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

“Well, touching as their sentiment is, what’s it to be?” Gryllis prompted. “Broadswords at dusk? Honourable clash of two barbarian princes?”

Hokiak’s hand clenched, and he stabbed his finger-claw at the table, another scratch amongst dozens. “We Scorpions,” he snapped, “we don’t do honour. Not me, not them. We fight. They came to my city. We fight my way.”

When Barad Ygor rejoined Mordrec it was with a savage welt across the side of his head. He entered the auxillian drinking den with another of the long, lean Grasshopper-kinden behind him, and the murmur of the drinkers went quiet for a moment. Mordrec felt a wave of disapproval, an utter back-turning on the part of the auxillians. Whatever disdain they felt for the Wasp in their midst, or the Scorpion mercenary, it was as nothing to what they reserved for this one of their own.

Ygor dropped into the seat across from Mordrec, his lanky companion standing behind the chair and ignoring his kin.

“Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news,” the Scorpion declared. “The good news is, I got a good look at them. In fact I offered to take up with them.”

Mordrec looked sour. “Well it’s good that one of us has options.”

“Listen, I know we all look the same to you,” Ygor snapped, clearly put out, “but they’re Aktaians and I’m an Aranai, and that means they wouldn’t have me, and I wouldn’t take up with savages like them. Still, it let me get close and sound them out. Got me this as well.” He gave a bristling grimace, indicated his lacerated scalp. “Bad news time: there are nine of the sods. Our three were just the bait.”

“But they were calling Hokiak out. A duel, wasn’t it?”

Ygor snorted. “Listen. I know you Wasps love the idea of battle-honour, soldier’s codes, noble savages. Forget all that. They want him dead because he used to be a Big Name back in the Dryclaw, and your man Ecta there wants to be the man to have killed him. Nothing to do with dead grandfathers and honour. Forget all about honour – mine, Ecta’s or Hokiak’s for that matter.”

“And they’re in tight with the Slave Corps, so... The only chance we’ll get to do anything about them is when they move out for Hokiak,” Mordrec mused. “So they’ll set an ambush?”

“I’d guess so.”

“We can’t do it with two,” Mordrec decided.

“Nor three,” Ygor agreed. “Modrec, formerly of the Empire, meet Soul Je, formerly of the auxillians.”

The Grasshopper nodded. He was the leanest, most angular man of his kind that Mordrec had ever seen, lantern-jawed and with his hair gathered back in a tail.

“You’re in whatever trouble he’s in?” the Wasp asked.

“Bad career decisions,” said the Grasshopper quietly. The hostility of his fellows was palpable but he shrugged it off coolly. “Three of us, nine of them. Hokiak might thank us for evening the odds, but he’d be thanking our corpses. We need more help.”

“Well the locals hate us and the Empire hates him,” Ygor pointed out, “and because of that we can’t trust freelancers.”

Mordrec put his head in his hands, not despairing but building his courage. “Right, listen,” he said at last. “There’s one group of clowns who’d do anything to get out of the city, and who aren’t going to have any better offers.”

The other two looked at him blankly

“I don’t know what the Corps have in their stockade right now, but some of them are bound to be fighters,” the former slaver explained.

“I thought you didn’t want to show your face there,” Ygor pointed out.

“I’ll wear my helm. He has a uniform, and they’re used to Scorpions around the place. We’d go by night. We’d be quick.”

“Freeing slaves is a little more than just desertion or bad debts, Mordrec,” Ygor pointed out. “You’re an Empire man, still.”

Mordrec stared into his mead-bowl moodily. “I’ve pissed off the Rekef. I owe what I can’t pay. It’s slavery for me at best. Any idea how well a Slave Corps sergeant does, when they put the shackles on him? It’ll be the arena, if some other slave doesn’t do for me. I need out, Ygor, some way that they can’t trace and they can’t follow.”

The Scorpion exechanged a look with Soul Je. “Well we managed to overachieve to the extent that nobody likes us and we’re on the same road as you. So...”

“Three of us, nine of them.” Modrec threw his hands up. “A day and a half, now, to get it done. It must be tonight. Then tomorrow we bring every cursed thing we have down on Ecta and his mates.”

“Just so we’re clear, I’m going in as a freelance slaver,” Barad Ygor hissed, as they neared the stockade. “Only, I knew a man who had the bright idea that he’d get snuck in to a place like this done up as a slave. Did twenty years down a mine, he did.”

“Relax.” Mordrec’s voice sounded hollow and anything but relaxed. The full-faced Slave Corps helms were designed to give their wearers an intimidating facelessness, to strike fear into the hearts of slaves. Now, for the first time, Mordrec felt it restricting and close.

The three of them approached the Slave Corps depot with all nonchalance. There were a couple of the Corps on watch at the outer wall but they took no great notice of their visitors, just nodding to whoever they imagined was behind the helm. Inside was a Mynan townhouse that the Corps had converted into a barracks, and a warehouse that held their stock in trade, a constant flux of human traffic that was a link in the great Imperial chain.

To Mordrec it felt as though every eye must be upon them, these three patent intruders trespassing on sacrosanct imperial soil. Ygor was right about one thing: people who visited the Corps unlooked-for were usually invited to stay. However the handful of Wasp-kinden present paid them no heed, and the bulk of the slavers were clearly in the barracks. With all appearances of