The Sea Watch

Twelve

Jaclen Courser had first come to the Migrating Home as an apprentice engineer fresh from the Great College. She had worked hard since then: from artificer’s mate to chief engineer, to navigator, to the Home’s master, taking orders only from the cartel that owned the vessel. When they were out of port, hers was the only commanding voice, or so she was used to.

Stenwold Maker, she thought. Oh, but she remembered Maker from College, twenty years ago: a plump, idealistic youth a year younger than she, always hanging about with his mad friends: that crazy Mantis and the Spider girl everyone liked so much. The Mantis had died in the war, she had heard. Some said he had ended up killing the Wasp Emperor. What had happened to the Spider, nobody seemed to know, save that Stenwold’s ward looked mightily familiar to Jaclen, the one time she had seen the girl.

Still, Maker had done well enough for himself, and Jaclen didn’t begrudge him. He did some fine work in the war, they say. The war was a sore point. Like most of Collegium’s merchant fleet she had been caught outside the city when the Vekken blockade came in, and had therefore not been able to lift a finger to help. Still, I’d rather Master Maker did well for himself in the world without involving me.

She had his note in her hand now. As per instruction, as grudgingly per instruction, she had not so much as broken the seal until the Migrating Home had pulled out of harbour. She did not like being any man’s game piece, but it seemed that her fate had now been commandeered by Collegium’s War Master.

To the Master of the Migrating Home, the note had begun. Complaints have been brought to the Assembly of increasing attacks upon the shipping of our city on its journeys east. That was Rones Failwright’s work, Jaclen well knew. The man had been agitating in the Amphiophos for an age about the pirates. Now it seemed that someone of moment had finally noticed him. Why all the secrecy, though? she asked herself. Stenwold’s note had gone on: I am arranging for a vessel, the Tidenfree under Master Tomasso, to catch up with you once you are under way. You will take on board a detachment of guards who will serve to deal with any raiders or brigands of the sea that you should meet. This is at my expense, and no demands will be made of your employers. Which was all very well, and terribly generous of the man, but Jaclen could not help wondering why they hadn’t just marched the guards on board there at the docks, with fanfare and ceremony, to let all eyes know that the Migrating Home was no longer free prey for piracy. The only logical conclusion was not a happy one, namely that Stenwold Maker was playing a game. He did not want to warn the pirates off, but instead was setting a trap for them. And I’m to be the bait, curse the man. Jaclen morosely watched the Fly-kinden corvette coming in, reefing its sails and letting its engine match speeds with the chugging Home.

Twenty years, woman and girl, she had kept the Home afloat, and in that time she had been boarded by pirates eight times. Once, when the attackers had been some wildly overconfident raiders from Felyal, she had ordered them driven off with crossbows. The other times she had called on her crew to stand down and stand by, while the pirates removed the best of the cargo. Of those eight occasions, five had occurred over the last year and a half. If that had not been the case she would not have willingly gone along with this ploy, but matters were now growing desperate. Keeping her ear to the ground, she knew that the consortium that owned the Home was tottering, reeling from its losses. Other merchants had been broken, left penniless when their ships came back empty, or sometimes did not come back at all. Many were abandoning the sea trade for other business less fraught with difficulty.

It had occurred to her that this venture might be piracy wearing a different hat. If Maker had gone bad, then he might be using his good name to have ships stand quietly by and be boarded. She did not quite believe that, for she had never before known pirates who worked by appointment.

The Fly vessel, sleeker and smaller than the Home, drew close with careful steering. Jaclen ordered the engines stopped, and lines cast over to secure them. Even before the two vessels were linked a pair of Fly-kinden had hopped over, wings glittering briefly in the sunlight. One was a young man and the other old enough to be his father, with a striking bush of a black beard.

‘You’d be this Master Tomasso, then?’ Jaclen enquired curtly, as the Flies landed before her.

‘I’m none other,’ the Fly said, grinning. ‘Permission to come aboard, Skipper?’

‘Granted, I suppose.’ She then cast an eye over the Tidenfree’s deck. ‘Master Tomasso,’ she asked, her voice tightly controlled, ‘what do you intend?’ Her hand crept towards her belt and the knife she kept there. Gathered ready to board her vessel was a pack of Mantis-kinden, armed to the teeth: just the sort of sea-reavers that she had always tried to steer well clear of.

Tomasso glanced back at his ship and gave a laugh at the sight, startlingly loud from such a small man. ‘I can see why you’d worry. Never fear, Master Courser, they’re not about to descend on you with claw and sword. These are Maker’s bodyguards, here just to make sure you get safe and sound to wherever you’re headed.’

Jaclen put a hand to her head, feeling a pain coming on. ‘We’re bound for Everis, Tomasso: the Spider-kinden. I don’t see them being in the market for that particular cargo.’

‘We’ll just keep them below decks and quiet-like, once you get there,’ Tomasso replied, still grinning broadly. ‘After all, let’s hope they don’t even have to draw a blade all voyage. On the other hand, if you are overhauled by some ragbag of pirates, then who would you rather have at hand to see the villains off?’

Jaclen shook her head. Even as she watched, the Mantids began jumping or flying aboard, scarcely a one of them deigning to walk the gangplank like civilized people. They were a rough lot: claws and rapiers, longbows and arm-spines and battle-scars. Most wore leather jerkins or greatcoats, or cuirasses of chitin scales, and a couple even had pieces of the old-style carapace armour, which sold for a fortune when it was sold at all, and which nobody even knew how to make any more, since the Felyal burned. Her own crew were meanwhile keeping a good distance, and the Mantis-kinden were soon standing on her deck as though they had already taken the ship.

‘Well, it’s too late to refuse you now,’ she remarked drily, and Tomasso laughed again.

‘I’ll be leaving my man, Laszlo, here to watch over them,’ he explained. ‘You tell him, then he’ll tell them. Maker’s orders were for our friends to heed him.’

‘Let’s hope they remember that,’ Jaclen said. Most of her – the solid, businesslike majority born of twenty years’ hard work – felt that this situation was a barrel of firepowder just waiting for the spark. Some small sliver of her youth had reawoken within her, though. Wasn’t this one of those dreams that she’d had: to give it all over and turn raider? To raise sail and haul oar with the Mantis-kinden as they made free with the sea and all its plunder? And now she had her own complement of Mantis marines to spring on the next whoreson of a pirate that tried to take advantage of her.

The third time the Migrating Home had been taken, her Master at the time had tried to put up a fight. As the cargo was pillaged, the pirates had hanged the man and three of the Home’s crew from their rigging, just to make their point. It had been by random lot, and it could have been Jaclen left dangling and kicking, as easily as anyone else. A little core of steel inside her would be waiting with anticipation for the sight of a hostile sail.

The fight with the Assembly had seemed harder even than the Vekken siege, objection after objection hurled from the seats to strike home. Had Jodry not been Speaker, then the Companies would have been dissolved, with all the consequent trouble that would bring. As it was, there had been just enough of the Assembly who were proud of the city’s recent history to ensure that Outwright, Padstock and Marteus retained their commands, under the direct authority of the Assembly itself. It was not much of a force compared with the Ant city-states or a single Imperial army, but it would give Collegium a core of trained and well-armed soldiers when they were needed, which volunteer companies could then be formed around at need.

Of course, news of the Beetles’ new martial standing had spread fast, especially to the various foreign embassies, leading Stenwold inexorably on to his next piece of diplomacy.

He had chosen the room carefully: one of the College’s many odd little teaching rooms. So many of the College’s original buildings pre-dated the revolution: built to the Moths’ plan for their own inscrutable purposes, though built by Beetle hands. After the city – and the future – had changed hands, the people of the newly renamed Collegium had done their best with the spaces that the Moths had left them. However, it was not entirely the room’s dimensions that had attracted Stenwold, but its ornament. College rooms tended to inherit whatever random decoration had been bequeathed to the institution, so any blank space of wall was fair game for showing some masterwork or certificate or piece of gaudy tat that some kind benefactor had seen fit to give away. Stenwold now positioned himself beneath this room’s artistic burden and waited.

The three Vekken ambassadors arrived on the stroke of noon. They entered the room cautiously, as they always did: three pitch-skinned Ant-kinden, almost mirror images of one another, wearing tunics and sandals and sword belts. They had never learned the lesson the Tseni seemed to have picked up, that other kinden took note of ornament and spectacle. If Stenwold had passed them in the street, he would have assumed them too poor even to be itinerant mercenaries. He now named them, in his head: Accius, Malius, Termes.

‘Thank you for coming,’ he greeted them. They stared with their usual watchfulness, two looking at him, one turning away to keep an eye on the door.

‘You wished to discuss the threat of Tsen,’ the one he thought was Termes declared. ‘It is past time to do so.’

‘And that is indeed why I asked you here,’ Stenwold assured them. They were still suspicious, wanting to know why they were here at the College and not at the Amphiophos, clearly expecting an ambush either metaphorical or literal.

Well, I have my ambush all set out, Stenwold reflected. ‘You see the etching behind me?’ he prompted.

Two pairs of eyes regarded it in silence before Termes said, in a remarkable display of politeness, ‘The likeness of yourself is very good.’

Stenwold hadn’t thought so, but he suspected that Collegiate aesthetics made higher demands of representational art than would Vekken tastes, and that for Ant-kinden the face was the least part of identifying fellows. ‘Do you know what occasion this was?’ he pressed them. They fell silent again, although he could almost hear the hum of their internal dialogue. He turned to look at the piece himself, conceding that it was nothing much: a competent piece of work, acids etching on copper. The technique was slightly old-fashioned now, since machines existed to cut a much crisper image. Still, Stenwold himself was recognizable, and he could have named a few of the other faces even had he not known who they were meant to be. He remembered that day well, even at this remove: standing on the steps in front of the Amphiophos, before the crowd – a show of solidarity and triumph. There was Lineo Thadspar, who had been Speaker at the time. There was Balkus, the Sarnesh renegade, and over there was Parops, the Tarkesh exile. Also there was Teornis, of course, and Stenwold’s stomach lurched on seeing the handsome, smiling Spider-kinden, backed by his grab-bag of mercenaries and Satrapy conscripts.

‘I do,’ said Termes. Enough displeasure permeated his normally level tone to let Stenwold know that he did indeed understand.

‘I think you know me well enough to accept that I would not bring you here merely as an insult, or to offend you. I hope so, anyway.’ This was the crucial point. They would now leave and his work would be undone, or they would stay and he could continue to build his tottering bridge towards them.

Again they were silent, hidden thoughts darting between them. He allowed them time.

‘Speak your piece,’ said Termes eventually. It sounded hostile but their continued presence indicated his victory.

‘The artist has here created a view of those left in possession of the city, after your siege was lifted,’ he said. ‘Contained in this etching is Collegium’s great secret: why we have not been conquered, by Vek, or by the Empire.’ And now the Spiderlands will try its hand, apparently. We are the pearl in everyone’s oyster, it seems.

Their eyes were focused on the picture once again, seeking some hidden weapon amidst the background, some coded message. He let them look. The secret he mentioned was in plain view. Any College student could have named it by now, but the Vekken were not used to thinking in such a way. He was trying, against all tenets of Ant-kinden culture and nature, to wrench their collective mind around to it.

‘Do you see?’ he asked, eventually.

He assumed they were going to say no. Termes was about to, he was sure, but one of the others, Accius he thought, said, ‘We see.’ There was a moment of silent disagreement between them, suggesting Termes plainly did not, but then the answer was made plain to him and he fell into step with the other two.

‘Collegium itself could not stand against the Vekken army,’ Accius stated. ‘The siege was relieved from without.’

Almost, but not quite. ‘The lesson goes further than just the one engagement or just the one war,’ Stenwold replied. ‘Our strength is in our friends, in those who will give of themselves to keep us free.’ He could almost catch the thought that flew between them. ‘I know you think that walls and swords and automotives provide a surer strength, and that if you rely only on yourselves, nobody can let you down. Well, that’s true, and we’d all be fools not to strengthen ourselves as much as possible. We’d be fools to rely entirely on the grace of others. That’s Helleron’s folly, and that’s why Helleron fell so swiftly to the Empire – and will fall again.’

‘It did not fall. It climbed down of its own accord,’ Termes noted acidly.

‘Oh, I agree. I’ll not defend them.’ Stenwold sighed. ‘There was a time when swords and walls and well-trained soldiers were enough, and a city-state could stand on its own against all comers, hold the rest of the world at sword’s length.’ The time of the Ant-kinden, although I’d not be so tactless as to say it. ‘That time is gone.’

They showed no reaction, just waited.

‘The Empire brought that to an end,’ Stenwold went on. ‘The Empire, which controls dozens of cities, and draws its power from them all. No single city can stand against it – Tark was not the first Ant-kinden city that fell to the Imperial armies. Any city that pursues a course of isolationism is conniving at its own destruction for, when the next great aggressor comes, whether it be the Empire again, or the Spiderlands, or even the Commonweal, that city will fall for want of friends.’

‘We are not blind to what you mean,’ Termes stated.

‘I mean more than you think,’ Stenwold warned him. ‘Yes, I am offering you Collegium’s hand of friendship, and I will break heads and twist arms in the Amphiophos until I get the city behind me. We do not want a third war with Vek. Nobody has profited from the last two. All that has happened is that both of our cities were left weaker at the end.’

‘That is true,’ agreed Termes. Ant voices were never expressive, but there was the slightest hint there of a degree of emotion kept otherwise submerged.

‘So let us talk about Tsen.’

The sudden juxtaposition did not seem to throw them. ‘You are proposing an alliance,’ Termes observed.

‘Not the alliance you mean,’ Stenwold told him firmly. There was a moment of silence, and he could see their minds working on that. No hands dropped to sword hilts – they did not leap to the conclusion that Collegium would league with Tsen against them. He had brought them that far towards Collegiate thought.

‘I am proposing an Alliance between Vek and Tsen,’ he said quietly.

‘Impossible.’

‘Entirely possible. Look behind me: Sarnesh and Tarkesh soldiers standing side by side.’ Stenwold realized belatedly that the etching did not show the different Ant-kinden skin-tones, but he knew they would remember who had been ranged against them. ‘Tseni and Tarkesh soldiers fought alongside Sarn against the Imperial Seventh at Malkan’s Folly. What I am trying to tell you is that the world has changed.’

‘The Tseni will never accept this,’ said Termes disdainfully.

‘But you would?’ When the Vekken did not respond, Stenwold continued: ‘If the Tseni could be brought to it, would you? I am offering to broker a truce, at least, between your cities. Collegium will then stand with a hand out to each of you. You cannot deny that Sarn has profited well from its trade with us. We offer the same to you, and you will have to trust the Tseni just as they trust you, because if either should break faith, then the aggressor will find Collegium set against it, and perhaps Sarn as well – and even the Ancient League states, and who knows what else. I know the Ant-kinden understand the value of strong walls but, these days, walls of stone are not enough. A treaty may be only paper, but a wall of paper can be stronger than stone. If Vek continues to stand alone then one day its walls will not suffice, and it will fall. It will not fall to Collegium, because we have no armies, but inevitably the day and the enemy will come, and it will fall.’

‘You threaten us,’ Termes challenged him. ‘You use your peaceful nature as a club.’ For a moment Stenwold thought he had lost it all, but then he thought over the man’s words again. Humour? Without any clue evident in face or voice, it was impossible to tell, but it would not be the first time he had sensed a sardonic edge to this particular Vekken.

‘This city has survived on its ability to make and keep its friends,’ Stenwold said. ‘We will act as broker between Tsen and Vek, if not to forge a friendship, then at least an understanding. Your understanding is that the best way to be strong and safe is to vanquish your enemies, but if you make them your friends, you are stronger still.’

‘You give us much to think about, Master Maker,’ Termes told him. ‘We accept the fact that your proposal is important, and must be considered carefully. It runs contary to our way of life, but you are correct when you say that the world has changed. Malius will travel to Vek with your words. The king shall hear them.’

‘I can ask no more than that,’ Stenwold confirmed. ‘And for that I thank you.’ Because Collegium is about to lose a few old friends, I think, and so we are in great need of new ones – or at least of losing old enemies. He was keenly aware of the image of Teornis beaming down on them all. His choice of room was now beginning to oppress him.

When the three Vekken had filed out, Stenwold waited a good ten minutes – his own thoughts darkening and lightening in turns – before he called, ‘You can come out.’

This room had another advantage, besides its ornament, for the Moths had built it with a secret space. A wooden panel behind a hanging was pushed aside, and Kratia of Tsen stepped out. She regarded Stenwold warily.

‘Well?’ he asked her.

The blue-skinned Ant grimaced. ‘You are a very dangerous man and I should kill you here and now.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘We’re alone.’

‘Are we?’ She looked around. ‘How am I to know that there aren’t more of these little coffins hidden in the walls? You could have the entire Sarnesh army waiting to leap out on me.’ Her tone was light, but deliberately so. She was shaken enough that it showed, even through her Ant reserve. ‘An alliance between Vek and Tsen?’

‘So the rumour goes. You and your people have shown yourselves adept at spreading rumours, but I think our citizens will find that one interesting.’

‘How can you think that it will work? The Vekken-’

‘The Vekken claim that you’re the unreasonable ones.’

‘Very clever, Master Maker.’ She folded her arms. ‘They will take advantage of your trade, but they will be waiting for the chance to bring another army here.’

‘Oh surely,’ he agreed. ‘But all the time they wait, they will grow prosperous and more comfortable, they will profit from new ideas and inventions, they will send their students to the College – as spies at first, but also as scholars. Eventually their time for aggression will arrive, and if we have held them off long enough they will then ask, “Why? Why fight to take what we can be given? Why give away everything we have already gained?” ’

‘You think so?’

‘It worked with the Sarnesh,’ Stenwold declared. ‘I would be the first to admit that the Vekken are a harder shell to crack than Sarn ever was, but they’re not mad and they’re not monsters, merely frightened. The first war with Vek came about after the Sarnesh alliance was signed. They assumed we would turn on them, because it’s what they would have done. They think – forgive me but it seems that most Ant-kinden think – of survival and security in terms of eliminating threats. And so we come to you.’

‘Are we a threat?’ she asked, playing the innocent.

‘If someone had asked me a few tendays ago, I’d have said no. Now you’ve had the chance to run around Collegium a while, yes. Commander Kratia, you are yourself a very subtle woman, capable of doing a considerable amount of damage in this city just by some well-chosen words. However, I believe that your actions spring from the same motive as the Vekken siege: you want safety for your city. But in your case, safety from Vek. I am now offering this, just as I am offering Vek safety from you.’

‘Master Maker, you do not understand. Vek is three times the size of my city.’

‘Then I suggest you invest in a few allies. May I suggest the city of Vek? They’re ideally placed to assist you. Or do you think all my words were for the Vekken only?’ A barbed piece of deception, that, to place her where she could believe she was gaining an advantage over them, as though she and Stenwold were conspiring together, when in fact… ‘Besides,’ Stenwold added, ‘Tsen may be small, but it’s clear you make up for it in artifice. You may find that profits you more in trade than ever it did in self-defence. Perhaps you, also, would like to send a message to your city and its court.’

‘And if they say no?’

‘You disappoint me. The Vekken have already worked that one out,’ Stenwold said. He felt absolutely merciless in taking all the deeply held tenets of Ant-kinden society and twisting them in his hands. ‘What do you think will happen, if you say no but the Vekken say yes?’

The Migrating Home’s funnels had belched smoke for two miles of coast, but the sails of the other vessel only came nearer. Jaclen Courser had taken a good look at it through her glass: a swift and slender corsair with a magnificent spread of grey canvas, slowly but inexorably outstripping her own labouring vessel. Laszlo had watched their own ship’s progress, shaking his head. The steam engine below was a charcoal-burner, and not a bad piece of artifice for something ten years old. The oil-burner aboard the Tidenfree would have shifted the Home along a good deal faster, but whilst engines gave a steady push come wave or weather, with a favouring wind a good sailing ship would always outreach them.

Jaclen had conferred with Laszlo. If they were due for this mummer’s show, then they would have to give the other vessel no reason to think the Home was playing them false. If the pirates suspected a trap, they might put an arrow into everyone on deck before they boarded. I will get through this game of Maker’s without losing anyone from my crew had been the thought written plainly on Jaclen’s face. The pursuing ship would expect them to use all efforts to outrun it, and so she had ordered the Home’s own mast to be cranked into place and its sails spread. It was to little actual purpose, since the Beetle vessel scarcely made better headway and its crew were no sailors. They spent as much time steering it away from the rocks of the coast as they did trying to put distance between themselves and their hunter.

The approaching vessel was now off the aft starboard quarter, between them and the open sea, and inching its way forward still. The Migrating Home was being left with no option but fight, surrender, or wrack against the coast.

‘She’s the Very Blade,’ Jaclen identified her, training her glass on the other ship’s bows.

‘Means little,’ Laszlo commented. ‘This end of the coast, any pirate sails under false name when they’re raiding.’ When she looked at him, he added, ‘Or so I’m told, anyway,’ a little too hastily.

‘We’re coming to the endgame,’ Jaclen decided. ‘We’ve made our best efforts. It’s clear we’ll not outrun them, and to push our luck further will invite a kicking.’ Even as she said it, they saw a billow of smoke from a point near the Blade’s bows. A hollow knocking sound floated to them just as a spout of seawater leapt skyward between the ships.

‘I make out a couple of smallshotters at the rail,’ Jaclen announced. ‘Little man, you go tell my crew that, when we get to where the metal meets, I want anyone tending those weapons brought down. I want no holes in my hull.’

Laszlo nodded and kicked off into the air, darting down the length of the Home while spreading the word. Jaclen sighed, feeling a knot in her stomach. I could order the hold barred, confess all to the pirates

… but then I’ve still got a hold full of Mantis trouble, and odds are the pirates’d burn my ship to be rid of it. Maker’s now committed me to his cursed plan. Well, if this goes wrong, I’ll have his hide as a foresail, I swear that much.

Her own crewmembers were all nervous, but she hoped it would appear as the nerves of sailors faced by pirates. None of them sported more than a knife, but there were a surprising number of places on a ship where swords and crossbows could be hidden, to be near at hand when trouble came calling. Jaclen took a deep breath and then called out for them to drop sails. She felt the change beneath her feet as the Home lost the wind by degrees. The Very Blade was angling in towards them, trimming its sails with exquisite precision, ready to coast alongside.

The previous incidents of piracy that Jaclen had experienced had not been devoid of bloodshed, but the raiders tended to spare anyone who had surrendered and just pillage the hold. She knew the logic. A pirate crew did not want to have to fight to the death over every cargo, so they made sure that their prey knew the drill: either fight and die, or cast down your weapons and live. No guarantees, of course, for there had been murders, rapes, mutilations. If the pirates had been experiencing a few bad days, or if they had been forced to chase for a little too long, then they might decide to take it out on the crew. It’s not as though there are any guarantees. It was the thought of those crewmates she had lost, especially in more recent attacks, that steeled her now to the thought of what was about to happen.

She had a good look at the Very Blade’s crew as the pirate ship came in closer, seeing that they were a mongrel bunch. Almost a dozen were Ant-kinden, bronze-skinned Kessen, either rogue or mercenaries. They wore light ring-mail vests and steel helms, and many of them held crossbows levelled at the Home’s decks; one even had a new-fangled snapbow, stolen from who knew where. The rest of the crew, a good three dozen men and women, were a ragbag of Spiders, Fly-kinden, halfbreeds and a couple of hulking Scorpions. There was little armour but much ornament, men and women carrying their wealth on their person. Each one was armed to his or her own taste: rapiers, knives, shortswords, hooked pikes and boarding axes.

Laszlo had ended up by the helm, where his own bow was tucked. To his experienced eye, their attackers looked like any other pack of masterless sea-thieves. So was Albinus right or wrong? If it was the Aldanraels, then whether Stenwold got his proof depended on how long a leash the Spiders kept their pets on. Laszlo knew pirates, though, and that breed did not work well for anyone. Given usual practice back off the Spiderlands coast, it seemed likely that some servant of the Aristoi would be on board the Blade to ensure that its crew remembered whose ships were to be counted fair game.

‘Now you all stay stood, and nobody get any fool’s ideas!’ the Ant with the snapbow bellowed in a parade-ground voice that reached them with breath to spare. A moment later the bows of the Blade ground teeth-jarringly along the Home’s side, making the best part of both crews stagger, and then the ropes came out. Whilst the Kessen crossbows did not waver, a dozen pirate sailors secured the vessels one to the other. You might come to regret all those knots in a moment, Laszlo considered. He kept his breathing easy, leaning on the rail and looking relaxed. The Beetle helmsman beside him kept clenching and unclenching his fists. He had a crossbow of his own hidden in a locker at their feet, and Laszlo just hoped he would let matters take their course before he tried to snatch it up.

‘I thank you for your cargo, kind Beetles,’ the Kessen boomed at them. ‘Give my regards to the College folks, now.’ His crew bunched at the rail and then began to jump aboard, heading for the aftmost of the Home’s two hatches. Stenwold had asked, when they were concocting this plan, why the pirates didn’t often take possession of the actual ships along with the freight. It had been for Tomasso to point out to him that the pirates would be sailors all, and not engineers. Odds were that none of them would fancy trying to tow or manhandle a big steam ship like the Home into some distant safe port, without either sinking her or running her aground.

A motley bunch of Spiders, Ants and half-breeds had strutted over to the hatch. Laszlo risked a look at the four crossbowmen left behind at the Blade’s rail, noting that they had lowered their weapons slightly, seeing nothing evident in the Home’s crew to give them concern. The three-foot iron barrels of the smallshotters were still mounted near the pirate’s bows, but the Beetle-kinden woman and the half-breed youth, who were apparently the Blade’s artillerists, were paying little attention to their charges.

The lead pirate levered the hatch up, and Laszlo was close enough to hear him say, ‘Now let’s see what-’

He saw what soon enough – saw it coming straight at him. Danaen’s vanguard came straight out of the hold into the pirates’ faces: a half-dozen Mantis-kinden in a flurry of wings and blades, Danaen herself at their fore. Laszlo saw one Mantis man take a crossbow bolt clean through the shoulder in that first instant, the shock of it knocking him sprawling on to the deck beyond. By that time four pirates were dead and the others at the hatch had turned to make an escape they would never complete. Everyone was shouting and reaching for their weapons.

Just like old times, Laszlo thought. He had his bow in hand, an arrow already nocked. In his mind he recalled the Tidenfree latched on to some Spider merchantman, where the crew had decided to make a fight of it. The Tidenfree Fly-kinden would be shooting down from the rigging, whilst whoever they had paid as marines would be swarming the decks: Scorpions or Ants or some band of Spider brigands. He was grinning like a madman as he loosed his first shaft.

The Beetle-kinden artillerist was dead, picked off by one of the Home’s better shots. The halfbreed youth swung his piece towards the swirling chaos of the Beetle ship’s decks. More and more Mantids were flying and climbing out from the hold, whilst Danaen and her firstcomers were already sprinting for the rail. Laszlo had an impression of the pirates trying to recover from the shock. Some were shouting one order, some another. The Kessen with the snapbow bellowed for all hands. Laszlo tried to sight on him but the man was too far away. He settled for putting an arrow into one of the enemy’s crossbowmen, lancing the man in the side. As the Beetle helmsman beside him finally got his own weapon loaded, Laszlo took off for the spars above, nocking another arrow as he flew.

The pirates’ great chance would have been to pen Danaen’s people aboard the Home. Mantids were no great fliers, and if the fight could have been held at the railing, then they might have won through by attrition. When the Mantis-kinden struck, though, leaping over the rails in a glitter of wings and howling for blood, the crew of the Blade gave way in terror. There were enough jokes about the Mantids to be heard in any sailor’s taverna: how they were backward, they were gullible, they were crippled by their oaths and honour. Even then, the laughter had a slightly nervous ring to it, and if a handful of Mantis reavers walked in, their jokes would freeze into silence.

Curse me, but they’re fast, Laszlo had to admit, but it was not all Danaen’s way. By the time she had her feet on the Blade’s deck, half a dozen of her followers were already dead or badly injured, but the Mantids just didn’t stop. The wounded were left to fend for themselves, and they took no prisoners, heard no cries for mercy. Laszlo just watched them for a moment: he saw Danaen herself duel briefly with a Spider-kinden, twin blades to twin blades, a spinning dance of steel on both sides that would have won prizes at the Collegium games, but here was played for higher stakes and prizes. She broke off from that to kill an Ant-kinden who had tried to stab her from behind, spinning to lance his throat over the rim of his round shield, and then turning back as the Spider lunged at her. She caught both his blades on one of hers and ran him through an eye. Another Mantis, a golden-haired youth, had left his spear rammed through the chest of a Kessen crossbowman: now he fought only with the spines of his forearms, but he was tearing open armour with them and parrying swords. A handful of Danaen’s people were now in the rigging with Laszlo, standing with shifting balance and no handholds, bending bows that were as tall as they themselves were to let their long arrows fall on the foe.

Laszlo found the loud Kessen again. The man had his snapbow to his shoulder, sighting carefully. A moment later he was reloading, although Laszlo had no idea what he had shot. He looked satisfied enough with himself. Still too far for a sure shot, so time for a little heroics. He took flight again, letting his wings cast him over the Blade’s decks.

That was a mistake, he discovered shortly enough. An arrow slashed past him, and he returned the compliment, grazing the shoulder of a Spider-kinden archer up in the pirate’s own ropes. He darted about the other side of the mast, snatching another shaft from his quiver, seeking out the Ant with the big voice. That same voice was being put to powerful use as the man roared for his crew to form a fighting line and pen the Mantis-kinden against the railings. Good plan, at that. Laszlo swung about, another missile darting wide of him, and spotted his target.

The Kessen saw him as he came in. He had been sighting along his weapon’s long barrel, but now he dragged it upwards. Laszlo gave his wings their freedom, doubling pace as he sped past the man at a distance of barely a dozen feet. The other man loosed first, but the sudden burst of speed had thrown his aim, the little bolt hurtling off to oblivion. Abruptly, Laszlo turned, flying backwards, fingers releasing the bowstring as he did so. He was rewarded by the sight of the Kessen’s head snapping back, the arrow almost clipping the rim of his helm before it drove in. Then another three shafts dotted the sky about Laszlo and he fled for the relative security of the Home’s mast.

It was a fragile refuge. He heard a concussive sound and the rigging around him was trembling like saplings in a storm. The pirates’ other smallshotter had loosed a round at the Home’s mainmast and, although missing, it had severed one of the stays. Thankfully the Beetles built things to last, and there were enough ropes to take the strain. Laszlo swung around the mast, letting his wings carry him back towards the Blade whilst his hands placed another arrow at the ready. By then the pirate artillerist had been shot down by Jaclen Courser herself, and the Mantis-kinden reavers were busy spitting any enemy who still held a blade. They were spitting a good few that weren’t, too, and Laszlo didn’t like that – if only for reasons of personal precedent. ‘Take prisoners!’ he shouted, nipping overhead. ‘Leave them be if they surrender, curse it!’

Danaen glared up at him, clearly not familiar with the custom.

‘We’ll want to question them!’ Laszlo called down to her.

‘What’s the point?’ she demanded. ‘What will they know?’

‘If we don’t question them, we’ll never find out.’ He dropped almost to her level, but still far enough, he reckoned, to get himself out of the way of her blades. ‘Stenwold would want it that way,’ he added, hoping that they held that degree of loyalty to their ostensible employer.

She scowled at him again but, at a gesture from her, the few surviving pirates were soon left, kneeling and unarmed, but alive. At that point the doors to the rear cabins were thrown open. The Very Blade had a high rearcastle to it, but nobody had issued from it during the fight, so Laszlo had assumed it was deserted. Now four more pirates, Spiders all, dashed out with drawn rapier, not on the attack but ready to defend themselves. In their wake came…

Laszlo let out a sharp breath at the sight of her. She was tall and elegant, immaculately dressed in a neatly tailored hauberk of hide, chitin and silk armour. Her shirt and breeches were of striking red, and there were rings aplenty on her hands. The Spider-kinden master of the vessel, surely, and she stared around at the mob of Mantids, not even deigning to draw her rapier.

‘What is this?’ Her voice cut clear and crisp through the confusion, and everyone fell silent for it. Danaen snarled and moved in on her, blades extended in a fighter’s crouch. The Spider woman eyed her disdainfully. ‘What is this rabble that comes to infest my ship?’ she demanded. ‘How dare you?’

Laszlo could sense her Art radiating off her in waves, blazing away at all around her: command, dread and the crushing hammer of her authority. He saw Danaen’s advance falter, the Mantis hunching behind her swords as though warding off a physical blow. Laszlo had never before witnessed a bona fide Spider-kinden Arista unleashing all of her Art and will.

‘Leave this ship while you still can,’ the Spider snapped and, incredibly, Danaen took a backwards step. Laszlo felt any words freeze in his throat. This single woman was facing down the entire Mantis boarding party.

Or not the entire party.

She began, ‘If you-’ and then pitched backwards so fast that only later did Laszlo register the long-shafted arrow that had struck her. Danaen gave a yell of fury and launched into the dead woman’s bodyguards, her own people following right on her heels.

That was the end of it. Laszlo had some of Jaclen’s crew secure the few survivors aboard the Migrating Home, whilst Danaen’s people continued scouring the Blade belowdecks for any other latecomers. They obviously considered it a great victory, but Laszlo had long noted that Mantis-kinden seemed to take no great joy from these events once the killing was done. They would sing and drink, he knew, but mostly to commemorate their own fallen. The kinden had made melancholy into a national pastime, and he found them incomprehensible. The Mantids had left the Spider-kinden dead out on the Blade’s decks, apparently as a sign of disrespect. The other fallen, whether their own or the balance of the pirate crew, they pitched into the sea for the crabs and fish to eat their fill of, after stripping them of anything worth taking. By the time Laszlo began his own search of the vessel, the Mantids were standing about, looking grim and private, as though resentful that there had not been more of a fight.

He entered into the aft cabins, where the Arista had emerged from, and it was not hard to identify which was hers. She had not stinted on her finery, even on this rough vessel, for the walls were draped in coloured silks, and there was a padded couch and a writing desk. He rooted around for a short space of time, collecting some coins and a fistful of papers. There were several documents strewn about, and the scroll tacked out onto the desk was evidently a work half-finished, but none of it revealed a comprehensible word. Each page bore a complex, coloured pattern of interlocking shapes, as though the Spider captain had been engaged in some peculiarly styled abstract art.

Laszlo nodded glumly. This was Spider code, he knew from experience, and impenetrable unless one knew the secret of it. Because, as a kinden, they were their own worst enemies and fiercest rivals, Spiders usually went to extremes of complexity in disguising their secrets. Why, they said that Spider-kinden pattern encryptions were so fiendish that even they themselves struggled with it…

He paused, frowning at the incomplete missive spread out on the desk. He was no spy, but he imagined that one would have to be extremely skilled just to compose something like that in one’s head. Of course, Spiders as a whole were a subtle lot, but the woman who had ventured forth from this cabin had seemed more forthright than most. ..

And there it was. His heart leapt with glee when he noticed it. There was a little scrap of parchment pinned alongside the coded message she had been working on, and there, in absently elegant handwriting, was the original: the words that she had been painstakingly encoding, to be destroyed, in some never-to-come future, after she was done.

My dearest Aderonis, Laszlo read, I am conceiving a loathing for this business. I would rather stay with you and let these villains have their way but, without my reminding them of the family’s direct authority, who knows what they would do? Not what was demanded of them, certainly. Bide well, then, and know that I do think of you, despite the water that lies between us. It will take more than tides and hard weather to keep me away from you.

He stopped reading. It had, indeed, taken more than that, but a boatload of Mantis raiders could put a hole through anybody’s plans. He wondered who Aderonis was, and what he would think when no word came, and then when word finally did come. The family’s direct authority, he thought unhappily. No mistaking the meaning of that. You did it, Master Maker, he considered. You put one over on the Spider-kinden. I just hope you feel happy with yourself after they find out you killed one of their Aristoi. Killing a tattered renegade like Ebris of the Ganbrodiel would raise no great waves, but a female of the family Aldanrael… Could I have stopped the Mantis-kinden? He had not even known that a bow was being drawn on the woman until after the arrow had hit its mark.

I think the war has just started.

He stowed the papers inside his jerkin and flitted back out for the decks. Jaclen could continue to Everis, but Laszlo and Danaen’s people would be steering the Very Blade back towards Collegium, because Stenwold Maker needed to hear of this as soon as possible.