The Scarab Path

'Oh.' She sat down suddenly. The spectral Mantis was staring at them, each one in turn. His eyes lingered long enough on Thalric to make the man tense.

'What do you seek, spirit?' Elysiath asked him. 'What holds you here still?'

Tisamon's pale lips moved, the words seeming to come from a great distance. Where is my daughter?

'Go seek her,' Elysiath said without interest. 'She is no concern of ours.'

Where is she? demanded the Mantis's bleak, far-off voice.

'You are parted from the Beetle-kinden,' the man told him. 'If you cannot scent your child, free as you are now, then you shall never find her.'

Tisamon's greyed eyes flashed briefly. Che thought it was resentment, but then she read it as triumph.

She is among the Dragonflies, the Mantis stated. Far north and west of here.

'Go seek her,' Elysiath said again. 'We give you leave.'

Che thought of Tynisa, her near-sister, and daughter of this dead man. She thought of what directions Tynisa's life might turn under this ghost's influence, how it had already turned when he was alive. 'Tisamon,' she protested. 'No …'

The angular features stared down at her. Stenwold's niece, he identified her, as though he had not been riding inside her mind these many months. She needs me. With that, he was stalking away, growing less distinct with distance. She thought she detected half-glimpsed shapes about him, the shadows of a shadow, that were those of briars and thorns.

She looked up at the Masters, whose kinden she realized she must know, from fragmentary legends, folk tales, ancient fictions. She had assumed she would feel hollow with the ghost's departure, whosoever's it had been. She also thought she would feel relieved. In truth she felt neither.

'What now?' she asked them. 'What will you do with us?' She stood up again, and this time Thalric stood alongside her, with fingers spread, and the Vekken too. Sword clutched tight in his hand, the Ant was staring at the armoured slopes of Garmoth Atennar.

'They are less than chaff to us,' said Elysiath, 'but you are the grain. In our dreams we have called and, when you came, we awoke for you. For you alone we have broken our long sojourn. We have much to offer you. We give you a chance to share in the rule of the Masters of Khanaphes.'

Che swallowed, feeling very keenly the ancient weight of the dark halls about her and, even more so, the ageless power of the Masters themselves, who were older even than the stones of their living tomb. There are things here I would never learn in all my days spent at the Great College, she thought. There are things that even Moths could not teach me …

'Your rule?' Thalric interrupted sharply, though his voice shook. 'What rule is that? What do you rule, save this hole in the ground?'

'Though our dominion has diminished, do not think we no longer rule our beloved city,' Elysiath reproached him. 'Though we no longer walk its streets, do not think our dreams no longer guide our Ministers. Do not assume we have taken no pains to keep our people on the true path.'

'Oh, I've seen the path they're on,' Thalric said bitterly, and Che saw the great woman roll her eyes, that this savage would not be silent in front of his betters. Thalric was driven by fear and aggression, though, and would not be stilled. 'I've seen them try to struggle on with the simplest of machines, knowing nothing of mechanics, metallurgy, modern farming. We've all seen where that has left them, for even Khanaphes can't hold back the march of time.'

She stared at him and he blanched, baring his teeth, but no more words emerged.

'Now-' Elysiath began, but Che took a deep breath and interrupted her.

'Do you … Do you know there's a war out there?'

There was a moment's pause when it seemed that Che might be struck down just for such an interruption, then Lirielle replied dismissively, 'Wars come and go. We, who have seen so many, cannot mark them all.'

'No, there is a war right now. The Scorpions have come against your city.' Che saw their derision and pressed forward. 'They have broken through your walls! When we came down here, they were at the river. By now they may even have driven your people out into the wastes.'

The Masters exchanged amused glances. 'Our city is proof against what the rabble of the desert can bring against it,' sneered the man. 'Our people shall become stronger for the testing.'

Che stared at them in disbelief. 'Your people are praying to you,' she said. 'It's like nothing I've ever seen anywhere else. The homeless crowd the streets and call to you to save them. You have slept too deeply.'

There was enough passion in her voice, just enough evidence of pain and truth, that their mockery dried up slowly, like the landscape of their memories.

'Such nonsense,' said Elysiath finally, 'but let us witness this prodigy. Watch with us if you will, and you shall see your fears dispelled.'

Forty-Three

When the Iteration blew, it sprayed debris as high as the bridge and beyond, showering it with shards of twisted metal and fragments of wood. They pattered down across the stones, on attacker and defender alike. The thunderous explosion forced the two combating sides apart, halted even the frenzied activity of the archers. Totho broke from the line and rushed over to the bridge's north parapet, peering down at the ship's ruin below. His heart lurched. Oh, I've done it now. The pride of the Iron Glove's tiny fleet had been destroyed in some backwater, in a war it had no business taking part in. Drephos would be …

Drephos would be interested, if Totho ever got to pass the news back to him. Drephos would see the whole expensive business as a field test, and order someone to work on an improved design. In fact, Drephos would not be remotely upset. The thought of that reaction, shorn of all emotion, washed clean of the blood of Corcoran and his crew, made Totho feel even worse.

Then the Scorpions let out a great roar of triumph and came for them again, made newly bold and fierce by their artillerists' victory. Amnon began shouting for solidarity, and then the charge caught them, denting their line so deeply that Amnon almost skidded off the low rampart and fell back onto the bridge. The Scorpions almost had them then and there, by sheer weight of numbers, for, in the packed crush at the centre, there was precious little room for axe or spear. The Khanaphir resorted to their short swords to hack at their enemies, while the Scorpions used the savage claws their Art had given them.

Meyr loomed behind the lines, reaching past the Khanaphir with his mailed hands, heedless of the blows any Scorpions aimed at him. He caught them up at random, plucked them from their places and hurled them back into the mass of their fellows. It was blind, brutal work. Amnon's backplate was against Meyr's breastplate, and that was the only thing stopping him being forced to give ground.

There was a high, keening cry and Mantis-kinden began dropping among the Scorpion throng. Having discarded their bows, some now wielded knives of stone or chitin, while others relied only on their barbed forearms. It was enough for them, as they plunged into the enemy like strong swimmers and began to kill. Moving with a dazzling economy of effort, they sought out the edge of every piece of armour, aiming for throats and eyes. They were swift, almost dancing across the face of the enemy host where, slender and deadly, they spent themselves on behalf of the city that had conquered them long ago, buying time and room with their blood.

The Scorpions could not match them for speed, but their numbers were inescapable, and their strength enough to kill with a single blow. Totho could track the whirlpools of the Mantids' passing amid the surging sea of enemy, and could track each Marsh-kinden death by their sudden stilling. Soon only a few of them remained, cutting a path of death through the tight-packed Scorpions, then only one. Teuthete herself lived still, and slew, the two inextricably linked in her Mantis mind. By then the Khanaphir line was solid again, though perilously thin, and Amnon was calling her. With a sudden leap she joined him back in the lines, her arms drenched in blood to the shoulders. She was smiling, ablaze with madness.

Totho joined them, climbing to a higher position at one end of the line where he could take a clearer shot.