Blood of the Mantis

‘Look,’ pointed Tynisa, who was at the rail, leaning out. Beneath a cloudy sky there could be seen distant flecks of darker matter. The Wasp air-armada was on its way.

‘Airships,’ Allanbridge observed. ‘Big ones too, a half-dozen at least. Can’t see any small stuff from here without my ’scope.’

‘I can,’ Tynisa told him. ‘I can’t count them up, but I think three dozen fliers.’

‘Not to mention probably about two thousand of the light airborne,’ Thalric added. He had not even come over to look. ‘They’ll have them clinging to the dirigibles, everywhere they can, all wrapped in their woollies. I would, too, if I were in charge.’

‘Do you know who will be leading them?’ Achaeos asked him, ‘and what… what will they do to my people?’

Looking back, they could see crowds of Moths lining the balconies and entrances of Tharn, hundreds of robed figures standing, blinking in the unaccustomed daylight. There were others amongst them: Fly-kinden and Mantis warriors. Way below, even the farmers had not gone to bed with the moon but now stood silently in their tiered fields, waiting, waiting.

‘That’s no proper army,’ Thalric said, almost contemptuously. ‘An expeditionary force – that’s all your city merits. They’ll have picked some officer to appoint governor of this place, if your people roll over. Nobody important, though. It’s not as though this backwater has anything anyone would want.’

Achaeos rounded on him, fists clenched. Thalric raised an eyebrow.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘Remember, you brought me along as your imperial advisor. Don’t ask questions if you don’t want the answers.’

‘I hate to break up a pair of friends,’ Allanbridge told them, having come back abovedecks, ‘but we’ve got a problem.’ He had a telescope out now, and had been raking it across the distant airfleet. ‘They’ve spotted us sure enough.’ Seeing Achaeos’ expression he continued, ‘You forget we’ve got a real big balloon above us, and the dawn catches it just lovely. I count a couple of fixed-wings now coming to pay us a visit.’

‘Then make this machine go faster,’ Achaeos demanded.

‘It doesn’t work like that, boy. They’re just plain faster than we’ll ever be.’

‘But what will they do?’ Achaeos remembered flying machines duelling during the Battle of the Rails. ‘How can we fight them?’

‘Ah, well, that’s the real problem,’ Allanbridge replied. He opened up a locker and brought out a big repeating crossbow with a latched hook that he now rested on the gondola’s rail.

To Achaeos it seemed impossible that they should ever be caught. The airship was sculling along with a brisk wind, passing perilously close to the mountainside yet always being gusted past it. He himself would be hard-pressed to fly this fast for very long. So how fast could the Wasp machines be?

It was an agony of waiting, but soon he could see the fliers as twin dots against the sky, keeping close together, imperceptibly growing in size as they neared. But still the Buoyant Maiden clipped ahead, making more and more distance from Tharn, and yet not widening the gap at all.

Tisamon had gone down into the hold and now he reappeared with a bow, a proper Mantis longbow as tall as he was, and strong enough that he was forced to lean heavily into it to bring it to the string. On seeing this, Achaeos strung his own bow, which seemed pitiful in comparison. Nearby Tynisa stood with her hand on her rapier, looking angrily impotent.

She spoke to Achaeos but her eyes were on the growing specks. ‘What happened with your people?’ He sensed she merely wanted to blunt the edge of her frustration.

‘Precious little. They will not help us. They would prefer to cast me out. They are… they’re scared.’

‘Of the Wasps, you mean?’

‘Of the box.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I’d have thought that would be their very thing.’

‘I thought they would help – that they would appreciate what I’m trying to do. But no, they… they, who are wiser than I am, are afraid of it. They paint it as something that twists anything it touches. And…’ He stopped, suddenly uncomfortable.

‘And?’ she prompted.

‘And they may be right. I think it has begun to work on me already.’

Something zipped overhead, and they ducked simultaneously. Looking over the stern rail, Achaeos discovered the two flying machines were now close enough for him to see two men riding in each, one that must be directing it, while the other, sitting above and behind, was aiming some kind of big crossbow. The nearest of the two had begun loosing a few ranging shots.

Tisamon joined the pair of them at the stern, pulling his bowstring back level with his ear and waiting, his arm unflinching.

A crossbow bolt ploughed into the balloon above them, and then two more as the enemy repeater found its range. Tisamon loosed, sending an arrow flashing through the open air, but the shaft shattered against the hull of the enemy machine, and he cursed and reached for another.

‘Will the canopy hold?’ Gaved shouted.