The Scarab Path

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Still, it was fully four feet of stone and a wooden lip, and a fence of spears beyond. The Scorpion assault 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 passed 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 bloodlust 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. 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.

  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.

  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.

  ‘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. 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?

  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 snatched 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 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 ambassador, and tell her … Tell her I want to see her. Ask nicely—’ He stopped, on seeing figures approaching from the east shore. ‘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?’

  ‘Nobody 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 bloody woman can’t keep out of trouble to save her life, and then, But am I really in a position to judge her?

  He found a flat space 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.

  ‘Halmir, me,’ said another man appearing on the far side of him. There were soon quite a few gathered, sitting on stones or the ground, in a loose circle that now included him.

  ‘Totho,’ he said awkwardly, ‘of Collegium.’

  ‘You have done much for us, Totho,’ Dariset said. ‘Much that you did not need to.’

  And to please a woman who won’t even turn up and witness it, he thought, but he just nodded noncommittally.

  ‘We are honoured that you and your giant and your people fight alongside us, Totho,’ said one of the others, and something clicked inside Totho, as he thought, This is the first time that any of them, save Amnon, has called me something other than ‘Foreigner’. He looked into their faces, the faces of simple, hardworking people who were prepared to die for their city. This is something that Drephos never did. He never knew the names of his soldiers. He would never have cared.

  It was a terrible trap, though. They would die, he knew. Perhaps even today. Perhaps in an hour’s time or less, Ptasmon would be writhing in agony with his gut ripped open by a Scorpion halberd, or Dariset would lie still with a crossbow bolt through her eye. In knowing their names, in making them real people and not components of a machine, he was baring his flesh for the lash. They are meat for the war machine, he tried to remind himself but, sitting there with them, it came hard.

  He was going to say something dismissive, cast them off, become the Foreigner again in their eyes. They were now going about their midday meal industriously, talking amongst themselves, in between mouthfuls. But these people are so solemn and silent, almost like Ant-kinden, he thought, but the notion was easily corrected: They are like that only in front of strangers. Like Ant-kinden, amongst their own they behave like all people.

  He said nothing further, just let them talk. He learned about the widow that Halmir was hoping to woo, and that Ptasmon did not yet know whether his family had got safely over the river. He learned that the scarred man called Kham was Amnon’s cousin, yet was openly critical of much that the First Soldier did. He learned that Dariset had once gone on an expedition to scout the ruins in the heart of the Nem, but they had turned back on seeing the shapes that moved there, and the signs that those shapes left behind: crucified Scorpions poisoned and desiccating in the sun and sand, and yet some of them still alive.

  I should not have shared in this. He felt their lives loading him with emotional baggage that Drephos would have scoffed at. He remembered when he had let so much similar baggage slough off him, during the siege of Tark. He had been granted a kind of icy rationality at that point, a clarity of vision he would be loath to lose. But, he now considered, had he ever truly been free of sentiment?

  Remind me again why I am still here, and not gone from this doomed city? Che’s face, in his mind, never failed to twist something inside him, some organ that seemed designed purely to wreck his life and ruin his every dream. Cursed woman! Wretched wasting woman! Can you not let me be, after all this time? He had tried – oh how he had tried – to excise the callow, clumsy youth who had been so besotted with her, but no matter how deep his reason cut, up to its elbows in blood and tissue, his younger self always grew back.

  And so
we are brought to this pass. I will fight to defend a city I should care nothing about, and then I will most likely die, and so will those who follow me. Drephos would laugh himself to death if he knew. Or would he weep for me? If Drephos could weep for anything, it would be at such a futile waste.

  He looked over to Meyr, saw the huge man still sitting, Teuthete standing by him, their heads almost on the same level. The Mantis was speaking, but Totho could not hear her quiet words. The Mole Cricket shook his head slowly, and she put a hand to his chest, her arm-spines flexing.

  A shout went up from nearby and suddenly they were all in motion again, rushing for the barricades, cramming a last mouthful before taking up weapons. Meyr pulled his helm forward over his face. Totho saw Amnon embrace Praeda one more time and then take up his shield.

  The next wave of the Many were coming.

  Corcoran felt the engines of the Fourth Iteration turn over, first slowly and then with a building urgency. The crew were casting off, letting the rudders and the current of the river pull them away from the quays.

  There was already a movement among the Scorpion-kinden in anticipation. A great mass of them was gathering by the west pillar of the Estuarine Gate, anticipating that the ship would have to come close enough for them to rake it with crossbow shot before it quit the city. And we should, we really should, Corcoran thought. What we should be doing right now is leaving. Khanaphes was never going to be a market for us, and soon it won’t even be a city any more.

  He did not understand his leader: Totho seemed to have gone mad, caught some local fever. Gone native, perhaps. Where was the profit in this, to defend one pack of primitives against another? What could they possibly gain? Especially as the beast they had backed was going to lose. It didn’t take any tactical mind to see that.

  Corcoran was not a soldier, despite the armour. He was a merchant, from a family of small traders. When the Iron Glove had hoisted its banner over Chasme he had seen the opportunity. He had been in near the start, and done well out of it. It had been worth exchanging the cluttered security of Solarno to make that bid for profit. He was a merchant and profit was his business. That was what he understood. Profit allowed him to live well and be a pleasant and amiable person, because to be pleasant and amiable in this world you needed a buffer between you and its woes.