The Scarab Path (39 page)

The
other two were shooting then and the air offered nowhere to hide. Thalric
dropped down to just above the river’s surface, hovering near the boat. ‘Get
moving!’ he snapped, but the Mantis woman had snatched up a bow, a little
recurved thing, and was kneeling at the stern to sight up on some target
invisible to Thalric. His heart lurched when he spotted Osgan lying groaning in
the bottom of the boat. There was an arrow all the way through his upper arm,
digging an inch into his ribs.

The
Mantis let fly with her arrow, and at the same moment a shaft struck Thalric in
the side. He was not wearing his army-issue mail, but the copperweave was
hidden beneath his tunic. The arrowhead – broad-bladed to cleave flesh – did
not pierce through, but the impact knocked him into the water.

His
wings were abandoned at once, and for a moment he could do nothing but splash.
Then his feet found the bottom and he reached up to drag himself into the boat.

The
killers had broken cover, were racing towards them over the water, shooting as
they came. One of them sprang backwards, with an arrow punching through his
mail. The last assassin leapt up from the surface of the water onto the boat’s
side, drawing back his bowstring again and aiming straight at the Mantis.

From
river-level, Thalric put a hand out and loosed his sting, catching the man at a
range of five feet, splintering his bow and melting his mail, hurling him back
off the boat into the water. When Thalric cautiously lifted himself up and into
the boat, there was no sign of any of them, all their bodies reclaimed by the
river.

Skater-kinden from Jerez
, he named them, acutely aware
that there could be more of them nearby, and another team of three would just
about settle matters here.
Skater-kinden?
It was a
long way from Jerez to Khanaphes, but of course there were Skaters in service
to the Empire, with all the skills and the temperament necessary for the
assassination game. That someone had sent them this far afield said a lot about
how much they wanted Thalric dead.
And if I had stayed in
Capitas, what might they not have sent against me?

He had
grown complacent, stopped thinking like a Rekef officer, and it had come close
to killing him.

‘Get
this boat back on the main river,’ he snapped. ‘If we’re to deal with
assassins, let’s have witnesses too.’

But the
Mantis woman did not move, peering still into the tangled ferns. ‘There are
more,’ she said, nocking another arrow. ‘Between us and the rest of the hunt.’

Fly
, thought Thalric, and it would be simple enough – save
that even in that short space between here and the barge he would become a target
for any halfway competent archer. It would mean leaving Osgan as well.
Crouching low in the boat he studied the injured man. Osgan was shaking, skin
gone pale, but he was conscious still.

‘Now,’
the Mantis said, and stood up suddenly to loose her arrow. Thalric raised his
head briefly, saw a confusion of movement, heard a cry. Another arrow zipped
past, a foot over his head. He saw the Mantis sighting up again.

‘Out of
the boat,’ she urged abruptly. ‘Into the trees.’

‘What
…?’ Thalric started saying, but she kicked hard at the boat’s side and it
capsized neatly, dumping its two Wasp passengers into the murky water. Thalric,
one hand still clawing at the curved hull, felt it quiver twice, knew that
arrows were hammering into it from the far side. The Mantis woman had sprung
into the air, her wings flickering. She loosed another shaft at a target he
could not see, dodged in the air as a return shot sped past her. The arrow that
jutted from her side was as unexpected and unlooked-for as a magic trick. She hissed
in pain, fell towards the overturned boat, still reaching for her quiver.

‘Go!’
she spat, and Thalric waded two steps, then turned to haul up Osgan, who was
spluttering and splashing fitfully. The man cried out as Thalric jogged the
arrow through his arm, but there was no time to do anything about it. Thalric
dragged him through the water, sometimes with Osgan’s help and sometimes
despite it. The Mantis woman landed beside him, just as he reached the nearest
stand of ferns, and she shoved Osgan forward into the green and the mud. She
collapsed shuddering beside him, the spine of the arrow in her side jerking in
irregular time with her breathing.

Thalric
crouched, watching, but he saw nothing more. That the assassins were still out
there he had no doubt, but the same leaves now keeping him alive also hid his
persecutors. Osgan gasped loudly, and Thalric hissed at him, ‘I know, you’re
shot. Keep quiet.’

‘She’s
dying,’ Osgan’s voice responded, sounding more controlled than Thalric would
have expected. He glanced back to see the other Wasp sitting up with his back
against the segmented trunk of a horsetail. Pain was written in sharp lines
about his eyes, but it had chased the drink away at least.

The
Mantis was still lying on her back, her teeth bared in defiance at something
Thalric could not see. The arrow had penetrated deep but it was that final
effort of getting her charges to cover that had finished her. Thalric reached
over and took her hand, and she gripped it fiercely, the spines on her arm
flexing.

‘Still
between us … and the river …’ she got out. ‘Further in …’

‘I
know,’ Thalric interrupted. ‘Don’t speak.’

She
coughed violently, and he felt it racking through her, holding on to her hand
until the final spasm and the quiet that followed told him she was dead. It was
no more than the Rekef man had always tried to do. He had always done his best
for those that served him.

‘What
now?’ Osgan asked, with a tremor, but some vestige of the career quartermaster
of old had dragged itself to the surface and was holding the man together for
now.

And indeed what now?
The thought had come to Thalric again
that he could just trust to his wings. He could flit from green to green until
he had the open river before him, and then he could skim for the cover of the
boats and hope that the assassins valued secrecy over success. But that would
involve leaving Osgan here alone, wounded and fair game for any killer or
predator that found him.

What
would the Rekef man in him do? And he knew that same Rekef man had possessed one
oft-boasted and overriding virtue, which was loyalty. Even though the Rekef
itself had been torn out of the heart of that man, the loyalty remained.

‘Further
in, like she said,’ he told Osgan, and draped the man’s good arm over his
shoulders, sinking calf-deep in mud to lever him to his feet. ‘We’ll take a
curved path, head back for the river somewhere closer to the city.’ Looking
about him, searching for bearings in this baffling maze of channels and fronds,
Thalric kept his voice confident for Osgan’s sake. ‘And when we get back, I’ll
give Marger something worthwhile to put in his cursed report.’

They were still trying to roust a second land-fish for the hunt when Che
saw it, glimmering amid the foliage on the far side of the river as though it
was a ragged cloth caught amongst the leaves.

No!
she thought, but that part of her, the part inside
that was helplessly anchored to him, was already responding. ‘Take the boat
across,’ she heard herself say. She was pointing right towards the shuddering
blur that only she could see. ‘Take it there.’

She
heard Manny say, ‘That’s more like it,’ and knew that they were also heading
for where the hunt was.
I’m doing it again. It’s the
Fir-eaters all over again
. Only this time it was two bewildered
academics she was dragging into danger alongside her.
Can I
not just turn my back?

She
could not. It was not even love, now. She was cursed. Her life, her
understandings, had been taken from her. Chasing this ghost was the only way
she might ever get them back.
And what am I willing to pay
for that, at the expense of others?

The
ghost was gone but she had seen it, felt it. It would come back to her.
Whatever it wanted, it wanted here. The Mantis crew tacked their boat to what
passed for a riverbank, barely more than stands of reeds and ferns jutting from
the winding water. Manny put an arrow to his bow and tried to look heroic,
while Praeda huddled as low as she could manage in the boat, trying to look
bored. Che stared into the shadow-maze of the delta and searched for Achaeos.

Something
was moving out there, she saw. There were quick flashes of rush-boats speeding,
she heard shrill whistles and, across the river, Amnon’s boat turned and began
heading towards them.

‘I think
…’ she started, and then a land-fish burst through the reeds not ten feet ahead
of their boat, careering over a mudbank and into the river. Che toppled back
into the bottom of the boat, on to Praeda, as she heard the distinct twang of
Manny’s bowstring releasing the arrow.

‘Manny!’
she shouted. ‘Tell me you didn’t shoot it!’ She levered herself up, saw the
land-fish now rearing and plunging past Amnon’s boat, being herded by the
smaller punts of the Mantids. Manny stood at the prow of their own vessel with
the bow in one hand, mouth open.

‘No,’ he
said. ‘I just … it startled me. I shot the river, I’m afraid.’ He turned a
sheepish smile on her, but just then one of the Mantis crew gave a warning
shout, pointing.

There
had been a line attached to Manny’s arrow, and it was pulling taut, unspooling
from the bottom of the boat and whipping into the water faster than Che could
watch. She met Manny’s uncertain gaze.

‘You
shot something more than the river,’ she said, but then the line went suddenly
slack. Manny gave a great sigh of relief.

‘Well,
whatever it is—’ he started, before Praeda cut him off.

‘Whatever
it is, it’s stopped moving away. It’s coming
back
,
you fool.’

The
Mantis crew had snatched up short-hafted spears, as Che stared at the murky
waters of the Jamail.
What have we woken?

It
struck them from the opposite side of the boat, the narrow wooden hull almost
kicked over by the force. One of the Mantids took to the air; the other
crouched at the stern, holding the boat with one hand, and spear raised high.
For a second there was nothing but churning water, then segmented arms began
hooking on to one side of the boat and the creature was doing its best to climb
in with them. Che saw a rounded carapace break the water, and below it a small
head with fist-sized faceted eyes the colour of fresh blood and a beak like a
shortsword. Manny’s arrow jutted from the joint between the creature’s head and
body. The barbed arms scrabbled at the wooden hull, and then made a great
effort to climb. Surging out of the water, it was twice the size of a man.

The boat
tipped towards it, and then flipped over entirely. Che felt her wings flare
automatically, dragging her up to hover inches above the river. The Mantids
knelt stabbing at the insect as it continued to try and haul itself onto the
boat, mindlessly seeking an enemy it could not understand. Then Amnon’s boat
was in the water alongside them, and he had brought company.

The
second land-fish was not yet dispatched but Amnon had come to their aid even
though the maddened creature was tethered to his craft. He reached down and
grabbed Praeda’s thrashing arm, dragging her, one-handed, up into his boat. His
crew had set their spears against the enraged fish that was attacking them from
the other side, while the smaller boats speeding past it loosed arrows to
distract its attention. Che saw Manny floundering, first pawing at the capsized
boat, then clinging to one of the water-insect’s legs as it hung from the
upturned vessel, more frightened of the water itself than of the things that
lived in it. She tried to get closer to him, but Amnon was already there, the
land-fish drawn away from him for the moment. Bracing himself, he caught hold
of Manny’s robe, pulling upwards with all his strength until he had tugged the
fat man halfway out of the water. Praeda appeared beside him, grabbing for
handfuls of Manny, too, and then a Mantis joined in on the other side. The real
help came from the marauding insect, which finally claimed the keel of the
capsized boat as its own, and pulled Manny up with it. For a second he hung
there, dripping and shivering, still clinging to the creature, and then Amnon’s
boat closed the last foot of distance and they tipped him into it. The insect
turned to stare at them, flexing its beak, then Amnon leant forward and grasped
the arrow’s shaft. For a second neither moved, and then the creature went for
him, driving itself forward from the overturned hull. Amnon jerked back just as
the lunging insect struck the side of his boat, shoving it away, then the
creature vanished into the depths of the river. Amnon’s hand now held the
offending arrow, which he brandished aloft like a trophy.

Cheerwell
.

She
turned, still hovering ponderously over the water, and spotted him. He
shuddered and stained the air, like paint running, an anguished grey form
within the trees.

Here, Beetle girl, here!

No!
she told it, but she knew she could not deny its
summons.
Just tell me what you want! What can I do?

Power. Strength
, replied that harsh voice, the same
commanding tones that had dragged her from her bedroll by the oasis.
There is power here. I need it
.

Achaeos … I cannot live like this
. But she lumbered into
the treeline, wings a labouring blur, chasing that fleeting, smearing image.
Achaeos, I would free you if I could
.

We would be rid of each other
, returned that deathless
voice, and it pierced her sharply. She fell from the air, landing thigh-deep in
murky water.