The Scarab Path

will but their sheer strength that was giving way.

'Fliers!' came Tirado's own shout. 'Wasp airborne!'

The archers, save for those closest the breach, immediately turned towards the sky. There was a scattering of Wasp-kinden coming in fast over the heads of the Scorpions and the defenders' arrows began to reach out for them. They dodged and darted about in the air, two of them dropping as the shafts found them. Totho turned his attention to the breach again.

Meyr was fighting unarmed in the front line now, simply grabbing Scorpions and hurling them off the bridge, or slapping them back into their fellows with bone-crushing force. Their swords and axes rang off his armour, lacing it with scratches and dents. He barely seemed to notice them. Totho saw a halberd slam down on the giant's wrist and just leap back from the double-linked chainmail that covered it. Stone me, but we built well when we built that.

There was a wash of heat from a fire grenade, but it had landed amidst the Scorpion flank after its bearer was shot down. The other impromptu grenadiers were veering away, the arrows coming at them too thickly to dodge. Another spun head over heels down into the water.

'They're circling left!' Tirado shrieked, his voice increasingly hoarse. 'Coming in over the water-' A moment later he screamed, 'I'm shot!' Totho searched the sky for him frantically, but the Fly had already been thrown from it, transfixed by a crossbow bolt, a tiny figure writhing amongst the Khanaphir wounded.

'Hold fast!' Amnon cried out, in a voice fit to be heard by the spectators at either end of the bridge. Totho heard the boom of the leadshotters from the shore and knew that the Iteration was coming in to try and relieve them. A moment later began the rapid rattling of its smallshotters. The Khanaphir were still holding the breach but there were none of the Royal Guard left in reserve; every man and woman was now committed to the fray. Totho saw Ptasmon and Dariset fighting to Amnon's left. Dariset's face was awash with blood from a gash to her brow, her helm knocked clean from her head. Ptasmon's shield was shattered and he laid about himself with both spear and sword. Totho emptied his snapbow into the attackers and reached for the next magazine, slotting it fumblingly into place. With frantic speed he charged his piece, already knowing he would be too late.

A Scorpion lance rammed into Ptasmon, piercing his scaled hauberk. Totho saw his mouth gape wide, and then Ptasmon had thrown himself forward into the enemy, hacking blindly at them, bringing half a dozen down in a tangle of limbs. Dariset was screaming something Totho could not hear.

Totho drew his own sword. It was a shortsword, as he had trained with in Collegium. There was nothing special about it. He unslung his shield.

Che …

He leapt down from the archery platform and found Ptasmon's footprints, shouldering his way into the shield-wall. He was no great warrior, but a man adequate through dull practice with the blade. I trust to my artifice. I trust to the armour that the Iron Glove's intellect has brought into being. He put his sword into the face of a looming Scorpion, the reciprocal axe-blow bounding from his shield with a force that ran all the way up to his shoulder.

Shards of broken water scattered over the deck after the leadshotters' latest miss, too close for comfort. The Iteration was heading for the bridge arch again, keeping itself a moving target, but the Scorpions were gradually learning. The art of the artillerist was not something that should come naturally to a savage pack of barbarians, but field practice was the best practice. Corcoran had the uncomfortable feeling that he was standing in as some kind of training instructor for the entire Nemian nation.

The smallshotters cracked and boomed from the port rail, their crews reloading as swiftly as they could, also now considerably more practised than they had been. It was the sort of thing that Totho or the Old Man went on about, the way that war honed invention and its uses. Corcoran was a pragmatist, though: the philosophy of artifice interested him only in so far as he could make money by selling it.

The next booming impact on the river was right at their stern, rocking the whole metal-reinforced ship as though a giant had taken it up and shaken it. They were in long crossbow range, too and, although the bolts that rebounded from the hull or clattered on the deck were a nuisance, a lucky shot could still be fatal.

He could see nothing of the fighting on the bridge itself, but the Scorpions were crowding the shore again, each pushing for his turn in the meat-grinder. They're all mad, Corcoran decided. They must be. The wise man would step back and wait. No sense throwing yourself into the teeth of the mill. Plainly the Scorpions felt differently.

A crossbow bolt skipped across the rail and hit his backplate with the force of a light slap, making him stagger into the next swell. His armour was not the aviation-grade stuff that Totho wore, just blackened steel breast-and-back and an open-faced helm, but at this distance it was more than adequate.

'Get those archers off us, someone!' he snapped.

'Get them yourself,' one of his artillerists replied. 'Look at them.' It was true. Since the Iteration's last pass the Scorpions had brought a load of wood and stone rubble to the bank and the shallows. The Scorpion crossbowmen were using this to shoot from, and the scattershot the smallshotters were loaded with could do little about it. It would be wasting time and ammunition to try and winkle them out. Already many of the smallshotters were being loaded with fistfuls of glass, stone and nails. The Iron Glove's quartermasters had not anticipated the Khanaphir delegation getting into a war.

I never wanted to be in a war, Corcoran reminded himself. I just wanted to sell the means to other people. Is that so wrong? It had been a pleasant time, initially, living it up as a foreign dignitary in Khanaphes, but then it had all gone to the pits.

They were passing into the bridge's shadow now, Hakkon keeping a steady hand on the tiller. One of the leadshotters on the far side touched off too eagerly, and they saw a shower of glimmering water through the archway.

'Speed up! Engines full!' Corcoran decided.

'Not in this space-' Hakkon started.

'Do it! They'll be ready for us else!'

He heard the roar of the Iteration's engines mount until the air beneath the arch shook with it. There was a spray of sparks and a shriek of tortured metal as the starboard side ground into the stone before the helmsman could correct the course. The weapons crews had all unhooked their smallshotters from the rail, for fear of losing them to the sides.

'Brace yourselves, this isn't going to be fun!' Corcoran shouted at them. He had no idea whether they had heard him, but they all looked sufficiently braced.

The Fourth Iteration leapt out from the archway on to the open river, above the bridge. The crews were already replacing their weapons when the Scorpion ordnance burst around them.

For a moment it seemed that the entire river had erupted. They could see nothing through the spray drenching them from all sides. Something struck them hard about the bows, heeling the Iteration well over to starboard, and pointing her away from the Scorpion shore. Another solid shot came down from its arc and smashed the starboard rail near the helm. Hakkon was wrestling with the wheel, trying to turn them back.

The ship rocked back, engines still churning at full speed. At least one man had been lost over the side, and more than one of the smallshotters had dropped straight past the rail. Corcoran half clawed, half rolled over to the port rail, holding hard to it, trying to take stock.

The first of the smallshotters cracked, sending its fistful of debris into the gathered Scorpions.

It could have been worse. There was either a dent or a hole in the bows, but above the waterline. It could have been worse.

'Watch out!'

He had no idea who called, in that spare second, no guess in what direction to be watching. He just clung to the rail and closed his eyes.

The impact, when it came, was shattering. The deck jumped beneath him, almost hard enough to throw him overboard. The ship lurched, a movement so unnatural it was as though the water had been changed, for one moment, into something solid and jagged.

Corcoran reeled, staring about. He saw the fresh plume of firepowder smoke, but not from where the main Scorpion artillery was positioned. This was on the flat roof of one of the riverfront houses. They got a