinden woman, flamboyantly dressed, with a red scarf trailing from her neck. And ‘The Creev’, as Taki named him, was a halfbreed – native Solarnese bulked out with solid Ant-kinden muscles. The final member of Taki’s little coterie was the most surprising.

  ‘And this is Drevane Sae,’ the Fly announced. Sae grinned at Che with a face fiercely tattooed across the cheeks and forehead. He had a helm on the table in front of him with a curled metal crest, and he wore armour comprised of wood and leather. He was a Dragonfly, clearly, and Che had never seen anyone less like a pilot.

  ‘She does me wrong, this little woman,’ he said to Che, his smile widening to show teeth that had been filed sharp. ‘I am no metal-pilot, though. Rider, that is the word for me. These machine-shaggers can’t match me and my bride.’

  Che made an uncertain noise in response and looked to Taki for guidance.

  ‘Sae is the best insect-rider that Princep Exilla has got,’ Taki explained. ‘These days they mostly hire mercenary aviators from Chasme, but there are enough of them still who do things the old-fashioned way.’

  ‘Old-fashioned and best,’ Drevane Sae confirmed. When he scratched at his stubble Che clearly saw his wicked-looking thumb-claws.

  ‘So you don’t like the Wasps?’ Scobraan said. ‘Well join us in a drink to that.’ He raised his mug and the others did likewise, leaving Che no choice but to follow their example. The liquor was harsh, yet almost tasteless, and made her gag.

  ‘You told her already why we’re of the same mind?’ Scobraan asked Taki.

  ‘Our little social club has a varying membership,’ the Fly explained. ‘Not least because on some occasions we do our best to shoot each other down. If you’d been here three months ago, you’d have seen a few faces who can’t be with us now. Good friends of ours.’

  ‘But you said… you fly against each other?’ Che looked from face to face, not quite understanding. ‘Are you friends or aren’t you?’

  ‘We are siblings,’ Niamedh said. ‘What we share, none who has not done as we do can ever understand. The wind and the sky’s vault above. The rush of air against your wings. The world lying like a bowl below you.’

  ‘Working for different cities, different parties,’ te Frenna added. ‘So we fight, who wouldn’t? When we’re told to, or when we want. We’re allowed to – that’s the point.’

  ‘If Scobraan is asked by the Path of Jade to fly against the Destiavel house,’ Taki explained, ‘then he and I will go head to head
, and perhaps I’ll shoot him down, or perhaps he’ll shoot me.’

  ‘You’re like Mantis-kinden,’ Che said. ‘Or… no, you’re like a duelling society, but with flying machines.’

  ‘Just like,’ Scobraan agreed. ‘But this time is different. Like Taki said, we’re missing friends at this table, because of the Wasps.’

  ‘They’ve been in Solarno almost half a year now,’ Niamedh said. ‘Just a few at first, then more and more. They’ve wooed all the parties, with gifts and celebrations and promises of aid. Then we found there were their soldiers out on the streets, and sometimes one party had hired them, and sometimes another, like mercenaries, until sometimes they were about and nobody had hired them at all. But they were still going about their usual business, breaking down doors, making people disappear.’

  ‘And then Amre,’ Taki said. ‘Well, te Marro Amre-Stelo to you, but Amre to me…’ She hesitated. ‘He flew north, to visit their grand Empire, to find out where they were all coming from. When he came back he was scared. He called a few of us to meet with him, every one of us who was in Solarno then. That was me, Niamedh and a couple more. Only when we turned up, before he could even tell us, the Wasps were right there. They…’ She pressed her lips together and looked down at the table. Che was surprised at this, since the Fly girl had been nothing but cheery sunshine since they had first met.

  ‘They had their swords,’ Niamedh said softly. ‘And that Art-thing they do with their hands. It was all we could to do get ourselves out of their alive.’

  Taki looked up again, forcing a smile. ‘He was right behind me, was Amre. But he never made it out of the door.’

  ‘No proper death, that – dying on the ground,’ Drevane Sae growled.

  Scobraan drained his mug and waved it at Chudi, until the Thorn Bug came over from behind the bar with a jug for refills.

  ‘So perhaps you should tell us just what the Wasps are all about, Bella Cheerwell,’ Taki said. ‘Because whatever he knew, they killed Amre just to stop us finding out.’

  Che nodded slowly. ‘I won’t be able to tell you anything you haven’t guessed at, I’m sure,’ she said, ‘but I’ll tell you what I know. We’ll start with what you may think, which will be mostly what they want you to think. They’re a military kinden, certainly, but they talk a lot about only being interested in trade and peace. They just want a little certainty with how they stand regarding your city, so they can concentrate on their enemies elsewhere. They like your flying machines, and they have gold to spare, so they’re everybody’s best friend.’

  There were enough nods around the table for her to continue.

  ‘That’s certainly what your leaders will have thought at first. And then the Wasps will keep coming, more and more filtering in, and people will start realizing that they really are a very military kinden indeed, and there now seem to be great numbers of them. By that time you’ll have heard from some of their Auxillians – slaves by any other name, of many kinden, from many different conquered places. Your leaders will start to understand that the Empire collects cities, and how the Imperial boundaries are closer than they realized, probably just north of your mountains. You’re aware your maps are out of date? And speaking of maps, you’ll begin to understand just how many times the Exalsee could fit within the Empire. And then the Wasps talk pleasantly to your leaders and start to explain how best Solarno and all the other places here can keep the Empire happy.’

  Taki smiled, without much humour. ‘I can vouch for that sort of talk. They had some Wasp bigwigs visiting in the Destiavel house, and I heard some of the servants talking about it. You could write their speeches for them, Bella Cheerwell.’

  ‘And… well, this is where I need local knowledge. Your politics here seem very complicated.’

  The Creev spat, which Che took to mean that his home politics back in Chasme were simpler, but Scobraan laughed briefly,

  ‘Sure enough. They’re trying on each of the parties in turn, to see which is the best fit. And when they’ve got their feet in, and wiggled their toes a bit, they’ll want to make sure their party controls the Corta Obscuri. And stays there.’

  ‘And the Empire will thus control Solarno,’ Che agreed. ‘And then one day you’ll wake up and they’ll introduce you to the new governor and garrison the Empire has been so kind as to gift you with, and Solarno will join the Empire without even a fight. And then the rest of them, every city around the Exalsee, with Solarno as a base to fly from. All of you, with no exceptions.’

  After she had finished talking they glanced at one another unhappily. She could see them wrestling with the scale of the problem. Their world was solely the shores of the Exalsee, just a dozen communities and the wide sky above the waters. The world beyond the northern ranges had always been a joke, to them: foreign people doing silly things.

  ‘An Empire,’ said Niamedh with distaste. ‘All that – so many cities – all under one man’s command?’

  ‘It is you Solarnese who are strange,’ said Drevane Sae. ‘Your factions and families, pah! A body has one head, and a people one ruler. These Wasps, though… We thought of them as perhaps a few cities or nests or whatever-they-have. Somewhere beyond the Dryclaw, we thought. But not this.’

  ‘If they came against Solarno…’ Scobraan downed his drink and waved Chudi over to provide more.

  ‘They will come,’ said Taki. ‘They are laying their ground even now. Be honest with yourself: you know it. More and more of them will come. Right now, they’re fighting the Spiderlands somewhere to the north.’

  ‘Capture Solarno and you can have a fleet at Porta Mavralis before they even know what’s going on,’ te Frenna agreed.

  The halfbreed known as The Creev cleared his throat. ‘How are they getting in?’ It was the first thing he had yet said. Che now saw that what she had taken for an armlet was in fact the iron band of a slave, ostentatiously loose enough to be pulled off his wrist and over his hand at any time.

  ‘In?’ Scobraan asked, bewildered.

  ‘How many in Solarno?’ the Creev asked, and then answered the question himself with, ‘Two hundred soldiers? Four hundred, perhaps? But who has seen five hundred soldiers cross the peaks? Even one by one, there would be talk. I fly often to the Toek Station, trade with the Scorpion-kinden there. No word do I hear of Wasps coming through in great numbers – and the Scorpions are good door-keepers. So how do they get in? And how many more?’

  He left them all in an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘The Wasps in Solarno have already tried to kill Che once,’ Taki said, for she had not doubted the hand behind the attack at the Venodor for one moment. ‘Now we know what the Empire means, how great a threat they really are, the knowledge that they killed Amre for. We have to let people know. We all have ears who will readily listen to us – in Solarno, in Princep and Chasme. We can let people know the Wasps are coming.’

  ‘And what?’ Scobraan asked her. ‘A thousand thousand Wasps? Whole armies of them! You heard her. What are we supposed to do?’

  ‘I heard her,’ Taki said forcefully. ‘Better than you did, I think. Where are these Wasps fighting? Here? Yes, soon enough. And already in the Spiderlands. And also in these Lowlands where Che comes from. And she said north even of there as well – in the Crommonwheel…’

  ‘Commonweal,’ Drevane Sae corrected her, in a tone that suggested his people had not forgotten.

  ‘So how much can they now spare for us? And if we make it expensive for them, if we make them pay dearly, they will lose their taste for it and weaken. What Bella Cheerwell is proposing is an alliance.’

  They stared at Taki, even Che.

  ‘Well,’ Che said. ‘I suppose it would be. In a way.’

  ‘So if Solarno stands firm, if all the Exalsee stands, then the Lowlands and all the others will surely stand,’ Taki said. ‘Are we totally without influence? No, we are the pilots of the Exalsee. We are the best of the best. My Domina will listen to me. So make yours listen to you.’ She stood up. ‘Or do
you think the Wasps will still give us free rein to fly and to fight, after their armies are camped about Solarno?’

  One by one they stood up in agreement, Niamedh first – and Scobraan, wearily, last.

  Che and Taki were the last to leave the piers, because Che knew she would need as much clear water as possible to get the Stormcry into the air. It was worth it, though, to see the others taking off. Scobraan’s twin-engined fixed-wing, as barrel-bodied and bulky as he himself was, and armour-plated to boot, growled its way into the waters of the Exalsee, rising from them magnificently, impossibly, like a rock miraculously taking flight. Niamedh’s Executrix was a sleek orthopter, its prow crooked forwards and then hooked back under like the arms of a mantis, the wings seeming too narrow to take her into the sky until the machine leapt forward with a single clap, wingtips tearing the waves, and then away. As te Frenna’s heliopter spiralled upwards from the water, Drevane Sae sounded a mournful, far-carrying note on the horn strung about his neck, and his glittering mount, all of thirty feet from antennae to tail-tip, roared out of the jungle to perch beside him. It had a jewelled saddle with a holstered longbow to one side and a sheath of lances to the other. Finally, the Creev climbed into his own orthopter, Mordant Fire, a blunt-faced, ugly-looking machine whose bows were lumpy with half-hidden weaponry. He paused for a second, looking back at the two women, and then his funnels began smoking and his engine choked into life, and he was sweeping his way across the water, before battling into the air.

  Taki had already hopped into the Esca Volenti, and Che managed to get herself seated within the Stormcry, despite the rocking waves. She started the engines and let their pull take her away from the pier, building and building momentum until she could put the flaps down and let the thrumming power of them rip her from the water and cast her into the air.