Blood of the Mantis

Destrachis’s long face grimaced at that. ‘In Seldis and Siennis they tend to laugh at the Mantis-kinden and their grudges,’ he said. ‘Of course, the Mantids don’t come there much. And, as for the rest, I’m perhaps the only Spider-kinden who’ll ever admit to you that I cannot be wholly relied on. I’ve failed before.’

‘Haven’t we all.’ Balkus turned back to Felise Mienn, still engaged in her exercise, watching in silence for a moment as she spun and glittered. She was beautiful, there was no doubt, but it was a beauty that would be dangerous to approach. Her very presence set him reaching instinctively for his sword-hilt, and he fought off this impulse because it could be so easily misconstrued by a madwoman like her.

‘It’s something of a mystery, really,’ continued the careful voice of Destrachis. ‘Before it happened, she was never reckoned so good. She was trained, of course. She was a Mercer, and they’re not exactly slack with sword or bow, but this… this mastery just seems to have fallen on her like a mantle, after her family was lost to her.’

Balkus nodded, still trying to follow the shimmering movements of the Dragonfly-kinden, and finding that his speed of eye was not quite up to the task.

‘Well it’s all very pretty,’ he said, as dismissively as he could muster, ‘but I prefer my own manner of fighting.’ He patted the heavy bulk of the nailbow resting on the stonework beside him.

‘Nobody’s keeping you here,’ Destrachis pointed out.

‘Like you said,’ said Balkus. ‘Sten Maker left me here with an armful of jobs, and keeping an eye on that one there was one of them – in case she goes mad.’

‘A waste of your time,’ the Spider observed.

‘Says you. I’ve seen her and I’ve seen mad, and she’s it.’

Destrachis smiled, but it was a tired smile. Felise had been in Collegium for more than a month now without any sudden explosion of her madness. She had not even shown any inclination to charge off after Thalric. Yes, she was making every show of being sane now, and yet he knew it was not so. He felt like a man living in a tottering house that one night will collapse and crush him. ‘Oh, I’ll not argue with that, friend,’ he said. ‘Only that, when it happens, you’ll not be able to stop it.’

‘My girl here can stop near enough anything,’ Balkus said proudly.

Destrachis sniggered. ‘You might get the chance to shoot at her, but you would never hit her. Then her sword would cut that piece of artifice of yours in half.’

He expected a quick rejoinder, but instead Balkus craned back at him, frowning. ‘It’s Sarnesh steel, this. She could cut my nailbow in half?’

‘That weapon of hers is one of the Good Old Swords, as we say, made in the old fashion that almost nobody remembers now, save amongst the Dragonflies, and perhaps the Mantis-kinden. A proper Commonweal noble’s duelling blade, no less. They don’t make them like that any more, but they don’t have to, because they last for ever.’

Balkus gave a rude snort. ‘If they’re so wonderful, everyone would be making swords like that still.’

‘Not everyone can devote so many years to crafting a single blade,’ Destrachis explained, silencing the Ant once more. When it seemed that he had given Balkus enough to think about, he added, ‘She’s changed, though. I travelled with her from Helleron to Vek, and I can’t remember her ever practising like this when she was hunting down Thalric. It’s as though it’s some new challenge she’s preparing for…’ His professional instincts were worried – that much he knew. Perhaps it was just the idea that Felise might become even better at killing people. In the Commonweal they believe that madness can gift someone with a skill and vision that sanity cannot touch, and here in her I see the proof of that, but now she is taking that madness and reforging it, and why?

‘And you’re meant to be a doctor,’ Balkus scoffed. ‘You want to know what this is about? I’ll tell you right off.’

‘And?’

‘She wants to impress someone. You know who I mean.’

Destrachis looked at Felise dancing, the utter precision of it, and at the same time the passion that drove it. Such a thing to overlook. ‘I cannot think so. She has been driven many miles by the death of her family. Surely…’ Or has this lump of an Ant-kinden struck the truth, after all?

‘She’ll be disappointed,’ Balkus added, ‘and I wouldn’t want to be around when that happens, either. I like my nailbow in one piece.’

‘Disappointed? In what way?’

‘You get to know a bit about the Mantids, growing up in Sarn, and besides, that one’s madder than most. Tisamon, he’s got a history. I picked it up in pieces, but that Tynisa’s his own daughter, which meant there was a mother. I never heard of a Mantis-kinden who paired off twice.’