Blood of the Mantis

Sykore glanced back to the lake, baring her teeth in a derisive smile. She had seen into his mind, seen how desperate he was to bring back the box, not for any great purpose but for fear of failure. Like so many of these Wasp-kinden, Brodan lived a life entirely dictated by fear – fear of his superiors’ wrath, his peers’ plots and his inferiors’ ambitions. If only the conquered could see their conquerors as I have, they would rise up in revolt tomorrow, she thought. And they would die for it. Fear is the greatest motivator, fear can make a man fearless, so long as you make him fear you more than he fears any other.

Sykore settled back, heedless of the cold and damp, waiting for that magical moment when the Spider-kinden magician would produce the box out into the chill air, whereupon she would send Brodan and his people across the waters.

‘They’re coming.’

Nivit froze midway through checking an account, watching Sef’s head come up and scent the air like an animal. Something guilty twitched inside him. He had just been thinking about the lake-people and their promised bounty.

‘They ain’t coming,’ he said dismissively.

‘They are,’ she whispered. ‘I can smell them.’

Nivit snorted. ‘Oh, right, what do these water-Beetles smell like, then? Other than rotting reeds and lakewater?’

‘They smell of the poisons they use in order to work their machines.’

Nivit stared at her. ‘Girl, that almost made some sense,’ he said, and put the tablet down to approach the door.

‘I can smell them,’ her hollow voice continued, like dead leaves, ‘as they can scent me and, though I have done all my kinden know to hide myself, yet they have found me at last…’

Now that she had mentioned it there was indeed the faintest whiff of something bitter and oily on the air, and Nivit tried to remember whether he had smelled the same when those lake-people actually had come to his door.

‘You… you stay away from the door, why don’t you,’ he ordered, and Sef obediently retreated away into the darkest recesses of his hut. Obediently, that was the key, and what made her story ring even a little true. She did exactly what she was told, like no Spider ever did, even a Spider that had been enslaved. This could be easier than I might hope for.

He went sideways from the door over to one of his spyholes, peering out into the darkened street outside. Girl’s probably imagining the whole thing.

Even as the thought came to him, he spotted a little pacing shadow, a long-legged, hunch-backed figure a little like a Skater, yet not to be confused with them. He jumped to another spyhole and found himself looking at a broad-shouldered form whose outline showed the armour plainly. Two other large figures were waiting in the shadows nearby.

What had she called the man – Saltwheel? A good Beetle name, but these lake-dwellers were not good Beetles. Now Saltwheel, or whoever, was coming over.

Coming about the bounty. Got the money on him, like as not.

Nivit glanced back at the Spider girl, grimacing. Gaved was always too soft, and he’d taken a shine to Sef, but in time he would get over it.

The Skater smiled bitterly. I am going to curse myselffor this in the morning…

But it was very clear to him how the land lay just now. The lake-dwellers wanted her back, but not because she was their slave – a class uncared for and unmourned from what Sef had said. They wanted her back simply because she could tell people about them.

And so can I.

Once they had Sef, they would have no need of Nivit either, not to pay for his services, nor to suffer to talk.

He rushed to the rear of the shack, grabbing Sef’s wrist and dragging her into Skrit’s room. Here was one of his secrets, and he saw Skrit staring up blearily at him from her bed, wondering what was going on. However Nivit was not interested in her but in the crank at the back.

Most Skaters were not Apt: they were not a technical race, not given to artifice or machines. There was a minority that were, though, and this was growing, generation to generation, as Nivit’s kinden slowly underwent a transformation.

Nivit himself was Apt, and he wound the crank as hard as his skinny arms could manage, till a hatch opened smoothly and silently onto a back-alley, even as a mailed fist rapped sharply at his door.

He cocked his head at the new-gaping entrance, and Sef stared at him wide-eyed.