The Scarab Path (66 page)

Thalric
had found another door to kick down, and Che guessed they were into the next
building now, or just part of some extended family home. He was finding windows
in turn, glancing out of them at the dark sky.

‘Here!’
he said and, instantly throwing the shutters back, had hooked his way out. She
bundled Osgan through, more and more without any help from him, and followed
after to find herself in the middle of an alleyway choked with people. The
authorities had nested a host of refugees here, almost shoulder to shoulder,
under the cover of a few wretched awnings. Thalric had already elbowed himself
some space, and then he made some more, pushing dispirited people aside
mercilessly, until the other two could join him.

‘Now we
wait,’ he said.

‘Until?’
Che asked him.

‘Until I
say go.’ He had hunched himself as low as he could in his cloak, slumped and
abandoned-looking as any local. Osgan was lying on his side, breathing heavily,
coughing again.

‘Have we
lost them?’ Che whispered.

Thalric
kept his eyes on the sky, surreptitiously. ‘I don’t see any fliers. They’ll
broaden their net in a while, thinking they’ve missed us, that we’re still
running. They know they can move faster than us, so they’ll try to make the
best of that advantage. So we use it against them instead. We just let them fly
away.’ He was still grinning slightly, not at his own cleverness but at the
game. It was the only game, once you had tasted it: the spy game, the
intelligencer’s game – the Dance, as the Spiders called it. He was in the thick
of it again, and it seemed to have taken years off him.

‘You
look like Tisamon,’ she told him.

‘The
Mantis? What do you mean?’

‘He was
like that, too. When he was up against it, he’d be smiling always. He loved
being challenged.’

‘Tell me
you don’t feel it,’ he said, fixing her eyes with his.

And she
did, that was the terrible thing. There was Osgan to protect, and there were
Trallo and Manny and Petri dead, and there was a city out there that would be
put to the torch tomorrow, but through all that she felt a leaping spark of
excitement inside her. She was an agent again, not an ambassador, and it was
just like old times. She let herself smile, just enough for him to see.

‘Stenwold
was always lucky, having you as his left hand,’ Thalric said softly, surprising
her.

‘You’ve
taken every cursed chance you’ve been offered to point out my inadequacies in
that field,’ she reproached him. ‘How can you say that now?’

‘You
must have something going for you, Che, some trick of the trade that I’ve never
grasped. Think of all you’ve survived, all you’ve come through intact.’

Not intact
, she thought.
Not when you
tally the friends I’ve lost
. Thalric bent over Osgan and she heard him
say, ‘We’ll have to move soon enough. Unless they find us again, we’ll take it
slowly. If we’re lucky, we can get to another hiding place without them picking
up the trail.’

‘We
should head for the Scriptora,’ Che suggested. ‘We’ll be safe there.’

‘You
might be,’ Thalric told her, ‘but those old men and women will have us two
executed as Imperial agents. The funny thing is I’m not sure whether that’s
true or not.’

‘I’ll
speak for you. Ethmet will listen to me.’

‘Not
unless we have no other hope,’ Thalric argued. ‘I don’t trust the Ministers an
inch. If they come to believe that the Empire does want me dead, they’ll
probably hand me over to the enemy to try and buy their city back.’

‘You’re
not a trusting person, are you?’

‘A very
good judge of character is what I am. Now, let’s make a move slowly. Try your
best to look local.’

They had
picked their way halfway down the narrow street, stepping over legs and bodies,
moving as steadily and wearily as any evicted local, when Thalric’s hiss
alerted them: ‘They’re on us already. Run!’

Here?
Che thought, already automatically picking up her
pace. There were people all around them, a hundred witnesses to each move they
made. It seemed impossible that the Wasps would make such a public move against
them.

But they will be gone
, she thought.
They
will be over the rooftops and away
.

She
heard the first crackle of a stingshot, and the people all about her were
suddenly jumping up, panic on their faces. Most of them must have thought it
was some Scorpion advance guard, over the river already along with their
Imperial allies. Instantly the alley ahead of them was choked with alarmed
people, a wall that Che crashed into, fighting her way through them with Osgan
stumbling in her wake.

‘Push
on! Push through!’ she heard Thalric shout, with two or three more stings
backing up his words. Che tried, but her ability to forge a way through the
Khanaphir crowds had deserted her. She was just one more awkward foreigner, and
the Wasps were closing fast.

Thalric
cursed, catching up with her. She saw his hand jut forward, but until he loosed
his own sting she had not realized what he intended.

‘No!’
she yelled, but people were already recoiling from them, seeing his pale skin
and features, falling before the golden fire his Art unleashed on them. He was
aiming deliberately high, enough to scare and disperse them. She hoped he had
hit nobody.

‘Go!’ he
snapped and muscled forward, virtually throwing aside any local who had not
already retreated. His sting spat again, and then another bolt seared past on
Che’s other side.
The Rekef!
she thought, but it was
Osgan, his one good arm extended, following Thalric’s lead. Injured and weak as
he was, she had almost forgotten that he too was a Wasp.

She had
no choice but to keep up with Thalric. There were people screaming and sobbing
on all sides, and she made sure she did not look at them too closely. She did
not want to see charred wounds, to become an accomplice to murder.

Thalric
suddenly shoved her, knocking her sideways into Osgan. A figure had landed
ahead of them, hand already extending to sting. Thalric’s hand flashed first,
punching the other Wasp off his feet. Then they were running again, virtually
trampling over his body, taking an abrupt left on to a broader street, straight
across into another narrow one. There were no cluttered refugees here, only a
couple of late-returning citizens who got out of their way in a hurry.

‘Where
now? Where’s the safe house?’ Che asked, trying to keep pace with Thalric. Osgan
was still with them, for the moment, driving himself hard. His face was shiny
with sweat.

‘Behind
us,’ Thalric got out. He turned in mid-run, loosed a couple of shots backwards,
and then was catching them back up again. ‘They’ve done their research,’ he
said.

‘Scriptora!’
Che said. ‘Only chance.’

He bared
his teeth. ‘No, we’ll tire them out. Flying and stinging’s like all Art, it
drains the strength. We’ll just wear them out.’ He had done this before, she
realized. He was reliving some other chase, perhaps being hunted by Mercers in
the Twelve-year War. He dragged them down another street, changing direction
without warning, seeking out covered places where the airborne might lose sight
of them.

‘Thalric!’
Che yelled at him. ‘Osgan won’t last! Look at him. The Scriptora’s our only
chance. It isn’t far.’

He led
them without answer into the courtyard of some wealthy man’s residence. There
were steps up to a roof garden, and Thalric took them three at a time. At the
top he turned, dropped to one knee, hand flashing. Che and Osgan hurled
themselves past him, into the greenery beyond.

There
was little enough cover in the roof garden but, between the low parapet, the
urns and the plants, there was just enough to conceal the three of them. She
heard Thalric’s sting crack three more times. Then he said, ‘That put their
heads down. They’ll be working their way round. I’ve been a fool.’

‘How?’

‘In
forgetting they have a Beetle-kinden with them too. That bastard Vastern, I saw
him as we were running. Shaved bald as a native and keeping track of me. No
wonder they found us so fast. He was right there all along.’

Che had
no answer to that. Some old memory within her hands itched for a crossbow, but
of course she would not have been able to shoot one even if she could somehow
find one here. The locals had bows, but she had never used a bow. It was not a
weapon her homeland placed any stock in.
Perhaps I’ll have
to learn
.

‘The
Scriptora.’ Thalric did not sound happy about it. ‘You’re right, it’s our best
chance. But you’d better be able to talk the Ministers round.’

‘I
will,’ she promised, hoping it was true.

‘We’re
going over the wall to our left, then we fly down into the street and run for
it. We’re almost at the embassy now. It’s only three streets from here to the
Scriptora proper. Osgan, reckon you can make that?’

‘Only
one way to find out,’ the other Wasp gasped.

Thalric
nodded. ‘Then
now
,’ he hissed, and was up and
running for the edge, vaulting over it. Che let Osgan follow first, the Wasp
simply toppling off and out of sight. She heard the sizzle of stings even as
she herself followed suit. Her wings bore her raggedly and she stumbled as she
landed. Thalric was already running across the street, lancing bolts of fire.
She saw two or three figures at roof level, drawing back to avoid his aim.
Osgan pitched a sting at them, too, before lurching after Thalric.
If only Beetle Art provided some facility like that!
Che
ran after them, an enemy bolt scarring the ground close behind her.

They
were close to the Scriptora now and she experienced an odd sense of
anticipation, beside and beyond her own feelings.
Achaeos?
It was the same sense as before, that feeling of invisible company.
Oh, if I ever had need of you, Achaeos, it’s now
.

In the
air, the Rekef hunters easily outpaced them, but Thalric used the city to his
advantage. The walls of Khanaphes’s buildings, its uneven skyline of huge old
buildings surrounded by the cluttered new ones, became their allies. Thalric
changed direction over and over, each time bringing them back towards the
Scriptora. Sometimes he was way ahead, sometimes he lagged, letting Che and
Osgan build a lead. Often she heard his sting as he used it to warn off their
enemies, forcing them out of his sight, buying a little extra time.

He is a hard man to hunt
, Che thought. Thalric backed into
a corner was a dangerous beast, was at his best, his most alive. It made her
heart jump to see him so fervently defiant of all the odds. He was a proper
bastard, she knew, but he would make them fight for his blood. None of it was
for giving away easily.

‘Here!
Run!
’ he snapped, as though they had not been running
already. Abruptly there were no walls about them. They had hit the Place of
Government from an unexpected angle, directly across from the arch to the Place
of Foreigners. Ahead of them was the stepped pyramid with its crown of pale
statues; to their left rose the Scriptora, huge and dark. There was not a
single light in its windows. It looked like a tomb.

But the Ministers …
Che wondered, but there were a hundred
possible reasons. They might be sleeping, readying themselves for tomorrow’s
battle. They might also fear Wasp assassins, and with good reason. They might
still be working somewhere out in the city, housing refugees. There was not a
sign that anyone remained behind those closed doors. Still, they had nowhere
else to run to.

Figures
were dropping down ahead of them, swiftly cutting them off. She saw at least
four Wasps falling into place. Thalric’s sting spoke, but they answered in
kind. The range was long, but Che flinched back, changed direction. The Wasps
were already barring them from the Scriptora doors.

And so it ends
.

Thalric
had thrown himself backwards, a winged jump of ten feet that put him seven
steps up the side of the pyramid, returning golden fire from his open palm.
Osgan collapsed beside him, shaking, gasping, one hand held fitfully out
towards the enemy.

Cheerwell Maker!

That
voice, all within her head, was enough. It caught her by the chin and dragged
her face round until she was looking
back
and
up
– up the stone slope, up past the poised stone giants.

He hung
there, clearly visible even at night, a grey ghost in a foreign city.
Here, girl!
The voice snapped in her head, admitting no
patience with her.

The
Wasps were advancing: another two had dropped down, one to each side. The
square was broad, so the range still defeated their stings, but they were
moving in. Thalric was retreating up the pyramid side.

‘Up!’
Che shouted at him. ‘To the top now.’
And why?
‘Take
cover among the statues!’

Thalric
glanced at her and nodded grimly.
He has no illusions about
how this will go
. He reached the flattened top in a sudden rush, darting
behind a stone thigh as broad as his own torso. A moment later he was calling
out, ‘Osgan! For the Emperor’s love, come on!’

Osgan
picked himself up, stingshot bursting close by him, and looked up.

He
screamed, falling back, rolling down the steps and landing on his side at the
pyramid’s foot. Thalric cried out his name, but Osgan was pointing – pointing
at something past and through Thalric. Che, halfway up, stopped in horror and
realization.

He does see it. He sees Achaeos
. She recalled Osgan’s
history, his fears.
He saw Achaeos at the Mantis village:
he thinks he’s a Mantis
.