The Aeronaut's Windlass (54 page)

Benedict regarded him calmly, with absolutely no hint of hostility anywhere in his stance. Only in his eyes. Anger smoldered there, far back, and Grimm took note of it. Young Master Sorellin had presented himself as a calm and gregarious young fellow of Habble Morning’s upper classes, but Grimm had, in his time, met a certain number of dangerous individuals.

Though he was young, Benedict Sorellin, Grimm judged, was one of them.

Grimm turned his gaze to Felix. What happened next would depend a great deal on whether or not Felix had the sense to see what Grimm had in the young man.

Felix was no fool. He grunted, turned away, and casually put a little more distance between himself and the looming warriorborn. He picked up a mug and swallowed whatever dregs were left in it before turning back to them and eyeing Grimm. “Who is he?”

“My associate,” Benedict said calmly.

Felix grunted, looking back and forth between them. “He’s Fleet. Eh?” The verminocitor snorted. “Oh, civilian clothes, sure. But them boys could be naked and you could still see their uniform.” He squinted at Benedict. “You aren’t in uniform either. Rot and ruin, what does that old man up in Morning think he’s about?”

“Do you really want to know?” Benedict asked.

Felix shuddered. “And get drawn in further? God in Heaven, no. I have troubles enough.”

“Wise man,” Grimm said.

“I’d like to examine the remains of your man, if that’s all right,” Benedict said.

Felix shrugged and nodded. “Suit yourself.”

Benedict nodded his thanks and withdrew to the side chamber. He drew the cloth back. Grimm couldn’t see much of the form beneath it, and felt glad that he couldn’t. What he could see was horribly torn and mangled.

Felix didn’t look toward the room. He stared down at his mug, turning it in hard, scarred hands.

“What was his name?” Grimm asked quietly.

“Moberly,” the guildmaster said quietly. “Harris Moberly.”

Grimm nodded. “How old?”

Felix grimaced. “Twenty.”

Grimm nodded. “Family?”

“Wife, brother, mother,” Felix said. “Wife’s expecting.”

Grimm made a soft sound and shook his head.

Felix nodded. He eyed Grimm. “You know.”

“Wish I didn’t.”

Felix let out a wry chuckle. “Drink?”

“Obliged.”

The verminocitor poured from a bottle into his mug and a second one like it he took from the shelf. He held up his mug to Grimm briefly, and Grimm mirrored him. They drank. The spirits in the mug were not particularly fine, but neither were they feeble. Kettle would have loved them. Grimm swallowed it carefully.

Felix glanced into the room and then back down.

“How did it happen?” Grimm asked.

“Moberly was out on a contract on his own,” Felix said. “Against the rules. Not supposed to run without a partner. But with the baby on the way, he wanted to lay in some extra money. Silkweavers got him.”

“Weavers? Plural?”

Felix grunted. “Hatchlings. Matriarch like the one at the Black Horse will lay fifty eggs a day. One hatchling wouldn’t have been a problem for Moberly. Six or seven wouldn’t have been a problem. A few hundred, though . . .”

Grimm shuddered. “Bad way to go. You sure what killed him?”

“Those mouths of theirs make marks you can’t mistake. Not hard to measure them and do the math.”

“No offense meant,” Grimm said.

Felix shrugged. “All right.”

“What will you do next?”

“Sweep the tunnels as soon as we get enough of the lads together. Handle those hatchlings before they grow up. Coordinate with the guilds above and below Habble Landing, make sure it doesn’t become an infestation.”

“Difficult job?”

“Hard enough,” Felix said. His eyes flattened, though his voice stayed gentle. “But we’ll get it done.”

Grimm nodded.

Benedict reappeared from the side room. He had covered Moberly’s body again. “Hatchling marks?” he asked Felix.

“That’s what we saw,” Felix said. “That much venom, he never had a chance.”

“I don’t think so,” Benedict said. “The wounds aren’t right.”

Felix squinted at the young warriorborn. “How’s that?”

“The blood,” Benedict said. “It’s congealed in the wounds.”

“That’s what blood does,” Felix said.

“What are you getting at, Benedict?” Grimm asked.

“I don’t think your man Moberly was alive when those things caught up to him. He didn’t bleed enough.”

“Didn’t bleed enough?” Felix asked. “What does that mean?”

“I think his heart wasn’t beating when the hatchlings started on him,” Benedict said seriously. “Did you notice his neck?”

“Neck?” Felix asked.

“We’d need to consult with a physician to be sure,” Benedict said, “but I think someone broke his neck. Clean.”

Grimm pursed his lips. “And then tossed him to the silkweavers?”

Benedict nodded.

“Why?” Felix asked. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

Benedict looked at Grimm. “What do you think?”

Grimm swirled the spirits in his mug and said thoughtfully, “I think . . . they had to kill him.”

“They? They who?” Felix asked.

Benedict’s eyes widened in understanding. “Moberly got close to the Aurorans. He saw them.”

Grimm nodded sharply and rose. “The Aurorans are here, in Habble Landing.” He turned to Felix. “You say Moberly was pursuing a contract?”

“Yes,” the guildmaster said.

Grimm clenched his jaw and felt his hand fall to the hilt of his sword. “Where?”

Chapter 44

Spire Albion, Habble Landing, Ventilation Tunnels

R
owl moved with flawless competence through the shadows behind the group of men who had seized Littlemouse and her odd friend. This meant, of course, that he was unobserved by anyone whom he did not permit to observe him.

This was all Littlemouse’s fault. She had specifically asked him to seek out any possible danger lying in their way. She had said nothing whatever about danger that might steal up on them from behind, and Rowl had assumed that, between the pair of them, they might have enough wits about them to avoid being stalked and taken down like a pair of silly tunnel mice. He had therefore been
ahead
of them, looking for
reasonable
dangers, and it was quite thoroughly Littlemouse’s own fault if she had not taken adequate precautions to watch over her shoulder while Rowl was busy watching absolutely everywhere else.

By the time he’d heard the half-souled human warrior and the smaller one who was the leader close in on Littlemouse and her friend, it had been too late to warn them or accomplish anything apart from exposing himself. Their enemies had been inconsiderate enough to be too many in number for Rowl to manage comfortably with only his four paws.

So instead he followed the men who held Littlemouse, and calmly plotted their deaths.

They hurried from the main human area into the ventilation tunnels on the southern side of the habble, and Rowl kept pace with them. There was a familiarity to the air of the tunnels, to the scent and the sensation, and Rowl suddenly realized that they were somewhere near the tunnel where he had battled and destroyed the silkweavers who had tried to harm Littlemouse.

So.

Was that the message Naun of the Nine-Claws had meant Rowl to receive? That surface creatures were inside his territory, along with invading humans of Spire Aurora?

It would explain much. If the silkweavers were indeed under the control of the enemies of Littlemouse’s people, they would be a threat too great for the cats to face. When humans came hunting them, cats simply scattered into the endless tunnels. They moved much more swiftly and silently than any human could hope to emulate, and avoided them with relative ease.

Humans with the aid of silkweavers, though—that would be an entirely different ball of string. Silkweavers, in great numbers, could threaten the Nine-Claws, pursuing them through the tunnels the clumsier humans could not or would not use. Worse, they would use the vertical shafts as easily as the horizontal tunnels, providing them with a tremendous advantage of mobility.

Most particularly, they would be a threat to the kits of the Nine-Claws. A single silkweaver, if it struck a nursery, could kill the offspring of a generation. Working together, they could force the cats to flee through tunnels, where humans could employ their gauntlets and long guns.

Rowl suppressed a snarl. No wonder the Nine-Claws had been keeping their kits close. And of course Naun could not simply ask Rowl for help—any cat would understand that. He would probably be obliged to explain to Littlemouse the importance of a clan chief’s pride of place and absolute autonomy. She would fail to comprehend it, naturally, but what else could one expect? She was human.

The warriors who had taken Littlemouse made her walk with them into a section of the tunnels that Rowl felt immediately wary of entering. There were watchers there somewhere, hidden sentries posted in the darkness, concealed even from his eyes, at least from this distance. But his instincts warned him that they were certainly there.

Rowl prowled to a particularly deep pool of shadow and had just settled down to regard the tunnel more intently when something soft flicked his whiskers and caused him to whirl about, claws and fangs bared, ready to fight.

Shadows stirred and a pair of green eyes blinked slowly and insouciantly at him from only inches away. There was a low, chuckling purr, and a small female cat curled her tail back neatly around her paws.

“Mirl,” Rowl said, keeping his voice pitched below the volume a human would hear. He flicked his tail stiffly in displeasure. “I might have killed you.”

“You will need to notice me first,” Mirl said back, her tone insufferably pleased with herself. “O mighty Rowl.”

He regarded her for a haughty moment, then sat down and composed his fur. “What are you doing here?”

“My duty,” Mirl said. “Maul and Longthinker set me on a trail. It led me here. Or did you think I had come to throw myself at your paws and beg for your affection?”

Rowl gave her a gentle bump of his shoulder against hers to take the sting from his words. “I have no time for games this night.”

“I saw,” she said, sitting down beside him. “They took your human.”

“They took
two
of them,” Rowl said, disgusted, “and they will answer for it.”

“Of course they will,” Mirl said. “But I have been studying the Auroran defenses. I do not think there is a way to get close enough to observe them without being seen.”

“Why not?” Rowl asked.

“The deepest shadows of the roof,” Mirl said. “Thirty pounces back.”

Rowl stared intently for a long moment at the spot she had indicated. Finally, a vague shape took form there, and a faint glitter upon a gleaming eye.

“Silkweaver,” Rowl murmured quietly. “An adult.”

“Others guard each passage in,” Mirl said. “We can draw no closer to your humans without being seen.”

Rowl lashed his tail left and right once. That was ample time to consider the situation. Then he rose.

“Mirl,” Rowl said.

“Yes?”

“I will ask you to do a thing for me.”

“Will you?”

“Yes,” he said. “This thing I ask of you is not a command. You need not do it. I could manage it without you perfectly well.”

Mirl looked at him with merry green eyes, but her voice was serious. “Of course you could, O Rowl.”

“That needs to be understood.”

“It is,” Mirl said.

Rowl nodded once. “Excellent. This problem has some one or two facets that are beneath the dignity of cats to manage. The humans must be told of what has happened here. I will ask you to do this thing.”

“Humans are too stupid to understand plain speech,” Mirl said. “Am I to find one and scratch him until he runs in the proper direction? Then hope he has wits enough to notice?”

“Do not be difficult,” Rowl said. “There are humans on a ship of wood with tall trees on it. As its sole purpose is to transport me, I have declared it mine, and my scent is upon it. Contact the human warrior with two red stripes upon his sleeves and a reasonably sized hat. He is less dense than most.”

“That seems simple enough,” Mirl said.