The Scarab Path

Two

It was all over before they arrived, the charred wood and ash gone cold, and just the smoke still drifting into a cloudless sky. The sail-mill, the warehouse, the miller's home, everything had been systematically razed. By the time word was rushed to Collegium by the neighbouring hamlet, it would already have been too late to stop it.

Stenwold stared at the ruins, his hands hooked in the belt of his artificer's leathers. The miller and his family and staff would all be dead. This was the third attack to occur hereabouts and the pattern was dismaying in its precision. Around him the guardsmen from Collegium were fanning outwards from the automotive, some with their shields held high and others with snapbows at the ready.

'You think we did this.'

He looked around to see one of the Vekken ambassadors staring at him. The Ant-kinden's expression was one of barely controlled dislike. The man's hand rested on his sword-hilt as though he was waiting for a reason to slice Stenwold open. Stenwold was wearing a breastplate over his leathers and he was glad of it.

'I don't think anything as yet,' he replied patiently. A lot of effort had been involved in there even being a Vekken here to talk to, and most of it was his work.

'Yet you have brought me here for a reason,' the man said. He was smaller than Stenwold, shorter, stockily athletic where the Beetle was broad. He would be stronger than Stenwold too. His skin was dark, not the tan of the Sarnesh or the deep brown of Stenwold's own people, but a slightly shiny obsidian black.

'You insisted on coming with us,' Stenwold reminded him, 'so we brought you.' He bit back anything else. 'Touchy' was an understatement, with the Vekken. Stenwold's men were moving cautiously further out. There was still enough cover left, in fallen masonry and half-standing walls, to conceal some bandits or …

No bandit work, this. But who, then? Collegium had its enemies, more than ever before, but there was currently supposed to be a general peace. Someone clearly had not been informed.

He heard a scrape and scuff as the automotive disgorged its last passenger. His niece hesitated in the hatchway, looking unwell. She shook her head at him as he made a move towards her.

'Just give me a moment,' she said, as she eyed the wreck of the mill bleakly. 'This is bad, isn't it?'

'Quite bad, yes.' Seeing the officer of his guardsmen backing towards him, he said, 'Che, would you look after our Vekken friend here while I see to something.' He had not meant to put so much of a stress on the word, but it had come out that way.

Che dropped to the ground and staggered, before catching her balance. The journey had been hard on her. The Vekken was staring at her, but if her discomfort meant anything to him, it was lost in a generic expression of distaste for all things Collegiate.

'Do you think …?' His look did not encourage discussion but she pressed on. 'Do you think someone could be causing trouble between our cities?' In the absence of a reply, she added, 'We are west of Collegium here, and Vek is the closest port.'

'As I said, you believe this is our work,' the Vekken said flatly.

'Che, get back in the automotive,' Stenwold said suddenly. 'You too …' He looked at the Vekken and obviously could not put a name to him. The Vekken squared off against him, wanting to see whatever was being hidden from him.

'Now!' Stenwold shouted, and then everything went to pieces. Without a sound, there were men popping up from all sides, their crossbows already clacking and thrumming. Every shadowy corner of the mill's wreck that could afford a hiding place was disgorging attackers. One of Stenwold's soldiers was down in that instant, another reeling back with a bolt through the leg. All around was the sound of missiles blunting themselves against shields, or rattling off the automotive's armoured hull.

'Pull in!' the officer shouted. 'Protect the War Master!'

'Uncle Sten!' Che cried. She was already halfway back inside the automotive, an arm reaching out for him, when she noticed the Vekken ambassador was sprawled on his back. A moment later he was lurching to his feet, but he had a bolt embedded up to its metal fletchings in his shoulder. His sword was out, offhanded, but he did nothing but stand there in plain view. She rushed over to him, got her hand on his shoulder.

He cut viciously at her. If not for his wound, he might have lopped her arm off at the elbow. She retreated, seeing him loom over her with blade raised, at that moment prepared to kill her without another thought. She was an enemy of his race and had dared to touch him. He must really have been what passed for a Vekken diplomat, however, because he let something stay his hand.

'Get inside the automotive!' she urged him. 'Please!'

'I am in no danger,' he replied, and she thought she had misheard him at first, barely catching the words over the shouting. Stenwold collided backwards into the automotive's side with a curse, as a soldier thrust him back, one-handed. There was a bolt lodged through the man's left arm, and with his other hand he pressed his snapbow into Che's grip.

'Take it and use it. Come on, Master Maker!'

'Wait!' Stenwold crouched lower. 'Wait — look at them!'

The attackers had mostly stopped shooting now, and instead were forming up a line of shields, preparing to rush in and finish the job. Meanwhile the automotive's driver was pointedly letting the steam engine whine and rumble, as if trying to get the idea of escape across. Che looked down at the snapbow, glinting fully loaded in her hands.

If only I could. But it was a deadweight, useless to her. She dropped it into the automotive's waiting hold.

'Look at them!' Stenwold was shouting, pointing for the benefit of the Vekken envoy, and Cheerwell suddenly realized what he meant. The line of attackers, who were moving in even as the Collegium guard tightened around the automotive, were all Ant-kinden. Specifically, they were Ant-kinden of Vek.

'They are a detachment from Tactician Akalia's force,' the Vekken — their Vekken — explained. 'They are merely obeying their last order, which was to harass Collegium in any way possible.'

'But they shot you!'

'My people are skilled soldiers.' The Vekken sounded insulted. 'I had no time to announce my presence to them before they commenced their ambush.'

Stenwold was shouting now. 'Then tell them you're here, you fool!'

'They are already aware,' said the Vekken, as another volley of crossbow bolts drove the Collegium men further back towards the vehicle. 'They have advised me to leave before they begin their shield-charge.'

Stenwold reached for him in frustration, but then thought better of it. 'Tell them that the war is over. You're an ambassador — Vek is sending ambassadors to Collegium, for Waste's sake!'

'I do not have authority to countermand a Tactician's order.'

At that moment Stenwold was physically shoved further into the shelter of the automotive's hatch by the injured soldier. 'Tell them!' he roared desperately. 'Don't you think that if your King was here he would order them to stop?'

The idea of second-guessing the Monarch of Vek was obviously beyond consideration for this particular Vekken. He just stood there, staring at Stenwold with patent loathing. The guardsmen had now raised a cordon of shields around him and Cheerwell, with snapbowmen ducking down behind it to reload, then up again to shoot. Che noticed that there were a good few Vekken dead as well, as the bolts tore through their shields and armour both.

'Well?' Stenwold demanded. 'Can't you admit to logic, just this once?'

'Your men are the only ones still shooting,' the Vekken observed.

Stenwold forced his way out of the automotive again. 'Put up your bows!' he called. 'Hold!'

The Collegium soldiers waited tensely, the snapbowmen with their weapons still levelled above the shields of their fellows. The Vekken force mirrored them, big shields steady, crossbows loaded and aimed. There was a long, fraught pause while Stenwold caught his breath.

'We cannot go on like this,' he declared at last. The Vekken ambassador eyed him as though he was mad.

'Put up your bows,' he said again without anger, sounding only tired.

The officer repeated the order with obvious reluctance and the barrels of the snapbows lifted.

'What is going on?' Stenwold asked.

'As I have said, these men were given their last orders before Tactician Akalia's force was defeated.' That defeat was obviously a bitter memory for the Vekken.

'And now?'

'They will seek further instructions, on the off chance that their orders will now be changed.'

'Off chance?' Stenwold exploded.

The Vekken's expression suggested that attacking Collegium agriculture was an eminently appropriate thing for bands of Vekken soldiers to be doing.

'And are there any more of these soldiers?'

There was a pause while the Vekken remained silent, obviously communing mind-to-mind with his kinsmen. 'Yes,' he replied at last. As Stenwold drew breath to speak he said, 'I have suggested, as an officer of Vek, that this band recommend they too seek new orders. I have no absolute authority, however, and they may disagree with my assessment.'

And you secretly hope they will. Stenwold felt an urge to strangle the man. He cautioned himself: Diplomacy, remember. He had tried so hard, so very hard, to make things work. He had started with this premise: they are people, just as we are, but he should have known better. Since then he'd had plenty of cause to remember that Ant-kinden were not remotely like the sort of people he understood.

The Vekken were now attending to their wounded. 'Do you want me to provide them with doctors?' Stenwold asked, seeing the opportunity for a peace offering.

'They require no Collegiate doctor,' the Vekken ambassador snapped, without hesitation.

'At least let us attend to your wound then …'

The look he received was poisonous. 'My own people will tend to me in due course. For now, should we not be returning, as you have solved your mystery?'

Stenwold took ten minutes' respite from diplomacy, as the automotive began to rumble its way back to Collegium, to think every vile thought he could about both the city of Vek and its bloody-minded inhabitants. After that satisfaction he leant forward to address the envoy again.

'Do you at least see now, though, why your presence in our city is so necessary? Misunderstandings occur so very easily, between our people. Surely you must understand that there is no need for this violence, not any more?'

There was no hint of understanding in the Vekken's face, in fact no expression of any kind. Stenwold sighed again.

'You are here in Collegium for a purpose.' A purpose other than spying on us, surely, he added to himself.

'Master Maker,' the Vekken replied, 'we are here for now, but how long do you think your plan will work? We are here because you have spoken so many words that some within our city have become curious. We know that your people hate us. We know that support for you in your ruling body wanes. Matters will soon resume their natural course. What do you hope to accomplish?'

It was a surprisingly long speech, for one of his kind. Stenwold sat back and reflected. The Vekken initiative had been his idea, true, and almost a single-handed effort. He had traded a lot of the prestige he had accumulated during the war for this chance at a lasting peace.

And he's right, the bastard. He sees it very clear. It wouldn't take much of a shift of opinion in the Assembly to have us rattling our spears again.

The Vekken was looking at him without expression, except for a tiny wince of pain each time the automotive jolted. The studied loathing still evident in his eyes presaged the future.