Thirty-One

‘Do you suppose the Spider fleet has reached Collegium yet?’ Stenwold asked. The paper swam before his eyes, covered with a scrawl of lines and angles. He was trying to anatomize the snapbow in such a way as to baffle Mandir’s engineers without betraying his word, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that they were better artificers than he gave them credit for. The leathery, unpleasant parchment and the awkward excuse for a reservoir pen that Tseitus had been able to construct did not help matters. Though sleep weighed heavily on him, he was reluctant to give in to it. He had been waking each morning with a pounding head and a sense of loss and despair, as though, wherever his dreams took him, it was a place that would not easily let him go.

‘Depends,’ Laszlo said philosophically, picking at his nails with the point of a knife that he had somehow got hold of. ‘If it’s a fleet, then yes, but whether it’ll do any good’s another question. What I heard, though, was “armada”, and that means something different, over Spiderlands way. That means more than one of their great houses pitching in, and in my experience that sort of thing can take a long time to get organized. If it’s an armada proper, if they’re serious about this sea-war business, then it’s still in harbour like as not, while four overseers and fifty mercenary skippers are arguing about money.’

‘I suppose I should take hope from that,’ Stenwold said weakly. He looked up as Laszlo padded over. The Fly’s expression showed concern.

‘We are getting out, Mar’Maker. No doubts. Soon, too, if Wys and Nemmo can be believed. Any day now, they say. Something’s coming. Last I went out, everyone seemed tense, but nobody was talking about it. There’s trouble, Mar’Maker, and where there’s trouble, there’s opportunity.’

‘The watchword of the Tidenfree, I suppose?’ Stenwold mustered a smile.

‘And of the Bloodfly before her,’ Laszlo agreed. ‘And the other half of that is, if you can’t find trouble, make it.’

‘Does Tseitus know that you have such plans?’

Laszlo screwed his face up. ‘Not as such, not quite. Not even sure what way that one will jump. I’ll tell him when it happens. He can nail his colours then. Until then, well . . . I don’t want our sour-faced Ant deciding he prefers it here.’

‘Seems hardly likely.’

Laszlo shrugged. ‘Who can know what an Ant’s thinking, save for another Ant?’ He swiped the sheet of paper that Stenwold was working on and frowned at it.

‘You have a criticism of my draughtsmanship?’ Stenwold asked him archly.

‘Is that what you call it? You’ll not show this to Mandir, will you?’

‘And why not?’

‘He might wonder whether your real talents lie elsewhere.’ Laszlo reversed the sheet, showing the fruits of Stenwold’s labour back to their creator. The tangle of shakily drawn technical plans had trailed off, and instead the pen lines had taken on a woman’s likeness. It was rough work, for Stenwold was no artist, but perhaps he had picked up more from his lost friend Nero than he knew. Certainly Stenwold recognized the woman’s face.

‘I have no recollection of drawing that,’ he said hollowly.

‘You know,’ Laszlo observed, obviously picking his way around a delicate subject, ‘Mandir would get a woman in here for you, if you wanted one. He’s the soul of generosity sometimes, I’ve heard.’

‘No!’ Stenwold said, after a moment of gaping. ‘Absolutely not.’ The thought of some fearful Onychoi or Gastroi maid being shoved into his chamber was too much. Besides, my traitor hand has shown to where my mind drifts, and Mandir cannot bring her here – and woe betide him if he tried it.

Laszlo’s next shrug eloquently asserted that there were worse bedfellows than sea-kinden, and Stenwold wondered if it was Wys he had lain with, but guessed not. Whenever Laszlo spoke of the submersible captain, the impression left was that their only partnership involved business.

The Fly shook his head. ‘Go and sleep, Mar’Maker. You look like one of those big Onychoi lads punched you in both eyes.’

To sleep, to dream. Stenwold shook himself in despair. I have no rest, not anymore. Still, he dragged himself off to the pallet the sea-kinden had brought for him, which had the same unpleasant texture as their paper, only hoping that he was tired enough to escape whatever waited for him.

He woke because Laszlo was shaking him. He had no idea how much time had passed, as the Stations experienced neither day or night. His mind was still awhirl with images: coiling hair, luminescent limbs.

‘What . . . ?’ he got out.

‘Up, Mar’Maker, up!’ Laszlo urged him. ‘It’s time!’

‘Hm?’ Stenwold blinked, and then let out a strangled cry and leapt to his feet. ‘Time for . . . ?’

‘The Stations are under attack,’ the Fly told him gravely.

Stenwold stared. ‘Attack by Claeon?’

‘Just get yourself dressed and ready to run.’

‘Or . . . Nemoctes is attacking?’

‘Oh, it’s not him. They’d not be scared of him. But they’re scared now, all right. Every able sea-kinden has a weapon to hand and is waiting to beat them off. Just get dressed!’

Then Laszlo was gone, flitting out of the room in a blur of wings. Stenwold stumbled into his clothing, the same torn and grimy canvas and leathers he had met Teornis in, with a cloak and tunic of clammy material drawn over that. No boots. He sometimes missed footwear almost as much as sun and air.

Thus ready, he waited, but Laszlo did not wing his way back. There was a great deal of commotion from somewhere, shouting of orders, panic and confusion. An attack? What has Nemoctes done? Or is it Claeon? Surely not just for me, not all of this.

He was interrupted by a scratching sound from behind him, coming from the wall itself. Turning, he saw something move there, a dot at first, and then a line began grinding a curved path as though some invisible hand was drawing there. He stared for a long time, unable to understand what he was seeing, until at last the line arced back to meet itself, and a circular section of the wall was simply lifted away.

Beyond, there were three figures crowding close, looming into the sudden gap like bad dreams. Broad, stocky, heavy-set types, two men and a woman, with dull, flat faces and grey skin. It took a moment for Stenwold to place them, to recall where he had heard them mentioned: the Gastroi, Laszlo told me.

‘Come,’ one of them said in a low rumble, ‘quickly.’

‘But Laszlo, my friend, I need to wait . . .’

‘Quickly,’ the Gastroi man repeated. The other two glanced about anxiously, whether looking out for Mandir’s people or for some sign of the attackers, he could not tell.

Stenwold bared his teeth. Laszlo had made arrangements with Wys, after all. He would be able to make his own way out, with ease. Stenwold darted for the hole, then turned back to grab at the table that he had been working at, feeling the all too familiar contours of the original weapon that he had been slaving to duplicate. Then he was out after the Gastroi, as they lumbered away. Away where? he wondered. But for now away would have to suffice.

Wherever he had been freed into, it was deserted now. The sound of the fighting was not close, but noticeably closer the longer Stenwold listened. His escorts led him at a shambling pace through a brief passage between two rooms, and then to yet another chamber, this time lined with damp pallets. Another circular hole had been bored in the sheet metal of the wall, its rounded edge so neat it might have been machined. Beyond it was a lot of water.

When the first Gastroi stepped out, Stenwold realized that the murk was only ankle-deep, but the very sight of it transfixed him. There’s been a breach. A breach soon sealed, obviously, but surely this water came from without. How much of a rupture would the Stations need to suffer before they flooded entirely?

‘Cauls!’ he shouted at the Gastroi. They turned, the second only partway out, staring at him with those coarse, blank faces.

‘I cannot breathe the water,’ he told them, as simply as he could. ‘I need cauls. As . . . as many as you can. Please, I . . .’ I don’t want to drown. Any death but that. But he held that part in, for fear of their contempt. Their baffled stares persisted for another few seconds before one of them nodded, and the one left inside peered about, as though hoping to see a stack of the filmy hoods just waiting for them.

There was a bellow, and abruptly the leading Gastroi disappeared from the hole’s vantage point in a spray of blood. Stenwold fumbled for the snapbow, trying to remember if he had loaded it. The second Gastroi had turned, hands raised, but someone ran her through with a short-spear, ramming it up under her ribs. She gave out a harsh, choking cry and swiped at her unseen attacker, but then a second assailant darted in – a nimble little Onychoi – and gashed the entire length of her side with a hooked knife. She fell back through the gap and two small Onychoi scuttled over her instantly, heading for Stenwold. Behind them, the opening was darkened by a Kerebroi man with a full-length spear in his hands.

Claeon’s killers, Stenwold had just a moment to think. The little spearman went for him, but the final Gastroi, who had been standing still enough to escape notice, lunged in even as he tried to strike, catching the small man by one bicep. The knifeman darted past, and Stenwold pulled the snapbow’s trigger. The explosive sound of the weapon’s air battery came as an infinite relief, and the Onychoi was punched right off his feet, dead without ever knowing why.

The third Gastroi’s face revealed a bleak desperation and, as Stenwold watched, he turned his art on his enemy, and whatever had scored through the walls clipped the surviving Onychoi’s arm off effortlessly. As the maimed and screaming creature dropped to the ground, the Kerebroi’s spearhead lanced into the big, slow man’s neck. Stenwold had raised the cut-down snapbow again, seeing the Kerebroi not even flinch, not even recognizing the piece as a weapon.

Then Tseitus had run him through.

The Ant had appeared through the circular gap, wearing a nightshift that was drenched to the knees, and holding something that was as close to a Lowlander shortsword as he had been able to manufacture down here during his years of captivity. He struck twice more, swift and efficient, reminding Stenwold that, however long this man had worn the gown, he had been the child of a warrior city-state once.

‘Your Fly says . . . we must go,’ Tseitus managed to gasp, breathing heavily. He had surely not fought, not even a backstabbing blow like that, for many years. Laszlo chose that moment to appear, and viewed the carnage with a grey face.

‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this,’ he said faintly. The Gastroi, of course, had been his own recruits for this business.

‘Laszlo, what is going on?’ Stenwold demanded. The water level outside was rising, and began slopping over the lower edge of the hole.

‘Echinoi, they say,’ replied Laszlo casually, the name obviously meaning little to him, but Stenwold saw again that spiny orange tide in his mind’s eye: its inexorable advance on the Benthic train.

‘We have to get out of here,’ he said flatly.

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone!’ Laszlo almost shouted at him. ‘Come on, we have to find Wys and her lot!’

He darted off, half running and half flying, leaving Stenwold and Tseitus to follow as best they could.

The Stations had been thrown together by many hands and with only a loose plan, so Laszlo was leading them through gaps between rooms, unfinished spaces where the walls were a patchwork of metal and shell and carefully measured pieces of stone, but every so often they would break out into the Stations proper, the public face of Mandir’s realm, there to go skittering across a marketplace or a sleeping hall. The normal business of the Hot Stations had been suspended and they saw locals frantically gathering up their possessions, while others were arming themselves, with fear and dread on their faces. Here and there, parties of armoured Greatclaw Onychoi lumbered laboriously through the panicking crowd, blades and mauls to hand, and all heading somewhere with obvious purpose. Laszlo paused to watch one troop go by. He had dropped to the ground as soon as he saw them, but nobody was taking any notice of any of the fugitives.

‘Stuff it,’ the Fly swore mildly. ‘Where’s Wys, the wretched woman?’

‘Laszlo, where are we going?’ Stenwold demanded. ‘It’s not as if we can just kick a door down and walk out of here.’

‘I have cauls for us, but only one each.’ Laszlo passed him back one of the translucent hoods, while still scanning the crowd. ‘But we need Wys – Nemoctes, if we have to, but Wys is best.’

‘This is like a circus,’ Tseitus complained, just as the screaming began.

At first Stenwold could not see what was happening, but all of a sudden people were fleeing from the little plaza, and the wash of water struck against his calves, freezing him in place. The local inhabitants were dashing for every available exit, but the three landsmen made no move until the Echinoi arrived.

Stenwold saw the colour first, the violent red-tinged orange of them. For a moment it was nothing but a gaudy blur to him, and he could not put a shape to it, but something came oozing out of a gap in the wall, bristling with spines. Its topside bright-hued, its underside a pallid white that seethed with suckered limbs, it unrolled first one arm out into the marketplace, and then another. A five-limbed lump of a monster, it dragged itself over the ground as if pulled unwillingly on strings, its hide waving with dark-tipped spikes. No head, no front, no back, there was nothing of it that admitted any kinship, or anything at all but an inexorable hunger.

And after it came its kinden.

The Echinoi were coloured just like their beasts, in purples, reds and oranges, and there seemed little of the human about them. Their skin was like notched rind, their faces noseless, with eyes like black buttons and mere slashes for mouths. They wore armour of copper and some kind of pale hide, and although some had long, hooked swords made of bronze, their barbed fists looked savage enough in themselves.

They moved swiftly but awkwardly, and that alone was what saved the landsmen. The first three or four rushed for them, wordless and expressionless, but they seemed almost over-fast, out of their own control. Tseitus smashed one across the face with his makeshift blade, and Stenwold was able to simply sidestep another. He gave the creature a shove and it lost its footing and fell past him, although it was back on its feet almost instantly. As they beat a quick retreat he had the fleeting thought: they are used to fighting in water only. I have been told how they are the only sea-kinden that have no use for the air.

Then someone was bellowing at him to get out of the way, and he turned to see Mandir, of all people, and a band of his warriors. To the Man of the Stations’ credit, there was no order right then, to recapture the landsmen. The Echinoi were all that Mandir had eyes for. He had a dozen of the big Onychoi, and most of them bore the tube-barrelled weapons that Stenwold had noticed before. The heads of the bolts protruding from them were more like axe-blades than arrows. Other men there, of several kinden, had the curved falx swords and two-pronged spears, and there was even a couple of crabs crouched before the line, their pincers wide in threat.

The Echinoi had got into their stride and rushed the line with their crawling, many-limbed beast coursing through the water behind them. Mandir barked a single word, and his warriors loosed their weapons. The shock of concerted release staggered even the great Onychoi, and the sound of a half-dozen spring-loaded plates being released sounded uncannily like a volley of snapbow shot. Tseitus said they made good springs, Stenwold thought numbly, as Laszlo tugged at his sleeve. The broad-headed missiles were a momentary blur in the air, and then most of the Echinoi were down. Stenwold saw limbs cut clean away, enormous gashes ripped through corrugated orange hide. One was beheaded entirely, the truncated body standing with sword upraised before dropping to its knees.

The Onychoi were not done, though. As the bowmen began to crank back their springs once more, the balance of Mandir’s forces set upon the stricken Echinoi, hacking them limb from limb. The few that remained standing showed no fear, striking out at their enemies even as they were impaled on barbed spears, pinned to the ground and torn apart. Their flesh seemed impossibly tough, and Stenwold saw bristly severed limbs crawling blindly through the water, some with weapons still clutched in their grip. Their great beast suddenly surged forward, knocking a Kerebroi man to the ground and engulfing him, cutting his scream off halfway. The defenders were soon all about the creature, stabbing and cutting, the crabs worrying away at its legs, snapping spines and tearing at the delicate feet beneath.

Laszlo was shouting at him. Laszlo had been shouting at him for some time. ‘We have to go!’ the Fly’s shrill voice insisted, and Stenwold came to himself and realized the man was right. We are not meant to be here, he swore, in so many ways.

They ducked through another cramped sequence of crawlspaces, with Laszlo forever having to come back for them, two wheezing academics twice his size. The sound of fighting was all about them, frequently the very walls booming and shaking to melee on the far side. The last narrow space that Laszlo urged them through was awash with water whose level was definitely rising. Mandir’s people must have pumps, must be sealing off breaches, but the Echinoi aren’t taking no for an answer.

He groaned and hauled himself out of the crawlspace with Tseitus almost jabbing at his heels. Laszlo hovered above them and, looking up at him, Stenwold almost missed noticing the shadow of movement.

‘Duck!’ Stenwold cried out, and Laszlo’s Fly-kinden reflexes took it from there, hurling him up so fast that he bounced from the ceiling, as a spear whistled past him. Stenwold was granted a moment’s grace to regain his feet as the Fly’s aerobatics caught their attackers by surprise. It was another Kerebroi man, surely Claeon’s second assassin, and he had done better in terms of hired help. There was a couple of the tall, thin Dart-kinden there, with spears at the ready, and a single hulking Onychoi in full armour, foot-long claws curving from his gauntlets.

Stenwold loosed his little snapbow at the big man immediately. Let’s see how Rosander’s kin stand up to Low-lander engineering, was his only thought.

He detected the impact as a puff of dust rose from the mail, but the man barely staggered. Whatever accreated substance his shell was built from, Lowlander engineering was clearly not equal to it. Stenwold scrambled back fast as the two spearmen rushed him.

Tseitus got one of them: he sprang somewhat arthritically out from their entry hole, but Claeon’s people had been warned to expect two landsmen, not three. The Ant’s home-made sword pierced the lanky sea-kinden under the ribs, a flare of Ant strength driving it up to the hilt. The Ant’s expression was gaunt with disbelief at where his life was taking him.

Stenwold was already rushing in, the second spearman briefly distracted, but Tseitus was abruptly disarmed by his own success as the body of his victim took his sword hilt from his hand. The Kerebroi, Claeon’s man, kept shouting furious orders.

Stenwold got in past the spearhead before it could turn on him, and caught hold of the shaft with one hand, guessing that he would be stronger than the slender Dart-kinden. For a moment they fought over it, Stenwold hauling with all his weight and the other man twisting almost bonelessly, prying to loosen his grip. Laszlo darted overhead, but his attention was elsewhere. Stenwold heard the sound of grating armour and a shadow fell over him. In sudden fright he pushed where he had been pulling, releasing the spear and sending the Dart-kinden stumbling away. The Onychoi warrior was right there, gauntlet raised, but it was Tseitus who crouched before him. The Ant had just managed to free his sword, and now he swung it with all his might into the enormous armoured chest.

The force of the impact sent the weapon spinning from Tseitus’s hand, leaving the artificer yelling with pain and clutching at his wrist. Even as Stenwold lunged forward, the gauntleted fist descended, punching down between the Ant’s neck and shoulder with a snapping of bone, the impact driving Tseitus instantly to the floor. Laszlo buzzed helplessly about the Onychoi’s helm, ignored and impotent.

Stenwold yelled something wordless, and the spear-butt struck him across the face and knocked him from his feet. He looked up, head spinning, to see the sharp end levelled down towards him. The lean, hollow-cheeked face of his enemy was without pity.

Laszlo passed by again, and the spear tip flicked up to follow him, nearly catching him despite all his agility. He flitted between the spearman and the Onychoi, weaving midway between claw and lance point. His mouth full of blood, Stenwold was half sitting up, still reeling from the blow.

Someone else was standing over him a moment later, a hand extended towards the spearman for all the world like a Wasp-kinden loosing a sting at point-blank range. Stenwold saw it then, the barb-tipped ribbon that flicked from Phylles’s palm to puncture the man’s skin. It was a pinprick, merely, but the effect was almost instant – the Dart-kinden began staggering and spasming, spear dropping from his hands virtually into Stenwold’s own.

Another figure dashed past: Fel? But it was Fel in a kind of half-armour comprised of breast and back, shoulders and bracers, and a swept-back crested helm. He looked as lean as whipcord before the bulk of the Onychoi, but once he took his stance, armed only with a pair of narrow daggers and his Art-toughened fists, the huge warrior stepped back.

The spear felt smooth-hafted and alien in his hands, as Stenwold hunched his way over to Tseitus, dragging the man’s body up from the swirling water. There was no hope. That single blow had descended hard enough to smash his whole body out of shape. The bluish-white face was strangely composed, the eyes staring with icy clarity at nothing at all.

There sounded two harsh cracks, and Stenwold looked up to see the Greatclaw Onychoi staggering backwards, first one heavy step and then the next. There were now crazed lines jagging their way across the breadth of his breastplate. Meanwhile, Fel was moving fast, shifting from foot to foot in a random, jerky pattern, swaying back from one swinging blow and ducking close in under another. He struck again, a blur that Stenwold barely saw. The hard shell of Fel’s knuckles shattered the huge man’s shoulder-guard, and stove in the chest armour entirely. Stenwold saw the folded spines flick forwards, turning the fists from bludgeons into punch-daggers.

Beyond the lurching Onychoi he saw the orchestrator of all this: Claeon’s hired killer. The slender Kerebroi brandished a curved sword, but was backing away, realizing the cause was lost. Stenwold snarled, feeling an unaccustomed rush of rage within him, such as he thought he had left behind in his younger days. A moment later he was charging the man, the unfamiliar spear levelled. He heard the voices of Laszlo and Wys cry out his name, but he was having none of it. Vengeance, his blood howled. Vengeance for a distant, hostile academic who had never liked him much even back on land, but Tseitus had been a Master of the College and a hero of the Vekken siege, and that deserved some token act of homage.

Stenwold had never even tried to use a spear before.

He dodged past the Onychoi, narrowly avoiding being brained by one gauntleted fist. Fel did something complicated with daggers and his spiked fists, and a spray of fine blood dusted Stenwold as he rushed by. The expression on the Kerebroi’s face was loathing, but also fear, for here was the landsman, the venomous outlander, and who knew what he was capable of ?

Still, he had wits enough to sidestep the spear, and its narrow head rammed the wall, shattering to pieces, only a needle of sharp bone after all. The Kerebroi brought his sword down, the stroke faltering as though even making contact with this land-kinden would carry some kind of contagious death. Stenwold took it on the spear’s shaft, which bowed under the impact but held, and then he just pushed hard, ramming the man backwards, putting all his considerable weight behind a shove that propelled the Kerebroi into the piecemeal wall.

The wall gave way. It was just a partition between one internal space and the next. No doubt its builders had never anticipated it being used as a weapon. The wall gave way, and the Kerebroi fell backwards onto a surging sea of spines.

Stenwold had a moment to witness the man’s realization of his fate before a dozen quills had impaled him, some keen enough to come jutting out from his front. Then the push was coming from the other way and Stenwold cast himself aside desperately, as the Echinoi beast lurched through in a rippling tide of spikes waving like pike-heads. It filled the breadth of their narrow room, and there were Echinoi warriors following, lipless mouths snarling to bare needle teeth at them, weapons raised. Stenwold watched Phylles, who must have been almost within reach of him a moment before, scrabble to a halt and draw back swiftly. She was on the far side of the beast. They all were. He saw Laszlo gather himself as if to brave the journey across, but the monster’s spines were almost scraping the ceiling, leaving no safe gap even for a Fly-kinden. ‘Stay back!’ Stenwold shouted to him. ‘I’ll find a way round.’

Then he ran. The Echinoi had spotted him, and he ran, stepping high through the swelling tide. He had no hope, just then, no hope at all. He wished only that Laszlo might go with Wys, and might find a way back to his family.

The Echinoi feet, behind him, were erratic but swift.