The Scarab Path

at him, 'I know, you're shot. Keep quiet.'

'She's dying,' Osgan's voice responded, sounding more controlled than Thalric would have expected. He glanced back to see the other Wasp sitting up with his back against the segmented trunk of a horsetail. Pain was written in sharp lines about his eyes, but it had chased the drink away at least.

The Mantis was still lying on her back, her teeth bared in defiance at something Thalric could not see. The arrow had penetrated deep but it was that final effort of getting her charges to cover that had finished her. Thalric reached over and took her hand, and she gripped it fiercely, the spines on her arm flexing.

'Still between us … and the river …' she got out. 'Further in …'

'I know,' Thalric interrupted. 'Don't speak.'

She coughed violently, and he felt it racking through her, holding on to her hand until the final spasm and the quiet that followed told him she was dead. It was no more than the Rekef man had always tried to do. He had always done his best for those that served him.

'What now?' Osgan asked, with a tremor, but some vestige of the career quartermaster of old had dragged itself to the surface and was holding the man together for now.

And indeed what now? The thought had come to Thalric again that he could just trust to his wings. He could flit from green to green until he had the open river before him, and then he could skim for the cover of the boats and hope that the assassins valued secrecy over success. But that would involve leaving Osgan here alone, wounded and fair game for any killer or predator that found him.

What would the Rekef man in him do? And he knew that same Rekef man had possessed one oft-boasted and overriding virtue, which was loyalty. Even though the Rekef itself had been torn out of the heart of that man, the loyalty remained.

'Further in, like she said,' he told Osgan, and draped the man's good arm over his shoulders, sinking calf-deep in mud to lever him to his feet. 'We'll take a curved path, head back for the river somewhere closer to the city.' Looking about him, searching for bearings in this baffling maze of channels and fronds, Thalric kept his voice confident for Osgan's sake. 'And when we get back, I'll give Marger something worthwhile to put in his cursed report.'

Twenty-Two

They were still trying to roust a second land-fish for the hunt when Che saw it, glimmering amid the foliage on the far side of the river as though it was a ragged cloth caught amongst the leaves.

No! she thought, but that part of her, the part inside that was helplessly anchored to him, was already responding. 'Take the boat across,' she heard herself say. She was pointing right towards the shuddering blur that only she could see. 'Take it there.'

She heard Manny say, 'That's more like it,' and knew that they were also heading for where the hunt was. I'm doing it again. It's the Fir-eaters all over again. Only this time it was two bewildered academics she was dragging into danger alongside her. Can I not just turn my back?

She could not. It was not even love, now. She was cursed. Her life, her understandings, had been taken from her. Chasing this ghost was the only way she might ever get them back. And what am I willing to pay for that, at the expense of others?

The ghost was gone but she had seen it, felt it. It would come back to her. Whatever it wanted, it wanted here. The Mantis crew tacked their boat to what passed for a riverbank, barely more than stands of reeds and ferns jutting from the winding water. Manny put an arrow to his bow and tried to look heroic, while Praeda huddled as low as she could manage in the boat, trying to look bored. Che stared into the shadow-maze of the delta and searched for Achaeos.

Something was moving out there, she saw. There were quick flashes of rush-boats speeding, she heard shrill whistles and, across the river, Amnon's boat turned and began heading towards them.

'I think …' she started, and then a land-fish burst through the reeds not ten feet ahead of their boat, careering over a mudbank and into the river. Che toppled back into the bottom of the boat, on to Praeda, as she heard the distinct twang of Manny's bowstring releasing the arrow.

'Manny!' she shouted. 'Tell me you didn't shoot it!' She levered herself up, saw the land-fish now rearing and plunging past Amnon's boat, being herded by the smaller punts of the Mantids. Manny stood at the prow of their own vessel with the bow in one hand, mouth open.

'No,' he said. 'I just … it startled me. I shot the river, I'm afraid.' He turned a sheepish smile on her, but just then one of the Mantis crew gave a warning shout, pointing.

There had been a line attached to Manny's arrow, and it was pulling taut, unspooling from the bottom of the boat and whipping into the water faster than Che could watch. She met Manny's uncertain gaze.

'You shot something more than the river,' she said, but then the line went suddenly slack. Manny gave a great sigh of relief.

'Well, whatever it is-' he started, before Praeda cut him off.

'Whatever it is, it's stopped moving away. It's coming back, you fool.'

The Mantis crew had snatched up short-hafted spears, as Che stared at the murky waters of the Jamail. What have we woken?

It struck them from the opposite side of the boat, the narrow wooden hull almost kicked over by the force. One of the Mantids took to the air; the other crouched at the stern, holding the boat with one hand, and spear raised high. For a second there was nothing but churning water, then segmented arms began hooking on to one side of the boat and the creature was doing its best to climb in with them. Che saw a rounded carapace break the water, and below it a small head with fist-sized faceted eyes the colour of fresh blood and a beak like a shortsword. Manny's arrow jutted from the joint between the creature's head and body. The barbed arms scrabbled at the wooden hull, and then made a great effort to climb. Surging out of the water, it was twice the size of a man.

The boat tipped towards it, and then flipped over entirely. Che felt her wings flare automatically, dragging her up to hover inches above the river. The Mantids knelt stabbing at the insect as it continued to try and haul itself onto the boat, mindlessly seeking an enemy it could not understand. Then Amnon's boat was in the water alongside them, and he had brought company.

The second land-fish was not yet dispatched but Amnon had come to their aid even though the maddened creature was tethered to his craft. He reached down and grabbed Praeda's thrashing arm, dragging her, one- handed, up into his boat. His crew had set their spears against the enraged fish that was attacking them from the other side, while the smaller boats speeding past it loosed arrows to distract its attention. Che saw Manny floundering, first pawing at the capsized boat, then clinging to one of the water-insect's legs as it hung from the upturned vessel, more frightened of the water itself than of the things that lived in it. She tried to get closer to him, but Amnon was already there, the land-fish drawn away from him for the moment. Bracing himself, he caught hold of Manny's robe, pulling upwards with all his strength until he had tugged the fat man halfway out of the water. Praeda appeared beside him, grabbing for handfuls of Manny, too, and then a Mantis joined in on the other side. The real help came from the marauding insect, which finally claimed the keel of the capsized boat as its own, and pulled Manny up with it. For a second he hung there, dripping and shivering, still clinging to the creature, and then Amnon's boat closed the last foot of distance and they tipped him into it. The insect turned to stare at them, flexing its beak, then Amnon leant forward and grasped the arrow's shaft. For a second neither moved, and then the creature went for him, driving itself forward from the overturned hull. Amnon jerked back just as the lunging insect struck the side of his boat, shoving it away, then the creature vanished into the depths of the river. Amnon's hand now held the offending arrow, which he brandished aloft like a trophy.

Cheerwell.

She turned, still hovering ponderously over the water, and spotted him. He shuddered and stained the air, like paint running, an anguished grey form within the trees.

Here, Beetle girl, here!

No! she told it, but she knew she could not deny its summons. Just tell me what you want! What can I do?

Power. Strength, replied that harsh voice, the same commanding tones that had