Blood of the Mantis

There was blood on Che’s blade. From a mortal wound that she had inflicted? Impossible to be sure, but she doubted it. Her recollection of the sequence of events aboard ship was at best cloudy. She had decided that she did not like fighting very much.

That decision had come after watching a battle, an actual battle. She had read accounts of battles before, of course, but those came in two distinct flavours. The traditional romances painted them in vivid colours where great heroes reared up, surrounded by their foes, and slew tens on tens, or were slain heroically while holding a bridge or a pass just long enough for their fellows to prepare a defence. The second flavour was found in the history books, dry as chalk dust, stating how ‘Garael with her five hundred met the superior forces of Corion of Kes by laying ambush at the pass, triumphing by guile and surprise though losing most of her followers to the fray’.

No mention, in either case, was made of all the blood. She had seen enough of that by now, both as she had performed her little best to assist the field surgeons, and then later when she was led along the rails, through that appalling litter of the dead and dying, with Wasp soldiers stalking amid them and finishing off those that still lived in a soldier’s final mercy.

Cheerwell Maker, known mostly as Che, shuddered, and continued cleaning her blade. The pirates had outnumbered the crew by two to one and so she had brought her resisting sword from its sheath and cut and slashed, drawing its edge across arms and legs, thrusting its point into any part of the enemy that presented itself. The routine moves had come naturally enough, just like in those hours spent practising in the Prowess Forum. She had, in that brief moment, put her thoughts aside like a true swordswoman was supposed to.

Now she stood shaking slightly as one of the crew began to mop at the deck, swabbing the blood from it. Another man was heaving the bodies of slain pirates overboard, only five of them and one shot in the back. The dead crewmen were wrapped in canvas, gone from crew to silent passengers in a sharp moment.

‘Well, damn me but look at her,’ said her companion, moving up beside her. He had fled to the top of the wheelhouse once the pirates had attacked, but had taken a few shots with his bow from that vantage point. He was Fly-kinden, but a particularly unsavoury specimen of one, bald and coarse-featured and dressed in dark tunic and cloak like a stage-play assassin. Now he was staring at the approaching pilot whose aerobatics had apparently defeated the pirates’ fliers.

The pilot was a female Fly even smaller than himself, clad in an all-in-one garment of waxed cloth strapped across with various belts and bandoliers. She seemed very young, with a round, tanned face and smiling eyes, and Che envied the light way she moved across the deck.

There were other passengers aboard, but only one had come up on deck to help them fight. He was a tall, severe-looking Spider-kinden man, who gave the pilot a little nod of acknowledgement as she approached.

‘So,’ he said, with a bitter smile. ‘The Destiavel, is it?’

‘My ever generous-hearted employers, Sieur,’ the pilot confirmed, grinning at him. ‘And you are Sieur Miyalis of the Praevrael Concord, unless I mistake a face. Your cargo still safe in the lower hold, is it? A shame for you if they’d been taken by pirates. Not so much shame for them, though. A slave in Princep Exilla or a slave in Solarno, I see no difference.’

The Spider-kinden slaver narrowed his eyes. ‘Then I advise you not to meddle in the trade, little pilot,’ he snarled, and stalked away.

‘Superb,’ the Fly pilot said vaguely, before gazing brightly at Che. ‘Let’s see if I can piss you off too, just as quickly.’ She took a second look at the woman she was talking to. ‘You’re a foreigner – in fact you both are, by your dress.’ She pulled the chitin helmet from her head, unleashing an improbable cascade of chestnut hair. There came a low whistle from beside Che and the pilot fixed the bald man with an arch stare. ‘What’s wrong, Sieur? Is it your daughters I remind you of, or your grand-daughters?’

‘Nice, very nice,’ he replied sourly. ‘Well, lady aviatrix, my name is Nero, the artist.’ Che caught the moment’s pause as Nero recalled just how far they now were from his usual haunts where his reputation might carry some weight. ‘And this is Cheerwell Maker, a scholar of Collegium.’

‘Collygum?’ the pilot echoed, mangling the name somewhat. ‘Spider Satrapy, is that?’

‘Not within the Spiderlands at all, Madam Destiavel,’ Che informed her, whereupon the pilot looked suddenly interested.

‘You don’t say? Look, I’m not Destiavel – they’re just the house that pay my way so I can afford to keep my Esca Volenti in the air. The name’s Taki, and you’re well met. If you’ll tell me more about where you come from, I’ll stand you a drink on the Perambula when we touch land. Maybe even find you a place to stay. I take it you’re on business?’