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

quizzed him he explained, with relish, “The Beetle paid the same price I did for his freedom. If he walks free, then so do I. Otherwise he’s bound to the Prince’s purpose as I am. Or I’ll open his throat now, if you don’t want him slowing us down.” He had Cordwick’s collar instantly, without his arm seeming to move, dragging the Beetle close and putting razor-edged spines to his neck. For a horrifying moment the Fly hesitated, then: “We walk,” she said, disgusted either at the Mantis, Cordwick or her own soft-heartedness.

After they had gone a mile or so in stony silence Cordwick judged that her ill temper had ebbed sufficient for him to prompt, “I’m Cordwick Scosser, of Helleron, by the way.”

“Yes, you said.” She frowned as Cordwick pointedly stretched the silence. “Tesse,” she told him shortly.

“And you work for some prince, the Mantis said,” he proceeded carefully. Evandter snorted with derision.

This time Tesse’s look at him was cruel. “Prince Lowre Darien,” she pronounced carefully, and, “Heard of him, I take it?” as Cordwick choked.

Lowre Darien was a name known to a lot of people, mostly imperial soldiers, but the stories had filtered down even to lowly thieves trying to filch war-plunder from its rightful conquerors. Prince Lowre Darien, who had led the coalition of principalities that had smashed the Sixth Army, and who had fought the Empire to a brief standstill outside Shan Real. In a war that was a catalogue of defeats and retreats he was one of the only Commonweal leaders to boast even a halfway success. More stories were told of his personal courage than his military acumen, though. He was the man who could walk in and out of imperial camps like the wind. He freed slaves and killed enemy officers, and Rekef men, especially Rekef men. The Empire had been after him forever, assassins and freelance hunters and the cream of the Outlander, but his name refused to go away and, even now the war was over, word of his exploits kept coming. The Monarch had signed the Treaty of Pearl in craven surrender but Prince Lowre Darien had not been a signatory and for him the war was still raging.

From death sentence to death sentence, thought Cordwick, because anywhere near Lowre Darien – or even someone pretending to be Lowre Darien – sounded like a mighty unhealthy place to be, but at the back of his mind was a spark of curiosity. To set eyes on the Wasp-killer, the hero of Masaki, the man who stung back: that would be worth a little risk. That would be something to regale his fat, rich friends with, when he was fat and rich himself, and stealing like a merchant steals, rather than like a poor and honest thief.

Whatever Cordwick was expecting, the army of enamel-armoured Mercers, the castle hidden in a wood, the golden splendour of a Commonweal warrior-lord, none of it was there. The tangled stretch of trees that Tesse led them to was in a hollow so rocky that even the locals hadn’t tried to step it and plough it, let alone build a secret fort there. Instead of a hundred sworn champions ready to drive the Wasps from Commonweal soil in fulfillment of their destiny, there was one man and one woman, and Cordwick looked at the man two or three times before realising that this was it. This was the man himself.

Prince Lowre Darien was lean and slight of frame, like most Commonwealers, although perhaps a little taller than most. His dark hair was raggedly cut, as by a man with a knife and a mirror, and Cordwick reckoned he could see a little grey over the ears. His golden skin was smeared with grime, making him seem older. Instead of a Mercer’s scintillating armour or the gold-heavy robes of a nobleman, he was dressed like a successful bandit, hardwearing leather backed with coarse silk that was either dirty or dyed mottled, with a long hauberk of cloth-backed chitin scales and shoulder-guards of the same. Beside him, on the rock he sat on, lay a worn pack and a quiver of arrows. The bow was in his hand, a servicable recurved shortbow, not the elaborate man-high weapon of a noble but that of a bandit who must fight and run. His eyes were the only part of him that convinced Cordwick of who he was. They were the colour of amber, and they held all the noble fire and mastery that every other part of him had been stripped of.

His companion, whoever she was, was not this Nysse woman the Mantis had sworn on. She was a surprise for Cordwick, because she no more belonged in the Commonweal than he did: a slender Moth-kinden, grey-skinned and blank-white-eyed, dark hair intricately plaited into a braid that fell to past her waist. She wore a tunic, breeches and sandals, in the style of the Commonwealers, and they looked strange on her. Her face was inward, clouded with secrets, but in Cordwick’s experience that was true of Moths whether they had any secrets or not.

Seeing the Fly-kinden and her baggage approach, Lowre Darien stood like a man readying himself for a fight. Evandter’s progress towards him slowed and stopped and the two men regarded one another coolly.

“Prince Darien,” Tesse said, but very quietly, and he did not glance at her. Nobody paid any attention whatsoever to Cordwick.

“So you’ve lost her,” Evandter stated flatly. “Seems a shame, after you went to so much trouble to take her back from me.”

“The Wasps have her at Del Halle,” Darien confirmed. His expression, gazing on the Mantis, was utterly without love. “Well guarded.”

“A trap,” Evandter said.

Darien nodded. “For me,” he agreed, “and yet she is mine, and I must free her.”

“And for this you come to me? If she is yours why should I help you regain her?”

“Did he swear himself to me?” Darien asked Tesse lightly, and she nodded, too caught up in the tension between the two men to