Free Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky

‘Someone help me!’ but Hokiak knew that his backroom had thick walls
and people around this part of the city always minded their own business.
    She put one hand up, stilling
the quivering hilt of her sword.
    ‘Thalric,’ she said
simply, conversationally.
    ‘Thalric, of course!’ he
gasped. ‘They sent him away. They sent him west, to the new-found lands. The
city Helleron, where the foundries are. He’s Rekef Outlander. You know what
that means?’
    ‘Oh, I know exactly what
that means,’ she said. Only Draywain could see her expression just then, and
his voice dried up to a whimper.
    ‘Do you know where this
Helleron is, Hokiak?’ she asked, without turning.
    ‘Sure I do,’ the old Scorpion
said. Seems like every month I’m shipping people west.
    ‘Good,’ she said and
pulled her sword out of the wall effortlessly. As Draywain gasped in relief she
rammed the point of it double-handed through his chest and then whipped it out,
all in one movement. He was dead instantaneously, without even realizing what
was happening. Perhaps, Hokiak thought, that was her way of mercy. Or her
thanks. Charming thought.
    ‘You will find me means
to get to Helleron,’ she told him. ‘And supplies. A map that I can read.’ That
last was because she was not Apt, of course, not one for machines or crossbows
or technical drawing.
    ‘I got an old
Grasshopper chart,’ Hokiak said. ‘Ain’t what you’d call recent but I don’t
guess they moved the cities that much. Look, this all is going to cost. I
earned my one-in-ten for bringing him here, no matter what he did.’
    She turned then,
smiling, and she was a lovely-looking woman, when she smiled – and more likely
to kill a man than any Spider-kinden seductress.
    ‘But Master Draywain has
just chosen not to collect his fee. What’s one-in-ten of nothing, Master
Hokiak?’
    The Scorpion gave out a
sigh, and his men around the room tensed, ready. ‘Now that ain’t how we do
business around here. You got what you came for.’
    ‘Do you think I care about
gold?’ she asked him. ‘Do you think that I can’t find more? Do you think for me
this is about money ?’ She snarled at that last. ‘I
would empty the coffers of the Empire and the treasuries of the Commonweal to
find this man Thalric. You want money? Take it all .’
She gestured at the pile, the not-quite-a-fortune, that she had left on the
table. ‘Just get me what I want.’
     

Five
    ‘I was right here in my
front office,’ Parops told them. ‘I had a crossbow and a telescope, but after I
while I just used the telescope. It was quite something to see.’ He indicated
the view from his slit window.
    ‘Nothing’s happening
now,’ Totho pointed out. There was a tray of bread and spiced biscuit on
Parops’s desk, and he was aware that Skrill seemed to be working her way
through it all methodically.
    ‘That’s war: boredom and
boredom and then everything’s far too interesting all of a sudden,’ Nero
confirmed. He was sitting on the desk looking at Skrill and obviously trying to
decide what she was.
    ‘So what happened?’
Salma asked.
    Parops put his back
against the wall beside the arrowslit. ‘Take a look at the disposition,’ he
invited. Salma did so, seeing only a large extent of land between the city
walls and the Wasp camp, which was dotted with a few tangled heaps of wood and
metal.
    ‘First off, they moved
their engines in,’ Parops explained. ‘They started shooting straight off and
they must have some good artillerists, because in only a few shots they were
sweeping the wall-tops with scrap from their catapults, forcing everyone’s head
down. They were loosing some at the walls, too, lead shot rather than stone, I
think. We were shooting back from embedded positions like the one atop my
tower. You can see evidence of some of our successes out there, but with our
lot flinching back all the time it took a while to make the range to them. And
of course nobody was getting a peaceful time