The Scarab Path

seafarers. In the river current it handled choppily, the engines constantly adjusting to the water's flow. Corcoran had the bulk of the Iron Glove people aboard with him, both to handle the craft and to man its armaments. They were short-handed even so. They had left a fair slice of their crew on the Spider-kinden pirate that had tried to overhaul them on the way to Khanaphes.

The Scorpions on the bank were watching, fascinated, as the ship completed its cumbersome turn and chugged towards the bridge. With its mast down and sails stowed the Iteration might just have scraped under its arches, in another breach of Khanaphir tradition. That lot can rot, Corcoran thought. If they'd had any sense they'd have bought a job lot of snapbows off us, and they'd already be chasing the Scorpions back into the desert about now.

'Keep us steady!' he called, as they neared the bridge. 'Steady here.'

'You want the anchor out?'

'No, just keep us steady.' He was not a sailor, either. Let his crew wrestle with engines and rudders to fulfil his orders. If Totho didn't have to make sense, neither did he. He did not want to be anchored down, though, since the Scorpions were not exactly powerless to retaliate.

They had not seen the ship as a threat, he realized. There were masses of them gathered, set on funnelling on to the bridge. The Iteration had turned to put its broadside towards them and the crew were clipping the smallshotters to the rail. Tiny compared to the Scorpions' own siege weapons, they could shoot balls three inches across that would make a mess of a wooden hull, but were even more useful against human targets.

'Grapeshot,' Corcoran ordered. His people industriously dropped bulging little paper sacks into the weapons' muzzles, each one a careful measure of firepowder and shot.

Might as well make the first one count, Corcoran thought. 'We'll give it them all together,' he shouted out. Then he started as a small figure dropped on to the deck beside him.

'Himself says now would be a good time,' Tirado told him.

Corcoran nodded. 'Let them have it on my mark!' he cried, and then, 'Three, two, one — loose!'

The combined shock of a dozen smallshotters detonating at once rolled the Iteration back in the water amid a bellowing of smoke and fire. The fistfuls of lead shot tore through the massed Scorpion warriors, ripping dozens of them apart. Corcoran was glad enough he didn't have to witness it. The aftermath, as the ship righted itself, was bad enough.

'Load and loose in your own time,' he instructed his crew, seeing the Scorpion host boiling and reeling from this new assault. That will have taken pressure off the barricades. 'You go back now and find out how long he wants us here,' he told the Fly, and Tirado kicked off from the deck, darting upwards towards the bridge itself.

The smallshotters were discharging independently, each at the speed of its own crew, lashing at the Scorpions wherever they were thickest. There was some return of crossbow bolts, but the distance defeated them, only a few coasting far enough to bounce back from the ship's armoured hull.

'They're bringing up the big engines!' someone called. Corcoran glanced up at the bridge. Surely they were done by now? Surely Totho didn't need them to stay out here. Perhaps Tirado had been killed or hurt, or simply forgotten to deliver the message.

'Try to keep them busy,' he shouted. He located one of the big leadshotters, and saw that it was some way inland, taking advantage of its own better range. The Iteration was armoured, but it was designed to be proof against the sort of pieces that another ship would carry. No ship had ever put to sea with something as heavy as the Scorpion ordnance. A few hits near the waterline would soon take care of the Iteration.

'It'll take them a while to find the range,' he said, hearing his own voice tremble. Over the sporadic boom of the smallshotters he could barely be heard anyway. The bulk of the Scorpion advance had scattered, seeking shelter from the Iteration's salvos. The fighting above must falter, surely, the grinding wheels of death no longer fed by a flow of fresh bodies. Corcoran gritted his teeth, watching the Scorpion crews load their massive weapons.

They were quicker than he had assumed. He saw the gust of smoke from one leadshotter and instinctively dropped to his knees.

A tremendous column of spray spouted from the river, a full twenty yards past them and astern. They hurried their aim, he thought, and it was oddly reassuring to know that he had done enough damage to secure the enemy's attention. A second leadshotter roared even as he thought this, and the water erupted a few yards off the bows, between the Iteration and the piles of the bridge. Corcoran clung to the rail as the swell rocked them. Meanwhile, some of the smallshotters were loosing solid shot, trying for enough range to trouble the Scorpion artillerists.

Tirado dropped almost on to his shoulders, swerving in the air to make himself a harder target. 'Time to go,' he announced. 'Pull back to the docks, and be thankful this river's so wide.'

'Stop shooting and let's get out of here!' Corcoran shouted to the crew at the top of his lungs. He had to repeat it twice, running down the length of the ship, before everyone had pulled the smallshotters back and the ship's engines started to turn them. Another plume of water exploded nearby, but they had become a moving target now, spoiling the enemy's calculations.

But they'll be ready for us the next time, won't they just …

Above, on the bridge, the latest Scorpion assault was falling back, unsupported, shot through with arrows. Yet the host of the Many of Nem seemed barely diminished.

Thirty-Six

She woke up because he had stepped on her arm. The sudden pain, and waking into utter dark, left her wholly bewildered. Che had no idea where she was. Someone was apologizing to her but all reference escaped her. For a brief moment she was nowhere, and had no idea even who she was.

Then she remembered her Art: it was still not second nature to her. She let her eyes gradually find their way, and saw Thalric a few paces away, looking frustrated.

'Clumsy bastard,' she told him, and enquired, 'I've been asleep?'

'Unless you've been snoring just to annoy me.' He was not quite looking at her and it took a moment to realize that it was because he could not, of course, see her. Her voice, in the confined space, must be hard to pin down.

'You swallowed some of that herbal muck you were giving to Osgan,' Thalric went on. His eyes were very wide, futilely trying to stare the darkness down. 'Because of your shoulder. Then, after a while, you were sleeping. It's been a long night.'

'And then you trod on me,' she pointed out. 'How long has it been?'

'I have no idea.' He was moving about the room again, feeling for the walls. 'I used to think I had a good sense of time, but there are no clues down here: no light, no sounds. It's been hours, anyway. It must be daylight outside.'

'Thalric,' she said, 'what are you doing, exactly?'

'Trying to get a proper idea of this place — which has turned out to be surprisingly difficult, and somewhat disgusting.'

'Do you want me to help you?'

'I'll be fine.'

'Only, I can see in the dark.'

He stopped abruptly, turning towards where she was. His expression was completely unguarded. 'Since when?'

Since you locked me in your heliopter after Asta — but she wasn't going to say that. 'It's a Beetle Art, Thalric. Granted, it's not common, but it's there.'

His lips moved, but whatever he was going to say died there. Abruptly he sat down and put his head in his hands. How long has he been feeling his way around this place? How many hours of going round and