The Scarab Path (85 page)

She
looked up at the Masters, whose kinden she realized she must know, from
fragmentary legends, folk tales, ancient fictions. She had assumed she would
feel hollow with the ghost’s departure, whosoever’s it had been. She also
thought she would feel relieved. In truth she felt neither.

‘What
now?’ she asked them. ‘What will you do with us?’ She stood up again, and this
time Thalric stood alongside her, with fingers spread, and the Vekken too.
Sword clutched tight in his hand, the Ant was staring at the armoured slopes of
Garmoth Atennar.

‘They
are less than chaff to us,’ said Elysiath, ‘but you are the grain. In our
dreams we have called and, when you came, we awoke for you. For you alone we
have broken our long sojourn. We have much to offer you. We give you a chance
to share in the rule of the Masters of Khanaphes.’

Che
swallowed, feeling very keenly the ancient weight of the dark halls about her
and, even more so, the ageless power of the Masters themselves, who were older
even than the stones of their living tomb.
There are things
here I would never learn in all my days spent at the Great College
, she
thought.
There are things that even Moths could not teach
me …

‘Your
rule?’ Thalric interrupted sharply, though his voice shook. ‘What rule is that?
What do you rule, save this hole in the ground?’

‘Though
our dominion has diminished, do not think we no longer rule our beloved city,’
Elysiath reproached him. ‘Though we no longer walk its streets, do not think
our dreams no longer guide our Ministers. Do not assume we have taken no pains
to keep our people on the true path.’

‘Oh,
I’ve seen the path they’re on,’ Thalric said bitterly, and Che saw the great
woman roll her eyes, that this savage would not be silent in front of his
betters. Thalric was driven by fear and aggression, though, and would not be
stilled. ‘I’ve seen them try to struggle on with the simplest of machines,
knowing nothing of mechanics, metallurgy, modern farming. We’ve all seen where
that has left them, for even Khanaphes can’t hold back the march of time.’

She
stared at him and he blanched, baring his teeth, but no more words emerged.

‘Now—’
Elysiath began, but Che took a deep breath and interrupted her.

‘Do you
… Do you know there’s a war out there?’

There
was a moment’s pause when it seemed that Che might be struck down just for such
an interruption, then Lirielle replied dismissively, ‘Wars come and go. We, who
have seen so many, cannot mark them all.’

‘No,
there is a war right now. The Scorpions have come against your city.’ Che saw
their derision and pressed forward. ‘They have broken through your walls! When
we came down here, they were at the river. By now they may even have driven
your people out into the wastes.’

The
Masters exchanged amused glances. ‘Our city is proof against what the rabble of
the desert can bring against it,’ sneered the man. ‘Our people shall become
stronger for the testing.’

Che
stared at them in disbelief. ‘Your people are praying to you,’ she said. ‘It’s
like nothing I’ve ever seen anywhere else. The homeless crowd the streets and
call to you to save them. You have slept too deeply.’

There
was enough passion in her voice, just enough evidence of pain and truth, that
their mockery dried up slowly, like the landscape of their memories.

‘Such
nonsense,’ said Elysiath finally, ‘but let us witness this prodigy. Watch with
us if you will, and you shall see your fears dispelled.’

When the
Iteration
blew, it sprayed debris as
high as the bridge and beyond, showering it with shards of twisted metal and
fragments of wood. They pattered down across the stones, on attacker and
defender alike. The thunderous explosion forced the two combating sides apart,
halted even the frenzied activity of the archers. Totho broke from the line and
rushed over to the bridge’s north parapet, peering down at the ship’s ruin
below. His heart lurched.
Oh, I’ve done it now
. The
pride of the Iron Glove’s tiny fleet had been destroyed in some backwater, in a
war it had no business taking part in. Drephos would be …

Drephos
would be interested, if Totho ever got to pass the news back to him. Drephos
would see the whole expensive business as a field test, and order someone to
work on an improved design. In fact, Drephos would not be remotely upset. The
thought of that reaction, shorn of all emotion, washed clean of the blood of
Corcoran and his crew, made Totho feel even worse.

Then the
Scorpions let out a great roar of triumph and came for them again, made newly
bold and fierce by their artillerists’ victory. Amnon began shouting for
solidarity, and then the charge caught them, denting their line so deeply that
Amnon almost skidded off the low rampart and fell back onto the bridge. The
Scorpions almost had them then and there, by sheer weight of numbers, for, in
the packed crush at the centre, there was precious little room for axe or
spear. The Khanaphir resorted to their short swords to hack at their enemies,
while the Scorpions used the savage claws their Art had given them.

Meyr
loomed behind the lines, reaching past the Khanaphir with his mailed hands,
heedless of the blows any Scorpions aimed at him. He caught them up at random,
plucked them from their places and hurled them back into the mass of their
fellows. It was blind, brutal work. Amnon’s backplate was against Meyr’s
breastplate, and that was the only thing stopping him being forced to give
ground.

There
was a high, keening cry and Mantis-kinden began dropping among the Scorpion
throng. Having discarded their bows, some now wielded knives of stone or
chitin, while others relied only on their barbed forearms. It was enough for
them, as they plunged into the enemy like strong swimmers and began to kill.
Moving with a dazzling economy of effort, they sought out the edge of every
piece of armour, aiming for throats and eyes. They were swift, almost dancing
across the face of the enemy host where, slender and deadly, they spent
themselves on behalf of the city that had conquered them long ago, buying time
and room with their blood.

The
Scorpions could not match them for speed, but their numbers were inescapable,
and their strength enough to kill with a single blow. Totho could track the
whirlpools of the Mantids’ passing amid the surging sea of enemy, and could
track each Marsh-kinden death by their sudden stilling. Soon only a few of them
remained, cutting a path of death through the tight-packed Scorpions, then only
one. Teuthete herself lived still, and slew, the two inextricably linked in her
Mantis mind. By then the Khanaphir line was solid again, though perilously
thin, and Amnon was calling her. With a sudden leap she joined him back in the
lines, her arms drenched in blood to the shoulders. She was smiling, ablaze
with madness.

Totho
joined them, climbing to a higher position at one end of the line where he
could take a clearer shot. The Scorpions had fallen back a few paces, shields
linked again to ward off the archers, but this time they were not going away.
There would be no retreating for them now, not until the breach was won. They
could smell victory as close as their next breath.

Moments. We have just moments
.

‘Be
ready with the ropes!’ Amnon shouted.

It took
Totho a moment to recall what he meant, that the stacks of loose stone on
either side of the bridge were to serve as a defence and a trap.

The
Scorpions struck the Khanaphir shield-wall with a single metal sound. They were
fighting mad now, heedless of the archers’ arrows striking down at them. They
howled and foamed and battered against shields, splitting and cracking them
with axe-blows or the solid strikes of halberds. They ran on to the Khanaphir
spears and yet kept running, dragging the weapons from their wielders’ hands.
It was down to close-in sword work again in moments.

Totho
loosed and loosed his snapbow, reloading and recharging as fast as his shaking
hands could manage.
I could do this in the dark, now. I
could do it in my sleep. My hands know the drill off by heart
. His mind
just watched numbly, seeing the Khanaphir line edge slowly back, anchored at
either end by the higher stone of the barricade, in the centre by Amnon, his
dark armour awash with the blood of his enemies, backed by the whirling,
murderous Teuthete and Meyr’s bludgeoning reach and strength. Each time the
Mole Cricket lashed out it seemed he held some new weapon. He took up whatever
the enemy had left him, laying about him with halberds and axes whose shafts
splintered and broke after a few swings, with swords whose blades he bent and
shattered under the force of his striking. The centre was holding now, but the
line bowing to either side. It would only take one breach for them to lose
everything.

A
crossbow bolt suddenly ricocheted off Totho’s helm, snapping his head back, and
he clutched at the stonework, while letting his vision clear. Another struck
his pauldron, and flew off behind the lines. He turned his snapbow on the enemy
archers, killing them through the shields that were supposed to protect them.
They will remember this
, he thought.
If
they are writing the last chapter of Khanaphir history, yet we are writing a
chapter of theirs. They will remember all of this
.

‘Archers
back!’ Amnon yelled, and he shouted it again and a third time before they would
obey him. They dropped back from the barricades, and fled straight for Praeda’s
second line of defence: that huge maze of stone and wood that blocked the far
end of the bridge.

‘Totho,
ready with the ropes!’ came Amnon’s next order, his voice loud enough to be
heard clear over the Scorpions’ howling. Totho found himself obeying
automatically, slinging his snapbow over his shoulder and dropping back to the
taut cables with his sword drawn. Between the surfaces of stone the line of
defenders still held tenuously, straining and bulging.
If I
cut now I’ll crush them
. He waited, sword raised, looking back towards
them as their line fell apart.

‘Back!’
Amnon shouted, and they tried, but the Scorpions would not let them go without
further blood. A half-dozen of the Royal Guard were able to hurl themselves
clear. Most of the rest either stayed and died, or died trying to withdraw.
Totho noticed Dariset, half a shattered shield still held high, try to jump
away, but a Scorpion moved with her, lunging with claws outstretched. He drove
one spiked hand into her chest, and she rammed her sword into the huge man’s
belly, so that the point jutted from his back.

Scorpions
were falling through the gaps in the line. There were moments, moments only to
spare.

‘Now!’
It was not Amnon’s voice but Meyr’s. The huge man staggered back, slapping a
half-dozen Scorpions back into their comrades’ halberds with one arm, while he
hauled at Amnon with the other. For a moment the Scorpions occupied the breach,
but they could not come through it. Teuthete was there, and she was killing
them as they came. She had a Khanaphir sword in each hand, and the spikes of
her arms were flexed wide, and every edge and point she had was busy taking
blood. She was never still, a swift storm of needling death that could not hold
them more than a few seconds longer, and yet was holding them nonetheless.

‘Now!’
roared Meyr – and Totho hacked twice, and three times, then a leaping Scorpion
slammed an axe into his back. The force of the blow drove him to his knees,
though it twisted from his mail. He fell on the mauled rope and it snapped.

The tons
of stone were abruptly in motion for a thunderous second. Totho turned and
caught the axeman across the face and the gut, even as the Scorpion turned to
look at his fellows. The sound of the stones clashing together was like the end
of the world. For many Scorpions it was just that.

Meyr
shouted something incoherent, then he and Amnon were killing the few Scorpions
who had got through, as gripped by battle-rage as their enemies had ever been.
Totho only had eyes for the slender figure now standing atop the tumbled wall
of stones. Teuthete had leapt up there with Art-sped reflexes, even as the stone
descended on her, and she stood there for a moment, proud and defiant, bloody
with the demise of her enemies. The crossbow bolt found her as she stood, took
her under the ribs with force enough to throw her from her perch. The fall
robbed her of grace, and she was dead as she struck the bridge.

After the pictures had faded, there was a great silence amongst the
Masters of Khanaphes. Che put her hands to her head, feeling the world tilt
about her. It had seemed so real. She had been there, right there on the
bridge. She had been all over the city. Her mind’s eye had been dragged
wherever the Masters had wished, to the sacked western city, to the
refugee-clogged streets of the east. The colours had been over-bright, burning
like fever, running like paint, and yet it had all been so real.

That was Totho
, she thought numbly.
Totho
fighting, but why?

‘Che?’
Thalric had his hands on her shoulders. ‘Che, what happened?’

‘They’re
fighting,’ she said, shaking. ‘On the bridge. Couldn’t you see?’

‘Che,
there was nothing to see,’ Thalric insisted. ‘You just … you were just staring
into the dark.’ She saw blank incomprehension on his face, and a measure of the
same on the normally expressionless Vekken behind him.

‘The
city hangs in the balance,’ she whispered. ‘The Scorpions assault the bridge,
and only a tiny few hold them off. It is the end for Khanaphes, it must be.’

‘This is
a grave disappointment,’ said Elysiath. ‘Have our servants fallen so low that
they will allow our enemies into the city?’