Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [96]
She raised the snapbow again, realizing as she did so that she had not reloaded it since their skirmish with the Wasps. All around them she heard a faint creaking as a dozen of the Mantids’ savage little compound bows were drawn back.
‘The Loquae will be pleased with us,’ their leader remarked with satisfaction.
What happened next was something that Praeda would never remember clearly.
There was a gasp from the Mantis-kinden, one arrow leaping from its bow to skim directly between Amnon and herself. The Mantids already were backing away, all stealth forgotten, their circle widening and widening, and for no apparent reason, save that . . .
Praeda would later decide that the night’s exertions had begun to tell on her by then. She was hot and tired, and possibly poisoned by insect bites or marsh water. It would be easy, in such circumstances, to imagine things.
But she knew with an absolute certainty that there were three of them. She and Amnon were now standing a little further apart, because someone invisible was standing between them. No – not invisible, because the Mantis-kinden had already spotted whoever this third traveller was. They had seen it, and they recognized something in it that overawed and terrified them.
‘We will,’ the Mantis leader was promising. ‘We will lead them to the sea, we swear. We did not know . . . We could not have known . . .’
‘What is this? You recognize your oath to Khanaphes, after all?’ Amnon demanded.
‘There are other oaths,’ the Mantis replied, her voice trembling. ‘There are other loyalties. We did not know what you brought with you.’
Praeda was feeling light-headed by that point, for while she stared straight ahead at the shadowy Mantis-kinden, she could also glimpse a third figure out of the corner of her eye. It was someone she knew, someone who could not possibly be with them.
‘Che?’ she whispered.
Seventeen
When Varmen had pulled ahead, Thalric found a moment to murmur to Che, ‘You look terrible. What’s wrong? You’re ill?’
‘Not ill,’ Che assured him. Her dream last night had stayed with her this morning with unwelcome clarity. When she had embarked on this business of pretending to be some kind of magician, she had perhaps anticipated some manner of prophecy, portentous images that she might decode after much thought, and no doubt riddle out too late to be of any use. Achaeos had always spoken of dreams thus, but then he had ranked low by the standards of Moth magicians. Only the fact that he had somehow attracted the notice of the spirits of the Darakyon had marked him out in any way. The ancient Mantis-kinden dead of that abandoned forest had used him as a tool, in their quest to recover the Shadow Box that had held their collective heart, and when he called, they had come.
Che retained the memory with perfect and unwanted clarity: Achaeos touching her mind whilst she fought in Myna and he undertook a ritual in Tharn. Achaeos borrowing strength from her, even as his own failed, and using that same strength to call out to the Darakyon.
And the Darakyon had invaded both their minds, cold and hideous and thorned, and Achaeos, still weak from half-healed wounds, had died.
She had felt every moment of his passing through the bond that had connected them.
She was beginning to wonder if the world of magic would do for her as well. She would have liked to convince herself that it was merely her own imagining that had put her back in Khanaphes, but she found she could not stretch credulity so far.
I cannot be seeing these events as they occur, she complained to herself. Sometimes it is day in Khanaphes, whilst I sleep here. But last night . . .
She had never intruded into the dream before, never been anything other than a bodiless observer, watching the Empress and Praeda and the others, and coasting on their thoughts, seeing pictures in their minds, dreams within dreams. But the Mantis-kinden had seen her, as though