Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt Book 1), Adrian Tchaikovsky [13 ebook reader .txt] 📗

should keep the little Rekef bastard busy, but Gaved had the uncomfortable feeling that Wasp fugitives would be priority in Javvi’s ordered little mind.

They cleared out quickly – surely not much time now until the next guard came to discover the wreckage. Gaved made a map in his head, and led Aelta towards the nearest stand of forest. This was good farmland they were in, but there was nowhere in these lands that was completely cleared. The Commonweal lacked the great breadbasket plains that the East-Empire boasted – too many rocks, too many trees and no modern machinery to clear them. That far, it was a fugitive’s gift, but a good hunter could overcome all those advantages. Until tonight that had been Gaved’s role.

He kept them on the move half the night before pausing, using their wings whenever they could, to deny the trackers. He knew all the tricks, from having foiled them. They changed direction, they followed watercourses, flitted over the great stone-walled canals. They tangled their trail in copses and straggling stands of trees.

Past midnight Aelta was slowing and, if he was honest, so was he. For some reason, running after someone seemed far less effort than running away. There was a village nearby, and he could tell at a glance that half the homes there were no longer occupied. It was a common-enough sight: casualties of war and the depredations of the Slave Corps had seen the surviving residents contract to a little knot of dwellings, like a snail drawing into its shell.

The night was cold and Aelta was certainly no longer dressed for it, but a fire would be too risky. Instead he slung his coat over her, and that was the second moment, his hands on her, the warmth of her body like a fire in itself. The contact sent a jolt through him, and for a moment he was holding on to her shoulders with a grip that had gone too hard, too possessive. She was tense, but she was a woman, and there were generations of his ancestors telling him how these things went.

If she had looked at him, if she had met his eyes with that mockery and abandon she had shown when breaking free, then he might have convinced himself it was all right. In that moment, though, she was not looking at him, not looking at anything, just drawn tight as a wire and waiting to see what he would do.

He let go and took a step back, exaggeratedly casual. He saw, then, that she’d had a hand directed at him, hidden in the shadows of his own coat. That was another thing Wasp women didn’t do and perhaps she wouldn’t have had the nerve. Women didn’t, that was the soldier’s motto, because they knew it would be so much worse for them if they did.

But he pretended he hadn’t seen it, nonetheless, and just settled down, feeling the chill.

“If we head south, if we start before dawn, there’s a Consortium clearing house there, it’s like a tent city around some Commonwealer town with a name no one can say. Loads of people, coming in, going out. We’ll head there.”

Now at least she was looking at him, though rather suspiciously. “Best to avoid company altogether, no?”

He shook his head. “Problem is you can’t, around here. This isn’t wildlands, this is the farming heartland of half the Commonweal, for what that’s worth. There are traders, herdsmen, farmers all over. Wherever we go, someone will be around to tell whoever’s chasing us. So we go where there’s people, lots of them. We go there, and we lose ourselves, and we spread plenty of stories about how we’re off to Shev Issa or Maynes or heading north to the Steppe, wherever you like. And then we creep out to...?”

Her smile had come back, during his speech. “Well now, you appear to actually know what you’re talking about. That’s a nice bonus.”

“I thought that was the point.”

“You were just supposed to be a big chin to carry around and scare of any unsuitable suitors. But you’ll do, Gaved the not-a-deserter. You pass muster, soldier. So you’ll get paid.”

He tried to read what she meant by that, but there was too much challenge in her face, and he knew that if he wanted to find an invitation there, his own mind would provide it. “So where are we headed, anyway?” seemed the safe response.

She grinned brightly. “Treasure.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“You know Ash Esher?”

“Place or person?”

A place, as it turned out, and presumably one that had originally been known by some Dragonfly name too subtle for Wasp tongues. There were farms at Ash Esher, she said, and a handful of officers had settled there, the first wave of occupation, bringing their wives and servants, slaves and hangers-on, until there were enough boots and stinging hands to keep the populace properly subjugated. But what was also there was treasure.

“I’d just pulled off my biggest haul,” she explained. “Some fat colonel’s new-built manor, stocked with all his war loot and all the money he’d creamed off the army pay chest.” Aelta’s voice was surprisingly bitter, as though it was a personal affront. “But they were right on my back and I had to stash it before they caught me. It’s still there. I never told them, and they’ll never find it.”

“Surprised they gave you the option not to tell them,” Gaved pointed out.

Her smile went thin. “They were waiting for an interrogator when we stepped out.”

They reached the Consortium town two days later, pushing themselves as hard as they could, and without any sign of Javvi and his men. Gaved knew his trade, though. He had a definite sense of pursuit: every time he put down a footprint he imagined it being taken up and examined within the hour.

The town was busier than he remembered, which was good. He could recall a few names: patrons and contacts, though no real friends. He made sure