Salute the Dark

‘Just wait for me,’ he had requested her. ‘I won’t be long. You don’t want to go off half-ready, so why not taste the air, scout about, but wait for me.’

She had folded her arms. ‘If I learn that someone needs me back home, then I’m going. If Solarno needs me, or my friends need me.’ Seeing his pained expression, she had then relented a little. ‘But other than that, I’ll wait – so long as you don’t take too long catching me up.’ She regarded him dubiously. ‘I’m going to have to ask, though, why do you even care? It isn’t your fight, so why are you even here?’

And his smile had gone from brash to self-mocking to brash again. ‘Because I like you, girl, why else?’ A bald, knuckle-faced man twice her age, and not even of her profession.

She was still trying to work out what she thought of that. Still, he might be useful back in Solarno, if she could judge from how swiftly he had won over Domina Genissa, her previous employer.

The shock of the imperial invasion was still resounding through Porta Mavralis. Trade all about the Exalsee had been thrown into chaos, with the Wasps still trying to clench their fist on the city. They were turning most ships away from Solarno docks, impounding some, allowing a few others to trade freely, all decided apparently at random. Listening to this news, Taki formed the opinion that the Wasps themselves were divided, different officers ordering different strategies, and she further understood that the Crystal Standard party was still trying to assert itself as the new master of Solarno against the resistance of all the rival factions. There would be a reckoning for that pack of traitors, she knew, when they found out what kind of venomous creatures they had given their city over to.

Teornis had not sent her off with no help at all. He had given her a sealed introduction to his chief agent in Mavralis, and Taki met with her on the second day after her arrival: a lean, sly-looking Spider woman named Odyssa.

‘Refugees are still fleeing Solarno,’ the spy explained. ‘There’s almost a quarter of the Path of Jade’s members of the Corta Lucidi set up here in Mavralis, claiming to be a government in exile. Others have dispersed further around the Exalsee, to Princep Exilla, Ostrander, Diroveshni and Chasme. The Wasps are still fighting to lock down the streets and gain total control of the city. Their colonel has not even been able to proclaim himself governor and four or five of the top Crystal Standard collaborators are dead.’

‘By whose hand?’

‘Nobody knows,’ the Spider replied. Odyssa’s smile said that she had her own thoughts. ‘There’s enough general mistrust, though, that Wasp assassins are not so far from people’s thoughts.’

‘Good.’ Let them continue to fight amongst themselves, especially before their prize is secure. ‘I need to find out where certain individuals have gone, if you can help me.’

‘My Lord-Martial does not prohibit it, so give me a list of them and I will see what I can uncover.’ Odyssa slid a blank scroll over to her, with an inkpot and chitin quill balanced on it.

They may be all dead, Taki thought. Some of them will surely be dead. She was thinking of her fellows, her peers, the fighting pilots of Solarno and the Exalsee. My brothers and sisters of the air, my glorious enemies and closest friends. ‘What else are you allowed to give me,’ she asked, ‘or is it just information?’

‘By no means, for my Lord-Martial is not so parsimonious,’ Odyssa replied. ‘I myself am staying at the Cartel-House of the Craesandral family. Do you want to know who my fellow guests are there?’

Taki ground her teeth. ‘Forgive me, Bella Odyssa, but I am a pilot, not a game-player. My city is under the yoke, so please just say what you mean.’

Odyssa’s responding glance was pitying but Taki could live with that. ‘I have twenty Craesandral house-guards as company, and two hundred mercenaries from Iak.’

Taki blinked. ‘You will…?’

‘Make your plans, little one, and I shall help you as I may. When the time comes for blood-letting on the streets of Solarno, we shall be with you.’

Two hundred and twenty. Odyssa looked very pleased with herself but Taki was already seeing in her mind the mighty imperial airship Starnest and the hundreds of Wasp soldiers descending from it. And how many friends are left in Solarno that will fight? She needed her friends, her fellow pilots, and she needed a plan.

And she needed someone she could trust to go into Solarno on her behalf, and that someone was not Odyssa.

It would have to be Nero.

Six

There were certain businesses that did not stop even for the war. In fact there were some businesses that took on extra staff.