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

confidence, Mordrec led the others into the converted warehouse, where there would be a hundred likely slaves worth the freeing.

Except there were not.

He had to force himself to complete his journey inside, rather than just stopping dead in the doorway and letting the other two run into him. There were no slaves. Every cage was empty. They had come at the worst possible time. Either some grand buyer had just cleaned them out, or a Corps caravan had set off for the inner Empire earlier that very day.

He could feel the accusing stares of the others on him. The helm, which had been his companion for seven years, began to feel like a prison.

“Him.” Soul Je was striding past him, stalking towards the back of the barred space. One man: the Grasshopper’s eyes had spotted one man remaining. A tug of warning jerked through Mordrec: Why was he left? But they had come here with a purpose and it wasn’t as if they had any better options.

The man was a Commonwealer, a Dragonfly-kinden, a little stockier than they usually were, a good few years Mordrec’s senior with the faintest peppering of grey in his hair. He regarded the trio impassively.

Mordrec looked the man over: he looked capable. “Show me your hands,” he directed. Sourly, the Dragonfly jammed a palm towards him, mimicking the threat of a Wasp’s sting. It showed the calluses that Mordrec had been looking for, though. “Archer,” he noted. “You want out of here?”

The Dragonfly said nothing, but shrugged.

“Out of this city,” Ygor prompted in a low voice. “All the way home, if you want it. Willing to kill for it?”

“And what are you doing with my prisoner?”

There was a Wasp in the warehouse doorway, a tall, smooth-looking man with fair hair. He held himself with an utter certainty as he strode towards them, as though swords and stings meant nothing to him. Modrec’s heart lurched and a chill rash ofsweat broke over him. It was Lyker, the holder of Modrec’s gambling debts: Lyker of the Rekef. That was why the Dragonfly had been left behind. He was being saved for Rekef questioning.

For the moment, Lyker was ignoring the helmed slaver, staring instead at Igor and Soul Je. “He’s not for sale, Scorpion,” he snapped. “Now get back to your rabble of friends before I see what price your waxy hide might fetch. You,” he directed at Mordrec, “why’d you ever bring him in...” And then the dreadful moment came, Lyker’s eyes narrowing. “Name, soldier.”

There were dozens of Slave Corps soldiers just a shout away, and Lyker would shout. Mordrec’s former comrades would be all too happy to turn on one of their own. The slavers bred no great loyalty amongst their number, only cruelty and greed. Perhaps that’s why I’m in this mess, because I never really fit in, Mordrec considered. Or perhaps I’m just a rotten gambler.

“Mordrec...?” Lyker growled and Mordrec felt his palm flash with fire, without even consciously deciding on it. The flare of his Art lashed between them, taking the other Wasp directly in the chest. Lyker was without armour, and the distance was mere feet.

A silence followed, save for the sound of the men in the barracks laughing and drinking.

Well there’s no going back now, Mordrec thought numbly. He reached for his keys and unlocked the Dragonfly’s cage, his hands performing their tasks by long habit, without the need for thought. None of them spoke as they exited the warehouse. The slaver stockade was as before, and nobody was paying them any attention. The dead Rekef man was a secret that the night still kept, for all that Mordrec felt the corpse behind him like a hot iron against his back.

There was a sudden blur of sound and motion beside them, and the Dragonfly was gone, his Art-conjured wings taking him straight up into the night. Mordrec started after him, and it was a good thing that helm hid his utter chagrin from his fellows.

They left the slaver compound as quickly as possible, and trailed their way back to the nameless auxillian drinking hole. Few words were exchanged until, at the door, Ygor gave a great sigh and said, “Well, three against nine. Maybe we’ll be very lucky. I have a trick or two.”

Mordrec opened his mouth to reply and there was a sudden scuff of feet behind them that had all three whirling. The Dragonfly stood there, arms folded.

“Out of the city, you said,” he reminded them. “Killing, you said. Fine. I’ll need a bow. The name’s Dal Arche.”

In the still of the night, Hokiak drank and waited. The stuff in his bowl bore the same relationship to wine as a rusty saw blade did to a rapier. Hokiak, whose cellar had all manner of delicate vintages, had gone back to the drink of his youth, a vitriol his people called sak, although proper sak was traditionally drunk from a helm or a skull. There was no great mystery in that: it showed the drinker had triumphed over the world for another day. Hokiak had once heard a Beetle scholar expound on how the Scorpion-kinden lived in harmony with the rhythms of the desert. Hokiak’s people had never lived in harmony with anything. They fought the land around them and they fought everyone else and they fought each other.

It was past midnight now, and past time, in Hokiak’s estimation. The Exchange was silent around him. There were lamps lit still, in the shop front, but little light spilled into the backroom. Scorpion-kinden eyes were adapatable, from sun’s glare to the dark of the moon, but these days Hokiak’s own were failing. He saw best at dusk, and dusk was long gone.

At last it began. He heard a rattling, just long enough to check the door was locked, and then an explosion of shattered wood. His people were not known for subtlety. They struck hard and fast and were gone.

He sat there, sipping his sak and scratching at the tabletop with one claw