The Sea Watch sota-6

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Your men understand their job here?’ Teornis whispered, catching Varante’s answering nod. Teornis had half a dozen Dragonflies with him, and four would now take him into the palace, to grab this troublesome Kerebroi youth and excise him as surgically as possible. The other two were tasked to give Teornis’s band a chance at entering unseen. It was a role that would almost certainly see them dead but, when Varante had briefed them, they had simply nodded and bowed. They knew that their people, their families and clansmen back at Solorn, would reap the rewards of their loyal service. Spider-kinden were renowned for their double-dealing ways, save amongst their cadres, their closest servants. Amongst such as Varante, the Aristoi knew that there was no substitute for unquestioning loyalty, and they dealt with them as honestly and generously as might any Collegium philanthropist.

  The Commonweal guardsmen that Teornis had been warned about were making their slow patrols about the palace grounds in pairs, and Varante assured Teornis that there were surely a few up on roofs, or casting themselves overhead on shimmering wings. All told, though, there were no more than a dozen guards, and Teornis had the impression that an actual assault on the palace was unthinkable to most living here at Princep. They seemed to hold this Monarch of theirs in a reverence that bordered on idolatry.

  Teornis, Varante and their retinue crouched low and waited. The Dragonflies did not seem unduly wary, but they were a sharp-eyed breed, and enough of them carried bows for Teornis to be cautious of an unexpected arrow between the shoulder blades just as he attempted his entrance. He had expected the garden grounds of the palace to be pitch-dark, a friend to the assassin and the spy, but the walled compound of the palace was ringed with lamps that were covered in glass of rainbow hues. The light they shed gave everything an inappropriately festive air.

  Just when Teornis was beginning to think that his two decoys had got into trouble in the wrong place, they appeared, standing in the path of the nearest patrolling guardsmen. The two pairs of Dragonflies regarded each other coldly: the neat-looking Commonwealers, with their pristine armour and crescent-headed spears, confronting Teornis’s men from distant Solorn, who looked barbarous and scruffy and were obviously spoiling for a fight.

  Teornis couldn’t hear all of what was said, only catching varying tones of voice. The palace guard sounded shocked and outraged that these exiles should trespass on the Monarch’s grounds. The intruders responded by making some extremely unflattering comments about not only the Monarch of Princep, but also the distant Monarch of the Commonweal itself, whose remote ancestor had thrown their equally remote predecessors out into the wide world. As they jeered and jibed, Teornis’s men drew their long-hafted swords, making their intentions unmistakable.

  The Commonwealers needed no encouragement, and in the next moment they were striking, wings a-flare and spears levelled. Their antagonists were away in the same instant, buzzing low over the bushes with their swords trailing, shouting and jeering and generally making as much commotion as possible. Teornis heard a few gratifying shouts from elsewhere in the grounds, as still more guards were dragged from their appointed watch by the noise. One of the Commonwealers tore overhead, bow in hand, almost close enough for Teornis to put a sword into him, but the sounds of fighting and shouting arose ever further off. The two men tasked with this distraction were doing their job well.

  ‘Now,’ he urged, but he did not even need to say it. Varante and the other three were moving towards the palace already, seeking the easiest way in. They ignored the great gates entirely, for the uncompleted wall itself would have afforded them plenty of chances to enter, even if they had been unable to fly. Finding what shadows they could in the coloured light, they chose their gap.

  Without any further difficulty, the Spider and his cadre found themselves within the palace of Princep Salmae: that jumble of the part-built, unbuilt and overbuilt that might one day be a vastly grand statement about how the people of Princep valued their rulers, but was today just a confusing and uneven building site.

  Teornis nodded to Varante, and the Dragonflies took wing. They would now skulk and flit about the uneven contours of this place, poking and prying, opening doors and peering behind shutters, until one of them eventually found the Kerebroi heir. Then they would grab the lad and lift him out of the city by air – two or three of them sufficient, Teornis hoped, to hoist a slender youth aloft for the necessary distance. Teornis had come along himself only because he suspected his cadre needed his civilizing guidance. Without his master close at hand, Varante might already have gone down for death or glory in a pointless struggle with the palace guard.

  Teornis himself stepped forward, now slipping beneath a half-finished roof, now between the struts and diagonals of scaffolding supports, now creeping out into what would be an open courtyard after the builders got around to delineating it with walls.

  And, across that space, he came face to face with Stenwold Maker.

  Laszlo had complained vociferously about being left behind. Something as trivial as a broken arm would not slow him, he insisted. The fact that he could barely get up from his bed to make this impassioned speech did not help his case.

  ‘What worries me is what will happen to him while we’re away,’ Stenwold confided to the others. ‘Teornis’s people may well come here for us, and he’s in no position to defend himself if they do.’

  Wys shrugged. ‘I’ve got a lot invested in that lad’s family, landsman, so I’m not going to let anything bad happen to him.’

  Stenwold saw his own frown mirrored in the faces of Fel and Phylles. ‘You’re proposing…?’

  ‘I’ll stay right here at his sickbed and make sure he wants for nothing, surely,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Wys,’ Phylles murmured, darting a suspicious look at Stenwold, ‘Not just Fel and me. Not without you.’

  ‘You’ll go with or without me, as I tell you,’ Wys declared primly. ‘What, you need me to cheer you on? You need my little knife against their great big swords?’

  Phylles’s face stated bluntly that she wouldn’t trust Stenwold an inch.

  Wys folded her arms. ‘Do what he says. Do what she says too, for that matter,’ she added, nodding at Paladrya. ‘Honestly, the pair of you haven’t the sense you were born with. You’ve had the chance by now to see land-kinden, eh? We’ve all sat under the same sun, with our skins drying out and going red, eating their chewy food and looking at their daft money. They’re people just like us, even if they have chosen a stupid place to live, and this Stenwold Maker’s all right. Call me a liar, either of you?’

  Fel shrugged, resigning his fate to Stenwold’s care, but Phylles still looked mutinous.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ she said stubbornly. ‘What if this is a trap?’

  For a moment Wys looked as though she was about to shout at the woman, but then she was grinning despite herself. ‘What, all of it?’ she asked softly. ‘All of this, that enormous city we turned up in first, the one-legged woman, the going-up-in-the-air, this place, all contrived just to put us off our guard? Just go – go with them. Keep Fel out of trouble and keep the Kerebroi woman alive. We need her. She’s the only one the heir knows. I’m counting on you, Phylles. And you, Fel, you understand this?’

  Fel let out a long sigh. ‘I understand less and less, as this goes on. Count on me, though.’ His voice was surprisingly soft.

  So, leaving Wys to tend to Laszlo, asking him questions about Tomasso and the family, they set off for the palace.

  The plan was both simple and complex, all at once. Stenwold had asked himself the question: how do we find Aradocles if he’s in that palace? Its interior layout had looked labyrinthine, even in its unfinished state, and he had no information that would allow a reasonably stealthy gang of rogues to creep into the place, rifle it for the missing heir, and then escape with him. Stenwold himself had grown light-footed for a Beetle-kinden, but that was still a long way from being particularly good at sneaking about, and this whole enterprise was looking increasingly ha
sty and doomed to failure. Without more luck than he could possibly hope for, there was every chance that they would either be swiftly discovered, or would still be searching the place as the sun came up.

  So: turn the problem on its head. He had one key advantage over the undoubtedly stealthier Teornis, because his motives were at least relatively pure. He wanted to restore the boy to his inheritance, while the Spider just wanted to use Aradocles as leverage against Claeon. So what, in fact, did Stenwold need to achieve?

  Not to find the boy, for the boy would find them. All they needed was to get themselves into the palace compound. If they were found in the grounds, then the guards would chase them away, just as Sfayot had turned him away in daylight, but if they were discovered within the palace walls, well, that would be a more serious matter by far. There would be questions and threats, and Stenwold would have the chance to tell all. With any luck, by the time he had finished talking, Aradocles might even be among his audience.

  Get into the palace, that was the key. That would turn him from someone who could be brushed off like a beggar on the doorstep into someone who held their undivided attention.

  The four of them made a careful, hesitant progress through the palace grounds, stopping frequently, using each tree and bush for cover. The guards did their best, but there were so few of them, and they were clearly not expecting intruders. Stenwold had the sense that this posting was something ceremonial for the Commonwealers, a gift from one Monarch to another. The patrols passed blithely by the crouched intruders without ever suspecting their presence.

  Stenwold himself was glad for the lanternlight crowning walls, but he quickly conceded that his sea-kinden companions had far better eyes than he, and soon it was Paladrya taking the lead. Cautiously scouting the way, raising a hand to them whenever she saw more guards on the path, she sought no cover herself, for her Art hid her. As she moved, her skin crawled with patterns of light and shade so that, when she was still, she became as invisible as she had been in the cell in Hermatyre where Stenwold had first met her. Her warning upheld palm, as the patrols approached, flashed palely towards them or they would never have caught her signal. Sometimes the Dragonflies walked within feet of her, as she stood motionlessly out in the open, and then Stenwold’s own eyes would slide off her, losing her amongst the nocturnal shapes of the garden, until she moved again.

  They reached within a short dash of the wall, finding a convenient gap that still jutted with scaffolding and boards. Just as it seemed they would be able to make an unopposed entry, one of the Dragonfly guardsmen appeared around the corner, and chose that moment, and that spot, to stand contemplating the skies, leaning on his crescent-headed spear. Stenwold cursed inwardly, and began to plan if it would be possible to overpower the man without the alarm being raised. He was brought out of his reverie when Fel tapped his shoulder and pointed upwards, directing his eyes to find another man sitting atop the wall, a crooked staff laid across his knees.

  Not this gap, then, Stenwold thought. That was always going to be the most difficult part: breaching this final line of defence and breaking into the palace proper. Of course, every gap in the walls might similarly have eyes on it, and he had hoped that inspiration would strike once he got here. There was still a good fifteen feet of empty ground between them and the walls, though, and Stenwold could see no way of getting past the sentries without being seen.

  Paladrya and Phylles were busy conferring, hands moving silently in the sea-kinden sign language, and a moment later the Kerebroi woman had started towards the sentry in a progress of stops and starts, from unseen to a ghosting shadow, as her skin blurred to keep up with her surroundings.

  Stenwold turned to Phylles to ask her what was going on, but she was already moving off as well, not headed for the guards, but for a section of the wall that looked complete, and unwatched. Once there, she began inching her way along the line of it, moving with a slow, continuous motion that offered nothing to attract the eye. She was slowly edging towards where the wall finished, the gap where the guards were stationed, and she glanced up at the man sitting above.

  The compound wall was not so very high, Stenwold considered. Could she jump up and grab his ankle? Was that the plan? He looked over to Fel, but the Onychoi man was watching intently, tense as a wire.

  A sudden thought came to Stenwold as he spotted that what he had seen as a crooked staff borne by the man aloft was in fact an unstrung bow. He realized that none of the sea-kinden would know it for what it was. He opened his mouth to utter a warning, but to call out would be just as fatal.

  Then there was sudden shouting in the garden behind them, like a harsh exchange of insults. Stenwold froze, losing sight of Paladrya entirely. The archer above stood up and strung his bow, all in the same powerful motion, and then was aloft and scooting overhead, already reaching for the first arrow. The spearman took a few steps forward and, for a hopeful moment Stenwold thought he might follow. He stuck to his post, though, until Phylles moved a little closer and he saw her.

  The guard’s eyes widened, and he made as if to point the spear at her, but then Paladrya was magically beside him, her hands on the weapon’s haft. As he wrenched at it, Phylles struck. The whip-like barb of her Art weapon pierced his neck, and he fell, twitching.

  Stenwold hurried closer. ‘What have you done?’ he hissed. ‘What will they think of us now?’

  ‘He will wake eventually.’ Phylles scowled. ‘A little poison only. He will wake after two days, perhaps. Now, are we going in, or shall we stand here and debate it?’

  Stenwold nodded curtly, and they slipped inside the walls of the palace.

  ‘We keep going further in until we’re spotted. Check everywhere that looks habitable,’ he told them, though it was clear that none of it looked remotely habitable to the sea-kinden. Instead they followed him constantly as he went to the nearest sections that were at least roofed over. A glance behind the curtain veiling an arch showed no sign of occupancy, and so they moved on – skulking from a wall to a pile of bricks, and then to a stack of timbers, peering in each window and doorway they came upon. Stenwold saw sleeping forms in one room – two young Roach-kinden girls by the look of it – but no sign of his quarry. They crept on as quietly as they could, finding only yet more incomplete construction, and occasional sleeping figures huddled in random corners beneath blankets, resembling less the staff of a palace than opportunistic refugees.

  And then, emerging into a courtyard, Fel hissed abruptly, his hands coming up with daggers in them. It was a moment later that Stenwold identified the dark figure before them as Teornis.

  Fel was already moving before Stenwold could stop him, and Teornis let out a shrill whistle as he drew his own slender blade. With no other option, Stenwold dragged the snapbow out from within his tunic and charged it swiftly. Phylles stepped past him to the other side.

  The first arrow flashed from above and slanted off Fel’s helm, staggering the Onychoi for a moment before he dropped into a defensive crouch. The second shaft lanced through his thigh, but by then Stenwold had spotted the archer as the man swooped overhead, and the snapbow in his hand cracked twice. For once, both bolts struck home and the Dragonfly lurched in mid-air, wings faltering, and was carried out of sight over the next wall by his dying momentum. A moment later two more of Teornis’s followers had dropped down beside Fel, their long-hafted swords to hand. A third landed to Stenwold’s left and went for him, just as Stenwold dragged his sword from its scabbard.

  ‘Mine!’ snapped Phylles, shouldering him aside. Stenwold looked about wildly for Paladrya, spotting her just as she pointed across the courtyard, crying ‘Stenwold!’ There, Teornis was backing away, evidently intent on locating Aradocles while the melee distracted his rival. Stenwold swore and pushed himself into a run.

  Fel was ably holding the two Dragonflies at bay, blocking their sword strokes with his bracers and the natural armour of his knuckles, and taking every chance to lash back with his daggers or the spikes of his Art.
They were wisely keeping their distance, using their longer reach to hold him at bay, while trying to take him from two sides at once. Stenwold, dashing past, managed to cut a gash across the shoulder of one, a minor wound but enough of a distraction. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Fel snapping forward in a full-extension lunge, one fist smashing past a Dragonfly’s sword, to crunch into shoulder and collar-bone. Then Stenwold’s attention was wholly focused on Teornis.

  The Spider had paused in his escape as he saw his enemy running for him. Now he had adopted a relaxed stance in the entrance to the courtyard, his rapier lowered so that its point almost touched the ground. His face, visible in the lanternlight, wore a crooked smile.

  ‘Is it come to this?’ he asked softly and, as Stenwold stopped to compose an answer, the rapier leapt and touched his cheek, drawing a mere pinpoint of blood, though Teornis barely seemed to have moved at all.

  ‘A warning,’ Teornis told him, whereupon Stenwold cast aside conversation and went for him, his shorter, broader blade thrusting in and very nearly getting past the Spider’s guard by pure surprise. Teornis shifted sideways a few rapid steps, sliding Stenwold’s sword aside each time the Beetle made a jab for him, keeping to the defensive for a little while, and giving ground along the line of the wall. There was a mess of bricks and loose stones at his back, where the workmen had left them, and Stenwold tried a sudden rush forward to force his opponent on to them. An instant stab of pain shot through his shoulder, and he stumbled back, seeing his own blood on the last two inches of Teornis’s rapier.

  Then the Spider stopped playing at being wrongfooted, and instead went on the offensive. His narrow sword flickered and darted in the uncertain light, now at Sten-wold’s face, now cutting stripes in his artificer’s leathers, feinting at his knee, his stomach, his groin, making Stenwold lumber backwards awkwardly, with his own blade deflecting barely half the strokes that Teornis whipped out at him. The expression on Teornis’s face changed constantly, as though each attack and defence was a conversational gambit that he hoped Stenwold would respond to.