The Scarab Path Part 7

'I don't understand,' she said, but a wind had struck up along with his reproach, tugging now at the empty rigging. She had to shout it again. 'I can't put you down! You won't let me!'

He shook his head. When he spoke again, his voice was the wind, just as the voice of the haunted forest Darakyon had been the myriad sounds of the leaves. You put yourself on the rack of my memory. You turn the wheel yourself You put yourself on the rack of my memory. You turn the wheel yourself.

'That's not true!' she shouted at him. 'It's not fair. I want you alive, but I can't have you alive, and nor will you be dead! What can I do? Do you want me to follow you?' Standing there beneath that featureless sky, she wondered if she might already have done. Is this death, this petrified sea? Is this death, this petrified sea?

The wind died abruptly, leaving nothing but the two of them staring at each other. 'I am dead and gone, Che,' he said, and it was once more the voice of the man who had loved her, against all the dictates of history and his own people. 'Do not raise me up like this to injure yourself. I am gone. Just let me go.'

He made to turn away and she rushed at him, determined to hold him in her arms. For a moment she had the cloth of his robe in her hands, but then he was gone, and the rail was gone too, and she was falling with a shriek towards the razor-sharp claws of the frozen ocean ...

Waking, suddenly, for once she remembered exactly where she was. She slipped from the bunk, felt herself swaying in time with the ship's pitch and yaw. Praeda muttered something and turned over, looking pale with her face sheened in sweat. All the Collegium academics had turned out to be poor sailors, and the Vekken were keeping to their cabin so obstinately that the same was probably true of them. The sea along this craggy coast did not rest easy, but Che had found herself proof against it. She dressed in her tunic and cloak, and pattered barefoot out into the walkway running between cabins. Around her the wood of the ship creaked and shifted, and she found it an oddly comforting sound, a created thing behaving in the way it had been intended.

Up above, it was cold but the change was refreshing to her. There was a handful of sailors still at their duties, Spider-kinden all and mostly men. If not for the dream, she might just have watched them work. They did everything with such conscious elegance, as though they had stayed out here not to work the ship but to perform for Cheerwell Maker. It was not the killing grace of the Mantis-kinden, but something more showy, and which they took more joy in.

She scanned the rails, finding nothing, no smear nor smudge of him. The sails billowed and the waves rolled the ship up on to their backs, and then sloughed it down the other side. The sky above boasted stars and a slice of the moon, save to port where the cliffs ate out a deeper darkness, unrelieved by anything.

She took a deep breath of the sea air, feeling the deck shift beneath her feet, her toes flexing automatically for balance. Below, the others would still be sleeping fitfully, groaning, or staggering off to be ill. Che, who had suffered the airships and the automotive, had at last found a vessel she was comfortable with.

But of course. The Lord Janis Lord Janis was built by the Inapt, crewed by the Inapt, and it therefore carried her along with it smoothly, while it dragged the others by force. She smiled at that, despite all her worries. Of all the rest, only Trallo had been weathering this rough sea well, and she guessed that it was sheer experience, in his case. He had made such trips so often that the sea held no more terrors for him. was built by the Inapt, crewed by the Inapt, and it therefore carried her along with it smoothly, while it dragged the others by force. She smiled at that, despite all her worries. Of all the rest, only Trallo had been weathering this rough sea well, and she guessed that it was sheer experience, in his case. He had made such trips so often that the sea held no more terrors for him.

The ship changed its tack noticeably, slanting away from the cliffs. Ahead, along the dark and starless line of the land, Che could see a red spark high enough to challenge the moon.

'What is it?' she demanded of the nearest sailor. He looked at her mockingly at first, but swallowed some flippant answer and said, 'The Light of Suphat.'

'The what?'

'A great fire atop a tower, that warns us where the rocks are.'

'A lighthouse,' she realized.

He shrugged. 'Stay above decks, lady, you shall see two more along the cliffs, named Amnet and Dekkir. When we have pa.s.sed Dekkir, which shall be near dawn, we shall be within reach of the harbour of Khanaphes.'

After the ship had pa.s.sed the Light of Dekkir, and after dawn had come, sluggish, to the Sunroad Sea, the land had changed, the cliffs falling smoothly away until the Lord Janis Lord Janis made its smooth progress across a sh.o.r.eline of sand. The beach ran inland as far as the eye could see, and Che realized it was the desert, the true desert. made its smooth progress across a sh.o.r.eline of sand. The beach ran inland as far as the eye could see, and Che realized it was the desert, the true desert.

'How can it be so dry, right next to the sea?' she asked. There were odd defiant clumps of gorse and thornbushes, and a big ridge-sh.e.l.led beetle was carefully collecting the dew that had condensed across its carapace. Other than that, life seemed to have abandoned the place.

'Dry means no rain, that's all,' Manny Gorget pointed out. He was leaning heavily on the rail, still looking green despite the easier going. 'Find me a map and I'll show you where the rain stops. It's all in the wind and the landscape. Salt water's no subst.i.tute.' When he could be persuaded to talk on his subject, he was quite competent.

Che turned to Trallo, who had been making some arrangements with the captain. 'Have you been there? The desert?'

'Just the once.' His smile was thin-lipped. 'Not nice. And you have to pick a time when the Scorpion-kinden aren't on the warpath.'

'But how can they live out there? How can anything survive?'

'Bella Cheerwell, you have to look cursed hard to find a place where n.o.body n.o.body lives. People find a way, always. Now, Sieur Gorget, would you go roust your fellows? We're going to be coming up on the city soon and, frankly, if you visit Khanaphes, you should see it from the seaward side.' lives. People find a way, always. Now, Sieur Gorget, would you go roust your fellows? We're going to be coming up on the city soon and, frankly, if you visit Khanaphes, you should see it from the seaward side.'

'What happens when we arrive?' Che asked him, as Manny lurched off unsteadily against the ship's swell.

'I find out how welcome we are, to start with,' Trallo said. 'They're odd fish, these Khanaphir. They're quiet as you like, hard-working, polite, and if they don't like you, you might as well turn around and go away, because you'll never change it no matter what. So I'll take a sounding, as the sailors say, and find out how best to stay on their good side.'

'I'm glad we've got you along,' she told him.

'The labourer is worth his hire,' he said. 'I'll see about letting word trickle to the Ministers, about you being an amba.s.sador. Until they come to you, you mustn't try to push in on them.'

'I've no intention of it. All I really need to do is make sure Master Gripshod and the others get to study the place, and they can probably do that just by standing and looking.'

'Hmm, two things,' Trallo said. 'First, don't poke and pry until I give the all-clear. They are a very private people, the Khanaphir. Second, don't call him that.'

'What?'

'Master Gripshod or Gripshod or Master Master anything. Local customs, local rules. They keep the word "Master" for other purposes, and it's got nothing to do with people like us.' anything. Local customs, local rules. They keep the word "Master" for other purposes, and it's got nothing to do with people like us.'

He was quite serious. She waited for him to elaborate, and he shrugged.

'I'm not saying that I understand it. I've been to Khanaphes a score of times and I still don't understand the place. But, take my word for it, find some other way to make introductions.'

She was below when the Lord Janis Lord Janis began to tack, but she felt the change in the timbers, and ran up on deck to see. began to tack, but she felt the change in the timbers, and ran up on deck to see.

The desert had turned green. While her back was turned the land had been colonized by a vast expanse of reeds and spidery-rooted trees and huge arthrophytes twice as high as a man, all sprouting from a maze of little water channels. The Lord Janis Lord Janis was taking in sail, slowing down, and Che saw that it was angling for a broad watercourse that cut through the marsh ahead, a river in its own right. was taking in sail, slowing down, and Che saw that it was angling for a broad watercourse that cut through the marsh ahead, a river in its own right.

The others were a.s.sembled on deck by now: the three academics standing forward of the mast, the two Vekken sullenly behind it. Che went to join Berjek Gripshod, watching the riot of vegetation pa.s.s by on the port side.

'The Jamail delta,' Trallo clarified for them. 'Goes on for miles. Once a year they dredge the main channel clear of silt, but it still moves around a bit. It all does. They say n.o.body but the natives can find their way in there from day to day.'

The channel itself was wide enough for five ships like the Janis Janis to have sailed in abreast. It was a truce with nature, for beyond those carefully maintained borders the greenery ran mad. There were flies and dragonflies near man-size quartering the air over the water, and she saw something huge and brown and slimy-looking surface to peer at the ship with goggling eyes. to have sailed in abreast. It was a truce with nature, for beyond those carefully maintained borders the greenery ran mad. There were flies and dragonflies near man-size quartering the air over the water, and she saw something huge and brown and slimy-looking surface to peer at the ship with goggling eyes.

'This river is life, basically,' Trallo was saying. 'This river is Khanaphes and all the other towns north of it. This is the line of green through the desert that everyone here needs to survive.'

Something caught Che's eye, something too rigid and angular to be natural. Between the ferns and the articulated trunks of horsetails, she saw huts a rabble of little straw-roofed hovels lifted out of the water on stilts. She caught a glimpse of people, and then a boat gliding through the shallow channels, half-obscured by the green. A moment later it cut out on to the river behind the Lord Janis Lord Janis, a long, low boat with a high bow and stern, constructed only from reeds and rope. A woman with silvery-grey skin was effortlessly poling it near the bank. Almost unsurprised, now, Che recognized her as a Mantis-kinden. She looked anxiously at the Spider sailors, but none of them paid the native the slightest attention.

They do things differently here.

'And there we go,' said Trallo.

Che followed his gaze and caught her breath. The academics, too, were abruptly at the rail, staring.

'Khanaphes, the majestic, the mysterious,' said the showman, Trallo, as though he was charging admission.

Ahead of them, the river was flanked by squared pillars of stone four storeys high, vast at the base and barely tapering as they reached up to support the sky. The stone of the pillars was a dusty tan, while the statues set into their faces gleamed white. They stood almost the entire height of the pillars, carved seamlessly from marble, a man and a woman, barely clad and walking forward. The sculptor had lavished infinite care on their colossal proportions, the man's body heavy and broad-waisted, the woman's rounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips, the flowing cascade of long hair down both sets of shoulders. Their faces viewed the marsh and the sea with cold beat.i.tude. These were the countenances of a man and woman who ruled everything they saw as far as the wave-stirred horizon and beyond. Before that commanding, all-encompa.s.sing gaze the academics momentarily quailed. Che felt a shiver go through her, witnessing such perfection in stone. Those were beautiful faces, but they were appalling in their utter lack of empathy. It was no failing of the sculptor, though: the hands that had shaped them had carved and chipped to instil them with just such a coldness.

They were certainly not Beetle-kinden. No trick of style could ever have transformed them out of something so mundane. Che had never seen anyone or anything that even approached them.

'The Estuarine Gate,' Trallo announced, but she barely heard him. The blind stone gaze seemed to follow the matchwood thing that was the Lord Janis Lord Janis as it pa.s.sed through the gulf between them and they saw Khanaphes proper. as it pa.s.sed through the gulf between them and they saw Khanaphes proper.

It was a city built of stones more so than any other place Che had seen. Houses raised of tan masonry cl.u.s.tered thickly about both sides of the river, and beyond the single-cell dwellings of the poor loomed the edifices of the wealthy. Avenues flanked by pillars led off toward statue-adorned squares where great squatting palaces faced one another, rising higher and higher, each surrounded by a miniature city of smaller structures, and the gaps between them filled with meaner dwellings and workshops.

'Well, rack me,' Berjek Gripshod exclaimed softly. 'Now look at that.'

The Janis Janis pulled in skilfully at a dock near the gate, and the crew tied up. With the gangplank down, Che led the way on to the wharves of Khanaphes. Even the pier they were moored to was of stone. pulled in skilfully at a dock near the gate, and the crew tied up. With the gangplank down, Che led the way on to the wharves of Khanaphes. Even the pier they were moored to was of stone. How many pairs of hands, how many years, to make all this? How many pairs of hands, how many years, to make all this? And yet so little of it looked recent. Time had laid its rounding hand on each surface and angle. And yet so little of it looked recent. Time had laid its rounding hand on each surface and angle.

'Look,' said Berjek, and he sounded as though he was going to weep. Even the buildings nearest to them, mere stone huts, were intricately carved. Some simply had borders of angular, stylized images etched on to them, others bore whole panels of complex, intricate, indecipherable work. Looking around, Che could not see a single surface of stonework, even the pier beneath her sandals, that had not somehow been ill.u.s.trated.

'We should have brought more people,' Berjek said hoa.r.s.ely. This was hopeless. It would take an army of scholars all their lives to record this. The city was its own library.

Trallo was meanwhile organizing the luggage, his two Solarnese hauling it down on to the quayside. Che stepped aside from the academics, and the brooding Vekken, and stared into the crowd. The docks were a continuous bustle, a dozen ships unloading, the same number again preparing to cast off. There were men and women of many different kinden there, together with a swarm of the ubiquitous bald-headed Beetles. Her eyes had grown used, not so long since, to being wary of crowds. h.e.l.leron, Solarno, Myna: the war had given her instincts that had become stubborn guests.

As she looked, so she found. The face leapt out at her, a moment's eye contact across the crowded docks, but that was not a face she was ever likely to forget. Not five minutes after stepping from the ship, and her world was reverting to its old faithless ways once again.

Thalric.

Part 2

The Black and Gold Path

Nine.

The grand army of General Vargen had arrayed itself before the city of Tyrshaan, black-and-yellow armour crossed with a sash of blue, the old badge of the Kings of Tyrshaan that had not been seen during this last generation. General Vargen, whose rank was self-given, and who was elsewhere known as just another one of the traitor-governors, had decided to risk a field battle, not trusting his forces to endure a siege. It was not necessarily a poor choice, for Thalric had seen the siege train that the Imperial forces had brought with them. Tyrshaan's walls were neither high nor strong.

Vargen's men made a fierce spectacle at this distance, but Thalric had heard the scouts and the spies report. There was a core of Wasp-kinden, mostly the garrisons of Tyrshaan and neighbouring Shalk, that would fight to the death. Dying in battle was preferable to dying in the fighting pit or at a public execution, especially given how inventive the new Empress had become. The bulk of Vargen's force were Auxillians, though, who had less to gain from victory, less to lose from defeat. Those solid blocks of armoured Tyrshaani Bee-kinden would see no reason to throw themselves on to the pikes of the enemy on behalf of their usurper lord. They now made dark squares against the tawny ground before the city walls: halberdiers, crossbowmen and ma.s.ses of the interlocking hexagonal shields that the Tyrshaani favoured. The Bees were no match for the trained and keen soldiers of the Empire, either singly or en ma.s.se. Their only battle virtue was an implacability of spirit that Thalric suspected they would not be deploying today.

Vargen had placed a quartet of solid-looking automotives in the vanguard of his force, but Tyrshaan had always been a backwater, and their boxy, six-legged design was now twenty years old. By contrast, the punitive force had brought orthopters, snapbows and mobile artillery.

'I make it five of theirs to four of ours,' said a lieutenant next to him, peering through a spygla.s.s. 'Not counting the Flies.'

'Well, who would?' sniffed Colonel Pravoc, the Imperial commander. 'So we outnumber them four to five. Good.' He gave Thalric one of his sickly smiles. Pravoc was a lean man who looked as though he lived primarily off ambition and a joy in the downfall of others. He had been chosen for this role because he was an able battlefield commander, and because having a mere colonel sent to oppose him would throw the self-made General Vargen into a rage. Altogether, Pravoc was a man of few words and fewer compliments.

'I trust it all meets with your approval,' he said, a flick of his fingers encompa.s.sing the might of the Imperial army that was falling into place around them.

'I'm not here to approve,' Thalric told him.

Pravoc's answering look said, And why are you here? And why are you here? but he was too much concerned with his own future to say it. The presence here of the Imperial Regent had inspired rather than shaken him. 'They'll be marching for us soon, according to our spies.' but he was too much concerned with his own future to say it. The presence here of the Imperial Regent had inspired rather than shaken him. 'They'll be marching for us soon, according to our spies.'

Thalric shrugged. 'I'll leave you to your command, Colonel.'

He went to look over the black and gold of Pravoc's divisions: the usual array of light airborne waiting behind shieldwalls of the medium infantry which were supplemented, now, with snapbowmen. Those slender new weapons were about to make a sorry mess of the Bee-kinden armour, Thalric decided. It was just as well the Empire had suffered its crisis before the weapons had spread to the provinces.

General Vargen was not unique, of course. There had been a full score of provincial governors, mostly in the East- and South-Empire, who had decided to strike out on their own. A few had banded together to make little realms Empirelets? Emporia? of their own, but most had been stubbornly solitary. It had been the succession that had provoked it, and Thalric was surprised it had not turned out worse. Emperor Alvdan the Second had died with no legitimate children, nor even a living b.a.s.t.a.r.d, having been so ruthless in dealing with potential threats to his power that he had put into danger everything that his father and grandfather had built. The rescuing hand, when it arrived, had been that of his sister, now Empress Seda the First. That had not sat well with many, because in the Empire men held power and women served. It was a tradition that went back to when they had all been squabbling tribes stealing each other's wives. There had never been a woman soldier or merchant or chieftain, and certainly there had never been a woman as ruler.

Seda had done her groundwork, though, and her allies were formidable. In the end, the central Empire including Capitas, Sonn and the neighbouring cities had bowed the knee to her. The West-Empire was lost for the moment to rebellion among the slave-races, and with it any dreams of conquering the lush expanses of the Lowlands. That could wait, however. Men like Vargen could not.

Vargen, like all his peers, had not believed that Seda's rule would hold. He had staked his future on her grip failing, on more and more turning against her. She was, after all, only a woman.

Thalric chuckled bitterly over that att.i.tude. He, of all men, knew Seda, and how she had grown up with a knife at her throat every minute of every day and night, the only surviving relative of the paranoid Emperor Alvdan. It had taught her a certain outlook: Seda had become a woman of iron and Thalric would not want to cross her. If he had his time again, he would make sure he had nothing to do with her. The offer she made him had seemed too good to be true. Only now, when he was too close and had learned too much, did he understand how it was exactly that. How many men envied him: Imperial Regent, most important man in the Empire, and even sharer of the Empress's bed? It meant nothing, however. It meant that he was a mere figurehead, a man for the Empress to parade in front of those who expected to see a man close to the seat of power. He had no power, only an awful knowledge. He knew Seda now, when it was too late.

He was here to oversee the extinction of the traitor Vargen and the return of another piece of the Empire into the proper hands. He was here, as a sign of the Empress's favour, to inspire Pravoc and the rest, and to remind them that they were fighting for the true Imperial bloodline.

The thought made him twitch.

He was also here because, lately, he had seized any opportunity to be out of the presence of the Empress herself. He was a man in his middle years, a veteran of the battlefield in his youth, a veteran of the games of the Rekef for two decades and more. His skin bore the burns and scars of his history like medals. He had survived where others had fallen. He had killed with his blade and his sting and his bare hands, started and quelled rebellions, tortured women and slain children, hunted and been hunted. He had done all of this and Seda was still just a slip of a girl, barely of age, yet he feared her like nothing else. His skin crawled at the thought of her.

He heard a horn sound, way out on the plain, as Vargen's host began its slow advance. He saw the dust start to rise from hundreds of feet, as compact formations of Beekinden started to trudge forward. To left and right, Vargen's Wasps moved out in loose order, ready to take to the air, and behind and around them was a great ma.s.s of Flykinden from Shalk, Vargen's other conquest. They were not reckoned a dependable a.s.set on a battlefield, Fly-kinden, but these wore striped leather cuira.s.ses and carried bows. Thalric suspected that Vargen was depending on them to pin down the Imperial airborne until the crossbows of the Bee-kinden could be brought to bear.

That prompted a smile: Vargen's tactics were sound, his politics less so. Thalric had already seen the little figure of the Shalken amba.s.sador skulking into Pravoc's tent, confirming that the Flies always knew where their best interests lay. At a certain point in the battle they would vanish like last night's bad dream, leaving Vargen exposed on both flanks. Thalric had no doubt of their commitment, just as he had no doubt that their abrupt disappearance would come only when the battle turned against Vargen. Fly-kinden had an impeccable sense of survival, and the skill was in knowing how to use it to one's own advantage.

He next heard the orthopters starting up their engines. Pravoc had only a dozen of them, but they were all new-built Spearflights, which were swiftly becoming the workhorses of the Imperial air force after their achievements over Solarno.

And didn't we lose Solarno? And since when did we ever have an 'air force'? But progress was the watchword, now. Battles against men like Vargen were small change in the pocket of history. Every strategist within the Empire knew that one day they would be turning towards the Lowlands again, looking for a more worthy adversary. The battle of Solarno had at least taught them that mechanized air power was a solid part of their future. But progress was the watchword, now. Battles against men like Vargen were small change in the pocket of history. Every strategist within the Empire knew that one day they would be turning towards the Lowlands again, looking for a more worthy adversary. The battle of Solarno had at least taught them that mechanized air power was a solid part of their future.

The fliers lifted off in an almost simultaneous leap, their pilots casting them low over their own troops, and then reaching for height as they turned to approach the enemy. There went a new breed of Wasp soldier: the warrior-artificer who lived at speeds Thalric could barely imagine.

The flying machines now banked over the insurrectionist army, and a little cloud of the more optimistic enemy airborne rose to try and confront them. Thalric barely heard the first explosive as it landed, saw only the plume of dust and smoke arise over the army's right flank. The steady, slogging Bee-kinden advance faltered there as a hole was punched into one of their tightly packed squads. The battle had started.

At a signal from Pravoc, the loyalist shields began their cautious advance. It was a slow pace, almost an amble. They were more than happy to let the Tyrshaani do all the walking. Thunder spoke from behind Thalric, a single cough that rattled the ground, and another great geyser of dust flowered from thirty yards in front of the enemy advance. The mechanized leadshotters were finding the range in a leisurely manner.

Thalric turned back to his tent. The Imperial camp was close behind the Wasp lines but, unless Pravoc's reputation was merely hot air, the battle should only move further off towards the doomed city once the Tyrshaani got into snapbow range. It was not that Thalric had no stomach for watching an Imperial victory, although perhaps that thought did not fill him with the same joy it once had. It was just that the inevitable grinding of Pravoc's workmanlike battle tactics was unlikely to provide enthralling entertainment. Outside, the leadshotters thumped again, two or three of them in unison, so that the wine jar and bowl rattled on the table. Thalric stared over at his armour, set out for him by some diligent menial. He was supposed to have someone around to dress him in it, as a mark of his rank. The thought made him irritable: as a soldier, he could shrug his way into a banded cuira.s.s without flunkeys.

He had no need for armour at all, of course, but there would be men of the Empire fighting and dying, so it seemed wrong to eschew it. Being without it with a battle nearby made him feel naked.

He put on his special undercoat first. This was long force of habit, although the copperweave shirt was not the torn and battered piece that had saved him in Myna, in h.e.l.leron and Collegium. The stuff was murderously expensive, but rank had some privileges, after all. The undershirt did not rely on the copperweave alone, either. There was an extra layer beneath it, for occasions when mere metal would not suffice. Over the copperweave, that was so fine and fluid that it would be almost undetectable, he pulled on his arming jacket and his cuira.s.s, shrugging it out until the plates hung straight.

Now at least I look like a soldier.

He felt better for that, since Seda's court was full of men who did their best to look anything but. Thalric hated them all, both individually and collectively.

He turned for the tent flap and saw the a.s.sa.s.sins.

They were so clearly such that, in other circ.u.mstances, it would have been funny. He had caught them in the act of creeping in, two Wasp-kinden men in uniform with drawn blades and narrowed eyes, wearing expressions of horrified guilt. It must have seemed to them that he had been somehow expecting them, that he had carefully armoured himself in preparation for them, then waited patiently until they entered the tent.

His sword was still attached to his civilian belt lying on the ground. With a convulsive movement he ripped it from its scabbard, slashing a wide arc across the rear of the tent. If this had been a simple soldier's tent, that would have been it: the freedom of the sky open to him in an instant. He was no longer a simple soldier, though, and this tent was made out of carpets and needed three men to carry. His blade barely cut into it as the two a.s.sa.s.sins rushed towards him.

One loosed a sting bolt from his open hand as they charged in, but the other a.s.sa.s.sin was so eager that he nearly caught it in the back. The shot went wild and Thalric tried to bring his sword back into line to parry the quicker man's incoming thrust. He twisted aside as he did so, but the man's blade went home anyway, digging in at his side where the regulation armour plates did not cover him. The sword dug in hard, but skittered off the copperweave mesh underneath. That trick isn't going to save my life for ever That trick isn't going to save my life for ever, Thalric considered. Someone's going to stab me in the face eventually Someone's going to stab me in the face eventually. Meanwhile he was putting an elbow into the man's ear and thrusting his palm forward at the second killer, almost in the same moment. They loosed together, crackling bolts of energy lighting up the tent's dim interior. Thalric felt the heat as he ducked, letting the stingshot sear past his face. His own shot punched the man across the shoulder before it scorched its way into the tent fabric, which promptly started to smoulder. Now he had a chance to look he saw that, behind him, it was actually on fire.

Who in the wastes made this tent? It's a deathtrap!

Abruptly none of them much wanted to be inside it, and yet the two a.s.sa.s.sins were giving him no leeway. The swordsman had recovered from the blow enough to try and stab again but, this close, Thalric was able to trip him and then stamp on him hard before barrelling for the tent entrance. The second man got in his way and they tumbled over each other through the tent flap. Thalric punched him in the face by instinct, then called up his sting before finding that his sword had already run the man through, slipping between the plates of his mail.

Feeling light-headed, Thalric got to his feet, the sword-hilt greasy in his fingers. He heard the other man approaching from inside the tent and turned to catch him, hearing distantly a sharp 'snap' but not recognizing it for what it was.

Something slammed him hard in the gut and he went over, mind turning utterly blank. There was quite a lot of pain, and he felt a warm wetness of blood. Breathing was difficult, as though a strong man had kicked him under the ribcage. It was all he could do to stay conscious, keep his eyes open. He heard footsteps running closer.