The Scarab Path

Totho could not understand it until the Khanaphir soldiers passed him.

They were just the neighbourhood militia, untrained civilians with their spears and shields, but they were enough. They swept the demoralized Scorpions ahead of them like the river itself, furious and fierce, and when they had done their work, the Jamail took over. So ended the Scorpion siege of the city of Khanaphes, and the enduring memory Totho had of its conclusion was Praeda Rakespear kneeling beside Amnon, trying to pull his helm free as she wept.

Forty-Four

For a long time, Angved was too shaken to make any rational decision. The words, Well, now I've seen everything, just kept rolling round his head like a mindless mantra. At his back was the leadshotter, half covered by a tarpaulin. By the time they had got that far, it and they had been so thoroughly soaked that the effort had grown pointless. The only problem with firepowder artillery is that you can't shoot in the rain, even if you would want to. He knew that damp powder would not have mattered if they had a row of trebuchets, but even then it would be impossible to spot targets in this downpour. Loading would become a nightmare of slips and errors. I've never known rain like this, never. In the Empire, the serious rainfall tended to come late in the year, but Angved had visited the Commonweal during the war, where up north in the highlands it rained more, and even snowed. There had been nothing to touch this, though. An entire army swept away. Well, now I've seen everything.

His Scorpion crew were crouching beside him, all bravado stripped away. Another half-dozen Scorpions had been lucky enough to climb up on to the roof there, which was now an island in the rising flood. He was accumulating Wasps, too. The other engineers were abandoning their placements to find Angved, because they were soldiers, and in times of chaos they looked for authority.

One of the Slave Corps landed nearby at a skid, shaking himself. It must be a nightmare to fly through this, but they had been trying to find Hrathen, seeking orders.

'Any sign of the Captain?' Angved asked.

The man shook his head. 'He was in that, last I saw.' He was pointing somewhere, but the rain veiled anything he might be pointing at. Angved knew he meant the bridge. 'The Khanaphir are driving what's left of the Scorpion army into the river. I saw no fliers. He must be dead.'

'Right.' Angved shuddered. 'How's the water level now?'

'Steady,' another of his engineers reported. 'Not risen for a little while, so it must have peaked. What in the pits are we going to do?'

'I'm assuming command as ranking officer,' Angved said, loud enough to be heard. It did seem to him that the rain was now lessening. 'Listen to me and do what you're told, and we'll get out of this yet.'

'And for what?' one of the Wasps asked. 'They'll have us staked up on crossed pikes. This is a total disaster.'

'Maybe not,' Angved said. There's one thing left that could turn this from a footnote in the histories into an Imperial triumph. After all, who gives a spit about a few dead Scorpions or whether some backwater city gets sacked or not? You just have to step back from things to see what's really important. 'Genraki,' he beckoned.

'Chief.' The sodden Scorpion looked more oppressed by the rain than by the death of so many of his fellows. They were not a sentimental breed.

'You took to the artillery business fine, didn't you? You enjoyed it?'

The Scorpion nodded cautiously.

'Now things have gone sour for your lot here, but the Empire can always use an Auxillian engineer or two. We need to get back to the Empire, quick as you can. Get us there and you and your men will get paid, rewarded. Which is more than I can say about anything that might happen to you around here.'

Genraki nodded again. 'Away from this city,' he agreed. 'Away from the Masters' anger.'

'Whatever.' Angved felt for the satchel containing his precious samples, his notes and calculations. 'And don't think the Empire will forget about this place. I've a feeling the black and gold might be back in sight of here sooner than you think.' He looked around at the doubting faces of the other Wasps. 'Just you follow my lead,' he told them. 'I'll pull us from the fire yet.' They'll make me a major for this, at the least, which will give me a nice packet to retire on.

'Get us to the Empire,' he told Genraki. 'Guide us through the desert. You'll be well paid for it, and if you want to stay on there, we can find work for you — engineers or Slave Corps, your choice.'

He grinned. Life was looking up. Even the rain was stopping.

'It's another dead end.'

Sulvec flinched at the words. 'Look again.' His voice came out as a croak. 'You must be wrong.'

'I checked, sir. I looked everywhere. It's not the way out.'

'Then find the way!' Sulvec shouted at him. They listened to the echoes of his voice pass back and forth down the hall. In their waning lamplight, the Wasps' faces looked pale and drawn. Sulvec's eyes were very wide, as though trying to scoop up as much of the failing light as they could. A muscle tugged at the corner of his mouth. 'How can we be lost?' he whispered. 'Where have all these tunnels come from?'

'We'll have to go back, sir. We must have taken a wrong turn.'

'So many tunnels, all dark and covered with slime … so many of them.' Sulvec swallowed convulsively. 'We'll go back. We must have missed a turn, that's all. We're probably just a hundred yards from the entrance.' He ignored the expressions of his men which said, A hundred yards of solid rock. 'Get moving!' he snapped at them. 'And bring him along too.'

He kicked out at Osgan's collapsed form, which had been keeping up a steady, ragged whimpering. The two soldiers looked at their leader with revulsion that was only half-concealed.

'Sir,' one of them said, after a moment, 'he's going to die anyway. He's stabbed through the gut. I'm amazed he's not gone already.'

'He's not gone yet because I still have a use for him,' Sulvec spat out. 'Now just bring him.'

'Sir,' the soldier said again, 'can't we leave him? What's the point of dragging him around this place? I mean, can't we finish him off?' They were Rekef men, but there were limits.

Sulvec snarled at them. 'What's this? Bleeding hearts in the Rekef? Think this is Collegium, do you? You're taking my orders, and my orders are to bring him.' Sulvec felt as though the world was falling away from him, here in this horrible darkness. Marger had not come back. Thalric had not come back. They had seen no living thing since the fight, and yet the darkness beyond their lamps had seemed to throng with monstrous, massive shapes. He needed Osgan. He needed Osgan because as long as he had Osgan in his power, Osgan who would scream and writhe at Sulvec's whim, he was not helpless. Osgan was his hold on the world.

'Sir-'

'One more word,' Sulvec shrieked at him. 'One more word and I'll make you envy him!' There were tears in his eyes, for his men were on the point of mutiny. He felt his fingers flex and curl with the need to hurt something. He settled for kicking Osgan again, drawing a choked cry. 'Now bring him.' He watched as they levered the mortally wounded man up between them, the strain causing Osgan to gasp and retch. The stricken man's face was nothing but a haggard mask of pain, and Sulvec smiled to see it. While I have you, I have control. Osgan sobbed wretchedly, wailing each time they shifted his weight.

Sulvec took up the lantern and led the way back down the hall, peering ahead and yet not really looking, not wanting to see what the lantern might reveal. That was another use for Osgan. The prisoner was an anchor to slow their progress, so that the things in the dark had time to get themselves out of sight.

When I see daylight again, Sulvec thought grimly, I will rip him open. I will pull his organs out of him. I will gouge out his eyes. That's only fair, after he and that bastard Thalric dragged me down here.

Osgan was suddenly quiet, and a tremor of fear ran through Sulvec. He's dead? He can't be dead. Not yet. I'm not done with him yet. He whirled around to face the two soldiers, half expecting to see that they'd cut the suffering man's throat. Instead, he found himself looking into Osgan's face. It had been