‘Build them something
even better!’ Drephos crowed. ‘And the science advances one more step. Oh, you
may have thought you had all kinds of airy motives, Totho, but in your heart
you’re an artificer. You’re a man of progress just like I am. How hard would it
have been for me, myself, to get that weapon into the hands of the enemy? Just
think how much time you’ve saved me. The war goes on, Totho, back and forth,
year to year, and how much better for us two that it does. If the Empire ever
wins outright then will it continue to let us use its foundries and its
workshops? Will it lend us further resources for our work?’ He then took Totho
by the unhurt shoulder and hauled him to his feet. ‘Do you bind yourself to me,
boy, truly? Once before I thought I’d read truth in your face, but I can be
deceived.’
One last chance, Totho
realized, for him to stand against the bloody flood, to reject the metal and
choose the meat – to do something Che would be proud of.
‘I am yours,’ he said
soberly. ‘I bind myself to you.’
Che had set off walking
away from the camp and not stopped until dawn began to colour the eastern sky.
She discovered she had been heading a little east of south. It occurred to her
that she had no idea where she was, and that the food and water Totho had
scavenged for her would not last for very long. The one building she came
across was a barren shack that was possibly once some rich man’s hunting lodge,
but it had been picked bare already.
She now had a problem,
and realized that she should have fled the camp westwards along the rail line,
which would have led her infallibly to the gates of Sarn and to safety.
Instead, she would have to work her way northwards as best she could, and hope
to encounter the rails again. Northwards and westwards, then, so that she did
not simply walk straight back into the Wasp camp. And, even so, they would have
scouts out, so she would camp out during the height of the day, and then walk
all night, trusting to her Art to keep her eyes sharp.
For now, she simply
trudged on until the sun became too hot, and then she rested, and in the
evening she trudged on again, looking always for a sign of the rails ahead of
her, like the cut or rise of the railside bankings. But the rugged, scrubby
terrain went on endlessly, punctuated only by knots of trees wherever water had
gathered beneath the earth, or the ravaged plots of ploughed farmland when the
ground became fertile enough. She found no buildings that had not been
systematically sacked and burned, which told her she was still too near to the
Wasp camp, wherever it was, for comfort.
Towards dusk, she found
a stream that had cut a channel through the land, capable of hiding her from
enemy eyes. It was cooler, too, and edged with green that was a welcome change from
the drylands that extended between Helleron and the woods of Etheryon. Its
course ran too straight to be natural, and the land either side was flat and
had obviously once known the plough, but she could not tell how long ago, or
whose hands had refashioned the soil here.
She was still heading
along the channel when she heard something buzz overhead like a very
fast-moving insect. There had been a knife amongst Totho’s gifts and she seized
it in her hand, trying to crouch into some kind of martial position, but she
could see no one, certainly nobody in black and gold armour.
She was just thinking
that perhaps it was an insect after all, when something struck the side of her
head in a blaze of pain and she dropped face-first into the stream.
When Che recovered, she
found her wrists and ankles bound with strips of cloth torn from her own
clothing – not the uniform tunic she still wore, but her real clothes that had
been in the sack, and were now spread out with the rest of its contents around
an almost smokeless fire. A low, wide tent had been pitched beside a pool that
the stream flowed into, and then out of, on its artificial course.
Some
bandit or wanderer
, she guessed.
I can promise a
reward. I can probably make them be reasonable.
And then she heard a
footstep and turned, and almost cried out in dismay, for he was a Wasp – not in
uniform, but a Wasp with a scarred face, in a long leather coat, coming with a
string of fish in one hand and eyeing her speculatively.
It had been something as
commonplace as a slingshot that had brought her down, a stone aimed at her from
the undergrowth.
His name was Gaved and
he was obviously no ordinary Wasp as Che was used to them. No uniform and no
rank, and he had all the marks of a loner about him. When she eventually
questioned him about what he did, he told her he hunted men and women for a
living.
‘And now I’ve caught
you,’ he said, ‘a nice, plump deserter. Well, it’s about time my luck changed.
I was robbed by a bastard Spider-kinden and I’m still on his trail, but I
reckon I can now make some pocket money by returning you to your masters.’
‘If it’s money you want,
if you get me to Collegium . . .’
‘Girl, I’ve just come
from Collegium. I’m not even sure it’s still standing by now.’
‘It is, the . . .’
‘And
anyway
,’ he said, speaking over her, ‘I’ve got no wish to
retrace my steps, not with my Spider friend still out there hoping to claim my
share of the loot. So, if it’s all right with you I’ll just hand you in and go
about my business.’
‘They’ll kill me.’
‘They’ll whip you,
certainly,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘Maybe they’ll kill you too, if they
want to make an example, but probably you’ll just get a whipping, an Auxillian
abandoning her post. Why not tell them you got lost?’
‘I’m not a deserter,’
she protested. ‘I’m not an Auxillian.’ She fell silent, knowing that whatever
she said could only make her position worse. The same understanding was in his
eyes, too.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said,
with a shrug. ‘A man’s got to make a living, and it’s not easy sometimes.’
He had taken her into
his tent, come nightfall, with the fire left to burn itself out by the opening,
and she had assumed he would take advantage of her. Instead he just made sure
she was tied too tight to escape, and then lay down at whatever distance from
her the tent would allow. She realized that in some perverse feeling of concern
he had brought her inside to keep her warm.
‘Please,’ she addressed
his back. ‘I promise you more money than the Wasps will pay. Just take me to
Sarn. Sarn can’t be too far out of your way.’
‘Don’t make me gag you,’
was his only reply.
Gaved woke with the
dawn, as he always did. It was good to be travelling alone and in the wilds. It
had been fun going along with Phin for a time, but in the end other people
tended to crowd him.
And
yet here I am, so self-sufficient I’m doing the Empire’s work still
. The
cursed Spider, Scylis, had seen right through his vaunted independence, and he
could do without some mercenary telling him things he already knew.
He remembered his last
sight of Phin, sprawled dead with a nailbow shot straight through her. She had
deserved better than that, but then so did most people who died.
The girl was awake and
staring at him and obviously about to start pleading for her life again. That
would only depress him. ‘I’m going out to water the place,’ he told her, ‘but
I’ll be watching, and if you make a move it won’t be a stone this time, but a
sting, you understand?’
She nodded, and he went
outside into the growing sunlight, smiling to greet it, as he always did. Then
the smile slipped and he growled, ‘Who in the wastes are all of you?’
Che watched the Wasp
re-enter, with an odd expression on his face. He had a small knife in one hand,
and she opened her mouth to scream, but he said, just above a whisper, ‘Now I’m
going to cut you free. No sudden moves, all right?’
The knife sawed through
the bonds at her ankles, and then at her wrists, and a moment later he backed
out of the tent again, and she saw a flash of reflected sunlight as he cast the
knife point-first into the ground.
She crawled cautiously
out after him and saw that they were not alone, that there were at least a
dozen other people crouching or standing around the tent. They had swords and
bows and crossbows, and they came from all kinden, and they distinctly had the
look of the bandit about them.
‘Well,’ Gaved said. ‘I
suppose she’s yours now.’
‘Don’t move, Wasp. We’ve
not done with you,’ said one of the bandits – and a moment later Che was
running forward, throwing herself into his arms with a cry of joy, because
under the grime and the tarnished cuirass and the rough clothing was none other
than Prince Salme Dien, who she thought she would never see again.
‘Salma! How can you be
here? How can it be you?’
‘I had some help in
finding you,’ he replied, embracing her gently, and glanced back towards one of
his own people who was muffled in a cloak. Then the hood was pushed back to
reveal that the face beneath was bright and rainbow-hued.
‘You found her?’
‘And then she found me,’
Salma confirmed. He looked at Gaved the Wasp. ‘Did this man hurt you?’
Gaved visibly tensed,
knowing that her answer would seal his fate.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing
like that at all.’
‘Then pack up your tent,
Master Wasp. You’re coming with us.’ He turned again to his followers.
‘Phalmes?’
A tough-looking Mynan
stepped forwards. ‘Yes, chief?’
‘We’re heading back for
camp, and then I want a messenger sent to Collegium.’
Che then thought about
the plans that Totho had given her, the plans still concealed inside her tunic.
The war was far from
over.
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.