The Scarab Path (81 page)

How many have we killed?
Totho wondered. The Khanaphir
cleared the bodies away each time, otherwise there would surely be a ramp of
the dead to overcome the barricade. There was still a mighty host arrayed on
the western shore, undaunted and more thirsty than ever for blood. Were they
hungry yet? How were the sands of time falling on the other side of the river?
How long would they have to hold off the Many of Nem before their war-host
began to disintegrate?

I think it is now clear that it will be longer than we have the
capability to withstand them
.

The
Scorpions came into sight amid a hail of arrows. The first four ranks held
stolen shields fore and above, shrugging off the worst of the storm until the
painted wood bristled. There would be crossbowmen concealed inside that
carapace to either side, and in the centre a core of furious armoured warriors
with two-handed swords and great-axes, the hammer that would leap up to strike
the Khanaphir guard.

It was
as well learned as parade-ground drilling now, by both sides. The shields were
raised, the crossbows jutted, the vanguard of the Scorpion host leapt up the
buckled stones towards their foes, impaling themselves on spears, splitting
shields, trying to break the Royal Guard by sheer strength. The archers loosed
and loosed, riddling either side of the charge with arrows, trying for the pale
gaps between the dark armour. Crossbows raked them, plunging into the wooden
barricades, flying overhead, hurling the unlucky backwards with the impact of
their short heavy bolts. Totho trusted to his mail and shot into the fray,
knowing that no shield or armour would save his enemies from him.

Amnon
was crying again for them to hold firm. Totho saw him in his place at the fore,
lending the others his strength. Meyr fought, looming over him, a Nemian
halberd held in one hand like a wood-axe. Abruptly there were a lot of
Scorpions up on the stones, hammering at the Khanaphir. They were dying, the
attackers. They were pierced through with spears, hacked with swords, but they
had a courage, an insane and reckless courage, that Totho could not understand.
They were dying, but were replaced as quickly, and now the ragged defenders were
giving ground. Amnon’s voice boomed high above the fray, exhorting them in the
name of their city to stand, but it was not their will but their sheer strength
that was giving way.

‘Fliers!’
came Tirado’s own shout. ‘Wasp airborne!’

The
archers, save for those closest the breach, immediately turned towards the sky.
There was a scattering of Wasp-kinden coming in fast over the heads of the
Scorpions and the defenders’ arrows began to reach out for them. They dodged
and darted about in the air, two of them dropping as the shafts found them.
Totho turned his attention to the breach again.

Meyr was
fighting unarmed in the front line now, simply grabbing Scorpions and hurling
them off the bridge, or slapping them back into their fellows with
bone-crushing force. Their swords and axes rang off his armour, lacing it with
scratches and dents. He barely seemed to notice them. Totho saw a halberd slam
down on the giant’s wrist and just leap back from the double-linked chainmail
that covered it.
Stone me, but we built well when we built
that
.

There
was a wash of heat from a fire grenade, but it had landed amidst the Scorpion
flank after its bearer was shot down. The other impromptu grenadiers were
veering away, the arrows coming at them too thickly to dodge. Another spun head
over heels down into the water.

‘They’re
circling left!’ Tirado shrieked, his voice increasingly hoarse. ‘Coming in over
the water—’ A moment later he screamed, ‘I’m shot!’ Totho searched the sky for
him frantically, but the Fly had already been thrown from it, transfixed by a
crossbow bolt, a tiny figure writhing amongst the Khanaphir wounded.

‘Hold
fast!’ Amnon cried out, in a voice fit to be heard by the spectators at either
end of the bridge. Totho heard the boom of the leadshotters from the shore and
knew that the
Iteration
was coming in to try and
relieve them. A moment later began the rapid rattling of its smallshotters. The
Khanaphir were still holding the breach but there were none of the Royal Guard
left in reserve; every man and woman was now committed to the fray. Totho saw
Ptasmon and Dariset fighting to Amnon’s left. Dariset’s face was awash with
blood from a gash to her brow, her helm knocked clean from her head. Ptasmon’s
shield was shattered and he laid about himself with both spear and sword. Totho
emptied his snapbow into the attackers and reached for the next magazine,
slotting it fumblingly into place. With frantic speed he charged his piece,
already knowing he would be too late.

A
Scorpion lance rammed into Ptasmon, piercing his scaled hauberk. Totho saw his
mouth gape wide, and then Ptasmon had thrown himself forward into the enemy,
hacking blindly at them, bringing half a dozen down in a tangle of limbs.
Dariset was screaming something Totho could not hear.

Totho
drew his own sword. It was a shortsword, as he had trained with in Collegium.
There was nothing special about it. He unslung his shield.

Che …

He leapt
down from the archery platform and found Ptasmon’s footprints, shouldering his
way into the shield-wall. He was no great warrior, but a man adequate through
dull practice with the blade.
I trust to my artifice. I
trust to the armour that the Iron Glove’s intellect has brought into being
.
He put his sword into the face of a looming Scorpion, the reciprocal axe-blow
bounding from his shield with a force that ran all the way up to his shoulder.

Shards of broken water scattered over the deck after the leadshotters’
latest miss, too close for comfort. The
Iteration
was heading for the bridge arch again, keeping itself a moving target, but the
Scorpions were gradually learning. The art of the artillerist was not something
that should come naturally to a savage pack of barbarians, but field practice
was the best practice. Corcoran had the uncomfortable feeling that he was
standing in as some kind of training instructor for the entire Nemian nation.

The
smallshotters cracked and boomed from the port rail, their crews reloading as
swiftly as they could, also now considerably more practised than they had been.
It was the sort of thing that Totho or the Old Man went on about, the way that
war honed invention and its uses. Corcoran was a pragmatist, though: the
philosophy of artifice interested him only in so far as he could make money by
selling it.

The next
booming impact on the river was right at their stern, rocking the whole
metal-reinforced ship as though a giant had taken it up and shaken it. They
were in long crossbow range, too and, although the bolts that rebounded from
the hull or clattered on the deck were a nuisance, a lucky shot could still be
fatal.

He could
see nothing of the fighting on the bridge itself, but the Scorpions were
crowding the shore again, each pushing for his turn in the meat-grinder.
They’re all mad
, Corcoran decided.
They
must be. The wise man would step back and wait. No sense throwing yourself into
the teeth of the mill
. Plainly the Scorpions felt differently.

A
crossbow bolt skipped across the rail and hit his backplate with the force of a
light slap, making him stagger into the next swell. His armour was not the
aviation-grade stuff that Totho wore, just blackened steel breast-and-back and
an open-faced helm, but at this distance it was more than adequate.

‘Get
those archers off us, someone!’ he snapped.

‘Get
them yourself,’ one of his artillerists replied. ‘Look at them.’ It was true.
Since the
Iteration
’s last pass the Scorpions had
brought a load of wood and stone rubble to the bank and the shallows. The
Scorpion crossbowmen were using this to shoot from, and the scattershot the
smallshotters were loaded with could do little about it. It would be wasting
time and ammunition to try and winkle them out. Already many of the
smallshotters were being loaded with fistfuls of glass, stone and nails. The
Iron Glove’s quartermasters had not anticipated the Khanaphir delegation
getting into a war.

I never wanted to be in a war
, Corcoran reminded himself.
I just wanted to sell the means to other people. Is that so
wrong?
It had been a pleasant time, initially, living it up as a foreign
dignitary in Khanaphes, but then it had all gone to the pits.

They
were passing into the bridge’s shadow now, Hakkon keeping a steady hand on the
tiller. One of the leadshotters on the far side touched off too eagerly, and
they saw a shower of glimmering water through the archway.

‘Speed
up! Engines full!’ Corcoran decided.

‘Not in
this space—’ Hakkon started.

‘Do it!
They’ll be ready for us else!’

He heard
the roar of the
Iteration
’s engines mount until the
air beneath the arch shook with it. There was a spray of sparks and a shriek of
tortured metal as the starboard side ground into the stone before the helmsman
could correct the course. The weapons crews had all unhooked their
smallshotters from the rail, for fear of losing them to the sides.

‘Brace
yourselves, this isn’t going to be fun!’ Corcoran shouted at them. He had no
idea whether they had heard him, but they all looked sufficiently braced.

The
Fourth Iteration
leapt out from the archway on to the open
river, above the bridge. The crews were already replacing their weapons when
the Scorpion ordnance burst around them.

For a
moment it seemed that the entire river had erupted. They could see nothing
through the spray drenching them from all sides. Something struck them hard
about the bows, heeling the
Iteration
well over to
starboard, and pointing her away from the Scorpion shore. Another solid shot
came down from its arc and smashed the starboard rail near the helm. Hakkon was
wrestling with the wheel, trying to turn them back.

The ship
rocked back, engines still churning at full speed. At least one man had been
lost over the side, and more than one of the smallshotters had dropped straight
past the rail. Corcoran half clawed, half rolled over to the port rail, holding
hard to it, trying to take stock.

The
first of the smallshotters cracked, sending its fistful of debris into the
gathered Scorpions.

It could have been worse
. There was either a dent or a
hole in the bows, but above the waterline.
It could have
been worse
.

‘Watch
out!’

He had
no idea who called, in that spare second, no guess in what direction to be
watching. He just clung to the rail and closed his eyes.

The
impact, when it came, was shattering. The deck jumped beneath him, almost hard
enough to throw him overboard. The ship lurched, a movement so unnatural it was
as though the water had been changed, for one moment, into something solid and
jagged.

Corcoran
reeled, staring about. He saw the fresh plume of firepowder smoke, but not from
where the main Scorpion artillery was positioned. This was on the flat roof of
one of the riverfront houses.
They got a leadshotter onto
the roof?
Whoever had been aiming it had been good enough to drop a shot
straight on them …

He
became aware that the clamour of battle was missing one important sound.

‘The
engines! What’s wrong with the …’ The words died even as he turned. The stern
of the
Iteration
was a splintered mess. Whether by
chance or skill, the rooftop artillerist had struck true. There was a hole
broken clear through the deck. The wheel was gone, and if there was anything
much left of Hakkon, then Corcoran did not want to go and look at it. A vast
white cloud was vomiting up from the hole.
And that would
be steam
, Corcoran decided.
The bastards have
cracked a boiler
.

The
Iteration
, turned halfway from the enemy, was cruising to
a slow halt, though the smallshotter men were still loosing shot with grim
determination.

Corcoran’s
hands slipped to the buckles of his armour and released them, the mail
clattering to the deck. He thumbed off his helmet even as the first of the
enemy leadshotters took its next shot at them, clipping the bows by a gnat’s
wing.

‘Time to
go!’ he called. ‘Leave any way you can. Swim, fly, grab a plank and paddle! I
mean it, lads!’ All around him there were men already taking his advice. They
shed what little armour they were wearing with frantic speed. Those who could
get airborne, Bee-kinden and a few halfbreeds, flashed open their wings and
took off for the far shore. Others were still carrying on the fight, reloading
and emptying the smallshotters as fast as they could.

Another
enemy shot raised a tower of water astern, and then one struck them full
amidships. Corcoran was thrown off his feet, clean across the deck, stopping
only when he tangled with the broken rail. He heard the snapping of timbers and
the shriek of abused metal. ‘Abandon ship!’ he screamed to anyone that would
listen. His people were jumping into the water in ones and twos. It was a long
way to safety across the river, but they were not short of wooden ballast to
help them along. The locals did not swim, and surely the Scorpions did not, but
most of the
Iteration
’s crew had been born and
brought up around the clear waters of the Exalsee.

Corcoran
kicked his boots off. The ship was listing at a sick angle, the port rail
almost under water. The men who threw themselves into the river from there were
providing targets for the crossbowmen, whose bolts skipped across the waves
towards them. Corcoran scrabbled and slipped, trying to reach the higher
starboard rail to throw himself clear there with the ship’s bulk to shield him.
There was an escalating shriek from the engines, and he knew that whatever
damage they had sustained had not prevented the boiler pressure rising: they
would blow at any moment.