‘Amnon, that’s not fair … I was up on the walls during the Vekken siege of Collegium. I loosed a crossbow then.’
‘Praeda.’ He said her name very softly, and that silenced her. In the pause that followed, Totho felt unbearably awkward, a voyeur to something intensely private.
‘Praeda,’ Amnon repeated. ‘Do not make me choose between you and my city. If I knew that you were fighting here, and might be hurt at any moment, I would give commands that would compromise our position so that you might remain safe, or at least safer. If you forced me to it, I would give over my people just to save your life – but I would never forgive myself, after, for doing so. Do not tear me apart.’
Totho saw tears come to her eyes, glinting red in the torchlight. ‘Amnon,’ she whispered, then she knelt down beside him, throwing her arms around him, kissing him. She was shaking slightly, after she stood up again.
‘Come back to me,’ she urged him. ‘You must.’ Then she was running back towards the construction works at the bridge’s foot, heading towards the eastern shore.
Totho had been about to pass some comment about how much Amnon loved his city, but one look at the big man’s face warned him off it. Instead he sat down beside him, feeling all his bruises from yesterday complain. And soon I shall have to put the armour on again. Joy.
The broad shadow that was Meyr joined them, setting a cask down in front of him, and a stack of clay bowls. ‘In the Delve, when a great construction is completed, we drink to it,’ the Mole Cricket murmured. ‘I had called for this, so that we might drink before tomorrow sees the colour of our blood, but shall we not drink to these stones behind us instead? How well they are laid, one on another. Nothing compared to my own people’s work, of course, but pretty enough. They will do their job.’
His huge hands laid out the bowls – one, two, three – and then he craned his head to look back. ‘Mantis-girl, come and join us in a drink.’
Teuthete stepped down from the barricade, head cocked to one side. ‘The Khanaphir do not know how to brew,’ she said. ‘I will not drink their beer. It is sour.’
‘Then drink some Imperial brandy,’ Meyr told her, ‘which is not.’
‘We were keeping that as a gift,’ Totho pointed out, ‘to cement our trading links with Khanaphes.’ He considered it. ‘So let’s crack it open, why not?’
‘Where is Tirado?’ Meyr asked, the fifth and final bowl cupped in his hand.
‘Your Fly-kinden sleeps like a dead man,’ Teuthete said. ‘You could launch him from one of the Scorpion war-engines and he still would not wake.’
‘We’ll save him some,’Totho decided, gesturing for Meyr to start decanting. The little barrel looked just like a cup in the Mole Cricket’s broad hands. Teuthete slipped down to kneel beside him, looking childlike in comparison. Meyr passed the first bowl to her.
‘My people are pragmatists: we do not acknowledge freedom,’ Meyr said, pouring a bowl in turn for each. ‘We were slaves of the Moth-kinden before we were ever slaves to theWasps. There is no one alive who is not a slave, we say: slave to city, slave to past, slave to feelings. Even the wild beast in the wastes is a slave to hunger.’ He put the barrel down carefully, replacing the bung that he had dug out with one thick, square fingernail. His own bowl sat neatly in his palm. ‘In all my life,’ said Meyr, ‘I have been no happier than in my servitude to the Iron Glove. Of all my slaveries it is the least onerous.’
‘We do not admit to slavery. Where our respect has been earned we serve with honour,’ Teuthete stated flatly. ‘My people cannot be slaves.’
Except to that honour, Totho completed for her, but he left the words unsaid.
They drank. The Empire’s purloined finest was smooth on the tongue, fiery in the throat, with an aftertaste of apricots.
‘We have no illusions here about the morrow,’ said Amnon. ‘That is why I sent Praeda away. Not all battles can be won.’
Totho cast a look back at the monumental barrier that was slowly taking shape at the foot of the bridge. ‘Amnon, about your plan …’
‘You have a comment?’ Amnon’s smile was edged.
‘Just to say … when the call comes for everyone to run for the east shore, well, I’ll be right behind you.’
‘Will you now?’
Totho shrugged. ‘Well, it’s true I’ve not got a woman or a city’s love to live for, and it’s true that the woman that I love has vanished, and is probably dead by Imperial hands. And that she’ll never know what I’ve done here to try and make her approve of me. But even though you have so much to live for and I so little, yes, I shall be right at your back when the moment comes. You know what I mean.’
‘I do,’ said Amnon solemnly, ‘and I am grateful.’
‘And I shall be at your back,’ Meyr told Totho.
‘There’s no need—’
‘What? You can be an idiot, and not I?’
Amnon laughed quietly. ‘We are four fools. No, three fools and one too honourable woman. What would anyone think of us, sitting and drinking like this?’
‘Who cares what anyone thinks?’ Meyr asked.
Totho smiled weakly. ‘A man of Collegium once said that the only parts of us to dodge the grave are the memories we leave behind with others.’ So if you live, Che, remember me this way: the man who tried to save a city, not the killer of thousands.
There was a high, tooth-jarring buzz coming from one of the abandoned buildings that had been swamped by the Scorpion camp. It had begun around midnight and two hours before dawn it showed no signs of letting up. Most of the Scorpions nearby had been evicted by its constant irritation, shambling off to find somewhere else to sleep. Others had wanted to go and silence the noise. The problem was that, in the single lit window, they could see one of the foreigners crossing backwards and forwards. This noise was their doing, perhaps preparing some weapon to inflict on the Khanaphir. To interfere with them might bring down Jakal’s wrath. Threat of superior force was one of the few strictures they held sacred.
Eventually they elected a spokesman, by democratic application of superior force. The man chosen was Genraki, most promising of the new-minted artillerists. His use of artillery to settle personal feuds had already been noted and approved of. It was therefore reckoned less likely that Jakal would have him killed if he did something wrong.
Genraki entered, stooping, through the building’s kicked-in door. It was a decent-size two-storey, this one, where some Beetle family of means had lived, enjoying their view of the river. The thought amused him, for it was about time the Khanaphir knew fear and hardship. They had lived behind the safety of their walls for long enough. Genraki loved the Empire, for everything it had given his people. They had always possessed claws to cut flesh; now they had a fist to break stone.
The noise, that skull-boring sound, came from above, and he padded up quietly, taking a moment to peer around the corner, from the head of the stairs. There were two Wasps there, and one of them was Angved. They were hunched over some small mechanism, looking duly impressed.
Genraki cleared his throat and Angved glanced up.
‘What is it?’ he asked, speaking above the sound. ‘Hrathen wants me?’
‘What is this sound, chief?’ Genraki asked him. ‘Nobody else can sleep.’
Angved smirked at that. ‘A little experiment of mine.’
This close, Genraki thought he could feel his ears shake under it, not particularly loud but terribly insistent. ‘Must it go on so long, chief?’ The title was based on the authority that the Warlord and the Wasp leader gave the old man, for he was clearly a chieftain of his own tribe of artificers.
‘Well, that’s the whole point. How long have we had so far?’
The other Wasp, also an artificer, checked some small device. ‘Three hours fifty-seven minutes.’
‘Shut it off at four hours,’ Angved decided, to Genraki’s relief. If he had retreated from this place without some result the others would not have been pleased with him. Angved was u
shering him into the next room.
‘Tell me, Genraki,’ he said, ‘this rock oil your people use, how common is it?’
‘Not so common that it is everywhere, but we know all the places to find it. Where it is found, there is much of it. More than all the tribes need.’
Angved digested this. ‘It burns for a long time, doesn’t it?’ he said.
‘That is why we use it,’ Genraki confirmed.
‘It’s been running that little makeshift engine for hours,’ the artificer mused. ‘Your people trade, don’t they?’
Genraki shrugged. ‘When we have the patience. We would trade oil for more leadshotters and weapons,’ he added, with a fanged grin.
‘You may just have got yourself a deal.’
Above their conversation, the whining buzz stopped, at long last. Genraki could almost feel the whole camp relax with it. Angved’s expression was complex: one he could not entirely read but dominated mainly by greed.
There were swift footsteps on the stairs and one of the other Wasps came up, half running, half flying. ‘Captain wants you, Lieutenant,’ he told Angved. ‘Khanaphir have been busy overnight. Time for us to match them.’
Angved did not rush to attend on Hrathen. As soon as he presented himself, the tide of mundane war would descend on him, and he would have his hands full with jobs more befitting an apprentice than an experienced battle-artificer. Can’t we just let the Scorpions get on with it?We’ve given them half the city, so surely they can take it from here. But Hrathen was in charge, and it was clear which of his bloodlines the halfbreed had chosen to support. I hear he’s sleeping with that hideous Jakal creature. Angved shuddered. He himself had never been one to take advantage of the women of lesser peoples. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have started with Scorpion-kinden. Only among Thorn-bugs are there any uglier people in the world, he decided, or more dangerous to sleep with. And the Captain definitely gets his looks from the wrong side of the family. Better, maybe, that the man forced himself on the fanged horrors here rather than good Wasp women back home.
Am I fooling myself about this rock-oil? The Nem was largely unexplored, unexploited. The Empire’s internal squabbles had set back its timetable for subjugating the world, or there would have been black and gold all the way to Khanaphes by now, and Jakal’s people would have become either Auxillians or history. And maybe I should be grateful that, with all the fuss back home, I’m the first serious artificer to come here and make this discovery. He was a man growing old for the army, yet still only a lieutenant. If he kept this all to himself, and if it was what he believed it to be, then ‘Major Angved’ had a nice ring to it. A comfortable retirement position running some research workshop in Sonn, perhaps? He could afford to be pushy, provided his new currency was as pure as he thought.
He had only told one of his crew about his discovery, and already he was considering whether he might have to kill him. Here, among the Scorpions, it would be easy to hide such an act. This is much bigger than I had thought. An idle curiosity was giving way to a real fire of ambition.
He found Hrathen at last. ‘Reporting for duty,’ he said, banishing such thoughts for the moment. The Scorpion woman was nearby, watching them with arms folded. Her expression was sceptical and Angved guessed that she had been expecting more progress. Half the city in just two days, and still she’s hungry.
The halfbreed nodded to him. ‘We take the bridge today,’ he stated. ‘I’ve decided. Enough of this attrition.’
Angved waited. Empty posing, he thought, to impress his woman. Well, let him.
‘I want you to get a leadshotter on to the roof of one of these three-storeys,’ Hrathen told him, straight-faced.
Angved raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not even sure that’s possible.’
‘Make it possible. Have some locals haul it up the stairs. Build a hoist, anything. When you’ve got the right elevation, start making calculations to hit the barricade without damaging the bridge.’
‘That will call for a great deal of accuracy,’ Angved said.
‘Then that’s what you’ll give me,’ Hrathen snapped.
Angved kept his expression carefully neutral, wondering whether it was yesterday’s or last night’s performance that had shown the man up in front of Jakal.
‘We could try using the scrap-shot,’ the artificer suggested, ‘if we can get the range. That way, no danger of weakening the bridge.’
‘Whatever you have to do,’ Hrathen replied. ‘Have the rest of your artificers make grenades. You know the type: clay pots, wax stoppers, fuses. Fill them with oil, or with firepowder and nails.’
‘I’m not sure our troops here will be able to use them effectively. Not on the enemy at least.’
‘They’re not for Scorpions. I’m committing the Slave Corps soldiers as grenadiers. Any fool can drop a pot.’
And usually when you least want them to. ‘I’ll put my people on it,’ Angved agreed. ‘We should have a decent stock by mid-morning, after you’ve warmed people up.’
‘Between that and the crossbows, we’ll be on the far side before dusk,’ Hrathen declared. He was saying it to Jakal, and Agved saw the Scorpion Warlord shrug and turn away. Hrathen’s expression, momentarily exposed, was comical. She has him on a leash, Angved realized. This is why you can never really trust halfbreeds. He supposed he felt sorry for the man, torn between Imperial orders and trying to be a Scorpion savage at the same time. What will they do with him when we’re done here?Will he want to stay on and live with the barbarians? Will the Rekef get rid of him? Will the Scorpions, for that matter?
Not my problem, the artificer reminded himself. I just need to get out of Khanaphes with my hide intact, and then I can give the Empire a prize that will make all the loot of Khanaphes look like dross.
Forty
Sulvec’s hand clenched on the knife hilt and the blade twitched in Osgan’s shoulder, making his victim shriek again. The sound echoed cavernously in the underground hall, turning into something truly nightmarish as it baffled its way about the distant vaulted walls.
‘Come on, Thalric!’ Sulvec shouted, his voice blurring amongst the returning echoes of the scream. ‘You went to some lengths to keep this man alive. Don’t waste all that effort now!’ He was shouting just to keep himself steady: inflicting pain on another provided a reliable mantra for the avoidance of doubt and fear. There were plenty in the Rekef who did not get their own hands dirty, who always had others to do the cutting and slicing for them. Sulvec was made of sterner stuff, or at least that was his self-assessment. All around him, his men were gathered, Marger and the survivors of the Rekef force that had come into Khanaphes with him, seven agents whose pale faces and strained expressions belied their Rekef training.
Weaklings. Sulvec sneered inwardly, although he could feel what they could feel. It had begun with that wave of fear atop the pyramid, and the hooks of it had never left them. These slimy, hollow halls beneath the earth were no place for honest Wasp-kinden. They were built too huge, vacant yet full of a devouring dark that waited just beyond the reach of the guttering lanterns. When the final cackling echo of Osgan’s cry came back, Sulvec could not definitively label it as such. It could just as easily be something vast and mad gibbering to itself somewhere far off within these endless chambers.
And so he inflicted pain, because it made him feel better. I hold the knife, therefore I am in control. It was not a deep cut he inflicted, but he was an old hand at this. The knife’s tip was carefully inserted between the bones of Osgan’s shoulder joint, so that the slightest tremor would be unendurable agony. Osgan was sobbing, shuddering, fighting to keep desperately still. If he tried to bolt for freedom the pain would have shocked him out of consciousness.
‘Thalric! I know you’re out there!’ Sulvec bellowed. Marger and the others were waiting in a circle round him, with lanterns some distance beyond them both ways. They had turned the wicks up high, so that for Thalric to get within sting range, he would be in their light. Still, he could
come from anywhere, at any time. Sulvec was putting on the pressure but Thalric was no fool. If he wanted to make a fight of it, then he would undoubtedly take a few of them with him. Which is why I’m here in the middle, Sulvec decided.
He opened his mouth to shout again, but the echoes were getting to him. They made something unpleasant of his voice, as though someone were lampooning him from the darkness. I’m glad the Khanaphir are going to get theirs. Nobody who builds a monstrosity like this deserves to live. Yet at the back of his mind hovered a persistent worry telling him that this did not look much like the rest of Khanaphes above. There was no guarantee precisely what hands had created this lightless abyss. That started the imagination going, and it did not take much to start him wondering what else might be roused by his calls and Osgan’s cries. What if things live down here?
‘Maybe he doesn’t care about the man,’ said Marger, deliberately quiet to avoid the echo.
‘You said that he seemed to,’ Sulvec accused.
‘He did seem to, but maybe I was wrong.’ Marger was uncomfortable with the knife-work, Sulvec could see. Another weakling: to be Rekef is to know no limits. For good measure Sulvec twisted the blade again, holding Osgan down for easier purchase. The prisoner had been a useless babbler ever since they had dragged him down here, going on about some phantom terror that he seemed to connect with the old Emperor’s death. Putting the knife in had only vocalized what had been going on in Osgan’s head ever since then. It’ll do him good to let it out.
‘He’s out there, and he’s hearing this, and he’ll come,’ Sulvec snarled. ‘And don’t think your reluctance hasn’t been noted. When Thalric does make an appearance, you’d better impress me with your dedication, Marger. You don’t want to fall foul of one of my reports.’
‘No, sir,’ Marger replied with a sour look.
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