The Scarab Path (16 page)

At a
signal from Pravoc, the loyalist shields began their cautious advance. It was a
slow pace, almost an amble. They were more than happy to let the Tyrshaani do
all the walking. Thunder spoke from behind Thalric, a single cough that rattled
the ground, and another great geyser of dust flowered from thirty yards in
front of the enemy advance. The mechanized leadshotters were finding the range
in a leisurely manner.

Thalric
turned back to his tent. The Imperial camp was close behind the Wasp lines but,
unless Pravoc’s reputation was merely hot air, the battle should only move
further off towards the doomed city once the Tyrshaani got into snapbow range.
It was not that Thalric had no stomach for watching an Imperial victory,
although perhaps that thought did not fill him with the same joy it once had.
It was just that the inevitable grinding of Pravoc’s workmanlike battle tactics
was unlikely to provide enthralling entertainment. Outside, the leadshotters
thumped again, two or three of them in unison, so that the wine jar and bowl
rattled on the table. Thalric stared over at his armour, set out for him by
some diligent menial. He was supposed to have someone around to dress him in
it, as a mark of his rank. The thought made him irritable: as a soldier, he
could shrug his way into a banded cuirass without flunkeys.

He had
no need for armour at all, of course, but there would be men of the Empire
fighting and dying, so it seemed wrong to eschew it. Being without it with a
battle nearby made him feel naked.

He put
on his special undercoat first. This was long force of habit, although the
copperweave shirt was not the torn and battered piece that had saved him in
Myna, in Helleron and Collegium. The stuff was murderously expensive, but rank
had some privileges, after all. The undershirt did not rely on the copperweave
alone, either. There was an extra layer beneath it, for occasions when mere
metal would not suffice. Over the copperweave, that was so fine and fluid that
it would be almost undetectable, he pulled on his arming jacket and his
cuirass, shrugging it out until the plates hung straight.

Now at least I look like a soldier
.

He felt
better for that, since Seda’s court was full of men who did their best to look
anything but. Thalric hated them all, both individually and collectively.

He
turned for the tent flap and saw the assassins.

They
were so clearly such that, in other circumstances, it would have been funny. He
had caught them in the act of creeping in, two Wasp-kinden men in uniform with
drawn blades and narrowed eyes, wearing expressions of horrified guilt. It must
have seemed to them that he had been somehow expecting them, that he had
carefully armoured himself in preparation for them, then waited patiently until
they entered the tent.

His
sword was still attached to his civilian belt lying on the ground. With a
convulsive movement he ripped it from its scabbard, slashing a wide arc across
the rear of the tent. If this had been a simple soldier’s tent, that would have
been it: the freedom of the sky open to him in an instant. He was no longer a
simple soldier, though, and this tent was made out of carpets and needed three
men to carry. His blade barely cut into it as the two assassins rushed towards
him.

One
loosed a sting bolt from his open hand as they charged in, but the other
assassin was so eager that he nearly caught it in the back. The shot went wild
and Thalric tried to bring his sword back into line to parry the quicker man’s
incoming thrust. He twisted aside as he did so, but the man’s blade went home
anyway, digging in at his side where the regulation armour plates did not cover
him. The sword dug in hard, but skittered off the copperweave mesh underneath.
That trick isn’t going to save my life for ever
, Thalric
considered.
Someone’s going to stab me in the face
eventually
. Meanwhile he was putting an elbow into the man’s ear and
thrusting his palm forward at the second killer, almost in the same moment.
They loosed together, crackling bolts of energy lighting up the tent’s dim
interior. Thalric felt the heat as he ducked, letting the stingshot sear past
his face. His own shot punched the man across the shoulder before it scorched
its way into the tent fabric, which promptly started to smoulder. Now he had a
chance to look he saw that, behind him, it was actually on fire.

Who in the wastes made this tent? It’s a deathtrap!

Abruptly
none of them much wanted to be inside it, and yet the two assassins were giving
him no leeway. The swordsman had recovered from the blow enough to try and stab
again but, this close, Thalric was able to trip him and then stamp on him hard
before barrelling for the tent entrance. The second man got in his way and they
tumbled over each other through the tent flap. Thalric punched him in the face
by instinct, then called up his sting before finding that his sword had already
run the man through, slipping between the plates of his mail.

Feeling
light-headed, Thalric got to his feet, the sword-hilt greasy in his fingers. He
heard the other man approaching from inside the tent and turned to catch him,
hearing distantly a sharp ‘snap’ but not recognizing it for what it was.

Something
slammed him hard in the gut and he went over, mind turning utterly blank. There
was quite a lot of pain, and he felt a warm wetness of blood. Breathing was
difficult, as though a strong man had kicked him under the ribcage. It was all
he could do to stay conscious, keep his eyes open. He heard footsteps running
closer.

The
second assassin emerged from the tent, looking singed and angry. He glanced
past Thalric at the newcomer.

‘Took
your time,’ he said – and Thalric shot him under the chin, cutting him off
without even a scream, the killer’s face vanishing in a sudden inferno. Thalric
rolled over, feeling a brutal stab of agony in his side. The third man went
stumbling away from him, his face slack with shock, feeding another bolt into
his snapbow.

Thalric
extended an arm towards him, but the pain made his head swim and he missed his
chance. As the snapbowman finished his fumbled reloading and raised the weapon,
Thalric gritted his teeth and hurled himself away on to his good side.

His
impact with the ground and the impact of the bolt came at the same time. The
metal bolt ripped across his left arm, opening a shallow line across his
biceps. He gritted his teeth, clinging to consciousness, and loosed his sting
over and over. The first three shots went wild, but the man was idiotically
trying to reload again rather than watching his enemy or using the weapon his
Art had given him. Thalric’s fourth shot burned him across the leg and he
dropped to one knee, spilling bolts across the ground.

Thalric
hissed in pain and then shot him in the chest. Under other circumstances he
might have wanted the man alive, but just now he simply was not up to the
bother. Feeling the drain on his body’s resources he put another two searing
bolts into the corpse just to be sure.

He sat
down abruptly, hearing the tent crackle merrily behind him. The bruised ribs
from the thwarted sword were nothing, and the gash on his arm would mend well
enough. With shaking hands he reached for the first snapbow bolt, lodged in his
stomach. He kept his eyes closed, because he could not bring himself to explore
the wound any other way than by tentative probing.

The
little bolt had punched a jagged hole in his cuirass. Carefully – oh so
carefully – he unbuckled it, whimpering as that jogged the bolt. He then slid a
hand under it, blindly feeling.

His
copperweave had fared no better, but the bolt was jutting proud of it, however
much it might feel that it was buried in his guts. The delicate mesh had parted
like string before the snapbow missile. They had always told him those weapons
were good, but he had never expected to be on the receiving end of one so soon.

The bolt
had cut into him, but shallowly. His third layer of armour had stopped it going
further: Spiderlands silk. The early tests by the inventor had confirmed its
efficacy. Like an arrow or crossbow bolt, the snapbow’s missile spun, which
made it accurate, but also meant that it snarled hopelessly in silk. Thalric
had three layers of folded silk pressed beneath the copperweave and, after
penetrating two layers of metal, this mere cloth had slowed the bolt to
nothing.

It hurt
him as badly as it had being stabbed, that one time outside Vek. He could not
have felt much worse if the bolt had simply run him through. He wasn’t going to
die, though, and in a little while he would be ready to stand up and walk
around. And then he would want some answers.

Out on
the field, the battle ground towards its predetermined ending. The double line
of snapbows that Pravoc fielded ripped into the heavy Tyrshaani infantry,
butchering them in their uncomprehending hundreds. Predictably, as the scales
tipped, the Fly-kinden rose up in a great cloud and simply vanished away,
fleeing for either the city or the wilderness, depending on their faith in the
victors. A few were bold enough to put a final arrow of farewell into some
Tyrshaani officer or other that they had reserved particular contempt for.
Meanwhile the orthopters had started preliminary bombing runs against the
Tyrshaan gatehouse, on the assumption that the city would require a little
extra persuasion to open up.

*

Colonel
Pravoc’s entry into the governor’s palace in Tyrshaan went unopposed. By that
time the controlling elements of the Wasp garrison had been almost completely
obliterated, and to the Tyrshaani themselves it meant nothing which
slavemasters held their leash. The surviving Bee-kinden soldiers surrendered in
good order, laying down their weapons and sitting down outside the walls of
their own city, while tearing off the blue sashes that had never been more than
empty symbols – Vargen’s illusion of autonomy. Wasps being what they were,
there were a few incidents of revenge killing, just as there was some looting
once the Imperial forces got inside. It was all within the tolerated bounds of
military discipline, and Pravoc’s orders were for the city to be left intact
and simply returned to the Imperial fold.

In the
governor’s own war room he found Vargen, already doubled in stiff rigour over
the table, scattered markers and tiles oddly mirroring the fate of Vargen’s own
crushed army. The man’s face was purple and twisted, his tongue protruding and
his eyes wide.

There
was a pair of Fly-kinden waiting there for Pravoc, one in the drab of a
servant, the other dressed in Imperial black and gold, and not a blue sash in
sight. Pravoc raised his eyebrows at them, seeking explanations.

‘When it
became clear that his cause was lost,’ said the better-dressed of the Flies,
‘Governor Vargen took poison. Tragic.’

Pravoc,
seeing the outraged and horrified expression on the dead man’s face, wondered
if Vargen had known that was what he was doing, when he had taken the wine. He
noted the Fly’s careful use of the word ‘governor’ rather than ‘general’.

‘Who are
you?’ he demanded.

‘My name
is te Pelli. I am a factor of the Consortium out of Shalk,’ the Fly replied,
his face displaying nothing more than polite deference. ‘I wanted to be the
first to assure you that we of Shalk were only yoked to Vargen’s schemes
through threat of force.’

Pravoc
sniffed. He had no illusions about how little a threat would have been
necessary, nonetheless it suited him well enough if the Fly-kinden were happy
to do his job for him. The faster he could report an unequivocal victory, the
higher he would rise in the eyes of his masters.

Thalric
found him there later, after the ex-governor’s body had been removed, along
with the poisoned wine.

‘What
happened to you?’ Pravoc asked, and then added, ‘Regent,’ a moment later. ‘Get
caught up in the fighting? Unwise.’

‘It came
looking for me.’ Thalric studied the man’s narrow face and found it devoid of
anything meaningful. ‘Some assassins tried to kill me.’ As he said it, he found
the words sounding petty in his own ears. Had he still been Major Thalric of
the Rekef it would have been a reasonable thing to say. It would have been the
preface to organizing a plan of action, a counterplot, a piece of espionage.
Thalric the Regent was not free to pursue such courses, and so it came out
sounding like a whine for attention, a demand that something be done.

Pravoc’s
change of expression, however slight, conveyed the same opinion. ‘Makes sense.
Vargen was against the Empress and you’re her man here. Makes sense that he
might try to remove you.’ He left a measured pause. ‘But you came through all
right, I see, Regent.’

With his
ribs pulsing in pain, his arm bound up, Thalric felt unexpectedly lost for
options. The Rekef man he once was would have accepted none of it. With the
threat of the entire secret service behind him, he would have ensured that
colonels, even generals, would gabble out anything they knew, rather than offer
cool insolence. The Regent, though … he felt, as Regent, that he should have
more respect from this brusque soldier, and at the same time the thought made
him sick of himself. Respect for what? Earned how?

‘I
survived,’ he said, turning to go. As he reached the doorway he stopped. ‘I was
surprised there were none of your men at hand, Colonel. When the attack
occurred the camp all around me seemed quite deserted.’ He turned, but
surprised no admission of guilt, no new expression at all, on Pravoc’s face.

‘I was
fighting a battle,’ Pravoc said firmly. ‘If you’d asked me for bodyguards, I’d
have found them. Complain to the Empress if you want.’

Thalric’s
smile in response was thin. He appreciated this man’s confidence in his own
abilities, in his refusal to bow to such an empty thing as the Regent of the
Empire, but also he did not trust Pravoc at all. For a Rekef man, trust came
hard and often never.