Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt Book 1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky (best young adult book series .txt) 📕

cared if everyone hated you when you were that rich? Money bought back all the respect that a slaver’s uniform lost you, was the way they put it. As for Skessi, he just turned up when we were two days out. Skessi was Fly-kinden, a scout attached to the Fourth and a nosy bastard by anyone’s book. He’d heard somehow that Roven and Merric had something on, and he turned up threatening to shop them to their officers unless he was dealt in. Nobody much liked that, but Skessi could fly faster even than Gatre, and he was a wary little sod, and it didn’t seem we had much choice. It was odds on whether the officers would declare Roven deserter anyway, especially after he’d had it away with four horses and a pack-beetle, but if he came back rich, well, that would smooth over a lot of rough waters. Besides, there were just so many Wasps forging west even as winter came on that it seemed possible that two soldiers could slip off on a frolic of their own and just claim to have got left behind. That was what Roven was counting on. As for Merric, he was happy enough to follow along, and if he got the chance to open my or Fael’s throat, well, that would be a bonus. Merric was like that, and he liked that. He was a simple man with simple pleasures, and would have been a perfect Wasp soldier if he’d had the slightest interest in listening to orders.

The plan, when me and Fael had first made the plan, had been to hightail it over here on our twosome, but it turned out our friends from the army were worth something after all. We ran into trouble twice. The first was with the Slave Corps, but Roven straightened that out. The second was with brigands, who had been having a field day since the Commonweal soldiers gave up these lands without a fight. About a dozen lean, ragged Grasshopper-kinden swept down on us from a tree-clogged ridge, with two Mantis warriors in the vanguard. Roven’s sting picked off one in a flash of golden fire, and Merric killed the other. He killed the Mantis sword to sword, too, with the Mantis blade near twice as long as his, and that gave me and Fael plenty to think about. The Grasshoppers had leapt and flown and run as soon as their leaders were down.

Still, the plan didn’t call to split the loot five ways, and on the journey me and Fael had been given plenty of chance to talk about just what to do about that. “High stakes, high risk,” Fael had said, but it turned out it was just one of our usual stock in trade scams after all, only played taut as a bowstring, and for real.

So that, and two tendays’ sullen travel through the cold crisp air and the occasional flurry of early snow, put us here, looking at the castle. This was an old one, and like a lot of them it had been left to rot a long time ago. No Wasp army had been forced to besiege this place. The walls were crumbling, their tops gappy and uneven like broken teeth. One face had come down entirely, leaving three tottering sides of uneven stones, internal architecture laid out in sheared floors, traceries of fallen walls, windows and doorways gaping like dead eyes.

“Don’t know why you people bothered with these things,” Roven spat, jabbing Fael. “Half-dozen trebuchet and a leadshotter, and they come down a treat.”

How strange a thought, I remember thinking, having one of my philosophical fits on me, that sufficient Wasp artillery can do the work of centuries. Is there a precise exchange rate, a year-value one can assign to a catapult? How many decades wear is a solid ball from a leadshotter worth?

“We didn’t build them,” Fael said, which prompted a reflective pause. It was news to me too. The Commonweal was dotted with these castles, tall stone keeps and towers, inward-leaning at the top to defend against aerial attackers. The Dragonflies had made much use of them as strong-points during the war, although Roven’s assessment of their longevity was a fair one. Everyone knew that the structures were very old, and these days the Dragonflies built flimsy stuff out of wood and screens that looked like a strong wind would blow it away. This was the first suggestion I’d heard that the castles were not originally theirs though.

“Grew like mushrooms, did they?” Skessi jeered, winging close for a moment. Fly-kinden flew, it was true, but Skessi seemed to have unlimited reserves of Art to call on. He was in the air almost every waking moment.

“We were not the first,” Fael said airily, “to call these places home. Especially here near the mountains. There were ancient powers who taught us our ways and blessed the first Monarch and bade us found the Commonweal, but they were not our kinden. They were great masters, whose magic could reshape the world, command the skies. They had the castles built, for while they lived amongst us, they loved to dwell in cold stone.” By now I’d figured what he was doing, and just nodded along.

“Right, whatever,” said Roven, but uneasily. The great broken edifice before us had a forlorn, tragic feel to it. Evening had fallen by that point, and Merric chose that moment to start setting up camp. Nobody suggested plumbing the place at night.

“Where’s this loot of yours?” Roven would ask, though, by moonlight. “Can’t see there’s much left of any treasury.”

“Crypts,” I explained blithely. “It’s the loot of the dead. The family that ruled here in yesteryear laid out its dead in state, and in gold and jewels.”

“And maybe those from before are laid out here as well,” Fael muttered in dark tones. “The ancient nameless ones. They can lie in the earth forever, they say, and yet wake again, if they must.”

“Enough of that