Part 21 (1/2)

'Catch these!' Amnon called out. 'You must have the tools to hunt them!' He took up a leather-wrapped bundle that was as long as he was and cast it, with no appreciable effort, across the water towards them. Manny took it full in the chest and would have toppled overboard with it had Praeda and Che not grabbed hold of his robes. With a certain avid interest he unwrapped it, spilling arrows into the bottom of the boat. There was a brace of shortbows, too, curled forward ready to be strung, and a spear with a barbed head attached to a neatly coiled line.

'Nets and things,' said Che pointedly to Manny. 'What have you got us into?'

'That Amnon, he claimed it was fis.h.i.+ng,' the fat man protested.

'Well, to him him, this probably does does count as fis.h.i.+ng,' Che snapped. 'We will keep well clear of all this hunting, and Waste take the honour of Collegium.' count as fis.h.i.+ng,' Che snapped. 'We will keep well clear of all this hunting, and Waste take the honour of Collegium.'

'Agreed,' said Manny, slightly shaken by this turn of events. Che sat back and put a hand to her head. Land-fish stared at her with sleepy suspicion from the banks, and so she turned her back on them, looking out at the other boats.

From the far side of Amnon's craft another boat emerged. It had two Mantids poling it forward, but a third man was standing near the bows, spear in hand and cloak billowing. It took Che a moment to recognize him.

Thalric. And of course what she should be doing now now, instead of performing this ridiculous charade, was talking to Thalric and smoothing things over. But it would have done no good to seek him out, she saw, because she was not the only amba.s.sador to have been invited on the hunt.

He glanced over at her, and on his pale face she could see bruising, and her heart sank. Totho thought he was rescuing me Totho thought he was rescuing me. Trallo had explained to her how Thalric had taken her from the Fir-eaters, only to lose her to the Iron Glove. I am changing hands so often, they should put customs duty on me I am changing hands so often, they should put customs duty on me.

She raised a hand to send a feeble greeting over the water. She saw him nod in response. That small contact, the opening of negotiations, brought her a disproportionate relief. Has Totho now usurped him as the person I know best in this city? Or do I know Thalric even better, at this remove? Thalric has been drifting nearer, while Totho began close to me but he seems so far away now Has Totho now usurped him as the person I know best in this city? Or do I know Thalric even better, at this remove? Thalric has been drifting nearer, while Totho began close to me but he seems so far away now.

There was a series of shrill whistles that Che could not locate. As they sounded again she realized they came from beyond the river proper, amid the channels and marshes of the delta which spread its tangled fingers from here all the way to the sea. Amnon's boat went coursing towards the sounds, and her own followed under the swift, sure oar-strokes of the Mantis-kinden. She saw Thalric's craft leap forward also, his wings flickering to keep balance. There was another Wasp sitting in the boat behind him, looking every bit as ill and miserable as Che herself felt. She thought it might be the same man who had reacted so badly to the Mantis statue, and wondered how he was getting on with their boat's crew.

Two of the little reed craft suddenly shot on to the broad waters of the river as though they had been spat out, their occupants poling them with precise grace and astonis.h.i.+ng speed. There was a line trailing from one Che could see it cutting ripples on the water it was attached to- It was attached to one of the land-fish, but a creature almost as long as Amnon's boat. Its maw, snagged by a harpoon head and gaping with fury, could have swallowed Che whole. It powered over the mud and ferns, its stumpy front fins granting it a startling pace, and then sloughed into the river with a bellowing grunt. Amnon's boat was cutting close, as the big man stood ready with a bow strung and drawn back. For a second the fish was invisible in the brown wash of the water, but something guided Amnon's hand as he loosed the arrow into the murk, and then the fish leapt to the surface to meet this fresh a.s.sault.

They want it in sight of the barge, Che realized, but still in the shallows, where it can't escape but still in the shallows, where it can't escape. Amnon and the Mantis-kinden were playing a dangerous game, herding the enraged monster up and down the river bank, not letting it slip into any of the smaller channels, nor vanish into the depths. Time and again it hurled itself at Amnon's boat, but the Mantis crew pirouetted and sliced through the water, always cutting aside from the creature's furious charge. Everyone on the boat, Amnon and his crew alike, remained standing throughout, as the big Beetle sent arrow after arrow into the furious beast. It turned from him towards the other boats, those fleeting little reed constructions, but they nimbly skittered out of its path. Once it was too quick for them, its jaws slamming down on a bundled stern. The Mantis poling the boat was in the air at once, wings glittering, as the monster shredded her craft into sc.r.a.ps with mindless rage.

'What a barbaric spectacle,' Praeda remarked, sounding disdainful, but she was clutching tightly at the boat's side. Manny just stared, silently, fingering one of the bows they had been given.

At last it was done. The cornered fish, jaws agape in threat, reared up out of the water, its hide bristling with arrow shafts. Amnon held a spear now and took precise aim, spinning himself completely around to give the cast more force, yet barely rocking the boat as he did so. The heavy-headed lance plunged into the monster's throat, and Amnon leant forward to take hold of the b.u.t.t and drive it further in. The great fish recoiled under the shock of it, thras.h.i.+ng down on to the mud, and Amnon took up the bow again. He sighted on the beast's eye, the arrowhead moving in minute twitches to track the creature's death throes. His fingers released the string.

Che grimaced. 'I think I prefer fis.h.i.+ng the Collegium way,' she said weakly.

'Nonsense,' Manny declared. 'Can't visit a foreign place and not try a few of the local pastimes. String this for me, would you?'

One of their crew took the bow from him and bent it back effortlessly, seeming to turn the curved wood almost inside out before she hooked the string over the notched end.

'You're not planning to use that, are you?' Che demanded.

'Might as well look the part,' the fat man said jovially. 'After all, I hear that fish-hunting is a proper hero's pastime, and I want it to be said that I did my bit. A reputation for heroism around the city could work wonders'

'You're drunk,' Praeda retorted flatly. 'Or you're mad.'

'I am only slightly drunk,' Manny a.s.sured her. 'And, as to the other, neither you nor I am qualified to diagnose. Let us hunt the land-fis.h.!.+'

'Let us stay close to the bank,' Che advised, 'and watch, if you have to. While we're all on this boat, you're not taking it near one of those creatures.'

The other boats were splitting away now, some hunting down the channels of the delta, swiftly lost to sight amongst its riotous vegetation, others coursing across the clear water of the river, waiting for game to be flushed out. Che huddled in her cloak. The land-fish terrified her, their b.l.o.o.d.y fate appalled her. It was a very foreign land she now found herself in.

'Remind me why we're doing this again?' Osgan complained. He had his arms wrapped tightly about both himself and a bottle, but he still looked uncomfortably sober.

'They wanted the Imperial amba.s.sador to come hunting with them,' Thalric explained. 'They gave me a chance to sit on the barge and merely watch, but Marger and I agreed it was not politic to choose that option.'

'You're going to kill one of those things, are you? With just a spear?'

'Spear, sting,' Thalric said vaguely. 'Wings, too. We're better equipped for this sport than our hosts imagine.'

'I'm not the strongest flier.'

'So long as you can fly better than a two-ton fish, you'll be fine,' Thalric replied. He was conscious of forcing the humour, but it helped. It gave him an act to maintain, which meant he did not have to think about more awkward matters. He was playing the role of Imperial amba.s.sador, upholding the honour of the Empire by showing these savages just how good the Wasps could be at whatever they turned their hand to. That was easier than brooding over his revenge on Totho of the Iron Glove, or reflecting on his recent conversation with Marger.

Marger was up there on the barge, of course, since there needed to be someone to keep an ear open for what the Ministers were saying. The Fly, Trallo, was there, too, ostensibly as a servant of the Lowlanders, but then he was a servant of Thalric as well. He had many pockets, Trallo, and he could take anyone's gold. Useful, but not a man to trust.

At Thalric's direction, the two Mantids guided their boat into one of the channels. There were several reed punts moving ahead, hunting out a land-fish of suitable dimensions. Smaller beasts flopped and grunted on the mudbanks, staring back at the intruders with their huge eyes, raising bright red fins in warning.

A chorus of whistles from somewhere ahead signalled the scouts finding suitable quarry. With a word, Thalric bid his crew urge the boat forward. 'I think Imperial honour will be satisfied by our driving one of the beasts into the river,' he decided. 'Let Captain Amnon deal with the bloodletting.'

They noticed the commotion ahead, then the little boats were hurrying back towards the river, while the humped back of a fish, fin raised like a banner, came surging through the shallow water after them. The Wasps would be too late, Thalric guessed, but he would be able to make a show of it, anyway, perhaps burn a few holes into the beast as Amnon dispatched it. His boat reached the fish's wake, abruptly jolting over the disturbed water so that he had to use his spear to push himself off a stand of reeds and keep his balance. He saw others rus.h.i.+ng out amidst the green, following the hunt on foot as they dodged between the giant horsetails and rushes.

He had turned to order his crew to chase the beast when the image of the runners struck a chord in his mind. Where have I seen that? Where have I seen that? followed by, followed by, What was I seeing? What was I seeing? Those das.h.i.+ng figures, skipping swiftly between mud and greenery, Those das.h.i.+ng figures, skipping swiftly between mud and greenery, walking on the water walking on the water.

The first arrow knocked the Mantis at the bows right off the boat. Thalric saw him arch backwards, mouth open in silent surprise, and then vanish into the waters with barely a splash. Thalric's wings flared, and he kicked off from the rocking craft. Another arrow sped across the water, and he heard Osgan cry out.

He saw them clearly then, or some of them. They were skipping over the water, crouching low from cover to cover. He had a.s.sumed they were the local Mantids at first, but they had long limbs and short bodies, all angular elbows and knees. They wore cuira.s.ses of darkened metal scales, and they all carried bows. He saw three, in that brief moment, and one was aiming up at him already.

He let his sting speak for him, the old reflexes coming back. The arrow shot off to one side of him as he s.h.i.+fted in the air, but his own aim was true, the impact of his fire striking the man between neck and shoulder. In an instant the a.s.sa.s.sin was gone, his Art dying with him, the water receiving him at last.

The other two were shooting then and the air offered nowhere to hide. Thalric dropped down to just above the river's surface, hovering near the boat. 'Get moving!' he snapped, but the Mantis woman had s.n.a.t.c.hed up a bow, a little recurved thing, and was kneeling at the stern to sight up on some target invisible to Thalric. His heart lurched when he spotted Osgan lying groaning in the bottom of the boat. There was an arrow all the way through his upper arm, digging an inch into his ribs.

The Mantis let fly with her arrow, and at the same moment a shaft struck Thalric in the side. He was not wearing his army-issue mail, but the copperweave was hidden beneath his tunic. The arrowhead broad-bladed to cleave flesh did not pierce through, but the impact knocked him into the water.

His wings were abandoned at once, and for a moment he could do nothing but splash. Then his feet found the bottom and he reached up to drag himself into the boat.

The killers had broken cover, were racing towards them over the water, shooting as they came. One of them sprang backwards, with an arrow punching through his mail. The last a.s.sa.s.sin leapt up from the surface of the water onto the boat's side, drawing back his bowstring again and aiming straight at the Mantis.

From river-level, Thalric put a hand out and loosed his sting, catching the man at a range of five feet, splintering his bow and melting his mail, hurling him back off the boat into the water. When Thalric cautiously lifted himself up and into the boat, there was no sign of any of them, all their bodies reclaimed by the river.

Skater-kinden from Jerez, he named them, acutely aware that there could be more of them nearby, and another team of three would just about settle matters here. Skater-kinden? Skater-kinden? It was a long way from Jerez to Khanaphes, but of course there were Skaters in service to the Empire, with all the skills and the temperament necessary for the a.s.sa.s.sination game. That someone had sent them this far afield said a lot about how much they wanted Thalric dead. It was a long way from Jerez to Khanaphes, but of course there were Skaters in service to the Empire, with all the skills and the temperament necessary for the a.s.sa.s.sination game. That someone had sent them this far afield said a lot about how much they wanted Thalric dead. And if I had stayed in Capitas, what might they not have sent against me? And if I had stayed in Capitas, what might they not have sent against me?

He had grown complacent, stopped thinking like a Rekef officer, and it had come close to killing him.

'Get this boat back on the main river,' he snapped. 'If we're to deal with a.s.sa.s.sins, let's have witnesses too.'

But the Mantis woman did not move, peering still into the tangled ferns. 'There are more,' she said, nocking another arrow. 'Between us and the rest of the hunt.'

Fly, thought Thalric, and it would be simple enough save that even in that short s.p.a.ce between here and the barge he would become a target for any halfway competent archer. It would mean leaving Osgan as well. Crouching low in the boat he studied the injured man. Osgan was shaking, skin gone pale, but he was conscious still.

'Now,' the Mantis said, and stood up suddenly to loose her arrow. Thalric raised his head briefly, saw a confusion of movement, heard a cry. Another arrow zipped past, a foot over his head. He saw the Mantis sighting up again.

'Out of the boat,' she urged abruptly. 'Into the trees.'