The Scarab Path

diagnose. Let us hunt the land-fish!'

'Let us stay close to the bank,' Che advised, 'and watch, if you have to. While we're all on this boat, you're not taking it near one of those creatures.'

The other boats were splitting away now, some hunting down the channels of the delta, swiftly lost to sight amongst its riotous vegetation, others coursing across the clear water of the river, waiting for game to be flushed out. Che huddled in her cloak. The land-fish terrified her, their bloody fate appalled her. It was a very foreign land she now found herself in.

'Remind me why we're doing this again?' Osgan complained. He had his arms wrapped tightly about both himself and a bottle, but he still looked uncomfortably sober.

'They wanted the Imperial ambassador to come hunting with them,' Thalric explained. 'They gave me a chance to sit on the barge and merely watch, but Marger and I agreed it was not politic to choose that option.'

'You're going to kill one of those things, are you? With just a spear?'

'Spear, sting,' Thalric said vaguely. 'Wings, too. We're better equipped for this sport than our hosts imagine.'

'I'm not the strongest flier.'

'So long as you can fly better than a two-ton fish, you'll be fine,' Thalric replied. He was conscious of forcing the humour, but it helped. It gave him an act to maintain, which meant he did not have to think about more awkward matters. He was playing the role of Imperial ambassador, upholding the honour of the Empire by showing these savages just how good the Wasps could be at whatever they turned their hand to. That was easier than brooding over his revenge on Totho of the Iron Glove, or reflecting on his recent conversation with Marger.

Marger was up there on the barge, of course, since there needed to be someone to keep an ear open for what the Ministers were saying. The Fly, Trallo, was there, too, ostensibly as a servant of the Lowlanders, but then he was a servant of Thalric as well. He had many pockets, Trallo, and he could take anyone's gold. Useful, but not a man to trust.

At Thalric's direction, the two Mantids guided their boat into one of the channels. There were several reed punts moving ahead, hunting out a land-fish of suitable dimensions. Smaller beasts flopped and grunted on the mudbanks, staring back at the intruders with their huge eyes, raising bright red fins in warning.

A chorus of whistles from somewhere ahead signalled the scouts finding suitable quarry. With a word, Thalric bid his crew urge the boat forward. 'I think Imperial honour will be satisfied by our driving one of the beasts into the river,' he decided. 'Let Captain Amnon deal with the bloodletting.'

They noticed the commotion ahead, then the little boats were hurrying back towards the river, while the humped back of a fish, fin raised like a banner, came surging through the shallow water after them. The Wasps would be too late, Thalric guessed, but he would be able to make a show of it, anyway, perhaps burn a few holes into the beast as Amnon dispatched it. His boat reached the fish's wake, abruptly jolting over the disturbed water so that he had to use his spear to push himself off a stand of reeds and keep his balance. He saw others rushing out amidst the green, following the hunt on foot as they dodged between the giant horsetails and rushes.

He had turned to order his crew to chase the beast when the image of the runners struck a chord in his mind. Where have I seen that? followed by, What was I seeing? Those dashing figures, skipping swiftly between mud and greenery, walking on the water.

The first arrow knocked the Mantis at the bows right off the boat. Thalric saw him arch backwards, mouth open in silent surprise, and then vanish into the waters with barely a splash. Thalric's wings flared, and he kicked off from the rocking craft. Another arrow sped across the water, and he heard Osgan cry out.

He saw them clearly then, or some of them. They were skipping over the water, crouching low from cover to cover. He had assumed they were the local Mantids at first, but they had long limbs and short bodies, all angular elbows and knees. They wore cuirasses of darkened metal scales, and they all carried bows. He saw three, in that brief moment, and one was aiming up at him already.

He let his sting speak for him, the old reflexes coming back. The arrow shot off to one side of him as he shifted in the air, but his own aim was true, the impact of his fire striking the man between neck and shoulder. In an instant the assassin was gone, his Art dying with him, the water receiving him at last.

The other two were shooting then and the air offered nowhere to hide. Thalric dropped down to just above the river's surface, hovering near the boat. 'Get moving!' he snapped, but the Mantis woman had snatched up a bow, a little recurved thing, and was kneeling at the stern to sight up on some target invisible to Thalric. His heart lurched when he spotted Osgan lying groaning in the bottom of the boat. There was an arrow all the way through his upper arm, digging an inch into his ribs.

The Mantis let fly with her arrow, and at the same moment a shaft struck Thalric in the side. He was not wearing his army-issue mail, but the copperweave was hidden beneath his tunic. The arrowhead — broad-bladed to cleave flesh — did not pierce through, but the impact knocked him into the water.

His wings were abandoned at once, and for a moment he could do nothing but splash. Then his feet found the bottom and he reached up to drag himself into the boat.

The killers had broken cover, were racing towards them over the water, shooting as they came. One of them sprang backwards, with an arrow punching through his mail. The last assassin leapt up from the surface of the water onto the boat's side, drawing back his bowstring again and aiming straight at the Mantis.

From river-level, Thalric put a hand out and loosed his sting, catching the man at a range of five feet, splintering his bow and melting his mail, hurling him back off the boat into the water. When Thalric cautiously lifted himself up and into the boat, there was no sign of any of them, all their bodies reclaimed by the river.

Skater-kinden from Jerez, he named them, acutely aware that there could be more of them nearby, and another team of three would just about settle matters here. Skater-kinden? It was a long way from Jerez to Khanaphes, but of course there were Skaters in service to the Empire, with all the skills and the temperament necessary for the assassination game. That someone had sent them this far afield said a lot about how much they wanted Thalric dead. And if I had stayed in Capitas, what might they not have sent against me?

He had grown complacent, stopped thinking like a Rekef officer, and it had come close to killing him.

'Get this boat back on the main river,' he snapped. 'If we're to deal with assassins, let's have witnesses too.'

But the Mantis woman did not move, peering still into the tangled ferns. 'There are more,' she said, nocking another arrow. 'Between us and the rest of the hunt.'

Fly, thought Thalric, and it would be simple enough — save that even in that short space between here and the barge he would become a target for any halfway competent archer. It would mean leaving Osgan as well. Crouching low in the boat he studied the injured man. Osgan was shaking, skin gone pale, but he was conscious still.

'Now,' the Mantis said, and stood up suddenly to loose her arrow. Thalric raised his head briefly, saw a confusion of movement, heard a cry. Another arrow zipped past, a foot over his head. He saw the Mantis sighting up again.

'Out of the boat,' she urged abruptly. 'Into the trees.'

'What …?' Thalric started saying, but she kicked hard at the boat's side and it capsized neatly, dumping its two Wasp passengers into the murky water. Thalric, one hand still clawing at the curved hull, felt it quiver twice, knew that arrows were hammering into it from the far side. The Mantis woman had sprung into the air, her wings flickering. She loosed another shaft at a target he could not see, dodged in the air as a return shot sped past her. The arrow that jutted from her side was as unexpected and unlooked-for as a magic trick. She hissed in pain, fell towards the overturned boat, still reaching for her quiver.

'Go!' she spat, and Thalric waded two steps, then turned to haul up Osgan, who was spluttering and splashing fitfully. The man cried out as Thalric jogged the arrow through his arm, but there was no time to do anything about it. Thalric dragged him through the water, sometimes with Osgan's help and sometimes despite it. The Mantis woman landed beside him, just as he reached the nearest stand of ferns, and she shoved Osgan forward into the green and the mud. She collapsed shuddering beside him, the spine of the arrow in her side jerking in irregular time with her breathing.

Thalric crouched, watching, but he saw nothing more. That the assassins were still out there he had no doubt, but the same leaves now keeping him alive also hid his persecutors. Osgan gasped loudly, and Thalric hissed