The Scarab Path (54 page)

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Meyr’s reckoning, outdated and obsolete weapons and engines that the Empire was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.’

It was a bright, cloudless morning, as they always seemed to be here. The
dust of an army on the move had not yet started to choke the air. The war-host
of the Many of Nem was just stirring.

In the
distance, within a day’s hard strike, the green that was the river Jamail was
in sight, with all its treasures. Through a spyglass, focusing the little
device awkwardly with his clawed hands, Hrathen could see the walls of
Khanaphes in some detail. He passed the glass to Angved the engineer. ‘Your
professional opinion?’