The Scarab Path (40 page)

‘Don’t
say that,’ she demanded of the delta and its myriad denizens. ‘Please, Achaeos
…’

Come!
was the order it delivered and she felt it tugging
at her mind with all its insubstantial fury.

‘Is it
…?’ She choked over the words. ‘Is it so bad to be with me?’

Agony. I am pierced and pierced
. For a moment the
encroaching green all around her became the twisted corpse of the Darakyon, and
she shuddered away from it. The ghost, its hook fastened in her mind, was still
dragging at her, just strongly enough for her to feel. He was throwing all his
might – all that death had left him – into drawing her somewhere, some place he
had sensed.

‘I’m
coming!’ she told him, and she floundered her way forward, heedless of monster
fish or insects, determined finally to shed this burden, to set him free – and
so to free herself.

‘Give me your alcohol,’ Thalric ordered. He had snapped the arrowhead
off, although with so much wrenching that Osgan had briefly passed out. Now the
stricken man was conscious again, pasty-faced and sweating.

‘Don’t
know what you’re talking about,’ Osgan responded faintly out of the corner of
his mouth, past the cloth bit that Thalric had given him to clench his teeth
against.

‘You’ve
come out here with something to drink. Hand it over,’ Thalric demanded. He was
acutely aware of the target his back provided but he knew he had to fix this
sooner rather than later. He had a feeling that Khanaphir medicine would be as
primitive as the rest of their culture.

Osgan’s
good hand made a feeble gesture towards the pockets of his coat, and Thalric
delved into them, ripping them open one after another until he found the
bottle. He uncapped it and let the clear liquid drip onto the graze running
down Osgan’s ribs. Osgan hissed and twitched at the sting of it and, with that
distraction, Thalric yanked the arrow from his arm.

Osgan’s
scream sounded even through the cloth gag. He fought so hard Thalric had to
kneel on his chest, dragging the arm out straight to douse both sides of the
wound with burning spirits. Strips torn from Osgan’s much-abused coat were all
the bandaging he could muster.

‘Five
minutes,’ Thalric decided. ‘Then we move.’ He left Osgan sobbing quietly and
went to see what attention their noise had brought. They were deep inside a
stand of canes, as defensible a spot as he had come across. Now, dropping low,
he crawled cautiously forward. The marshlands of the delta did odd things with
sound: the foggy air deadened and distorted it. The assassins would most likely
be unsure precisely where the sound had come from, unable to follow it up.

How many?
He guessed at four dead and reckoned at least a
pair of them must be left. Two teams of three felt logical, and he had sent
such men out on Rekef errands enough to trust his own judgement.
This is not just some Tyrshaani malcontent
. Somebody with
power in the Empire wanted Thalric dead very much indeed.
And
then what? Kill the Regent and then what? Is my death the trigger for some
uprising? Has a conspiracy eluded General Brugan?
It was information he
had to get back to Capitas, along with news of his own continued survival.
Assuming that news is still current by the time I get a chance …

Again
the thought came to him: leave Osgan to the mercies of the swamp. If there were
only two killers left, there was enough cover between here and the river to
evade them.
Assuming I still know which way the river lies
.

There
had been no movement visible out there. The assassins were elsewhere, or they
were close by and waiting patiently. There was no way to tell.

‘Osgan,’
he said, as loud as he dared, ‘time to move.’

The
quartermaster was now sitting up, looking as though he had died and come back
to life. Thalric’s uncharitable thought was that, without the wound, he’d have
just assumed the man was suffering after a night’s heavy drinking.

‘Move
where?’ Osgan managed to ask, and he was clearly doing his best. Old military
instincts were struggling to make themselves felt.

‘Away,’
Thalric replied. There was only one clear entrance to the stand of tall canes
they were hiding in: one clear exit, too, therefore. Any killers that were
watching could not help but appreciate that. ‘We’re going out the back way,’
Thalric decided.

‘What
back way?’

‘Have
you the strength to use your sting?’

Osgan
closed his eyes. The Wasp Art that had taken the Empire so far was tiring to
use: it lived off the body’s own strength. He nodded wearily.

Thalric
levelled one hand towards the canes behind Osgan, and the quartermaster hauled
himself round and did likewise. Worms of light now flickered and crawled across
Thalric’s open palm.

He
unleashed the golden fire, putting a hand up to guard his eyes from splinters
as the searing fire of his Art shattered the canes apart. Something inside them
was flammable, the pith exploding like a volley of snapbows. He and Osgan
turned their faces away as a score of canes combusted together, flinging
fragments and splinters across them.

‘Move,’
Thalric urged, and he was already pressing through the gap that had been
scorched between the canes. He lurched forward, across an open patch of water,
ducking into the reeds on the other side. Laboured splashing behind him told
him that Osgan was trying to keep up. He turned, tugging at the man’s good
shoulder, just as an arrow cut across the water, clipping the ripples they had
left. Thalric loosed his sting instantly, guessing at the archer’s hiding
place, then they were stumbling and staggering through the mud, the waist-deep
water, burrowing ever deeper into the delta as the foliage around them grew
taller and thicker, stilt-rooted trees and gigantic horsetails making a
half-drowned forest out of the Marsh.

‘Thalric
…’ Osgan’s voice, hoarse with effort, came from behind him,

‘Just
keep moving.’

‘Thalric
– water’s getting deeper.’

He did
not stop, still plunging on, dragging himself forward in sudden bursts, then
letting Osgan catch up. The man was right, though. Surely if they were heading
into denser plantlife they must be reaching the river banks, the shallows. Then
it came to him just where they were.
This is a delta … the
tide …
Of course the water level would be rising. The tide was coming
in, and that was why all the trees around them were on stilts. Soon their
spidery roots would be submerged. Worse, the rising levels would not hinder
their Skater-kinden pursuers, but it would drag Thalric and Osgan to a
standstill.
Can Osgan swim?
Not with only one arm,
was the answer to that. Time was running out.

Thalric
came to rest, dragging Osgan down beside him. They were in the shadow of some
tall ferns, as hidden as he could make them. As they crouched, the water came
to their chests.
We cannot just run. We need a plan
.
Osgan was breathing heavily, sucking at the air in great gasps. There was
little more flight left in him. The wound and the heat and the man’s habitual
dissipation were killing him.

‘I’m
sorry I brought you to this,’ Thalric said quietly.

Osgan
lacked the breath to respond, just shaking his head in a denial that could have
meant anything. He grasped at Thalric’s arm abruptly, pointing something out.

Assassins
, was Thalric’s first thought. He hunched
forward, putting a hand out ready to sting. Osgan continued pointing, jabbing a
finger urgently. Thalric tried to follow the direction of it, seeing only more
green, more ferns and rushes and canes, and …

There
was a regularity to some of it, a distinctiveness to the angles. Something
leapt inside him. Ahead of them was something that was not grown naturally, but
built.
But what? Where in the wastes are we?
The
question was swiftly followed by,
It doesn’t matter. We
have no other compass point
. Thalric lurched up, slinging an arm around
Osgan to haul the man to his feet.

‘Go,’ he
urged, and cast himself off into the water, his wings surging instinctively to
half-carry him, with Osgan a weight at the end of his arm. It was all too slow,
he realized at once. They were too exposed. He gave his wings their full rein,
ignoring Osgan’s protest as his unwounded arm was almost wrenched out of its
socket. Between the trees, Thalric spotted crude huts, barely more than
platforms raised above the water and roofed with leaves. He saw movement too,
spreading out to either side of them. They had been noticed.

‘Khanaphes!’
Thalric shouted out. ‘Khanaphes!’ hoping it would be enough to save them.

An arrow
danced past him from behind, a hurried shot surely. He did not turn, continued
towing Osgan through the water, knowing only from the man’s curses that he was
still alive. He had a brief glimpse of a silvery-skinned Mantis woman with
bowstring drawn back, the arrow loosed instantly. There was no sound from
behind, but from her very expression Thalric knew she had found her target.

He
dragged Osgan on to a mud bank. They were sprawled at the edge of the village,
no more than a cluster of spindly shacks gathered about a mound of higher
ground cleared of vegetation. Knowing that nothing he could do now would
matter, Thalric collapsed onto his back, feeling his muscles burn in protest.
Osgan was wheezing and choking beside him, shuddering like a dying thing, but
somehow still alive. He had sprouted no new arrows since, and Thalric could
only hope that the assassins had not survived their clash with the Marsh’s own
killers.

He sensed
movement nearby and pushed himself up on to his elbow. The Mantis-kinden were
approaching, arrows nocked to their bows and spears levelled. These Marsh
people were smaller than the Lowlander kinden that Thalric was familiar with,
but they had the same poise, the same angular grace. Their faces had the same
insular hostility, too. He held up a closed fist to them. ‘We are friends – we
are guests of the city of Khanaphes.’

They had
formed a ragged horseshoe around the two Wasps, leaving open the path leading
to the village. One of them, a woman looking older than the rest, jabbed her
head in that direction, and Thalric let out a great sigh and struggled to his
knees.

‘Come
on,’ he told Osgan, but the man would not move.

‘Can’t
…’ he whined. ‘No further …’

Two of
the Mantids were there instantly, catching him by the arms and lifting him up,
ignoring his screams as the sudden movement tore at his wound. Thalric pushed
one of them aside, moving to catch Osgan. Then he was very still.

Osgan
swayed, still supported by one of the Mantids, almost clinging to him. His
injured arm was held tight to his chest, the bindings newly bloody. Thalric
felt the tiny pinpoint of sharp pain that had come to rest under his jaw,
assuming at first it was a spearhead, then knowing it for an arrow-point. He
took a good moment, in lieu of any fatal attempt at action, to study their
rescuers.

These
were not the shaven-headed servants who had been poling the fishing boats up
and down the river to Amnon’s tune. They were not clad as Khanaphir menials,
merely a little hide and chitin and fish-scale to cover their modesty. Their
long hair was pale, bound back with rings of bone and amber.

‘We are
not your enemies,’ Thalric said carefully. In his mind the sands of the
archer’s strength were running out. She must soon either take the arrow away,
or loose it. ‘We mean you no harm. Return us to Khanaphes and you shall be
rewarded.’

Osgan
gave a bark of pain, dragged without warning towards the village. Thalric
twitched, poised on the point of the arrow and knowing that there were enough
of them to make an end of him whichever way he turned. Without warning the
archer took a step away, the point still unwavering. Thalric followed Osgan’s
halting progress, conscious that every arrowhead and spear was aimed at him.
Ahead, Osgan gave out a horrified cry.

The
mound of earth that the village was strung around was not empty, not quite.
They had erected something there, that Thalric had not registered before, his
first glance letting the crude canework merge into the struts and poles of the
surrounding village. He blinked, trying to identify what it was. Osgan was
struggling now, shrieking for them to let him go, but three of them continued
propelling him towards it effortlessly.

It’s a statue
, Thalric realized, a statue reworked to the
locals’ resources. Just as they had not a coin’s-worth of metal in their
possession, even their weapons being made of bone and wood, so there was no
stone to their statue, just a lattice of canes lashed together into a shape
that seemed abstract at first. Until he stood directly before it, and the
shifting angles and planes of it suddenly made a picture.

It was a
mantis, an openwork sketch of a mantis rendered in three dimensions, its
killing arms raised high above them. The chamber of its body was large enough
to fit a man, and Thalric knew this because the bones of the last occupant were
still inside, buzzing with flies and dripping with a few lingering maggots.
Osgan was still kicking vainly and crying out, and Thalric knew that somehow
this
thing
, this idol, had become Tisamon in his
mind, that what he was fighting against was more within his own head than
outside it.

‘What is
this?’ Thalric demanded, his throat suddenly dry. ‘Do you kill the guests of
the city so close to its walls?’ The Khanaphes card was the only one he had to
play, but he had put it on the table three times now without eliciting any
interest. Now, at last, an old Mantis woman stepped between him and the idol.
Uncomfortably close, she rested one forearm on his shoulder, so he felt her
fighting spines dig slightly into his neck.