The Scarab Path (49 page)

It was
unexpected enough thatThalric ran the words back through his mind before fully
grasping them. By that time he realized that everyone was now staring at him,
the lone Imperial representative in all that crowd. Che was looking at him,
too, and he returned her gaze and shook his head.

‘What
nonsense!’ he said, pitching his voice to carry across the whole crowd. ‘There
is no Imperial attack on Khanaphes. Why would we? We have no ambitions here.’
He heard that old empty promise of the Empire on his lips, betrayed a hundred
times.
But we have none, for what would we do with
Khanaphes anyway? Give us ten years, and perhaps …
‘There is no attack
or, if there is, then these Scorpions come of their own accord.’ He felt
slightly unsteady in his stomach, though.
And has there not
been some piece missing, of all of this, ever since we arrived?
Still,
it made no sense. There was no attack. He would know if there were.
They would tell me …

‘Send
your scouts west!’ Totho demanded. ‘Or just wait a day, perhaps two, and you
will not need my warnings. Perhaps your hunters and farmers can already see a
dustcloud on the horizon. The Empire is nearing with its Scorpion tools, I
swear to you – and knowing that, what plans might they have had for the
Collegiate ambassador? What could I do but rescue her from their grasp?’

The
crowd was in uproar. Some were already hurrying off, perhaps to seek out family
or friends. Totho’s words would be across all Khanaphes before morning.
Ethmet’s call for silence might have stilled them, but he did not give it.
Instead, he was conferring with his fellow Ministers and then with Amnon. The
Royal Guard stood uneasy, looking sidelong at each other, still under their rigid
discipline.

Che
stepped out from the balcony, letting her wings carry her to the ground. She
landed in front of Thalric, in the suddenly widening space that had appeared
about him.

‘I
swear,’ he protested, ‘I know nothing of any attack. There is no attack.’ He
found his heart racing.
They have me believing it now
.

Che
studied him for a long time, enough to tell him about the distance that had
re-opened between them. ‘Those are two different things,’ she said.

‘Yes,
yes, they are,’ he admitted. ‘I must speak with Marger and the others. There
has been some mistake.’

‘Why
would Totho make such a claim, if it were not true?’

‘To buy
himself time, no doubt. Or perhaps the Scorpions are raiding, for truth, and he
wishes to paint them in black and yellow?’ Thalric shook his head. ‘There is no
attack. I will speak with my people—’

‘Ambassador
Thalric.’ Amnon appeared, abruptly looming at his side.

Thalric
looked up at him. ‘I need to return to my embassy—’

‘You
must first speak with the Ministers. They require assurances.’ There was no
hint of a request in Amnon’s tone. Thalric cast a desperate look at Che:
Trust me
. There was no sign of trust in her face, though.
And I have given her enough cause to doubt me, over the years
.

He let
his shoulders sag. ‘Lead me,’ he told Amnon, and fought down the urge to look
back at her, as he went.

Che
watched him go, biting at her lip. She felt strangely wretched for Thalric, and
on the back of that came the thought:
I believe him. For
once in his lying life, I actually believe him. He has been out-danced by his
own people
.

She had
to go to the embassy. She had to talk to Berjek and the others, who were even
now being ushered back to safety there. This was, of all things, a diplomatic
situation, but she had no idea what she, as ambassador, was supposed to do.

Come to us
.

She
stopped in mid-step. She was aware that, on the balcony above, Totho’s people
were talking to him, fast and all at once. He was trying to look her way, but
he had kicked the wasps’ nest, and now he had to deal with the consequences.

Cheerwell Maker, hear us
.

It was
not words. It was a feeling, an intense feeling washing over her like an
unexpected tide. It came from all about her, from beneath her, from the very
stones of Khanaphes.

Come to us
.

She
could not, of course. She had her duties now, whatever they might be. There
were the scholars to take care of. There was Totho. There was Thalric.

Come to us, Cheerwell Maker
.

She felt
herself fading, drifting … the city around her losing focus.
Like the Fir
. But she had consumed no drug and still she
felt the ghosts of ancient Khanaphes all around her. The walls swam, their
idiot hieroglyphs abruptly thrusting their meanings at her, shouting at her
from every wall, some of them couched in sense, some in gibberish.

Come!

She
turned and walked away, but not towards the embassies. She turned and walked
away, and was soon lost in the city.

His men had been picked for their ability to fly long and far. They had
stopped for a few scant hours since leaving the Scorpion horde, making such
time across the desert that the towering column of dust, the great
battle-standard of the Many of Nem, had long been lost behind them. Now Sulvec
of the Rekef had found Khanaphes.

And what a wretched place I’ve found
. Sulvec was a major
in the Rekef Inlander, by definition an ambitious man who fed his ambition any
which way. This assignment would be the making of him: he would become Colonel
Sulvec on his return, or not return at all. Like so many who climbed the Rekef
ladder, his loyalty to the ideals of the Empire at large had been burned away
by the duties he had been given. Now his loyalty was to his own advancement, in
the sure knowledge that only the Rekef could reward him as he desired, and no
other would punish him so hard if he failed.

And General Brugan met with me in person to give me this mission
.
Sulvec had been startled, at first, but he had long since ceased to question
his assignments. It was not his place to act as moral arbiter. He was the hand
of the Rekef, and that was all the sense of righteousness he needed.

He
spared a thought for bumbling Hrathen, playing barbarian warlord with the
Scorpion-kinden. He would do his work well enough, for he had been given the
tools and he had just enough rough charisma to keep the savages pointed in the
right direction.
So much effort for such a little thing
,
Sulvec considered.
There must have been simpler ways
.
He supposed that the Scorpion assault would serve other purposes, too, that
perhaps the Empire might even genuinely want to assess the Many as shock
troops, useful Auxillians for the future.
We will probably
have to kill Hrathen, though: he grows too fond of his role
.

His
third Rekef assignment had been to spy on a friend, to bring the man in and
interrogate him about the Broken Sword cult. He had drunk himself into a stupor
for a week, after that. Thenceforth, when the Rekef had sent him out for any
task, he had been ready. Thenceforth, the lives of others had been just pieces
to be moved or removed, as policy demanded.

He
circled over the city, looking for the mark. His men had been ensconced in a
farmhouse beyond the walls, sufficiently distant to avoid notice. The sky over
Khanaphes was so clear, and he was the only human being in it. Nobody below
would be looking up except his compatriots.

He saw
the black and yellow flag singling out the roof of a large building. He made
his swift descent, coming down on the roof’s edge, between two statues of
Woodlouse-kinden. Seeing no watchers, he dropped down to the balcony below and
slipped inside.

It was a mere two minutes later that he had them assembled: three Wasps
and a Beetle-kinden, representing the Rekef Outlander’s presence in Khanaphes.
A lean Wasp-kinden stepped forward, eyeing him with suspicion. ‘I’m Captain
Marger. I’m in charge here.’

‘Are you
indeed?’ Sulvec replied, handing over his sealed orders, which Marger accepted
reluctantly. There was a moment’s pause before the man broke the seal, as
though he was feeling out the future through the parchment. His shoulders rose
and fell, and then he cracked the paper open. His eyes flicked over the few
words there, checked the brief identifying sketch of Sulvec’s face, noted the
signatory.

‘Says
here we’re at your command, Major,’ Marger observed without inflection, handing
back the paper. ‘You’ve got commands?’

‘I’m
calling you out of cover, first,’ Sulvec told them. ‘From now you are no longer
a diplomatic mission. You are soldiers of the Rekef. Now, who should I be
giving orders to?’

Marger
looked at the others, shrugged again, took a backwards step. The Beetle-kinden
pushed forward and saluted. ‘Corolly Vastern, Captain-Auxillian,’ he rumbled.
‘This is Vollen, this is Gram. I’m ranking Rekef Inlander here. What’s going
on?’

‘Where’s
Major Thalric, first of all?’ Sulvec asked.

‘Diplomatic
duties,’ Corolly said. ‘There was an attack on this embassy.’ One thick thumb
indicated the broad bruise across his face. ‘He’s been in with the natives for
hours now, but he got a message out to us, and it made interesting reading.’
The Beetle’s eyes were suspicious. ‘It’s being claimed that we’re attacking
Khanaphes, sir. Using the local Scorpion-kinden.’

And how did that news outreach me?
Sulvec already had his
suspicions. ‘Consider it fact, Captain,’ he said. ‘We have one official duty
left to perform in this building, and after that we resort to stealth
procedures. We will soon not be welcome in this city.’

They
exchanged glances, none of them happy about it, but none of them about to say
so.

‘So
what’s the one duty, sir?’ Corolly asked, expressionless.

Sulvec
smiled like a knife. ‘Tell me, when’s Thalric expected back?’

‘We’ve left it too late,’ Faighl observed, watching the idle movements of
the camp around them. ‘We should have moved yesterday.’

Meyr
said nothing for a long time. The Scorpions of the Many of Nem were just going
about their normal evening business after another swift day’s travel. By Meyr’s
guess they would be on Khanaphir territory before midday next morning. Farms
would burn. The city would be readying its forces.
And I
have bought them a few days, if the message was passed on, and if they listened
.
It was a matter of supreme indifference to him, for he owed the Khanaphir
nothing. He knew only that there was an Iron Glove presence within the city,
and therefore the Glove should know of this development.

They had
stayed on, accompanying the Scorpion horde, for that sole reason. He had wanted
to gather as much information as he could, before they pulled out and made
their exit. Now he was forced to agree with Faighl. They had left it too late.

It was
not the Scorpions themselves, for nothing had changed in their restless,
aggressive manner. They were quick, abrupt in their preparations, as they
unfolded tents and unloaded their pack beasts or sharpened weapons. Some were training
with crossbows, shooting at old shields propped on stones. The leadshotters
that had sounded like practised thunder last night were still hitched in trains
to the Imperial automotives. It was within the Imperial camp that the change
was visible.

Meyr had
seen the looks their halfbreed commander had been directing towards the Iron
Glove. At first it had just been because the Glove was competition for whatever
scheme the Empire had in mind. Then it had been because Meyr himself was a
deserter, a runaway slave. Now it had boiled down, under the sun of the march,
into something more concrete. The Empire would brook no interference here. Any
outside influence would have to be excised from within the Many of Nem. Meyr
understood that, yet he and the others had lingered. Lingered too long.

‘Gather
everyone,’ Meyr instructed at last. ‘Armour and weapons.’

‘Will it
do any good?’ Faighl asked him, as one of the others ran off to spread the
word. ‘We’re only eight, so even if the Scorpions don’t get involved …’

Meyr
shrugged massively, letting his pack slide off his shoulders with a scrape of
metal. ‘What else is there?’ he asked. The thought of it was hard, that Faighl
and the others would all die. He, Meyr, might also die, it seemed possible. The
others would be dead for certain.

If we had only left yesterday?
But he was not sure they
would have been allowed to go. They had survived this long by moving as the
Scorpions moved, by not raising a ripple against the current. To leave, or to
be discovered in clandestine flight, would be seen only as an invitation to
these violent people. It would be the excuse they were always waiting for, with
outsiders, or even with their own.

He began
to unpack his armour. It was a splendid suit. They had cast it for him
specially to see if it could be done, to see if the principles underlying the
Glove’s new mail could be scaled up in size to armour-plate a giant. His
spade-nailed fingers began securing buckles as big as a normal man’s hand.
Around him, with surreptitious professionalism, the other Iron Glove were
putting on their own steel, breastplates and helms over reinforced leather.
They were assembling snapbows and checking the weapons’ action. Meyr himself
had a shield large enough to serve the Imperial leader as a coffin lid, and an
axe that put the Scorpion halberds to shame.

‘Coming
now,’ Faighl hissed the warning.

Meyr
patiently buckled his greaves, sensing his people form a rough semicircle
before him, weapons at the ready. He could feel, through the parched ground,
the approach of the Imperial contingent, and he reckoned on about a dozen of
them. The numbers would count only at the beginning, though, as they were about
to light a spark in a firepowder keg.