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

talk. We’re not superstitious savages like your lot,” Roven growled. Merric’s fire shadowed his face, but the corner of Skessi’s mouth was twitching, and Merric himself had his sword held close, as if for comfort. The gutted castle loomed impartial over all, black against a darkening sky.

We went in next morning, once dawn and a bottle of war-loot wine had emboldened the Wasps. Fael would go first, with Skessi hovering at his shoulder, and then the Wasps with me in arm’s reach, in case of funny business. The Imperials had a couple of hissing gas lanterns, one of which was forced on me. If it had been just the two of them, matters would have been easier, but Skessi’s eyes were as good in the dark as mine.

Still, after some searching and shifting, the plan proved its worth by providing a passage into the earth that was only partially choked with fallen stones. It was a sheer drop, but Fael’s wings carried him down there easily enough. Skessi didn’t look keen to follow, but a dirty look from Roven convinced him, and he fluttered down after.

“Where’d you and he hear about this place?” Roven growled, one ear cocked for a report.

“We turned over a castle crypt where your lot had been. Good business: Empire doesn’t know that’s where the good stuff is, half the time. Only we found clues, there. The nobles had a branch lived over here, ‘til they died out. Rich as rich, Fael reckoned, and who’s been here to dig it up, but us?”

“Local boys didn’t seem so shy,” Roven pointed out. “How’d you know they’ve not had it all?”

“Oh, you won’t find any locals willing to go into a noble family’s crypts,” I told him lightly. “Not with the curses.”

“You don’t believe that,” nothing but a growl deep in Roven’s throat.

“Oh we’re all civilised sorts from the Spiderlands,” I said. “Still, makes you think, doesn’t it?”

“Come on down,” came Skessi’s distant call, and we did so, the Wasps lowered on spread wings, and me hand over hand down the wall. The gaslamps threw guttering shadows across walls made of irregular stones that still fit into each other so tight you’d not get a blade in.

“This is never just for the dead,” Roven spat. “Too much work. Burn ’em or bury ’em, but not all this digging and masonry.”

“Reckon they took their dead seriously, back then,” I put in. Fael and Skessi were already ahead, but it was so pitchy down there that even they had so stay in the edge of the lantern light. I wasn’t sure then that this wasn’t just some kind of grain store. Fael was leading strong, but it wouldn’t have done to show we weren’t sure. I was as much in the dark as Roven right then.

I’d have been able to pacify the Wasps, I think, had we turned up nothing but a few jars of rice that first day, but some kind of luck was with us - good or bad, your call - because Fael found some gold.

It was in some niches in the wall, and there wasn’t much, but it was enough to make us look good. No bodies, mind, just a little trinketry: broaches, rings. I caught Fael’s eye, because of the two plans we were running right then, the first one - the get rich one - had turned out sunny. That stuff we’d read in that other old castle looked to have been true after all, just like I told Roven. Of course, the second plan, the new one, would need a bit of work.

Roven and Merric confiscated all that glittered, although I’d bet Skessi pocketed a handful as well, and then there was nothing for it but for Fael to press on. Every so often there was a niche, and sometimes there was a piece of loot there, and sometimes there wasn’t. Then Fael had yelled out, his wings taking him up so fast he bounced off the ceiling and ended up scrabbling away on his backside as something reared up over him. The Wasps’ stings flashed, blinding bright down here, and then things went quiet. I helped Fael get to his feet, and he looked shaken. It had been a centipede, and living proof of how well you can live eating roaches and pillbugs and silverfish: ten feet long if it was an inch. Not a man-eater, but the poison in those fangs would have finished Fael for sure, and, anyway, centipedes are bad luck in the Commonweal, because of old history.

We went on a bit slower after that. The roof was lower, for a start, and the walls had become oddly slick and nasty to touch. The floor was slippery, and sloping too, and the lanterns didn’t seem to be giving out enough light even for me. I could hear the two Wasps breathing harsh and hoarse in my ear, and a lot of other little scuttlings and scrabblings as well. Nobody was much looking forward to stepping on the next centipede, or whatever other venomous residents we might disturb. You didn’t get scorpions so much, not in the Commonweal, but my little spider brothers certainly put in an appearance and I didn’t have the Art to warn them off. Skessi was sticking close to the light, now. He might not have the fear of the dark that the Wasps had, but he was somewhere he couldn’t make much use of his wings. In the Lowlands the Fly-kinden love little tunnels. Their warrens are mazes of chambers and narrow vertical drops and the like that make it impossible for any bigger kinden to get around. I think Imperial Fly-kinden don’t like being enclosed so much. Certainly Skessi wasn’t at all fond of the experience.

Then came the bad news. The whole thing led to a wall: a dead end.

We argued then, or at least the Wasps threw accusations and we tried to defend ourselves. The loot we’d found already might as well not