Blood of the Mantis

She was never sure, thinking back, whether that was the right thing to have done, for she felt instantly as though she had been punched hard, and there came a flash of blue-white light that seared all other details of the room from her mind for a second. Then she was lying on the ground, her head spinning, and the palm of her sword hand was raw and burnt, even the grip of her sword blackened. The armoured man lay on his back across the room from her, already struggling to get up with the help of his small servants.

‘Come on!’ she shouted to the Spider girl, and she saw fear and desperation fighting in the girl’s expression, then desperation finally winning out. She dashed on past the armoured man in a sudden access of courage, but then a gauntleted hand closed on her ankle as she ran.

It was Founder who caught her, before she struck the floor, and Tisamon drove the point of his claw down into the gauntlet to break its grip, and then lashed a backhanded blow into the face of the man’s helm.

The helm cracked, not like metal but like a shell, and the face beneath it was pure Beetle-kinden, though pale as a drowned man’s and twisted in utter fury. The hollow voice emerging from behind the helm became recognizable words: ‘She is ours! You savages cannot take her!’

‘Go!’ Tynisa urged the girl, leading, the way to the front hatch. She had to pass the point where the intruders had come up through, and what she saw down there thoroughly frightened her.

A hole had been chewed in the bottom of the gondola, some machine or creature tunnelling up through the earth below to penetrate the wooden hull, but the tunnel was now entirely awash with water.

Even as she watched, there was a man down there, another of the huge, hook-handed creatures. As it half-swam and half-clambered to the surface, it was surrounded by a silvery nimbus that vanished as soon as it broke the water.

Tisamon was past her now, at the hatch, but he stared at it helplessly. It had been meant for Apt hands, and he could not manage the catches.

Founder literally pushed him out of the way. Behind them they could hear the last of his soldiers and guards being finished off.

He then had the hatch open, flinging it wide with a shout, as a bolt of energy struck him full in the chest, knocking him backwards to the ground, his face fixed in a rictus of shock.

There were Wasp soldiers gathered outside, not those in the pay of the Consortium but the sort Tynisa was more used to.

There was no time to check whether Founder was still alive. Tisamon simply leapt out through the opening, dropping the ten feet of space to land in the midst of them, lashing out at them even as he fell. Two of the Wasp soldiers spun away from him, wounded, while the others scattered, seeking for cover from which to shoot.

Tynisa grabbed the Spider girl, who looked utterly horrified, and slid down the sloping hull, trusting to her Art to slow her fall. Her burden was no help at all, just clinging to her as though she had never climbed a wall in her life.

When it was obvious the girl would not do anything as sensible as run for her life, Tynisa had to drag her three streets away to relative safety before turning back for Tisamon. He was already coming, though, running after them at top speed.

‘Where are the Wasps?’ Tynisa asked him.

‘They encountered our friends from inside,’ was all he said. He glanced away from her to the Spider girl, and Tynisa could see that he wanted to say that she would have been better left behind, but even so he was curious about her. Before he could speak, they heard shouting nearby, and the crackle of a Wasp sting.

‘Away,’ he decided, and they ran off into the muddy streets of Jerez, the Wasps taking to the air behind them.

Nivit was out consulting with his sources but Gaved was supposed to be busy hiding people. He was nominally hiding Thalric, who was both an ungracious guest and an unwilling fugitive. The former Rekef man stalked about Nivit’s premises, prying into the information broker’s records and frightening Skrit. It was obvious that he would decide to leave soon, and then Gaved would get to find out whether he himself would decide to restrain the man, or even be able to.

When the knock on the door came, it was a relief to all of them. Gaved looked through the crack and then opened up hurriedly, bundling Tynisa and Tisamon into the room, and one more fugitive as well.

‘No time to stop,’ Tynisa declared. ‘We have some Wasps to mislead. They’re out searching for us and I don’t want them looking here. Take care of the girl until we get back.’ She looked from Thalric to Gaved, getting little response, and then she and the Mantis were gone, the door swinging shut behind her.

‘“Take care of the girl”?’ Thalric snorted. ‘Are we running a Helleron whorehouse now?’ The new arrival looked at him in alarm, and then turned to Gaved and instantly flinched away from him as well. He saw her face.