The Scarab Path Part 38

Thirty-Five.

Dawn stole in from the east to find the city of Khanaphes at war with itself, split by the no-man's-land of the river Jamail.

On the eastern bank was arrayed the remainder of the Khanaphir army, ready to repel all comers. Some Scorpions had spent the night desultorily nailing together pieces of wood to make rafts ugly, awkward things worked from first principles. In the harsh dawn they quietly abandoned their labours, for there were archers out there, whole detachments of them, both city folk and Marsh folk. Anyone paddling a raft towards them would be riddled with quills as soon as they came in range. The Scorpions lacked the craft to make vessels of any greater complexity. Unless they could somehow lure boats from the far sh.o.r.e, then a crossing would prove fatal.

They had kept some prisoners over, following their triumphant surge into the city. Jakal now ordered each one brought forth before the eyes of the defenders. The Scorpions were inventive and gleeful in their treatment of such prisoners, and they spared nothing, hoping to provoke some futile attempt at rescue. They spent two hours of the first day in burnings and cuttings and rape.

The Khanaphir would not be drawn, however. They watched, each one of them, from their Ministers down to the lowest peasant militiaman, and they saved their resentment for when they could pay it back twice over. They were too disciplined to take the bait.

Which leaves the bridge, Hrathen decided. It was a painful conclusion, if only because the enemy had reached it too. They had fortified the bridge even while they were evacuating their people from the west city. Past the crest of the span they had put up a great barricade, of stone and of wood, while beyond the raised sides of the bridge his gla.s.s could make out constant movement there. He saw spear-tips waving, indicating a small, compact force ready to repel the invaders. They would not need many to hold there, at that choke point.

'They are fools,' Jakal said. 'They should have brought their stones to the bridge's top. They waste their archers.' They had found a vantage on one of the roofs, the better to spy out the enemy.

'If only they had.' Hrathen let out a long breath. 'Angved, explain.'

The old engineer glanced nervously at Jakal. 'Well,' he said, 'if they'd built on the actual zenith of the bridge, we'd be able to shoot them off cleanly with our leadshotters. Simple as that: they'd give us a direct line of sight on them, and we'd knock them straight into the river. Which shows they're finally thinking like a proper army. They're using the arch of the bridge itself as cover.'

'So your weapons are useless now,' Jakal said.

'Oh, I could take them down, sure,' Angved told her calmly. 'Problem is, that bridge is built like their city walls, same stone, same style, save that the bridge isn't even meant meant to stand off an attack. I hit that bridge with a few shots and, odds on, I might just knock a great big hole in it, and then how do we get across? In fact, if they've any explosives to hand, we'd better be careful of them doing the same.' to stand off an attack. I hit that bridge with a few shots and, odds on, I might just knock a great big hole in it, and then how do we get across? In fact, if they've any explosives to hand, we'd better be careful of them doing the same.'

'Where would the Khanaphir get explosives?' Jakal demanded, but Hrathen made an unhappy noise in response.

'They're no longer fighting this alone,' he told her. His spygla.s.s raked across the barricade, seeing blocks of stone built to four feet high, wooden boards added above. It looked solid but not indestructible. 'I've noticed people in dark armour out there. Not locals, for sure. Not many of them, but it looks like they're giving the orders. I think it's our friends from the Iron Glove wanting a little blood.'

'So where does that leave us? I shall ready men for the a.s.sault,' Jakal decided.

'Send in some dross first, a couple of waves of chaff you won't mind losing,' Hrathen advised. 'After that we'll try for a surprise. Angved, get me a petard readied.'

'They're ma.s.sing!' Tirado's high-pitched voice came clearly to them from his hovering point twenty feet up. Totho felt the stir amongst the Khanaphir, the gathering of nerves and determination. The archers were stringing their bows with the ease of long practice, bending the simple slats against their calves to hook the string over. Some were already positioned aloft, standing on the stone barrier with four foot of wooden barricade to cover them. They had been complaining, Amnon said, that they would not get a good enough shot at the Scorpions once they charged, but they had no idea what he had saved them from by having the barrier put up this far back from the apex.

Caltrops were another invention that had never reached Khanaphes. Totho's people had not been allowed the chance to make many, but the ground before the barriers was liberally strewn with the jagged little four-spined iron things, looking like spiders in the dawn light.

The danger he had foreseen was that the Scorpions would come around the sides, clambering and grappling about the edges of the barricade and using the walls of the bridge itself as purchase. They had built the sides out as far as he dared without creating a safe target for the leadshotters, but he had indulged in a little psychology as well. He had sacrificed some of the centre, made a low point where the spearmen would be standing, to give the Scorpions a target. It would seem easier to them to force their way through that choke-point. It would be the task of Amnon and his people to stop them.

Time. Totho had no idea how long they could hold, but the first few waves of attack would provide useful data. How long until the Scorpion host breaks up, hungry and frustrated? How long before ma.s.ses of them start raiding further upriver? How long until the Scorpion host breaks up, hungry and frustrated? How long before ma.s.ses of them start raiding further upriver?

There are so many of them. He was beginning to see the enemy as the locals did. Compared with the size of the Imperial armies he had travelled with, both sides here were betting with pocket change only. Here and now, though, there really were a lot of Scorpions ranged on the other side of the river.

If they just come at us, if they just charge and charge and charge, climbing over their own dead like mad things, we'll be swept off here within hours.

He shifted his shoulders, letting the plates of his pauldrons settle. This new armour had seen no battles yet. This one would be its first. The hush falling on the Khanaphir, as the three of them had arrived, had been shocking. Totho, big Amnon, giant Meyr: three war-automata, things of faceless black metal, lords of war. We are making legends here We are making legends here, he thought, and then: but only if we win but only if we win.

He had hoped Che would be here. She wasn't, and there was no help for that, but he had hoped she might hear of what he was doing, and come to see him off.

He saw the Mantis woman, Teuthete, leap up on to the barricades, with her recurved bow in one hand. There was a scattering of her people here, all archers. It really has been a long time since I fought alongside the Mantis-kinden It really has been a long time since I fought alongside the Mantis-kinden. That felt like another world, another epoch, a story of once upon a time.

Amnon vaulted up to take the centre, of course, his shield on his arm and his spear drawn back. To either side of him were the pick of his Royal Guard, men and women in scaled hauberks, with their elliptical shields and long spears. They were braced, and Totho could hear the thunder of the Scorpions, the roar of their battle cries, as they rushed up the facing slope of the bridge.

Rush on, he thought, and welcome to the modern age and welcome to the modern age.

He did not even have to look. The first screams each denoted a caltrop for him, and he imagined the charge stumbling over itself, warriors trying desperately to stop, feet run through with agony, while being shoved from behind by their heedless fellows. The archers were busy, methodical and unchallenged, as they emptied their quivers into the enemy. There were always more arrows.

Totho clambered up, not too proud to take the offer of a helping hand. The Scorpions were already in retreat, leaving a great bank of their dead that was still yards short spike-studded yards short of the barricade. The archers continued to let fly, sending their arrows over the arch of the bridge on to the fleeing host, heedless of individual targets.

The second and third Scorpion advances were desultory. They came without enthusiasm, barely got within the sight of the archers before they were falling back in a scattered and dispirited rabble. The Khanaphir cheered as their opponents disappeared back beyond the curve of the bridge.

'We can't have broken them,' Amnon stated, stepping down from the breach. He had not yet bloodied his spear. 'They are stronger than that.'

'They're preparing something,' Totho said. He leant back against the stones, feeling their rea.s.suring solidity against his backplate. 'They've got a plan. This is just to keep them busy while they work it up.' He glanced at Amnon, but the man's open, honest face was now a metal carapace, just a dark slot for the eyes.

We look evil in these helms. It was a child's gleeful thought. He imagined the Scorpions seeing Amnon the deathbringer, the black-armoured warlord at the centre of the line. It must give them pause, he thought. It must shake them. The sight was worth a fistful of caltrops, at the very least.

There was a call from the barricades and Amnon stepped back up. A moment later he shouted, 'This is it!'

Totho scrabbled at the stones hurriedly, using his Art to clamber up to the archery platform. What he saw from there wrenched his stomach.

Oh Che, he thought, with a fervent hope that she never learned about this small stratagem.

The Scorpions again crested the bridge's arc, and this time they had brought company. Ahead of their line, herded forward by spears and halberd-points, were perhaps two score Khanaphir, prisoners who had so far escaped torture or butchery. Some were children. Totho glanced at the archers around him, with their strings drawn back, and saw faces abruptly torn with shock.

Shoot them, Totho thought. Shoot them and save the caltrops for the enemy Shoot them and save the caltrops for the enemy. He opened his mouth, looking to see if Amnon would give the command. Shoot them! Do not even think to break ranks and let them through Shoot them! Do not even think to break ranks and let them through. The lines of spears, Amnon and his Royal Guard, all held fast but no orders came.

Bowstrings tw.a.n.ged. It was the Mantis-kinden, drawing and loosing with casual speed, between the prisoners and over them. Totho did not know whether they were confident of their aim or heedless of the consequences. Still, the Scorpions were slowed by their own trick. Each arrow brought a death, winging from over the wooden parapet to plunge through Scorpion mail, through flesh. There were only a dozen Mantids at the wall, though, and the Khanaphir archers still held back, arms trembling and teeth bared.

'Loose!' bellowed Amnon, and Totho wondered whether he had simply not seen the problem, with his vision limited to that unfamiliar slot. Even with his orders, most of the archers did not shoot. Those that did pitched their arrows high, trying to curve down on the Scorpion rear ranks. The advance was now at the bank of bodies that the first wave of attack had left behind.

A great roar went up from the Many of Nem, not just the warriors on the bridge but the whole host on the west bank, and they pushed forward. The rearmost of the prisoners went down at once, lanced through by spears, hacked by axes. The rest fled.

Totho braced himself for it, but it was brutal. As tactics went, it had a clever simplicity that Drephos would have approved of. The prisoners fled towards their fellow citizens, heedless of the spears, but it was not the spears that took them. They plunged on to that unplumbed no-man's-land, and screamed and fell and clambered over each other, and fell again, lanced through by the caltrops. Totho felt the defenders shudder, saw the spearpoints ripple as the soldiers fought against their own instincts. They were an inch away from breaking forward to recover the fallen.

'Hold!' he shouted, and who cared that he was in no position to give orders. 'Hold and ready!' he commanded, just like a real battlefield officer, like a Wasp captain who had only his voice to keep his unruly soldiers in line.

Oh, if only artifice could give us the Ants' mindlink.

But they held. It was their discipline or Amnon's steady presence, or even Totho's exhortation, but they held. There were tears in some eyes, and hands shook. The Scorpions were coming.

They enacted a savage mercy upon the fallen as they came, stamping and hacking at them, working themselves into a greater frenzy. Arrows, long restrained, punched into them, but they were at the barricades now, and the dead Khanaphir were a few extra inches of height to a.s.sault the spears.

Still, it was fully four feet of stone and a wooden lip, and a fence of spears beyond. The Scorpion a.s.sault broke against those defences. Lean, tall men and women, like fanged and clawed monsters, were run through a dozen times as they leapt up like madmen. They fell back, pulling the spears along with them, as they died faster than new lances could be pa.s.sed from the back. Halberd blades cracked shields, even split the wood of the barricades. The shock of that first impact whiplashed back through the Scorpion lines, but it did not stop them. This time they kept coming.

Totho fitted a magazine to his snapbow, the model he had made with his own hands, and set to work. As the archers either side of him fitted their arrows, drew back and let fly, he directed the weapon into the enemy and depressed the trigger, feeling the minute kick, the explosive snap-snap-snap-snap-snap as it discharged. Five bolts, and he had remembered to swing his arm to rake this volley across the host. Otherwise he would have put them all virtually in the same target, killing one wretched Scorpion so unnecessarily dead that anatomists would have refused the body as a teaching specimen.

Totho ducked back behind the parapet and charged the battery, not lever-pumped as with the originals, but wheel-pumped for smoothness and speed. His gauntleted hands spun the little winch-handle with the ease of long familiarity, and then he was ready to empty the other half of the magazine into them.

No bloodl.u.s.t required, he thought. No howling hordes, no particular strength, not even any real skill, at this close range. I have made war a province of the intellectual No howling hordes, no particular strength, not even any real skill, at this close range. I have made war a province of the intellectual. Snap-snap-snap-snap-snap, the finger-sized bolts punching through armoured men, sometimes two or even three at a time, unstoppable. They had no idea what was killing them, and most of them were dead on impact, a narrow hole drilled through chest or skull becoming a fist-sized gob of gore by the time it made its exit. He took another magazine and clicked it into place with his thumb, forcing the old one out into his waiting hand.

I did well, when I made these.

Something struck him in the chest, and he was abruptly airborne, flying for a moment before he struck the side of the bridge hard enough to hammer the breath from him. The armour saved him from broken bones, but for a moment he just lay there, unable to understand what had happened. He levered his helmet back, craning to look down. There was a dent and a long scar across his mail, and his professional understanding supplied: crossbow bolt crossbow bolt.

He looked up just as one of Amnon's people was punched backwards, the short end of another bolt lodged in his throat. Shields were being raised along the line, and he saw how the archers had pitched their aim higher, shooting further. Totho levered himself to his feet, feeling the pain of a body-length bruise. Despite it, he levered himself onto the barricade again, to get a look over the parapet.

There was a line of crossbowmen up on the very apex of the bridge, not shooting all together but each man intent on dragging the string back and loosing as swiftly as he could. Before them stood a rank of Scorpion-kinden with shields, trying to keep them under cover from the Khanaphir archers. The shields were all of city make, Totho noticed, so the Scorpions had not been idle in their pillaging.

Shields, is it? There were plenty of arrow spines bristling on those captured shields, for the Khanaphir shortbows did not have the strength to penetrate them. Totho grinned to himself, within the privacy of his helm, and charged his snapbow again. There were plenty of arrow spines bristling on those captured shields, for the Khanaphir shortbows did not have the strength to penetrate them. Totho grinned to himself, within the privacy of his helm, and charged his snapbow again.

Teuthete loosed a shaft that split one of the enemy shields, lancing on through to kill its bearer outright. The Mantis recurves had a prodigious power to them, but Totho carried something better.

He sighted up on the Scorpion line, using the notches and the little annotated scale he had meticulously cut into the weapon's sight, thus adjusting for his best guess at distance and elevation. It was like employing a little siege engine.

He loosed, more careful this time, pausing after each shot to find his next target. When he was done, there was a gap five shields wide in the Scorpion defence. He dropped back to recharge his weapon. Let the archers get busy now Let the archers get busy now.

'Totho!' Amnon bellowed, and he was on his feet in an instant.

'What is it?' Totho's eyes scanned the surging Scorpion host, trying to spot what the other man had seen. He wasted precious time trying to fit a view of the entire battle into the slot of his helm, before he dragged it off to see. 'Oh ...' And what? For a second he was frozen, not a military man at all but an artificer feeling abruptly out of place. Then: 'Shoot them down! The bearers! Shoot them!' It was too close, though. Too close already. The Scorpion lines were falling back raggedly, many of their men staying on alone to hack at the defenders. They must not realize what it is They must not realize what it is. Totho knew what it was, though. A petard. An explosive. A wall-breaker.

Too close. He ran along the width of the barricade and hooked one hand under Amnon's pauldron, before hurling himself back, shouting, 'Get off the wall!'

For a moment he thought Amnon would simply not budge and he would be left hanging from the man's armour like a trophy. Then his own weight told, and Amnon was falling back as, for the second time, Totho dropped from the barricade.

If Amnon falls on top of me he'll kill me. It was an odd candidate for potential last thoughts.

He struck the stone of the bridge and skidded, actually seeing a few sparks from the ridges of his breastplate, then he heard an almighty clatter as Amnon fell by his feet.

Totho braced himself as best he could.

There was a pause in which he wondered, Has it failed to go off? Has it failed to go off?

It went off.

The force of the blast shook every stone of the bridge, even though it had been such a small petard. The shock lifted Totho up and put him down half a foot further back.

He got to his feet, head ringing with the sound of it, turning to see what extent of ruin had been wreaked on them.

The barricade was still there, incredibly. The stones of the centre had been shoved back six feet so that the entire construction was a funnel now, and the upper stones had been toppled from the lower, stripping two feet off the centre's height. At least ten of Amnon's spearmen were dead, torn apart by the blast. Three times as many Scorpions must have stayed in the fight and been ripped into pieces. For those who had remembered to fall back, there was now a great hole yawning in the centre of the Khanaphir defence.

He could not hear them charge but he felt it, even as he frantically charged his snapbow, hoping its mechanism had survived the fall. Amnon lurched to his feet, too far and too late now to hold the breach. Totho saw the Scorpion vanguard surge forward, the surviving Royal Guard trying to form up against them.

His sight of them was suddenly half blocked by a wall of black metal. Something impossibly huge surged forth to meet the Scorpions, armoured head to foot in black, with a shield the size of a door, and propelled by an irresistible momentum. Meyr was entering the battle, wielding in one hand a spiked bludgeon that had been made for a strong man to hold in both. Totho actually saw one Scorpion warrior switch abruptly from slavering charge to a frantic halt, as the colossal metal warrior rose in front of him and the weighted mace came sweeping down.

The Empire had long known that Mole Cricket-kinden were superb labourers, craftsmen, miners and porters, but also that they were poor warriors. Their huge strength was a slow strength. An insect of their size could have moved like water and lightning in the fray, but they themselves were weighted with clumsy flesh and bone. Their first strike would shatter armour and bodies, but skilled soldiers would slip within their reach and be bathing in their blood before they could strike again.

The Iron Glove had cured that deficiency. The Scorpions struck at Meyr with their greatswords and their axes. They were strong, fierce warriors but Meyr was armoured in aviation-grade steel layered three times over. As the Khanaphir spears jabbed past him from either side, the Mole Cricket simply stood in the front line and smashed every Scorpion he could reach and his reach was long. They were still coming from behind their fellows, crushing together, so he could not miss. The warriors in the fore were soon fighting against their comrades, trying to get out of his way. After Meyr smashed his mace apart he s.n.a.t.c.hed a Scorpion halberd, and then one of their five-foot swords, striking so hard with it that he bent the blade.

They surged and pushed at him, trying with sheer numbers to drag him down. Something was dancing about his shoulders now, and Totho experienced a moment of confusion before he could work out what it was.

It was Teuthete the Mantis. As though she weighed nothing, she was crouching on the shifting pauldrons of Meyr's armour, shooting down into the Scorpion throng. She danced in time with him, used him as her personal platform, swaying contemptuously aside from the crossbow bolts that sought her.

Amnon was beside them next, hacking with his sword at any Scorpion who managed to escape Meyr's onslaught. Totho knew that he should join them up there and put his snapbow to use, but he just watched and watched in awe as that impossible trio and the Khanaphir soldiers turned back the tide, killing with skill and fervour and monstrous brute strength, until even the Scorpions lost their taste for bloodshed and fell back under the constant rain of arrows.

Totho felt exhausted, beaten black and blue, and he had not so much as struck anyone with his fist. Another squad of the diminishing Royal Guard had come forward to seize the breach. Meyr, when he turned round, was painted red, coated with what he had made of the Many of Nem. The giant sat down on a fallen stone, knees up at chest level. He pushed back his helm and inhaled breath in vast lungfuls.

'Well done,'Totho commended him.

'We're ... not done yet,' Meyr panted, between breaths. 'Have you seen how many many of them there are?' of them there are?'

'I know.' Totho laid a hand on his shoulder, such a tiny gesture in comparison. Some of the Khanaphir had come forward with water, and they began to clean the Mole Cricket's armour as though it was a sacred honour for them.

It was noon, or so the sun said. They had held the Scorpions at bay for half a day.

'Tirado!' he shouted out, realizing that he had not seen the Fly-kinden for much of the fight. His call was immediately followed by the small figure landing beside him. 'Where in the wastes have you been?' he snapped.

'Keeping myself out of trouble, chief,' the Fly said. 'You wanted?'

'Go to the Scriptora. Find ... find Maker, the Collegiate amba.s.sador, and tell her ... Tell her I want to see her. Ask nicely-' He stopped, on seeing figures approaching from the east sh.o.r.e. 'Never mind. Wait on.'

They were Khanaphir civilians, carrying baskets of food for the soldiers, but among them strode a tall woman with a full head of hair. Even as Totho recognized her, Amnon strode past him with arms outstretched. It was Rakespear, the Collegiate scholar, who threw herself against his breastplate, and then stepped back to stare.

'My life, look at you,' she said. 'You look like a sentinel.'

'If you say so.' Amnon managed a tired grin. 'Thank Totho for it. It's saved my life already.'

'Then I do thank him.' Praeda Rakespear nodded to Totho briefly. 'How is the defence?'

'Too early to say. They'll come back,' said Amnon. The food was being distributed among the defenders, and Totho found a cloth-wrapped parcel pushed into his hands. Being used to Solarnese cuisine, which was spicy and hot, he had found Khanaphir food too bland or subtle for his taste. Just then he was hungry enough to eat anything.

'Mistress Rakespear,' he said, 'is Che ... is Mistress Maker ...? I was wondering if she would come here, to speak with me.'

'Che?' Praeda frowned at him. 'Do you know where she is?'

Totho stared. 'Is she not with you? With you and the old man?'

'n.o.body seems to have seen her since yesterday,' Praeda told him. 'I've asked the Ministers, but they don't seem to understand. She's gone missing before. She ... she's not been acting rationally.'

'Tirado,'Totho ordered. 'Go and find her.'

'Right you are.' The Fly bolted whatever he was eating, and lifted off into the sky, wings glittering, heading across the river towards the east. Totho grimaced. That b.l.o.o.d.y woman can't keep out of trouble to save her life That b.l.o.o.d.y woman can't keep out of trouble to save her life, and then, But am I really in a position to judge her? But am I really in a position to judge her?

He found a flat s.p.a.ce of stone away from the locals and set to eating as quickly and efficiently as possible, so as not to be interrupted.

Someone sat down beside him. He started in surprise and looked up to see one of Amnon's Guard, a woman ten years his senior, her scaled armour streaked with blood. A younger man sat on the far side of her, his helm removed, his bald head gleaming. Totho regarded them both cautiously.

'I am Dariset,' the woman announced, before biting into the hunk of bread they had given her.

'Ptasmon,' said the man.