The Scarab Path

Twenty-Nine

On this day, the one hundred and seventy-fifth day of the seven hundred and forty-second year from the founding of the Bounteous City, were the tallies made of all peoples who dwell under the hand of the Masters, happy are we to stand in their shadow …

Also in this year the harvest was of unexpected richness, so that the stores of the city were increased by three parts in one hundred for the coming years. The word of the Masters has cautioned that our storehouses must remain full, for there are lean years foreseen in the east …

Also in this year …

'Bella Cheerwell?'

The words — her own name — startled her from her reverie. Che blinked, stared at the wall she was crouching before. For a moment the hieroglyphs only marched their incomprehensible procession before her eyes. Then they swam and twisted, as though suddenly viewed through tears. Comprehension came as naturally as breathing, and she saw: Also in this year did the First Soldier of Khanaphes take to the West River Plains so as to turn aside the advances of the Many of Nem …

But what did that remind her of …?

'Che! What's wrong with you?'

It was an irritation that would not go away. She shook her head and looked up to see a figure standing beside her. Beside her, not over her, though she knelt, for it was Flykinden: a man in a traveller's garb and cloak, with a little snarl of beard at his chin, in the Spider manner. His face seemed familiar to her …

A tenday of personal history slipped, like a great rock mass long hanging, and descended on her without mercy, leaving no survivors. Che gasped, flinched back from Trallo so hard that she bounced her head against the wall she had just been studying. Khanaphes — the Fir eaters — the hunt — Thalric — Totho — the Empire — war! It was all so much to fit in place that she nearly choked on it.

'Trallo-?' She stared at the Fly wildly, trying to work out precisely where they were. Khanaphes, yes, but she did not recognize this district. Beyond the worried-looking Fly, the shaven-headed people were going about their business in a narrow street, without even a glance for the mad foreign woman. They continued herding their goats and sheep and aphids, carrying jars of water or oil, or baskets of grain.

'Che,' said Trallo patiently, trying to capture her attention. 'I have been looking for you for two days.' He let that sink in before adding, out of sheer exasperation, 'And do you know how difficult it is to stay out of my sight for two days? People have been worried sick. All sorts of things have been going wrong. You're supposed to be an ambassador and-'

'And whose money paid for all this searching? Which of all your masters?' she snapped back at him, before she could stop herself. She grimaced instantly. 'Trallo, I'm sorry …'

'No, that was a fair shot,' he said, not seeming at all hurt or even repentant. 'My own house got a little untidy towards the end, but then I wasn't expecting open war between the Iron Glove and your Wasp fellow.' His expression soured. 'I wasn't expecting open war, full stop. Che, I won't pretend that your halfbreed friend hasn't wanted me to track you down, but it's your own people who are going mad right now. After all that's happened, they want to get straight out of town — and, to be frank, so do I.'

'All that's happened?' Ah yes. 'So … the rumour …'

'The Scorpions are coming, and they're going to be here, well, really soon. Really, really soon. Whether they've had all the Imperial help that the Glove have been claiming, that's unproven for now, but they're coming sure as death and taxes. The Khanaphir are putting their army together as though the point of the whole exercise was just to give them the chance to hold parades. You can't move through most of the streets of this city for soldiers marching about and crowds waving at them.'

Che stood up, realizing as she did so that her robe was filthy, ingrained with dirt and dust. How long have I …? 'I have been researching,' she explained uncertainly.

'Surely you have,' Trallo replied. 'Now let's just …'

'You don't understand. I have been reading the histories of Khanaphes — the true histories.' She waved towards the wall with all its bewildering array of sigils. 'These old walls, they're the ones that matter. It's all there in plain view if you can only read it.'

Trallo was staring at her as one stares at the suddenly mad. 'Surely,' he said again. 'You're a credit to the College. Now, how about you come on back to the embassy?'

'Who were the Masters of Khanaphes, Trallo?' she asked him abruptly.

'You want my call? There never were any,' he replied in a harsh whisper, with a suspicious look at the natives passing behind him. 'Now let's-'

'But there were,' she said simply. What knowledge she had deciphered, during those missing, dream-lost days, was filtering back. 'They write about them all the time, their commands, their wishes, their guidance.'

'Sure, sure — and all of it through the Ministers, I'll bet. Now-'

'They speak of them walking through the city, Trallo.'

The Fly took a deep breath. 'Now listen, Bella Cheerwell, things have gone all to the pits since you disappeared, and we've a good way to drop yet. Can we not just stand here talking about something that's so long ago it matters less to me than a midge's fart, and perhaps just come back to the embassy where you're supposed to be, perhaps, maybe?'

'It matters, Trallo,' she told him firmly. 'It's more important than anything.' How did I manage to lose two days? she was asking herself, horrified, but something of that calm, that supernatural, overwhelming obsession, still clung to her. It tastes like Fir, she thought. But I do not actually need the drug. She had not even needed to memorize the alphabet in that book that the Khanaphir stonemasons now copied from in mindless rote. Simply being exposed to it had operated some change within her. The magic of ancient Khanaphes, and then the inevitable thought: The voice of the Masters calling to me from five hundred years ago. She still did not know who they had been, those lost Masters, but it was as though, across all the intervening years, they wanted her to find out.

It was their voice that led me away, to come here …

'Trallo, I can't come with you-' she started, but his face took on an ugly cast.

'Petri's dead, Che.'

She stared at him, wordless.

'Is that immediate enough for you, Bella Cheerwell? Has that got through to you?'

'Dead?'

'They found her on the steps of that pyramid in front of the Scriptora — I saw her body, before the locals took possession of it. Broken neck. She'd fallen backwards off it. But I saw her face.' He shook his head, unable to properly describe it.

Petri's dead? Petri Coggen's babbling tirades about this city being out to get her, her delusions, her fears, her pleas to be taken out of Khanaphes. And she confided in me, and I did nothing. It was like cold water washing the dust away from her. The last ebbing of the trance was falling from her. 'Poor woman,' she said, hollowly. 'Poor, poor woman.' When she met Trallo's gaze again, her eyes were steady. 'Let's head for the embassy. We can talk on the way.'

As they approached the side arch leading through to the Place of Foreigners, her thoughts turned inevitably to the maze of diplomacy she saw awaiting her. And what am I going to do with Thalric now? 'What's the Imperial reaction been, Trallo?'

'Blatant guilt,' he said, from her elbow. She halted, frowning down at him,

'Explain.'

'They've gone, Bella Cheerwell. They've upped and left. If they're still even in the city, they're keeping their heads down.'

'All of them?'

'Every single stripy one of them.'

The news seemed oddly leaden. Trallo was right: it indicated guilt, surely, to leave so suddenly and secretly, once the news was announced. Have they gone to join their fellows amongst the Scorpions? And then: So I will not talk this over with Thalric, then. I suppose he has made his decision, once again. It seemed incredible that one man had been given so many choices in life, and made them all so differently.

'What's the feeling among the others?' she asked.

'Manny wants out of Khanaphes yesterday. Our great warrior has decided that war isn't for him, after all,' Trallo said drily. 'They raised the chain on the river, though — that big old gate your lot were so interested in? Worked like it was made only last tenday in Solarno. Old Ethmet has said they'll let you out, when you're ready to go. He's very apologetic. And distracted, too, what with suddenly having a war to run.'

'What about Berjek and Praeda?'

'Berjek is being patient, but I get the impression he's about ready to pack his bags as well. As for Bella Rakespear …' Trallo grimaced. 'Well, that there's gotten complicated.'

They were at the door of the embassy, as Che gave Trallo a sidelong look. 'Meaning him? '

'He does appear to have got to her somehow,' Trallo murmured. 'It was all that dancing he did, I reckon.'

Che tried to envisage them: cool, detached Praeda Rakespear with the giant, vital Amnon. They seemed utterly opposite. Then again, at least they're of the same kinden. I'm no one to judge.

'So what does she want to do?' she asked the Fly.

'Bella Che, I don't think she knows herself. We were all hoping you could talk her into making a decision.'

The city of Khanaphes resounded to the tread of marching feet.

From atop the wall it was a spectacle, but Totho found that he could no longer appreciate mere spectacle. The regiments of Khanaphir soldiers were still leaving the city, each parading in mighty armed pomp through the streets before assembling in front of the west gates. Totho was no novice when it came to armies, and his mind afforded plenty of comparisons. In fact I am probably the best-qualified person in the city to say to Amnon what must be said. Except for some of the fugitive Imperials, perhaps, and they were unlikely to be handing out strategic advice.

It was not a Lowlander army, that much was clear. Correction: it is not a Lowlander army such as has been seen these last three centuries. The troops were still arriving by barge from the tributary towns further upriver, but the city itself had mustered a surprising number of soldiers. They were not Ant-kinden here, where every citizen would take up a sword at a moment's unspoken notice, but the Ministers had been able to mobilize a lot of the city's population in the short time they had been given. That would be Amnon's first boast: We are used to fighting off these savages.

The sands have finally begun to move in the glass, though, Totho thought. What you are used to, friend Amnon, is what was, not what is. Time, that long-denied guest, was finally marching on Khanaphes.

Amnon leant on the parapet, looking down with a broad smile as his soldiers assembled. He was dressed in his full armour, the scaled hauberk and the crested helm. He would be better served by what we tried to give him, Totho knew, but the Ministers had forbidden it, of course. Totho watched another unit of neighbourhood militia leave the gates. The Khanaphir army looked a strange amalgam to his eyes, unwieldy and awkward and lacking in vital parts. The core was Amnon's Royal Guard and some other heavy infantry: scale-armoured shield-and-spearmen backed by armoured archers. They were greatly outnumbered by the light militia, vast expanses of men and women without armour, with only shields and spears or leaf-bladed swords, or archers who could back up their bows with nothing but a dagger. Although they could stand in neat enough rows, Totho doubted they had seen much of a battle before. It is not an army, rather it is a levy. A levy of citizens that the Khanaphir can ill afford to lose.

There was cavalry on either side of the main force, and Totho was unused to seeing that. The swift, long-legged sand-beetles were ranged in their skittish, twitching ranks, each bearing a lancer and an archer. Smaller beasts were yoked to little two-wheeled carts which carried a pair of archers apiece to keep the driver company. Totho had never seen the like of them.

'The Marsh people have answered our call at last,' Amnon rumbled, pointing them out. A straggling column was heading upriver from the delta, and Totho turned a glass on them to see them better. They were the silvery-skinned Mantis-kinden from the swamps, perhaps a couple of hundred men and women wearing no armour, but armed with spears and recurved bows and the Art-given barbs of their arms. Mantis-kinden, still, thought Totho, but he had seen how the Mantids fell at the Battle of the Rails, and he knew he would be seeing it again, if he was fool enough to march alongside Amnon.

And if the Emperor had not died, then this would be a full Imperial army coming. He had not considered that before, but the timing felt right. The expansion of the Empire would have reached this far south by now, had it not been for all the internal squabbling. Perhaps the Khanaphir stood a chance against their age-old Scorpion-kinden enemies, even re-equipped and retrained as they now were, but if it had been the Imperial Eighth Army …? Twenty or thirty thousand Wasp-kinden and Auxillian soldiers descending on this lumbering mass of Beetle-kinden and their allies? Even if the Khanaphir and the Many of Nem could have put their differences aside, the Empire would still sweep across them and leave not a man. There would be no room for a battle in amongst all the slaughter.

He looked upon the army of Khanaphes and his artificer's mind cried: Where is their air-power? Where is their mechanized support? Where the engines of war? Where the crossbows and nailbows and snapbows and all the other accoutrements of modern battle? Drephos's heart would break if he saw this. Even the new toys of the Scorpions were merely old war-surplus, by Meyr's reckoning, outdated and obsolete weapons and engines that the Empire was well rid of. It seemed the unmaking of all of the great artificer's work in advancing the science of war. Small consolation that all this, this very way of life, now stood to be unmade in turn.

'Amnon,' he said.

'Speak, at last,' the big man turned to him. 'I have sensed your words unsaid all this time.'

'You have heard the reports of my people,' Totho said.

'The Ministers have heard them,' Amnon replied vaguely.

'I don't care about the Ministers,' Totho snapped, grabbing for the man's attention. 'You yourself have heard. You, the First Soldier of Khanaphes. The man who will lead.'

Amnon regarded him silently.

'You are now going to go and have the same fight you always have with the Scorpions,' Totho continued. 'Or that is what you think. That is what the Ministers have told you. You are going to go and put your shields up, and expect them to charge, and charge again. You see, I've done my research. I'm not just an ignorant foreigner. That's how it's done, yes? The wild Scorpion-kinden descend on you with axes and beasts, and you shoot them with arrows and brace your shields, and eventually they run out of manpower or will-power, and then they go away. They're just the mad desert savages, while you're the solid soldiers of Khanaphes. That's what you're all thinking?'

Still Amnon said nothing. His expression discouraged further pressing, but Totho looked up into his dark gaze without a flinch.

'You haven't understood a word that any of us have said. My people have spent time with the Many, long enough to see that the wind's changed. The Empire has been busy sharpening the sword, and the Scorpions, at least, aren't so attached to their cursed past that they're too proud to change. They have crossbowmen now, Amnon. Hundreds of crossbowmen. At medium range, a heavy crossbow bolt will go through a wooden shield without slowing much, and those Scorpions have the muscle to recock a heavy crossbow without breaking sweat. And you know what I see out there? Half your militia are carrying shields of shell or wicker.'

'I listened to you,' Amnon said, turning back to view the assembling army. 'I heard.'

'Then what?' Totho demanded. Why am I even getting involved? It was not just that he liked Amnon, although he found that was true, but this situation was an offence to his profession, and a criminal waste of raw material.

'The Masters have spoken,' Amnon said patiently. 'We will meet the Scorpions and defeat them, as we have always done. What can I say against that?'

'But-'

'No!' Amnon clenched his fists, knuckles swollen by his Art until his hands were like maces. 'Do not think I did not listen, when you spoke. Do not think I have not heard all this before, from one dearer to me than you are. She told me … She said such things … But she did not understand. I am commanded. The will of the Masters has been made clear to me, Totho. Therefore we will fight them as we have always fought them.' His breathing sounded ragged with repressed emotion. 'I have given some orders, that go beyond my own. I have ordered … a rearguard, if need be. In case we need to find our walls in haste. That is all. Even in that, I betray the Masters with my lack of faith.'

But there are no Masters! But Totho knew that to say this would be to go too far.

'I must go find my own mount, and then join my soldiers,' Amnon said. 'May we meet again.'

Totho clasped hands with him. 'Technically all my people and I have been banished from the city. It's just that so far they've not had the spare hands to make us go. I will try to stay for your return, at least. So, yes, may we meet again.' Totho tried to smile, but he saw doom reflected in Amnon's solemn nod.

Amnon's tread was heavy as he descended to the stables. Totho's words were like a weight on him — and not the only weight.

Amnon was not a stupid man, by any means, for the First Soldier's role could not sustain a fool in office. He oversaw the city watch and the militia's training, received reports from every settlement along the Jamail river, liaised with the Marsh people. It was more than just shiny armour and parades.

He believed Totho's story. It was not simply the Many of Nem on their way, who the Khanaphir had repulsed a hundred times before. The Empire, too, was coming by proxy. The Empire was coming in the shape of the new weapons they had gifted to the Scorpion-kinden. And why does this Empire hate us so? The answer was clear and uncomfortable. They barely know we exist. They woo the Scorpions with gifts, and bid them make use of them. It is simply because we are here, waiting for their attentions.

But Totho did not know the might and the will of the army of Khanaphes. The halfbreed's own people were strange, aloof and passionless. They spoke too much and too loud, these foreigners. They strutted and bragged, and had many marvellous inventions, but they lacked true spirit. This was what the Masters had preserved their city from, this shallowing of the soul.

His mind tugged itself towards that marvellous suit of armour, strong as stone, light as leather, that Totho's people had made for him. It had been forbidden him. The Ministers had spoken and, through them, the Masters.

In the stables, amidst the muted smell of the insects, he instructed grooms, 'Saddle up Penthet. I will ride him into battle.' To command his army truly, he would need to be mobile when the battle came. He flexed his broad shoulders, hearing the slight scrape of metal scales. The Many of Nem had not raided so near the city for eight years now, and never had they come in such numbers. That alone lent Totho's warnings more truth than Amnon needed to hear.

Why is he still here? Does he seek to profit somehow from the fight? It was an uncharitable thought and Amnon regretted it instantly. The unhappy halfbreed was still here because he was bound by chains that all his artifice could not break. Amnon understood, because he felt the tug of those chains himself.

He had gone to Praeda last night, seeking distraction, finding only argument. She thinks she is so clever, with all her learning. She does not understand. She had not understood when he had told her he must go to war on the morrow. Her objections had been Totho's objections, taken from that patronizing position of superior culture that all these foreigners seemed to hold, and not know they held. Amnon had weathered it — he was good at that — and in the end she had broken down, swearing that she would never speak to him again, that he could go hang himself if they could make a rope thick enough to hold him. The expressions on the faces of the other foreigners, the old man and the fat man, had been horribly embarrassed, as he made his exit. It was clear they had heard every word.

And, of course, he had thought that she might come here, before the army marched, with some last words to clear the bad air between them. She had not come.

One of his grooms brought him his favourite bow, short for cavalry work but curved back and back on itself, coiled with tautly strung power, of Mantis craftsmanship. He slung a broad quiver over his back, the arrow-tips spreading out like a chitin-fletched fan across his shoulders, ready for his fingers to pluck. When he turned round, it was to find a Beetle woman standing there.

It was not her, though. It was the other one, the ambassador who was shorter and rounder than Praeda. She was looking awkward, yet she had talked her way into the stables of the Royal Guard, and for no other reason than to see him.

'Yes, O Foreigner,' Amnon addressed her, 'how may I assist you?'

'Just Cheerwell, please,' she said. 'Or even Che.' She looked ragged, as if she had been short of food and sleep for a good while. 'Amnon …' she started, and stopped.

'Speak,' he told her.

'I've been talking to Praeda.' And she paused again, scowling at her own inability to push the matter forward. Then the grooms brought out Penthet, and she exclaimed, 'Hammer and tongs, what's that?'

The question brought a slight smile to his face. 'He is Penthet. He is a desert locust. My grooms raised him for me, from the very egg. We two have been companions in the fray for many years.' He ran a hand down the long, segmented flank of the creature, and it resettled its legs, one glittering eye watching him from above the constantly-working mouthparts. 'From his back I shall command the battle.' His hand moved to the high-ended saddle that sat so naturally over the locust's thorax, just in front of the wings. His face darkened momentarily. 'I am glad to see there is one part of war that you wise foreigners do not understand. Perhaps your predictions are not so all-knowing as you think.'

'Amnon, she could not make herself come and see you,' Che told him.

He nodded grimly. 'I had assumed as much.'

'She fears for you. It is true that we do not understand your ways here — of all people, I know that! — but you do not understand what is coming, with the Scorpions. They are bringing a part of our world against you — the worst part. Praeda … she fears that she will lose you.'

'All men must die. Warriors die in battle. Your world is not so different, I am sure,' he said. 'What would she ask of me? That the First Soldier of Khanaphes hides away, while his army fights?'

'She would have asked, I think, that you changed your battle plan — that you changed your ways as the Scorpion have changed theirs,' Che said. 'She would have asked that you took all the weapons and armour that Totho could sell you, and thus sent the Scorpions back to the Empire asking for more and better in return. She is a logical woman, but she does not see where her logic would lead. Besides, I myself have seen battles, and she has not. You cannot change an army in a day. Order and discipline are built from practice. The Scorpions cannot have had so very long to become used to their new toys.'

He regarded her for a long time before responding, 'Speak the rest, O Foreigner. I see it in your face. These crossbows … Totho tells me they are a simpleton's weapon, that any fool can take them up and shoot. And the Scorpions have had many tendays to practise. Who knows how long the Empire has been dwelling amongst them? And the Many of Nem are truly many, in their war host. Never have we known the like, this swarming of them.'

'You see it all, don't you?' Che said.

'I see that we must fight. That is the true word of the Masters. What can we do but defend our homes? The Scorpions will accept no peace, give no quarter. They seek only to loot and kill. The Empire may have armed them, but it will not have changed them.'

'And we cannot change you.'

As he met her eyes, the force of his gaze was almost like a blow. 'The Ministers declare that the Masters will save us, at the end.'

'Do you believe that?'

'I will believe it at the end. I will have nothing to lose then.'