The Sea Watch sota-6

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘So the rumour goes. You and your people have shown yourselves adept at spreading rumours, but I think our citizens will find that one interesting.’

  ‘How can you think that it will work? The Vekken-’

  ‘The Vekken claim that you’re the unreasonable ones.’

  ‘Very clever, Master Maker.’ She folded her arms. ‘They will take advantage of your trade, but they will be waiting for the chance to bring another army here.’

  ‘Oh surely,’ he agreed. ‘But all the time they wait, they will grow prosperous and more comfortable, they will profit from new ideas and inventions, they will send their students to the College – as spies at first, but also as scholars. Eventually their time for aggression will arrive, and if we have held them off long enough they will then ask, “Why? Why fight to take what we can be given? Why give away everything we have already gained?” ’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘It worked with the Sarnesh,’ Stenwold declared. ‘I would be the first to admit that the Vekken are a harder shell to crack than Sarn ever was, but they’re not mad and they’re not monsters, merely frightened. The first war with Vek came about after the Sarnesh alliance was signed. They assumed we would turn on them, because it’s what they would have done. They think – forgive me but it seems that most Ant-kinden think – of survival and security in terms of eliminating threats. And so we come to you.’

  ‘Are we a threat?’ she asked, playing the innocent.

  ‘If someone had asked me a few tendays ago, I’d have said no. Now you’ve had the chance to run around Collegium a while, yes. Commander Kratia, you are yourself a very subtle woman, capable of doing a considerable amount of damage in this city just by some well-chosen words. However, I believe that your actions spring from the same motive as the Vekken siege: you want safety for your city. But in your case, safety from Vek. I am now offering this, just as I am offering Vek safety from you.’

  ‘Master Maker, you do not understand. Vek is three times the size of my city.’

  ‘Then I suggest you invest in a few allies. May I suggest the city of Vek? They’re ideally placed to assist you. Or do you think all my words were for the Vekken only?’ A barbed piece of deception, that, to place her where she could believe she was gaining an advantage over them, as though she and Stenwold were conspiring together, when in fact… ‘Besides,’ Stenwold added, ‘Tsen may be small, but it’s clear you make up for it in artifice. You may find that profits you more in trade than ever it did in self-defence. Perhaps you, also, would like to send a message to your city and its court.’

  ‘And if they say no?’

  ‘You disappoint me. The Vekken have already worked that one out,’ Stenwold said. He felt absolutely merciless in taking all the deeply held tenets of Ant-kinden society and twisting them in his hands. ‘What do you think will happen, if you say no but the Vekken say yes?’

  The Migrating Home’s funnels had belched smoke for two miles of coast, but the sails of the other vessel only came nearer. Jaclen Courser had taken a good look at it through her glass: a swift and slender corsair with a magnificent spread of grey canvas, slowly but inexorably outstripping her own labouring vessel. Laszlo had watched their own ship’s progress, shaking his head. The steam engine below was a charcoal-burner, and not a bad piece of artifice for something ten years old. The oil-burner aboard the Tidenfree would have shifted the Home along a good deal faster, but whilst engines gave a steady push come wave or weather, with a favouring wind a good sailing ship would always outreach them.

  Jaclen had conferred with Laszlo. If they were due for this mummer’s show, then they would have to give the other vessel no reason to think the Home was playing them false. If the pirates suspected a trap, they might put an arrow into everyone on deck before they boarded. I will get through this game of Maker’s without losing anyone from my crew had been the thought written plainly on Jaclen’s face. The pursuing ship would expect them to use all efforts to outrun it, and so she had ordered the Home’s own mast to be cranked into place and its sails spread. It was to little actual purpose, since the Beetle vessel scarcely made better headway and its crew were no sailors. They spent as much time steering it away from the rocks of the coast as they did trying to put distance between themselves and their hunter.

  The approaching vessel was now off the aft starboard quarter, between them and the open sea, and inching its way forward still. The Migrating Home was being left with no option but fight, surrender, or wrack against the coast.

  ‘She’s the Very Blade,’ Jaclen identified her, training her glass on the other ship’s bows.

  ‘Means little,’ Laszlo commented. ‘This end of the coast, any pirate sails under false name when they’re raiding.’ When she looked at him, he added, ‘Or so I’m told, anyway,’ a little too hastily.

  ‘We’re coming to the endgame,’ Jaclen decided. ‘We’ve made our best efforts. It’s clear we’ll not outrun them, and to push our luck further will invite a kicking.’ Even as she said it, they saw a billow of smoke from a point near the Blade’s bows. A hollow knocking sound floated to them just as a spout of seawater leapt skyward between the ships.

  ‘I make out a couple of smallshotters at the rail,’ Jaclen announced. ‘Little man, you go tell my crew that, when we get to where the metal meets, I want anyone tending those weapons brought down. I want no holes in my hull.’

  Laszlo nodded and kicked off into the air, darting down the length of the Home while spreading the word. Jaclen sighed, feeling a knot in her stomach. I could order the hold barred, confess all to the pirates

  … but then I’ve still got a hold full of Mantis trouble, and odds are the pirates’d burn my ship to be rid of it. Maker’s now committed me to his cursed plan. Well, if this goes wrong, I’ll have his hide as a foresail, I swear that much.

  Her own crewmembers were all nervous, but she hoped it would appear as the nerves of sailors faced by pirates. None of them sported more than a knife, but there were a surprising number of places on a ship where swords and crossbows could be hidden, to be near at hand when trouble came calling. Jaclen took a deep breath and then called out for them to drop sails. She felt the change beneath her feet as the Home lost the wind by degrees. The Very Blade was angling in towards them, trimming its sails with exquisite precision, ready to coast alongside.

  The previous incidents of piracy that Jaclen had experienced had not been devoid of bloodshed, but the raiders tended to spare anyone who had surrendered and just pillage the hold. She knew the logic. A pirate crew did not want to have to fight to the death over every cargo, so they made sure that their prey knew the drill: either fight and die, or cast down your weapons and live. No guarantees, of course, for there had been murders, rapes, mutilations. If the pirates had been experiencing a few bad days, or if they had been forced to chase for a little too long, then they might decide to take it out on the crew. It’s not as though there are any guarantees. It was the thought of those crewmates she had lost, especially in more recent attacks, that steeled her now to the thought of what was about to happen.

  She had a good look at the Very Blade’s crew as the pirate ship came in closer, seeing that they were a mongrel bunch. Almost a dozen were Ant-kinden, bronze-skinned Kessen, either rogue or mercenaries. They wore light ring-mail vests and steel helms, and many of them held crossbows levelled at the Home’s decks; one even had a new-fangled snapbow, stolen from who knew where. The rest of the crew, a good three dozen men and women, were a ragbag of Spiders, Fly-kinden, halfbreeds and a couple of hulking Scorpions. There was little armour but much ornament, men and women carrying their wealth on their person. Each one was armed to his or her own taste: rapiers, knives, shortswords, hooked pikes and boarding axes.

  Laszlo had ended up by the helm, where his own bow was tucked. To his experienced eye, their attackers looked like any other pack of masterless sea-thieves. So was Albinus right or wrong? If it was the Aldanraels, then whether Stenwold got his proof depended on how
long a leash the Spiders kept their pets on. Laszlo knew pirates, though, and that breed did not work well for anyone. Given usual practice back off the Spiderlands coast, it seemed likely that some servant of the Aristoi would be on board the Blade to ensure that its crew remembered whose ships were to be counted fair game.

  ‘Now you all stay stood, and nobody get any fool’s ideas!’ the Ant with the snapbow bellowed in a parade-ground voice that reached them with breath to spare. A moment later the bows of the Blade ground teeth-jarringly along the Home’s side, making the best part of both crews stagger, and then the ropes came out. Whilst the Kessen crossbows did not waver, a dozen pirate sailors secured the vessels one to the other. You might come to regret all those knots in a moment, Laszlo considered. He kept his breathing easy, leaning on the rail and looking relaxed. The Beetle helmsman beside him kept clenching and unclenching his fists. He had a crossbow of his own hidden in a locker at their feet, and Laszlo just hoped he would let matters take their course before he tried to snatch it up.

  ‘I thank you for your cargo, kind Beetles,’ the Kessen boomed at them. ‘Give my regards to the College folks, now.’ His crew bunched at the rail and then began to jump aboard, heading for the aftmost of the Home’s two hatches. Stenwold had asked, when they were concocting this plan, why the pirates didn’t often take possession of the actual ships along with the freight. It had been for Tomasso to point out to him that the pirates would be sailors all, and not engineers. Odds were that none of them would fancy trying to tow or manhandle a big steam ship like the Home into some distant safe port, without either sinking her or running her aground.

  A motley bunch of Spiders, Ants and half-breeds had strutted over to the hatch. Laszlo risked a look at the four crossbowmen left behind at the Blade’s rail, noting that they had lowered their weapons slightly, seeing nothing evident in the Home’s crew to give them concern. The three-foot iron barrels of the smallshotters were still mounted near the pirate’s bows, but the Beetle-kinden woman and the half-breed youth, who were apparently the Blade’s artillerists, were paying little attention to their charges.

  The lead pirate levered the hatch up, and Laszlo was close enough to hear him say, ‘Now let’s see what-’

  He saw what soon enough – saw it coming straight at him. Danaen’s vanguard came straight out of the hold into the pirates’ faces: a half-dozen Mantis-kinden in a flurry of wings and blades, Danaen herself at their fore. Laszlo saw one Mantis man take a crossbow bolt clean through the shoulder in that first instant, the shock of it knocking him sprawling on to the deck beyond. By that time four pirates were dead and the others at the hatch had turned to make an escape they would never complete. Everyone was shouting and reaching for their weapons.

  Just like old times, Laszlo thought. He had his bow in hand, an arrow already nocked. In his mind he recalled the Tidenfree latched on to some Spider merchantman, where the crew had decided to make a fight of it. The Tidenfree Fly-kinden would be shooting down from the rigging, whilst whoever they had paid as marines would be swarming the decks: Scorpions or Ants or some band of Spider brigands. He was grinning like a madman as he loosed his first shaft.

  The Beetle-kinden artillerist was dead, picked off by one of the Home’s better shots. The halfbreed youth swung his piece towards the swirling chaos of the Beetle ship’s decks. More and more Mantids were flying and climbing out from the hold, whilst Danaen and her firstcomers were already sprinting for the rail. Laszlo had an impression of the pirates trying to recover from the shock. Some were shouting one order, some another. The Kessen with the snapbow bellowed for all hands. Laszlo tried to sight on him but the man was too far away. He settled for putting an arrow into one of the enemy’s crossbowmen, lancing the man in the side. As the Beetle helmsman beside him finally got his own weapon loaded, Laszlo took off for the spars above, nocking another arrow as he flew.

  The pirates’ great chance would have been to pen Danaen’s people aboard the Home. Mantids were no great fliers, and if the fight could have been held at the railing, then they might have won through by attrition. When the Mantis-kinden struck, though, leaping over the rails in a glitter of wings and howling for blood, the crew of the Blade gave way in terror. There were enough jokes about the Mantids to be heard in any sailor’s taverna: how they were backward, they were gullible, they were crippled by their oaths and honour. Even then, the laughter had a slightly nervous ring to it, and if a handful of Mantis reavers walked in, their jokes would freeze into silence.

  Curse me, but they’re fast, Laszlo had to admit, but it was not all Danaen’s way. By the time she had her feet on the Blade’s deck, half a dozen of her followers were already dead or badly injured, but the Mantids just didn’t stop. The wounded were left to fend for themselves, and they took no prisoners, heard no cries for mercy. Laszlo just watched them for a moment: he saw Danaen herself duel briefly with a Spider-kinden, twin blades to twin blades, a spinning dance of steel on both sides that would have won prizes at the Collegium games, but here was played for higher stakes and prizes. She broke off from that to kill an Ant-kinden who had tried to stab her from behind, spinning to lance his throat over the rim of his round shield, and then turning back as the Spider lunged at her. She caught both his blades on one of hers and ran him through an eye. Another Mantis, a golden-haired youth, had left his spear rammed through the chest of a Kessen crossbowman: now he fought only with the spines of his forearms, but he was tearing open armour with them and parrying swords. A handful of Danaen’s people were now in the rigging with Laszlo, standing with shifting balance and no handholds, bending bows that were as tall as they themselves were to let their long arrows fall on the foe.

  Laszlo found the loud Kessen again. The man had his snapbow to his shoulder, sighting carefully. A moment later he was reloading, although Laszlo had no idea what he had shot. He looked satisfied enough with himself. Still too far for a sure shot, so time for a little heroics. He took flight again, letting his wings cast him over the Blade’s decks.

  That was a mistake, he discovered shortly enough. An arrow slashed past him, and he returned the compliment, grazing the shoulder of a Spider-kinden archer up in the pirate’s own ropes. He darted about the other side of the mast, snatching another shaft from his quiver, seeking out the Ant with the big voice. That same voice was being put to powerful use as the man roared for his crew to form a fighting line and pen the Mantis-kinden against the railings. Good plan, at that. Laszlo swung about, another missile darting wide of him, and spotted his target.

  The Kessen saw him as he came in. He had been sighting along his weapon’s long barrel, but now he dragged it upwards. Laszlo gave his wings their freedom, doubling pace as he sped past the man at a distance of barely a dozen feet. The other man loosed first, but the sudden burst of speed had thrown his aim, the little bolt hurtling off to oblivion. Abruptly, Laszlo turned, flying backwards, fingers releasing the bowstring as he did so. He was rewarded by the sight of the Kessen’s head snapping back, the arrow almost clipping the rim of his helm before it drove in. Then another three shafts dotted the sky about Laszlo and he fled for the relative security of the Home’s mast.

  It was a fragile refuge. He heard a concussive sound and the rigging around him was trembling like saplings in a storm. The pirates’ other smallshotter had loosed a round at the Home’s mainmast and, although missing, it had severed one of the stays. Thankfully the Beetles built things to last, and there were enough ropes to take the strain. Laszlo swung around the mast, letting his wings carry him back towards the Blade whilst his hands placed another arrow at the ready. By then the pirate artillerist had been shot down by Jaclen Courser herself, and the Mantis-kinden reavers were busy spitting any enemy who still held a blade. They were spitting a good few that weren’t, too, and Laszlo didn’t like that – if only for reasons of personal precedent. ‘Take prisoners!’ he shouted, nipping overhead. ‘Leave them be if they surrender, curse it!’

  Danaen glared up at him, clearly not fam
iliar with the custom.

  ‘We’ll want to question them!’ Laszlo called down to her.

  ‘What’s the point?’ she demanded. ‘What will they know?’

  ‘If we don’t question them, we’ll never find out.’ He dropped almost to her level, but still far enough, he reckoned, to get himself out of the way of her blades. ‘Stenwold would want it that way,’ he added, hoping that they held that degree of loyalty to their ostensible employer.

  She scowled at him again but, at a gesture from her, the few surviving pirates were soon left, kneeling and unarmed, but alive. At that point the doors to the rear cabins were thrown open. The Very Blade had a high rearcastle to it, but nobody had issued from it during the fight, so Laszlo had assumed it was deserted. Now four more pirates, Spiders all, dashed out with drawn rapier, not on the attack but ready to defend themselves. In their wake came…

  Laszlo let out a sharp breath at the sight of her. She was tall and elegant, immaculately dressed in a neatly tailored hauberk of hide, chitin and silk armour. Her shirt and breeches were of striking red, and there were rings aplenty on her hands. The Spider-kinden master of the vessel, surely, and she stared around at the mob of Mantids, not even deigning to draw her rapier.

  ‘What is this?’ Her voice cut clear and crisp through the confusion, and everyone fell silent for it. Danaen snarled and moved in on her, blades extended in a fighter’s crouch. The Spider woman eyed her disdainfully. ‘What is this rabble that comes to infest my ship?’ she demanded. ‘How dare you?’

  Laszlo could sense her Art radiating off her in waves, blazing away at all around her: command, dread and the crushing hammer of her authority. He saw Danaen’s advance falter, the Mantis hunching behind her swords as though warding off a physical blow. Laszlo had never before witnessed a bona fide Spider-kinden Arista unleashing all of her Art and will.