The Darakyon … he was touching the Darakyon when he died. Have they taken him now? Is that why he needs me?
The mantis's killing arms wept blood, and its monstrous eyes were fixed on her as the thorns continued to penetrate its flesh, riddling it with wounds. This was the true Darakyon, the very personification of all Mantis-kinden fury and pride and futility.
Run, came a voice in her head, and she turned and ran, but the monstrous thing was immediately on her heels, red blood spilling from the myriad wounds the thorns had bored in its carapace, the shadows of its claws raking the ground on either side of her. She had called out first to Achaeos, but in the end she had just called — and she had awoken the ghost of the mad, embittered Darakyon instead.
Che felt something lurch in her stomach, a sudden feeling of disorientation. The bright light was dimming … The monster that had been about to seize her in its jagged arms was suddenly very far away, receding and receding. She felt dizzy, nauseous, impossibly weak. The enclosed, baking air surrounded her again, amid the tatty gloom of the tent. She collapsed on its floor, and heard again the husky voice of the halfbreed woman they called Mother.
'She has the touch of the Masters. She has it as pure as I have ever known,' and then, after a moment's smothering of any conscience, the woman ordered, 'Kill her. Kill her and take her blood.'
Che tried to reach for her sword, but her arm was leaden. She heard a shout and something passed over her, Trallo lunging knife-first and wings a-blur. There was a hoarse cry of pain, and Trallo cried out again, words this time.
'Now!' he was yelling. 'Now! Come on!'
She could barely turn her head, just heard a scuffle and the cursing. Her vision was eclipsed and she saw the halfbreed man loom over her. His teeth were bared into a snarl and his dagger was raised high.
Achaeos! she called, and she would not have cared if the Darakyon had answered her again.
For a second the interior of the tent was lit by unbearable brightness, then a wind seemed to hurl the halfbreed away from her. Che heard the woman known as Mother begin to scream in rage and grief. Trallo staggered away past her, bleeding across the scalp. One of the Khanaphir came after him, but again there was that burst of pure light, and the bald man reeled back, his chest just a blackened hole. Mother kept screaming and screaming.
'Che! Che, get up!' Trallo was shouting at her, pulling at her arm. She made all the effort she could, her limbs like jelly. Someone grabbed hold of her, strong hands digging under her arms to haul her to her feet. She was leaning against someone, as her world swam. Her stomach was squirming with the abomination she had swallowed. She tried desperately to focus, to see who had come for her.
'Achaeos?' she asked.
'Not Achaeos,' said a clipped voice in her ear, and then they were out of the tent — out into the confusing underwater colours of the Marsh Alcaia — and the world was swimming, spinning around her, and she could hold on to it no longer.
Thalric almost fell over as Che's full weight dragged against him, but he got an arm behind her knees and hoisted her off the ground. Cursed Beetle girl could stand to lose some weight, came the thought, but then he had a firm grip on her and was backing out of that horrible tent. He noticed movement and turned awkwardly, seeing someone running towards them. He twisted a hand free, almost losing hold of Che again, and let his sting flash. The man, an emaciated Khanaphir, fell back in a tangle of limbs.
'Let's go,' he grated. 'Come on, Fly-kinden.'
Trallo was already on his way, trying to wind back the string on a pistol crossbow as he went. The denizens of the Marsh Alcaia had begun to show all too much interest in a Wasp lugging a foreign Beetle girl about.
'Stupid, stupid woman,' Thalric was cursing under his breath. 'What did you think you were doing?'
'Lucky you were keeping an eye on her,' said Trallo, having finally got his crossbow cocked. Now that he brandished it so openly, interest from the street people was fast diminishing. The Khanaphir didn't seem to possess such weapons themselves, but everyone here seemed to know what it was capable of. Loosing a crossbow bolt in a confined space bounded entirely by cloth walls would be an interesting exercise, Thalric thought.
Trallo was leading the way confidently, left, left, then right. Merchants and gamblers watched narrowly as they passed, making Thalric keenly aware of just how much Che's unconscious body was hampering his progress. If they jump me I'm dead, he thought, and then, and I bloody well deserve it. He was conscious that dressing this episode up to satisfy his Rekef colleagues would be nigh impossible. But I knew — I knew she would get involved in something like this. Cheerwell Maker, as usual, blundering through a world of sharp edges with her eyes shut.
The uncomfortable truth: I have a problem, here, and then Trallo shouted something, and Thalric tried to turn. Something hit him in the jaw hard enough to snap his head back. He staggered, his legs suddenly weak, and someone tried to wrestle Che from his grasp. There was a moment of fumbling that, to a disinterested observer, must have seemed hilarious, and Che was pulled out of Thalric's hands. The abductor had botched it, though, tripping and falling backwards so that the weight of her drove the breath from his lungs. Abruptly free of her, with palm open and ready, Thalric turned to receive another hammering punch that knocked him flat on his back. A dark-armoured form loomed over him just as he heard the clack of Trallo's crossbow. Impossibly the little bolt just danced off the attacker's mail and those gauntleted hands now came up with something ugly and short-barrelled: a cut-down snapbow!
'Flee!' Thalric shouted, as two of his attackers began hauling him to his feet. He struggled furiously, trying to turn the palms of his hands towards them. 'Trallo, flee!' he yelled again. He saw the armoured assailant sight down the wicked little snapbow, then lower it.
Telling a Fly-kinden to run, it occurred to Thalric, is surely unnecessary.
'Watch his hands!' the man warned, but they were already holding Thalric's arms out straight and back, putting pressure on his elbows to keep them that way. Their dark armour was mostly plated leathers, and only their leader wore steel mail, of a design Thalric had never seen before. It was a moment before he recognized the emblem on their tabards.
'What-?' One of them wrenched his arm and he hissed in pain. 'What do the Iron Glove want with me? I am Imperial ambassador in this city!'
'Are you?' He could see himself reflected dimly in the armoured man's helm. The eye-slit gave no clues. 'And what does the Empire want with abducting Lowlander women?'
'I was …' But he was what? What can I say that will not incriminate me?
'Your name is Thalric, my people tell me,' said the Iron Glove man, and a chill went through him.
Assassins? He had all but forgotten, given the challenge of this new city and its distractions. Are you so weary of your life that you forget such things? But he was far from the Empire, and the attack outside Tyrshaan now seemed like something long ago.
'My name is Thalric,' he admitted.
'It has been a long time,' the armoured man replied slowly. 'I saw you only briefly, on the Sky Without. But she told me what you did to her, in Helleron and in Myna.' There were knives in that tone which mocked the terrors of mere assassins.