Blood of the Mantis

The blade of her sword was clotted with blood. Perhaps she had struck him after all, but she could see no wound on him even as he struggled away. He was shouting, though, shouting a name…

She saw movement behind her as Gaved tried to grab her. He got one arm about her throat, but she slammed her elbow into his face, catching him right in the jaw, and he reeled back. Wasp traitor! He and Thalric must have been in it together from the start, and more fool Sten for trusting them.

She tried to stab Gaved right in the face. Again the blade seemed heavy, lifeless in her grip, and it plunged past and into the wall. The twisted hilt smashed him across the jaw, though, and he fell back, stunned at least. The blade slid from the shoddy rotten wood of Nivit’s shack and she turned on Thalric again.

‘You’ve had this coming far too long!’ she shouted at him, and something snapped in him, clearly something he had been holding back. A moment later he leapt at her, and her blade had only grazed his side before he slammed her to the floor with a grimace of rage. She punched him in the face, and he rammed her head back against the floorboards hard enough to make her vision blur, and then she dug her fingers deep into his side, where his wound was, as hard as she could, and he bellowed in pain and rolled off her.

She scrambled to her feet, but he already had one hand pointed at her.

‘Die, you mad bitch!’ he spat.

He lurched up on to one knee to shoot, but abruptly a puzzled expression spread across his face, and he plucked at something on his neck. A moment later he swayed, and then collapsed altogether.

Nivit stood in the doorway staring at her, a blowpipe to his lips.

She looked around to find Tisamon was slumped in one corner, while Sef was still sprawled where she had been sitting earlier. The two Wasps, of course, were both down, Gaved shaking his head groggily… and Achaeos was lying in a pool of spreading blood.

Just like the blood slicked on her blade.

And there was someone else, though she could only just see her. It was a bent old woman with red eyes, and something, some small thing, clasped in her hands. She passed by Nivit on her way out, but it seemed as if the Skater did not notice her at all.

‘Nivit,’ she called out, raising her sword, and she felt something sting her just above her eye.

‘What?’ She slapped at it awkwardly, her hand coming away with a tiny dart in it. ‘Nivit?’

Tynisa’s world shook and swayed. The last thing she saw, before she collapsed, was Tisamon’s eyes opening with a start, the Mantis leaping to his feet.

Sykore hurried away from Nivit’s house as fast as she could, grasping the Shadow Box tightly to her, swathed by several layers of her robe. She dared not touch it directly. She dared not lose her purpose.

I was right there amongst them, she thought. The Spider girl had seen her, she knew, but then the Skater had pricked her with his dart. I might have got hurt. The mere thought of physical violence, of that glutted rapier darting towards her, made her shudder, momentarily unsteady on her feet. She would never take such risks again, but the prize had been too great and Uctebri’s patronage too important.

They had nearly been too strong for her. She had been ready for the shift, but she had nearly become as trapped in the Shadow Box’s little world as they had been. Uctebri’s power, she knew, had helped free her, so that she could continue to act in the physical world while they were all stupefied. That had left only the Wasp-kinden, and it took no great skill to hide herself from those who never so much as suspected magic.

She had headed along the curve of the lake, looking for the swiftest way out of Jerez. Now she was bypassing the outlying hovels, out into the marshy grassland, lumpy and pitted through constant subsidence. She was well clear of the Lowlanders at least.

A great sigh of relief escaped her. She had not realized how much the possibility of harm had terrified her: her people’s sense of self-preservation that routinely won out over common purpose or community. The Moth-kinden had always employed their Mantis guards to die for them, yet they had been willing to die themselves if it became ultimately necessary. Perhaps that was why they had triumphed, all those centuries ago.

She glanced down at the cloth-swathed object she was clutching, feeling its pull. She would hand it straight to Brodan and he would take it to his masters like the docile animal he was. He would feel nothing from it, however. To him it would be just a box.

‘Turn,’ said a voice from behind her, and she did so, automatically, clutching the box to her and hissing in anger. There was a lean figure standing there with a metal blade jutting from his hand: the Mantis from the Moth’s retinue. Her memory brought up the name ‘Tisamon’.

She narrowed her eyes. ‘You are no magician, Mantis, so how did you get here?’