Blood of the Mantis

The creature nodded and strode off into the unnaturally arrested town, without another word. Achaeos choked to watch her, for it was the naked Mantis woman who took each step forward, but once her foot touched the earth the briars and vines thrust up through it to rake across her and impale her over and over, and her skin ripped open with the barbs and thorns, and healed over in the gleaming green-black exoskeleton of her kinden’s beast.

He got to his feet and hurried after her, after it… the spirit of a Mantis woman trapped between life and death for five centuries, constantly degrading and corrupting and yet still remembering her own name.

He knew that others, many others, were presently seeking him out. The other collectors and perhaps worse, all those who had the magical skill to seize upon this open portal and follow the thread. Laetrimae was pacing ahead sedately, but each step carried her such a distance that he was forced to run even to keep her in sight, and there was perpetually a flock of shadows behind him, squabbling over his tracks.

Until the tortured Mantis-creature paused at a door, a lowly place near the lakeshore where a sprawling guesthouse sagged, its walls at conflicting angles. She grasped the doorframe with such force that the wood splintered, and thorns and creepers grew out from her into it, and split it further.

And then he knew. He looked wildly about him for landmarks. He had to remember this place, when he awoke…

And Laetrimae grasped him about the throat in a vice-like grip, killing spines razoring his skin, and he felt her thorny branches questing at his flesh, eager to drink his blood.

And she said only, Remember, and branded that place on his mind so that he would never ever forget it.

Achaeos awoke with a cry, startling Tisamon, who had been keeping watch outside. The Mantis almost kicked the door off its hinges just to get in. Beyond him, Achaeos saw that it was night still, and thus the best time to go to work.

‘I know where it is!’ he yelled. ‘We need to move now.’

‘Who’s we?’ Jons Allanbridge demanded, not a ready waker at this hour.

‘Myself,’ the Moth replied. ‘Tisamon, and Tynisa, and-’

‘And me?’ Thalric asked sardonically. ‘You brought me here, yet you’ve had precious little use of me yet.’

‘What about Gaved?’ Tynisa started.

‘No time!’ Achaeos insisted. The Wasp hunter was still at Nivit’s place, with the strange girl they had rescued. ‘Now – we go now. Allanbridge, you stay here. Can you get your machine ready to leave?’

‘It takes hours just to fill the canopy!’ the artificer informed him.

‘Well, just… do something,’ Achaeos said, almost hopping from foot to foot. ‘But we must go, please!’

‘So let’s go.’ Tisamon pushed past him out into the night. He stopped right there, as if scenting the air. Tynisa came out after him, sensing nothing. Her hand was bleeding a little, she noticed. That wound was unusually stubborn.

Achaeos had his bow ready strung, and he pushed past her, rushing off into the street and then looking left and right as if getting his bearings. For once the rain in Jerez was petering out, although the night sky was blotted with heavy-laden clouds.

Then Achaeos was off, and at a fair pace, too. Tynisa instinctively moved when Tisamon did, and it was only after she heard the running footsteps behind them that she realized that Thalric had come with them after all.

Useless, she decided. He can’t even see in the dark. But Thalric was keeping pace nonetheless, using what little light bled out from under the doors of drinking dens and brothels. Another one to watch for now. He was dangerous, and she could not trust him. He’d sell us all in an instant.

Achaeos kept stopping for bearings, but most of the time he did not even look around him. Whatever guide he was consulting seemed to be entirely within his head.

‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, but even Tisamon had heard nothing.

‘We aren’t alone.’ Achaeos stared back the way they had come, and Tynisa fought down a small sound of horror because there was a pale mark across his throat, like a jagged and irregular scar. His blank white eyes met hers for a second, and she merely shivered and shook her head. Then he was running again.

As they took off after him, Tynisa was sure that something passed overhead, but when she glanced upwards, she saw nothing.

Across the city there were others suddenly awake, but with nothing in their minds but disappointment. The young seer who had somehow merited such a guide had managed to lose then.

Sykore the Mosquito-kinden was one. She had hoped to catch even a glimpse of the place, a street even, so that she could have Captain Brodan searching each house there, but the boy had been too fast for her.