Just like everything around here, Che thought.
Another boat came up beside them, the mirror of their own but twice as long, four Mantids back-paddling to bring the craft alongside. Amnon was standing at its carved prow, stripped to the waist and wearing only a kilt. Che heard Praeda murmur, 'Oh, grace and favour, look at him!' in civilized horror. She kept looking at him, though, Che noticed, and when she glanced away her eyes were drawn back to him soon enough. A conversation with Manny recurred to her, and Che wondered if similar word had crept round to Praeda.
The big man grinned down at them. 'Welcome!' he said. 'At last you are with us: the hunt can begin. It is my honour that you have agreed to participate as bold hunters along with us. In this way shall the skill and the courage of Collegium be known.'
Che grimaced up at him. 'Captain, I think you should first let us know just what we are hunting, and how to go about it,' she said weakly. 'We are rather new to this.'
'Of course, of course. You should watch me make the first kill, perhaps.' He put a bare foot up on the side of his boat, scanning the riverbank beyond them, then jabbing out a finger. 'There, you see,' he said. 'They come to warm themselves in the sun. Do you see them there?'
'Fish basking in the…' Che could see nothing but rocks amongst the foliage, but she heard Manny whistle in astonishment, and then one of the rocks opened a bulbous eye to appraise her. There were half a dozen of them, the least of them the size of a man. Slick-skinned, brown creatures with stubby front fins like arms, and high-set, goggling eyes, they lounged half-in and half-out of the water. One of them yawned, and its mouth was cavernous, the needle-sharp teeth glinting in the dawn light.
'Oh, loose knives and bloody thunder,' Manny said in awe. 'They're fish. Those are the fish they're hunting.'
'Land-fish,' Amnon said proudly, as though he was personally responsible for their existence. 'But we will not hunt these, of course. They are only young. It would not be fair to pit our skills against them until they have fully grown.'
'I want to go on the barge,' said Che, but the Mantids were suddenly thrusting the boat forward, almost toppling her backwards. Amnon's crew did the same, and she saw a few other boats like their own coursing ahead over the water, moving beyond the wallowing barge.
'Catch these!' Amnon called out. 'You must have the tools to hunt them!' He took up a leather-wrapped bundle that was as long as he was and cast it, with no appreciable effort, across the water towards them. Manny took it full in the chest and would have toppled overboard with it had Praeda and Che not grabbed hold of his robes. With a certain avid interest he unwrapped it, spilling arrows into the bottom of the boat. There was a brace of shortbows, too, curled forward ready to be strung, and a spear with a barbed head attached to a neatly coiled line.
'Nets and things,' said Che pointedly to Manny. 'What have you got us into?'
'That Amnon, he claimed it was fishing,' the fat man protested.
'Well, to him, this probably does count as fishing,' Che snapped. 'We will keep well clear of all this hunting, and Waste take the honour of Collegium.'
'Agreed,' said Manny, slightly shaken by this turn of events. Che sat back and put a hand to her head. Land-fish stared at her with sleepy suspicion from the banks, and so she turned her back on them, looking out at the other boats.
From the far side of Amnon's craft another boat emerged. It had two Mantids poling it forward, but a third man was standing near the bows, spear in hand and cloak billowing. It took Che a moment to recognize him.
Thalric. And of course what she should be doing now, instead of performing this ridiculous charade, was talking to Thalric and smoothing things over. But it would have done no good to seek him out, she saw, because she was not the only ambassador to have been invited on the hunt.
He glanced over at her, and on his pale face she could see bruising, and her heart sank. Totho thought he was rescuing me. Trallo had explained to her how Thalric had taken her from the Fir-eaters, only to lose her to the Iron Glove. I am changing hands so often, they should put customs duty on me.
She raised a hand to send a feeble greeting over the water. She saw him nod in response. That small contact, the opening of negotiations, brought her a disproportionate relief. Has Totho now usurped him as the person I know best in this city? Or do I know Thalric even better, at this remove? Thalric has been drifting nearer, while Totho began close to me but he seems so far away now.
There was a series of shrill whistles that Che could not locate. As they sounded again she realized they came from beyond the river proper, amid the channels and marshes of the delta which spread its tangled fingers from here all the way to the sea. Amnon's boat went coursing towards the sounds, and her own followed under the swift, sure oar-strokes of the Mantis-kinden. She saw Thalric's craft leap forward also, his wings flickering to keep balance. There was another Wasp sitting in the boat behind him, looking every bit as ill and miserable as Che herself felt. She thought it might be the same man who had reacted so badly to the Mantis statue, and wondered how he was getting on with their boat's crew.
Two of the little reed craft suddenly shot on to the broad waters of the river as though they had been spat out, their occupants poling them with precise grace and astonishing speed. There was a line trailing from one – Che could see it cutting ripples on the water – it was attached to-
It was attached to one of the land-fish, but a creature almost as long as Amnon's boat. Its maw, snagged by a harpoon head and gaping with fury, could have swallowed Che whole. It powered over the mud and ferns, its stumpy front fins granting it a startling pace, and then sloughed into the river with a bellowing grunt. Amnon's boat was cutting close, as the big man stood ready with a bow strung and drawn back. For a second the fish was invisible in the brown wash of the water, but something guided Amnon's hand as he loosed the arrow into the murk, and then the fish leapt to the surface to meet this fresh assault.
They want it in sight of the barge, Che realized, but still in the shallows, where it can't escape. Amnon and the Mantis-kinden were playing a dangerous game, herding the enraged monster up and down the river bank, not letting it slip into any of the smaller channels, nor vanish into the depths. Time and again it hurled itself at Amnon's boat, but the Mantis crew pirouetted and sliced through the water, always cutting aside from the creature's furious charge. Everyone on the boat, Amnon and his crew alike, remained standing throughout, as the big Beetle sent arrow after arrow into the furious beast. It turned from him towards the other boats, those fleeting little reed constructions, but they nimbly skittered out of its path. Once it was too quick for them, its jaws slamming down on a bundled stern. The Mantis poling the boat was in the air at once, wings glittering, as the monster shredded her craft into scraps with mindless rage.
'What a barbaric spectacle,' Praeda remarked, sounding disdainful, but she was clutching tightly at the boat's side. Manny just stared, silently, fingering one of the bows they had been given.
At last it was done. The cornered fish, jaws agape in threat, reared up out of the water, its hide bristling with arrow shafts. Amnon held a spear now and took precise aim, spinning himself completely around to give the cast more force, yet barely rocking the boat as he did so. The heavy-headed lance plunged into the monster's throat, and Amnon leant forward to take hold of the butt and drive it further in. The great fish recoiled under the shock of it, thrashing down on to the mud, and Amnon took up the bow again. He sighted on the beast's eye, the arrowhead moving in minute twitches to track the creature's death throes. His fingers released the string.