The Scarab Path

boats, the only vessel of any stature was a narrow, open craft, piled with cushions at one end to seat a privileged passenger, and equipped with eight oars and a single mast. It had been left unattended, as though the simple status of its owner was sufficient to see off any unwanted attention. Thalric was even considering whether it might be worth making off with, if nothing else presented itself.

'You know, for a logging town, they don't seem to fell many trees,' observed the Beetle-kinden Rekef man, who had been staring into the forest for some time. Their seat near the quay gave them a good view of the darkness between the tree trunks.

Thalric glanced at him curiously and the prompt died on his lips as he saw it — so obvious that it had escaped notice. 'No stumps,' he concurred. 'No cut trees at all. Not the sound of an axe, nothing beyond the sawmill.'

The Beetle nodded. His name was Corolly Vastern and he was old enough to have been a veteran before the Twelve-year War. He was strong, though, with his kind's long-reaching endurance. His face settled into a slight smile, calculated from long practice to dispel any Wasp ire towards an inferior race. 'I've been watching for a while, and all the wood comes from deeper in. These Beetles've got it worked out so they don't even need to cut their own.'

There was a steady trickle of outsiders heading into Alim. They were not Khanaphir but men and women with skin the rich colour of teak. Some kind of long-limbed, loping Ant-kinden, they appeared bearing wood. Chains of them bore whole trees aloft out of the forest, from who knew what distance, or floated them down the river towards the sawmill. Thalric saw Khanaphir scribes carefully noting the arrival of each group on their scrolls. No money changed hands and he wondered if these forest Ants were slaves of Khanaphes in some way. It occurred to him belatedly — and it oddly disturbed him — that he had no idea at all what precise kinden these forest-dwellers were. They were at the borders of the Empire, but the forest of the Alim was an utter unknown. Imperial expansion had been so rapid that their own scouts had barely been able to keep track of it.

Osgan, lying back, began to snore softly, though for once it was not due to drink — or not entirely. Thalric had been keeping an eye on him, and the man had barely taken a sip at his hip-flask. It was the unaccustomed pace that had worn him out.

'Major Thalric …' Corolly began, in a subtly different tone.

'I know,' Thalric interrupted. 'The Khanaphir sitting over there, he's been watching us for almost twenty minutes now. Maybe it's just that the locals are curious.'

'Don't know about that,' Corolly muttered. 'In fact, that's the one thing they aren't. Six men of the Empire turn up on their doorstep, and nobody even turns a head to look. Except him.'

'Well, then,' said Thalric, 'let's force the matter, shall we? I'll go and ask some directions of a local.'

'Directions?' the Beetle said, a tilt of his head indicating that the only meaningful directions here were up the river or down.

'Something similar.' Thalric stood up, casting his eyes over the quay again. They were loading the barge with more planks, teams of Khanaphir labourers sweating and hauling as they sang a low, rhythmic tune with words he could not follow. He sauntered over towards the watcher, expecting the man to suddenly find urgent business elsewhere. Instead he stood his ground, so Thalric had a chance to examine him properly. He was not young, although these Khanaphir were difficult to age, what with their bald scalps and dark, sun-creased faces. He wore a white robe that fell from one shoulder, leaving half of his chest bare. Thalric noted a respectable quantity of gold: rings, amulets, pendants, even gold tassels on his robes. At Thalric's approach, he only nodded politely.

'Excuse me,' Thalric said. 'I don't suppose you know who owns that boat over there?'

The man smiled at him as if he had been handed a compliment. 'Of course I do, Honoured Foreigner, for it is mine.'

Caught off balance, Thalric blinked. 'Then you are …'

'O stranger, I have been waiting here for you to ask me to carry you to Khanaphes. If your need is so great, there was no need to be reticent.'

'How did you know?' Thalric asked, through gritted teeth. His agent's senses were abruptly alert, feeling great wheels moving invisibly around him. The spy in him was compromised, his mission open knowledge. Escape. Fall back. Except there was no falling back here, because the mission had not even started.

The old man's smile remained the same faintly puzzled piece of politeness as before, as if Thalric's tension had passed him by unremarked. 'Where else would a party of foreigners of such distinction wish to go?' he asked. Trying to read the man's face was exactly like trying to read a good spy, a spy who might or might not be working on the right side.

'My name is Akneth, and I am a gatherer of taxes for the Masters of Khanaphes. If you would do me the honour, O Foreigner, of voyaging upon my ship, then I will be ready to cast off in the morning.' The old man had been sitting on a mooring post, and now pushed himself to his feet with a grunt suggesting some effort. Hearing it, Thalric added another ten years to his estimated age. 'I would be glad of the company,' Akneth continued, then made a short bow, one hand pressed briefly to his stomach. Thalric managed a nod in return but, in the face of that patiently avuncular smile, all of his instincts were clamouring for him to draw his sword.

'Well,' he said, as he rejoined Corolly, 'we have secured our passage downriver.'

'So what is he?'

'Oh, he's a spy,' replied Thalric. 'Probably not a professional, but he's a government man who's keen to know what the armed outlanders are doing here.'

'Lucky for us he came along just now,' said the Beetle, but with a noticeable stress on the first word.

'Tax gatherers must be passing up and down this river all the time,' observed Thalric, a little hollowly. 'It's just coincidence.'

Of course, it's just coincidence. He made himself sit down calmly beside the drowsing Osgan, as if he couldn't care less. Inside, his instincts were shouting at him: He knew. He already knew. He was waiting.

They kept him in darkness.

It had now been three tendays since they caught him, that was his best guess. Denied the sun, the moon and stars, awareness of time slipped away from him. He tried counting meals, but they fed him unreliably. He slept only fitfully, always startled to wakefulness every time the guards tramped overhead.

They had brought him to Capitas in chains, shoulder to shoulder with a gang of slaves. He, who had enslaved hundreds of wretches while he was in the Corps, now tasted the irony in blood and sweat. They had even displayed him in Armour Square, for the good people of Capitas to jeer at his deformities. Then they had cast him down here.

His name was Hrathen. It was about the only thing they had not taken from him, and they had left it because it was of no earthly use. A Wasp name, from his mother.

The bolts rattled overhead. These were the deep cells situated directly beneath the Imperial garrison. You had to be distinctly bad to end up here, but being Rekef and biting the hand that fed you was a good enough qualification. They had made sure his guards knew he had once been Rekef, as well as Slave Corps. It was rare that the ordinary army soldiers got to take out their fear and hatred on a real live Rekef, so Hrathen was stiff with the bruises.

He did not miss the light, the air, the freedom, so much as he missed the game. When he had been what he had once been, standing between his mother's people and his father's, he had been unique. He had been a servant beyond the reach of his master. He had been part of the game, and he missed the thrill of it more than he ever missed the sun.

He had already turned his head away before the searing beam of light lanced from the opened hatch above. He flexed his arms, his hands, against the leather bindings that had been his constant companions since they threw him down here. He possessed killing hands, so they would take no chances. Still, he constantly flexed and strained, working against the tension of his bonds to keep himself strong. He had been taught to believe in opportunity. His father's people were strong believers in such.

He heard a whir of wings as two guards dropped down beside him.

'This him?' one asked. 'Ugly bastard, isn't he?'

'Just get the harness on him. Hey, halfbreed, you're going places.'

Hrathen squinted at the pair. After all the pitch dark even the glow of lanternlight from above seemed glaring, but he had the eyes for it: eyes bred for the fierce desert. He met the gaze of the first guard, and saw him take a