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

as the fighting started, letting the individual details of it wash over him: the clash of steel, smash of wood, crossbows’ clack and the hoarse yelling of the wounded. If things went unexpectedly badly then Ecta’s people would burst into his backroom in a moment and do for him. Otherwise...

In under a minute the skirmish was played out, the only voice remaining was the strained swearing of one of Hokiak’s Mynan employees. It had been hard to muster any number of guards, once Ecta had bearded him. The local resistance was in an uproar over their recent reversal, the Empire disdained to lend a hand. He had fallen back on the local gangs, freelancers, mercenaries, men unreliable and untested. Still, it seemed that his precautions had been enough.

Gryllis came in, dusting his hands off theatrically. “Well, old claw, I’ll keep the lads on watch, but I reckon that’s the lot.”

“What damage?” Hokiak asked him.

“Three came in. One of our lads got ripped up badly. One of theirs is dead. The other two made their exit when they saw we were ready for them.” The Spider-kinden’s face twisted. “Only thing is, the Scorpions that came in tonight weren’t any of them the fellows who were with your friend Ecta yesterday.”

Hokiak nodded safely. “These tonight will be his youngest, the least experienced. He’ll have set them a challenge to win his respect. Or perhaps it was even their own idea, to steal the glory of taking my head. So much for whatever their plans were, then. But Ecta won’t weep. All he’ll care is that I’ve been sent a message. No quiet nights until this is over.”

“Lovely,” said Gryllis drily. “You’re still going ahead with this tomorrow?”

The old Scorpion nodded. “Oh to be sure,” he said, with a trace of iron in his voice. “After all, any more of this and I’ll start taking it personally. We’ll pay the men a bonus, for tonight, and tell them to spread the word.”

Gryllis nodded. “And I’ll get a better door put in.”

The next day Mordrec, weighed at one side with a lumpy package wrapped in oilcloth, crept his way to the drinking den. The small hours had seen him turning up, unannounced and unfriendly, at a Consortium merchant’s door: The Beetle-kinden man had obviously heard that people wanted to speak to his former associate but Mordrec gave him no time to raise the alarm. Instead, keeping the palm of his hand almost in the panicking man’s face at all times, he retrieved what he had put by in the man’s care during better times. Thus fortified with a purse of money, a little pilfered jewellery and his heavy burden, he made a quick escape to the skies before the Consortium man could fetch help.

The Dragonfly Dal Arche had been hidden by the Auxillians who apparently approved of his rescue, although not so far as to change their dislike of Modrec or their absolute despite of Soul Je. It was quite an education, in fact, for Mordrec to discover just how much the conscripts got up to behind the backs of their Wasp masters. When he rejoined them, Dal and Soul both had a bow: man-high, recurved pieces of elegance that Mordrec remembered from the war.

Dal had strung his, and was running his hands down the sculpted lines, the lethality inherant in the tensioned wood. His face had a thoughtful expression to it. “To think, some master bowyer spent months to craft this for the hand of a prince, perhaps, and now it’s war loot. You can see where the gold inlay’s been pried out.”

“Your sort of bow, then?” Mordrec said cautiously, unsure where this man had been while the Empire pillaged his Commonweal.

“Me?” Dal Arche gave a hard smile. “Not a bit of it. Give me a brigand’s shortbow any time. This’ll have to do, though. Where’s your Scorpion got to?”

Mordrec shrugged. “He should be here.”

“He’s coming now,” Soul Je stated with a nod. “Brought a friend.”

Glancing past the shutters, Mordrec saw that someone resembling the Scorpion was indeed approaching, but swathed in an enormous cloak, considerably bulkier and inexplicably affecting a pronounced hunchback.

“Is he in disguise?” he murmured.

Soul Je had a slightly amused look. “He’s bringing everything he’s got to the table, gambler,” he replied softly.

Barad Ygor stumbled through the doorway and descended heavily onto a bench, which barely survived the experience. “Right,” he announced. “I’m ready.”

“Armour?” Mordrec asked him, baffled.

The Scorpion-kinden glanced left and right conspiratorially, before slinging his cloak back.

“Light’s fire!” Dal Arche spat, and Mordrec leapt back from him, almost tripping backwards. Ygor had come with a friend: it was coiled about him, eight legs clasping his chest and stomach, burnished pincers resting on his collarbones like hideously oversized jewellery, and about his waist the segmented tail, with its needle-tipped stinger nestling companionably over his navel. Mordrec had seen big scorpions before, of course. They were popular in the arenas, a good match for a handful of badly-armed slaves or one skilled fighter, but to have such a dangerous animal loose within a city was unthinkable. To have one just across the table made him sweat and, as for having one actually draped, all claws and tail over someone’s body...

“You’re mad,” he told Ygor flatly. “Even that brute Ecta would say you’re mad.”

“Let him,” Ygor replied. “Scutts and I understand each other.” He put a hand on one of the beast’s fierce pincers, which shifted slightly under his touch. “Back home, the speaking Art isn’t so rare as around here. You can’t even get to be a proper Stalker unless you can take a wife.”

“A wife? You’re ill. What if it...”

“She,” Ygor corrected. “And consider her one of us, our fifth. Now what have you brought?” He shrugged the cloak on again and nodded to Mordrec’s parcel.

“Ah well.” Slightly shamefaced afer his outburst, Mordrec drew back the cloth to reveal an ugly, lumpy weapon as long as his arm, something like an armless crossbow but with a boxy mechanism over