Blood of the Mantis

She put her head out of the hatch to see where Nero was, and found him crouching atop the half-finished machine. At that moment he was loosing an arrow with great concentration, sending it winging out past the defenders, only to skip across the empty ground between two Wasps. An artist he might be, she realized, but an archer he was not.

If only Achaeos was here, she thought, and then, I hope he’s coping better than this.

Taki shot off her crossbow, and then crouched behind the Esca to crank the arms back. The Wasps were making progress into the building now. Too many of the Solarnese were dead or lying injured on the ground, and the remaining defenders had fallen back to take cover behind the flying machines, allowing the Wasps the shelter of the doorway. To Che’s horror she saw another Wasp orthopter fly past by the hangar mouth, turning slowly in a course that would bring it into land.

‘Nero, come on!’ she yelled. ‘Taki!’

‘No use,’ said the Fly girl, slotting a new bolt into place. ‘We can’t get out past them. They’d destroy the Esca, destroy any machine that tried to escape.’ She sounded fiercely bitter, thus denied the sky.

‘Hold your shot!’ shouted someone from immediately behind the Wasp lines. ‘The next man to loose will be put on a charge!’

Slowly the Wasps stopped shooting, still holding to the cover of the doorway. The defenders then cautiously followed suit.

‘Is Bella Taki-Amre within?’ yelled a voice, and Che recognized it as belonging to Axrad, the Wasp officer pilot. ‘What do you want?’ Taki called out.

‘I thought I might find you here. Here or in the air.’ Axrad appeared at the door, silhouetted against the lamps glowing outside. It was as if he was daring the defenders to shoot him. ‘We have unfinished business, you and I.’

Taki slowly released the tension on her crossbow. ‘Are you asking me to take this outside?’ she asked.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Axrad replied.

‘And what about everyone else?’ she enquired.

‘What about them?’ His tone showed that he had not even considered this.

‘I have two non-combatants here who are not part of this fight,’ Taki said desperately. ‘I wish to get them safely out of the city.’

‘Then they will provide the stakes,’ Axrad suggested. ‘We two shall duel, and if you happen to defeat me, our soldiers here will let everyone depart where they will, either go to fight again or go to flee. Is that clear, Sergeant?’

Che did not hear the other man’s response but assumed it must have been positive.

Taki slipped the crossbow back into the Esca’s canopy. She headed around her machine’s wing as though to see Axrad better, but when she was passing nearest to Che she said, ‘They won’t keep their side. He means it, but I bet they don’t. Once I’m in the air, get going. They’ll be busy watching us, and not you.’

In a louder voice, intended to carry to Axrad, she announced, ‘I’m all yours. Let me wheel my Esca onto the field, and then we’ll finish our business.’

Twenty-Three

‘This must be Lowlander work,’ the Emperor Alvdan hissed. He stood in his nightshirt, a dozen guards gathered about him. One fist was pressed nervously into his chin. ‘This can be no coincidence.’

‘It seems likely, your Imperial Majesty,’ Maxin allowed. He was not going to tell the Emperor that his own agents had sensed no warning of this, nor caught any Lowlander spies. Let us hope the Emperor asks no questions about this, he thought. Today was not the greatest day for the Rekef and, whoever had failed in this, Maxin was the man standing here with the Emperor in the pre-dawn darkness.

The word received had been that urgent: Major Berdic had been emphatic and his messenger insistent. The sight of the Fly-kinden man marching into the palace, in order to rouse the Emperor and the master of the Rekef, would stay with Maxin for some time. The man’s face had exhibited blank fear, but he had witnessed the plight of Szar and he knew his duty. Maxin had been forced to commend him for it.

‘If Szar… goes, how does it affect our campaign?’ Alvdan asked.