'Achaeos?' she asked.
'Not Achaeos,' said a clipped voice in her ear, and then they were out of the tent – out into the confusing underwater colours of the Marsh Alcaia – and the world was swimming, spinning around her, and she could hold on to it no longer. Thalric almost fell over as Che's full weight dragged against him, but he got an arm behind her knees and hoisted her off the ground. Cursed Beetle girl could stand to lose some weight, came the thought, but then he had a firm grip on her and was backing out of that horrible tent. He noticed movement and turned awkwardly, seeing someone running towards them. He twisted a hand free, almost losing hold of Che again, and let his sting flash. The man, an emaciated Khanaphir, fell back in a tangle of limbs.
'Let's go,' he grated. 'Come on, Fly-kinden.'
Trallo was already on his way, trying to wind back the string on a pistol crossbow as he went. The denizens of the Marsh Alcaia had begun to show all too much interest in a Wasp lugging a foreign Beetle girl about.
'Stupid, stupid woman,' Thalric was cursing under his breath. 'What did you think you were doing?'
'Lucky you were keeping an eye on her,' said Trallo, having finally got his crossbow cocked. Now that he brandished it so openly, interest from the street people was fast diminishing. The Khanaphir didn't seem to possess such weapons themselves, but everyone here seemed to know what it was capable of. Loosing a crossbow bolt in a confined space bounded entirely by cloth walls would be an interesting exercise, Thalric thought.
Trallo was leading the way confidently, left, left, then right. Merchants and gamblers watched narrowly as they passed, making Thalric keenly aware of just how much Che's unconscious body was hampering his progress. If they jump me I'm dead, he thought, and then, and I bloody well deserve it. He was conscious that dressing this episode up to satisfy his Rekef colleagues would be nigh impossible. But I knew – I knew she would get involved in something like this. Cheerwell Maker, as usual, blundering through a world of sharp edges with her eyes shut.
The uncomfortable truth: I have a problem, here, and then Trallo shouted something, and Thalric tried to turn. Something hit him in the jaw hard enough to snap his head back. He staggered, his legs suddenly weak, and someone tried to wrestle Che from his grasp. There was a moment of fumbling that, to a disinterested observer, must have seemed hilarious, and Che was pulled out of Thalric's hands. The abductor had botched it, though, tripping and falling backwards so that the weight of her drove the breath from his lungs. Abruptly free of her, with palm open and ready, Thalric turned to receive another hammering punch that knocked him flat on his back. A dark-armoured form loomed over him just as he heard the clack of Trallo's crossbow. Impossibly the little bolt just danced off the attacker's mail and those gauntleted hands now came up with something ugly and short-barrelled: a cut-down snapbow!
'Flee!' Thalric shouted, as two of his attackers began hauling him to his feet. He struggled furiously, trying to turn the palms of his hands towards them. 'Trallo, flee!' he yelled again. He saw the armoured assailant sight down the wicked little snapbow, then lower it.
Telling a Fly-kinden to run, it occurred to Thalric, is surely unnecessary.
'Watch his hands!' the man warned, but they were already holding Thalric's arms out straight and back, putting pressure on his elbows to keep them that way. Their dark armour was mostly plated leathers, and only their leader wore steel mail, of a design Thalric had never seen before. It was a moment before he recognized the emblem on their tabards.
'What-?' One of them wrenched his arm and he hissed in pain. 'What do the Iron Glove want with me? I am Imperial ambassador in this city!'
'Are you?' He could see himself reflected dimly in the armoured man's helm. The eye-slit gave no clues. 'And what does the Empire want with abducting Lowlander women?'
'I was…' But he was what? What can I say that will not incriminate me?
'Your name is Thalric, my people tell me,' said the Iron Glove man, and a chill went through him.
Assassins? He had all but forgotten, given the challenge of this new city and its distractions. Are you so weary of your life that you forget such things? But he was far from the Empire, and the attack outside Tyrshaan now seemed like something long ago.
'My name is Thalric,' he admitted.
'It has been a long time,' the armoured man replied slowly. 'I saw you only briefly, on the Sky Without. But she told me what you did to her, in Helleron and in Myna.' There were knives in that tone which mocked the terrors of mere assassins.
'Who are you?' Thalric demanded.
'Me?' The faceless helm came closer. 'Why, I'm no Rekef officer, Master Thalric. I'm no lord of the Empire or grand ambassador. I'm just a poor halfbreed boy who's had to make his own way in the world.'
A name hovered at the very edge of Thalric's memory, but he could not bring it to mind.
'But look at me now,' the man continued. 'I've not done so badly. Look at what I can do.'
Thalric saw him draw back his fist for the blow, amateurish and clumsy if only he himself had been able to dodge. Then the metal-clad fist slammed into his stomach and doubled him over, only the layer of copperweave saving his innards. He sagged against his captors, who instantly jerked him upright. The armoured man was examining his mailed fist speculatively.
'Look what I can do,' he repeated, wonderingly. When the gaze of the helm tilted towards Thalric again, it was as though they were collaborators in this new exercise of power.
'You don't understand what's going on here,' said Thalric, and because he was speaking he was not ready for the next blow, which lashed into his cheek, splitting his lip and throwing him out of the grip of his captors. He hit the ground hard, clawing at the dust, trying to extend a hand out to sting. The boot came from nowhere into his ribs and he cried out at last, curling about the pain, bracing for the next blow.
There was no next one, though, and he forced himself to look up. The snapbow was directed at him, at his face, at his eye. Well, I always knew the mail wouldn't save me every time.
'This is personal, between us two,' the armoured man explained. 'The Iron Glove wouldn't thank me for killing an ambassador. Be grateful that your Fly got away to tell tales. It's enough now that you know you're beaten.'
Two of them still supported Che between them, and the two others that had been holding him now had their crossbows out and ready. The company started moving away through the Marsh Alcaia, only the armoured man pausing a moment, staring down at Thalric.
'If I ever see you again,' he said, 'know that I haven't even begun to avenge what you did to her.'
Thalric tried to sit up, unkinking bruise by bruise, his breath ragged in his throat. No broken ribs, just pain all over and a bloodied lip. He had suffered much worse. The halfbreed had no idea just how much Thalric had endured, before.
There was a flurry of movement nearby, and he instinctively jabbed an arm out towards it, reaching for his sword with the other.
'It's me, it's me!' Trallo shrilled, coming to rest beside him, surveying him critically. 'They did a real job on you, didn't they?'
Thalric groaned, pulling himself fully to his feet, light-headed and breathing through waves of pain.
'I hope you can walk,' Trallo added reproachfully. 'There's no way I'm carrying you.'
'I can walk.' And I can think up some explanation for Marger and the others, as well. He was still ransacking his memory for the name of the armoured halfbreed. Twenty She awoke, and was in a strange place.
She was still in Khanaphes, because the city signed every brick that composed it, but this was nowhere she recognized. The ceiling was too low, the windows too smalclass="underline" it was certainly not the splendour of the Place of Honoured Foreigners.
Nor was it the coloured cloth of the Marsh Alcaia, and that was something to be grateful for, at least. She gathered up the pieces of her last recollections and tried to put them in order. The Fir dream came back to her with shocking suddenness: the mantis of the Darakyon, reaching out with bloody claws towards her. She sat up with a start.