The Sea Watch sota-6

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  In the courtyard’s centre, Fel turned on the spot as Varante probed at his guard, trying to draw him out. The lunge that had dealt with Varante’s lieutenant had made a mess of Fel’s arrow-wounded leg, and the Onychoi was now concentrating on fending the blade off, unwilling to expose himself to further injury.

  ‘Hold out!’ Phylles called to him. ‘I’m coming.’ Her opponent would not let her get near him, though, retreating into the air whenever she tried to lash out at him with her stingers. It was clear he had no idea what she was but he wasn’t taking any chances. He held her off at the length of his sword. Phylles gritted her teeth, knowing that she was running out of time. Paladrya…

  Where was Paladrya?

  The rapier’s point left a shallow track down Stenwold’s side, another thimble-full of blood soaking his under-tunic. Teornis was taking him apart a morsel at a time. Furiously, Stenwold tried to beat past the other man’s defence. He was stronger than the Spider, certainly, and the other man could not have blocked a solid strike by Stenwold’s sword, but he never tried to. Every attack was met with a sidestep, a neat deflection, allowing Stenwold’s energy to waste itself against thin air. Another flick from his opponent, and Stenwold felt a spike of pain in his right calf.

  Then something moved behind Teornis: the glint of a dagger’s blade. Stenwold pushed forward, watching the Spider sidestep and sidestep, unknowingly getting closer to that near-invisible presence.

  ‘My lord, behind you!’ cried Varante, with the benefit of his kinden’s keen eyes. He broke off from Fel abruptly, even as the other Dragonfly also kicked into the air, away from Phylles, to come to his master’s aid. Fel bunched himself and leapt up, catching Varante by the ankle and dragging him back down. His opponent’s sword chopped down at him, striking his shoulder hard enough to shatter the armour, but Fel’s right fist rammed home hard enough to bury his Art-spike entirely beneath Varante’s chin.

  The other Dragonfly, coming from behind, struck Fel a savage blow between neck and shoulder, putting every ounce of strength behind it, and the Onychoi tumbled forward voicelessly over Varante’s body.

  Teornis had dodged aside at Varante’s warning, so Paladrya’s desperate stab at him missed entirely. His rapier lashed out at her, more to give himself room than as a serious attack, forcing her back. Stenwold tried to take advantage of the moment, but Teornis got his weapon back into line just in time to catch the Beetle’s sword on the quillons of his own. Then the last Dragonfly had landed between Teornis and Paladrya, with the clear intention of finishing the woman off.

  Stenwold’s stomach lurched at the thought and, before he could think about how unwise this was, he threw himself forward at a full charge. Teornis was caught by surprise, flinging himself out of the way with ease but catching Stenwold only a glancing blow across the shoulder. Then Stenwold had cuffed the Spider across the face with one wildly swinging fist, batting him aside, and was lunging past towards the Dragonfly, whose sword was already raised.

  He knew he was already too late, that he could not save her.

  He saw the Dragonfly twist, heard the man’s grunt of pain as Paladrya stabbed him under his guard, ramming her dagger in up to the hilt as she bowled into him, the two of them tumbling over each other. Stenwold saw the man’s hands jab in too, wicked Art claws curving from his thumbs. Paladrya screamed.

  Stenwold was suddenly on the ground and rolling, and there was a fierce line of pain down the back of one leg to join all the other nagging wounds suffered that night. He lurched to his feet, tripped down on one knee again, then managed to stand up, feeling his mauled leg trembling beneath his weight. Teornis was driving straight for him, the point of his rapier dancing in the air like a gnat.

  Wholly off balance, Stenwold tried to get his blade back between him and his opponent. The rapier swept over his parry to whip across his face, opening a cut above one eyebrow. Teornis’s face was wiped clean of all mockery now, down to the bare bones of his expression: not the cold distance of a killer, but infinite remorse.

  ‘You had to force me to this,’ the Spider hissed and his rapier bound effortlessly past Stenwold’s own blade, aimed so as to pierce the Beetle between the ribs with merciless precision.

  He held off, in the end. Something changed in his face, some expression of bitter regret, and he hauled the sword aside, so that it only scored Stenwold’s flank rather than running him through. Stenwold did not possess the same finesse, however, or perhaps that final reserve of restraint, and his instinctive counter-strike jammed his blade up to the hilt between the plates of Teornis’s hauberk.

  The Spider gasped, a hollow whooping of air, and then he fell, and Stenwold dropped to his knees beside him, bleeding from a dozen wounds and utterly exhausted.

  Paladrya! something inside him wailed, and his eyes desperately sought for her body.

  She lives. She lived, though with both hands to her face to staunch the wound the Dragonfly had given her, whilst Phylles stepped back from her assailant’s body, the stingers slowly retracting into her hands. The Polypoi woman looked around, her face bleak, and stomped over to where Fel lay, kneeling gently to put a hand on the dead man’s arm, as though sea-kinden Art could somehow repel even death. It was clear, though, that there was nothing that would bring Fel back to take his place among Wys’s crew

  ‘Stenwold…’ came a weak voice from beside him, and he looked down to meet the gaze of Teornis. The white-faced Spider was curled about the fatal blade. ‘Stenwold,’ he spoke again, ‘what have we come to?’

  Stenwold looked down at him miserably, unable to condemn the other man, even now.

  ‘I lifted the siege of Collegium,’ Teornis managed to get out, face twisting with each word. ‘I drove the Vekken back, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did, at that,’ Stenwold agreed quietly.

  ‘Remember me for that… and not for this,’ the Spider whispered, and Stenwold felt a tide of loss rise within him. Despite it all, despite every piece of treachery brought down on his city by the Aldanrael, he knew he had lost more than he had gained by the killing of Teornis.

  Then Phylles stood up swiftly, and Stenwold looked back over his shoulder to see that they were no longer alone there. The palace had awoken at last, it seemed.

  A slender Moth-kinden woman was standing there – or so she seemed to him, with her grey skin and white eyes, her expression one of solemn melancholy. A handful of others had moved in behind her, and Stenwold recognized white-bearded Sfayot at the woman’s shoulder. Sfayot, who was chancellor, of course, so the Moth he was now deferring to must be…

  Must not be a Moth. Staring, Stenwold now noticed that the colours cast on her drab skin by the lanterns were not quite the colours of the lanterns themselves.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ he ventured, judging that the best way to address the Monarch of Princep Salmae.

  The Butterfly-kinden, who had been known as Grief-in-Chains once, studied him coldly. ‘Why have you brought death into my halls, Master Stenwold Maker?’ she asked.

  ‘Your Highness,’ Stenwold repeated, then he was struck by a sudden thought, ‘It is said that your Art can heal even terrible wounds.’ He gestured mutely at Teornis. ‘Please…’

  The woman’s expression softened slightly, but only to retreat to another, more private sadness. ‘No more,’ she said. ‘My touch can heal no more and, besides, he is past help.’

  It was true: Teornis lay still. Spider reserve had somehow sufficed to compose his features in a philosophical, almost amused expression.

  ‘Again I ask why you come here to shed yet more blood, War Master,’ the Butterfly demanded, but the voice that answered her was Paladrya’s. The Kerebroi woman had been standing nearby, still mopping at her bloody face, but her eyes were now fixed on one of the Monarch’s small party: a Spider-kinden youth of no more than twenty years, with dark, curling hair.

  Stenwold blinked and stared, too, and looked upon the heir of Hermatyre.

  Forty-One

  Helmess had expecte
d to find a gang of cut-throats waiting for him, but the crew gathered in the back room of the Endeavour taverna looked surprisingly respectable. He saw Beetle-kinden in artificers’ leathers, complete with tools, plan cases and the like, Fly-kinden attired as moderately prosperous tradesmen, factory workers or peddlers, and the sole Wasp-kinden there wore Ant-made chainmail and gave every impression of being a renegade mercenary.

  Honory Bellowern strutted before them like a scholar showing off his students.

  ‘Mark this man,’ he instructed his followers. ‘This is the Empire’s man within the Assembly.’

  Helmess was uncomfortably aware that their collective gaze contained a measure of contempt. Nobody liked a traitor, even when the treason was convenient.

  ‘I can get the lads of our kinden in amongst the artillerists, or working repairs on the fortifications,’ Honory explained. ‘Two of them have been here almost a year, getting known and trusted, and they’ll vouch for the others. Our Fly-kinden will drop in on the Aldanraels. They should be able to lose themselves amongst the rabble there. When two or more Spider families get together, nobody can keep track of all their servants and slaves.’

  ‘I wonder that you don’t have a Spider or two on the payroll,’ Helmess observed.

  ‘Ah, well, current policy is not to use Spider agents on Spider business,’ Honory explained. ‘Can’t be entirely sure who’s been bought by who, you see. Besides, most Spider-kinden on the Rekef books want to go anywhere but the Spiderlands, and nowhere near the Aristoi. I’d be suspicious of those that acted otherwise, frankly.’

  ‘I see the sense in that, I suppose. And your Wasp, where does he fit in?’

  Honory laughed. ‘Well, General Brugan does like to think we lesser kinden need mothering.’

  The Wasp agent eyed him bleakly, but the truth was clear. He was here purely to make this a true-blooded Imperial venture, while the actual work would be performed by the rest.

  ‘I’m glad to see you’re back in the game, Master Broiler. You’d kept to your house so much I was getting worried for your health,’ Honory remarked, with perhaps a suggestion of threat.

  ‘It has been so long, and I’ve steeled myself to take this last step, but I will confess I needed a little while to gather the courage,’ Helmess replied, with an apologetic shrug. In reality, of course, he was only free to act now because Teornis and his bloody-handed retinue were safely out of Collegium. And I can’t mention them to Honory, or to anyone else. There were too many secrets involved, that Teornis had pried open, but were still closed to the Empire.

  ‘Well, so long as you’re with us now… I understand you’re on the war council.’

  ‘Much to Jodry Drillen’s bafflement,’ Helmess agreed. ‘You’re right, I think he’ll crack – if only because he’s pointing in the same direction as myself. When he does, he’ll fall. Those same warmongers that cheered Stenwold Maker to the echo will take Drillen apart once he suggests peace talks.’

  ‘Splendid, splendid,’ Honory said happily. ‘Now, for the next few days, you go draw your lists of those we must remove. Better to be over-diligent. A few extra men dead, who did no wrong, will cause us less difficulty than a few alive who might become a problem. We’ll see you back here shortly – I’ll send word exactly when. My people have marked you, though, so no turning back now.’ He said it in a jovial manner, but Helmess as much as heard the clink of chains behind his words.

  The youth stepped forward, his eyes fixed on Paladrya. Stenwold would have assumed him just a young Spider-kinden lad, no more remarkable than any of the waifs and strays of the Spiderlands to be found making a life for themselves across the Lowlands. There was no golden glow of kingship about him, no apparent weight of authority: just another of Princep’s many orphans.

  ‘Is it you?’ the youth whispered, frowning, as Paladrya faced up to his scrutiny bravely. The Dragonfly’s thumb-claw had given her a savage, shallow cut, from her brow halfway to her chin, and she held up a torn piece of her robe to it to help the blood clot.

  Her own eyes were steady. ‘Aradocles,’ she said again, and the youth’s face dissolved into lines of bafflement and wonder.

  ‘It is!’ he hissed, rushing partway towards her, then stopping abruptly. ‘What…? How have you come here? What is all this?’ His hands took in the bodies strewn about the courtyard, her wound, this desecration of the Monarch’s palace.

  ‘I came to find you,’ she told him. ‘We asked… we asked that man,’ she pointed at Sfayot, ‘but they turned us away. These others meant you harm. This was the only way.’

  ‘What is this?’ Aradocles repeated, but this time looking back uncertainly at the Butterfly-kinden.

  For a moment she regarded him without expression, and then her voice emerged, surprisingly small. ‘I only wanted to keep you safe.’

  Guards turned up then, a half-dozen Commonweal Dragonflies with spears. They stared at the carnage, obviously unsure what to do about it.

  ‘Find somewhere for these people within the palace,’ the Butterfly directed them, her hand taking in Stenwold and his fellows.

  ‘Monarch…’ Aradocles started to say, but an imperious gesture cut him off.

  ‘Later,’ she informed him. ‘You will have your chance to speak to them in the morning. For now they have caused enough harm.’

  The guards escorted them to a part of the palace where three adjoining rooms together had been completed, and installed them in the chamber situated furthest in. Nobody seemed sure whether Stenwold’s people were prisoners or guests, and the guards hovered awkwardly outside, plainly ready to prevent an escape but without wanting to seem impolite. Blankets and food and drink were brought, and then different food after the sea-kinden turned their noses up at what was offered. Some salt fish was requisitioned from somewhere for them, but the one commodity that was not in the guards’ power to provide was answers.

  Phylles sat apart, brooding over her grief and blatantly not inviting conversation. Stenwold was left to tend to Paladrya’s wounds, and his own, and to think glumly about Teornis. The victory of actually finding Aradocles tasted like ashes in his mouth.

  Before dawn, Sfayot came to visit them, his lean old face looking stern in the shadows. His pointing finger picked out Stenwold only.

  ‘She wants to speak to you,’ the Roach said, and Stenwold hauled himself to his feet, with wounds and stiffened joints complaining bitterly, and limped after him.

  They took him to a cell within the palace complex, just a simple room, unfurnished save for a pallet bed. Had he still been searching for Aradocles, he would have passed by such a place as unfit for anyone more than a menial, and yet it was here the Monarch of Princep Salmae slept.

  She stood waiting for him, slender and solemn, with barely a glimmer of light dancing over her grey skin. Looking at her, Stenwold wondered, Is this what happens? Was the race of Moths born from Butterfly-kinden who lost their way? For it was clear to him that she had gone far astray from the woman Salma had spoken of – from that bright-fired dancer, the loving innocent with the miraculous healing touch.

  But of course, Salma is dead and, if I recall, she watched him die.

  ‘War Master Stenwold Maker,’ she acknowledged him coldly.

  ‘And what am I to call you? You were Grief in Chains once, I recall.’

  ‘I am Grief again, and no more than that,’ she stated. ‘Why have you come here, War Master?’

  ‘Seeking the boy. His people have need of him.’

  ‘Arad,’ she murmured softly. ‘He has served me as my confidant, my companion, while they built these walls around us. He and Sfayot – I have no others to speak to.’

  ‘Are you so alone?’ Stenwold asked. ‘There’s a whole city of people out there who love you, or so I hear.’

  ‘Only because they do not know what I am. My guards say I should have you killed, since you have defiled the palace of the Monarch.’

  Stenwold glanced around, but Sfayot had retreated and the guards she spoke of we
re not visible. Stenwold was alone with the Butterfly-kinden.

  ‘I’d recommend you finish your walls before you get serious about keeping people out,’ he said, trying for humour, but the words sounded leaden even as he spoke them and her expression admitted of no amusement. ‘I was Salma’s mentor and friend,’ he told her, watching her shrink at the name. ‘I do not deserve your hatred.’

  ‘Do you not? You who held the knife?’ she hurled back at him. ‘You who cast him into the fire again and again, until at last he could take it no more? You who killed him?’

  ‘The Wasps killed Salma,’ Stenwold responded flatly. ‘I cannot claim that I took best care of him, when he was in my charge, nonetheless he was a soldier sent by his people to make war on the Empire. He knew that, and he made his own choices in the end.’ He stared at her levelly, seeing at last what was written so plainly on her face. ‘We neither of us here are to blame.’

  She just stared at him silently without any expression he could interpret, and so he added, ‘You grieve too much, and Salma would not have wanted that. He would never have wanted your Art to fail, your colours to grow dim.’

  A single shudder racked her, just the one, and then she was still again. ‘You do not understand,’ she told him. ‘I am not changed because of Salma’s death, but because of the revenge I took afterwards. I am tainted by my own guilt. My people cannot kill, War Master, without losing the essence of what we are.’ A great sigh went through her. ‘And now you have come to take my page away from me.’

  ‘You know what he is?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then you must know that he too has subjects that need their true ruler. Believe me, I have seen the man who usurped his place, and a less fit man to rule I cannot imagine. I am sorry if this brings you pain, and I would help you if I could. When this is done, ask anything of me, or of my city, and I will try to perform it. For Salma’s memory, if for no other reason.’