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

That was my cue. I followed his exclamation with a blood-curdling wail and just bolted, and to my glee Merric was already outpacing me to the exit. It was pitch dark, but there was only one way to go, and we went. Skessi overtook me before I hit daylight, keening like a madman. I heard Roven behind, lumbering and cursing and bouncing off the walls. The last we heard from Fael was a high, rending scream, wordless and filled with horror. I could barely stop grinning.

It was still daylight outside, of course, and that put a little bravery back into them. We rendezvoused at the camp, where the hobbled horses were skittish and the beetle was practically dancing with anxiety, and I saw that the plan hadn’t quite worked.

I had to hand it to Roven for utter single-mindedness. He had fled just as we had fled, but he’d had both the self-possession and the sheer Art-fired strength to drag both sacks of treasure along with him. We were out and we were rich, which was all good for the Wasps, and not much fun for me. I had no illusions that they’d give me any kind of share.

We stayed and watched the opening for some time, but there was no sign of Fael of course. The other two looked to Roven for ideas, and they were relieved as anything when he said, “We move out. We’ve got what we came for.” Merric broke camp, and we loaded up the beetle. It was a plodding old thing, that beetle. It could keep up with the horses walking but not at a gallop. There was no chance of using it as a quick getaway, not laden like that.

However, Fael and I, we’d talked about this. The plan could survive a few knocks. It just meant it was going to be difficult, and we’d have to do some things we might regret, but I was ready for that. I’d regretted most of my life so far, save hitching up with Gatre Fael, so why should this caper be any different? Skessi was already doing my work for me, as though he was in on it. “I saw them,” he was insisting, mostly because it meant he was getting out of doing any work. “I saw them coming for us. The white shapes. White shapes with grey wings.”

“You saw nothing,” Roven told him disgustedly. When Skessi went to say more, Roven put an open palm his way, and the Fly shut up. The Wasp looked at me next. “You see anything, Spider-born?”

“I see the weather’s turned,” I told him mildly, and it had. The sky was scudding white clouds, not the white of light weather but heavy with snow. I thought of the path back to Roven’s army, twenty days of hills and forests and solitude. We might pull it off yet.

We mounted up. Skessi preferred to stay airborne, letting Fael’s horse trudge behind mine as mute testimony to our losses. We made poor time that day. The wind was against us, cutting coldly and keenly enough that the horses didn’t want to walk straight into it and would veer off every time they could. The snow came shortly after midday, first a light feathering of big, slow flakes, then flurrying and blowing into our faces until we could see nothing of the road, barely anything of our horses’ heads. The beetle was leashed to Roven’s horse, and a dozen times I thought of trying to cut the traces, to lead the thing off into the snow. It was going slower than ever in the colder weather, though, and I was too worried about getting lost myself. I could freeze to death as easily as the next man, and the Wasps were better equipped to get a fire going.

We stopped before nightfall because Merric had found a wooded hollow that would keep the fire’s heat in. The wind was really up, then, and when it hit the trees it made all kinds of sounds: my cue again. When we were all sitting round the best fire Merric could make I jumped up all of a sudden, meaning so did they, swords out and palms clear.

“Did you hear that?” I called over the wind.

“What?” Roven snarled at me.

“Voices!”

His look was all belligerence on the surface, but that surface was thin ice. “Whose?”

“They were calling my name!” I insisted.

“Your Dragonfly?” Roven demanded. I just shook my head dumbly. He tried out a disgusted expression, but I could tell they were all listening. The problem was, once you’ve said a thing like that, well, the wind makes all kinds of noises, out there in the wilds. I just hunched closer to the fire and told myself in no uncertain terms that under no circumstances could I really hear my name in the wind. I’ve always had an active imagination and it’s never done me much good.

Then it was Roven’s turn to jump up, sword out, and we repeated the whole pantomime. This time, when he insisted he’d seen a shape out there, everyone was supposed to believe him.

“Bandits,” he snapped out. “Got to be. They’ve seen the fire.” Nobody objected to this, although I think you’d have had to be within burning distance to do it. “Merric, go scout. You find anyone, kill them.”

Merric didn’t look happy about that, but Roven was a sergeant, and he was just a soldier, and they beat that into the Wasp army with big lead hammers. This, too, was the plan, but it was that part of the plan we hadn’t really talked much about.

Merric bundled himself up in a cloak, a grey-white garment that would hide him nicely in this weather. He had his shortsword drawn but he led with his offhand, palm-out. Crouched low to the ground he went, with one backward glance at Roven.

He didn’t come back. By the time that was clear, the night was well and truly upon