The Scarab Path sota-5

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  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 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 dragged her from her bedroll by the oasis. There is power here. I need it.

  Achaeos … I cannot live like this. But she lumbered into the treeline, wings a labouring blur, chasing that fleeting, smearing image. Achaeos, I would free you if I could.

  We would be rid of each other, returned that deathless voice, and it pierced her sharply. She fell from the air, landing thigh-deep in murky water.

  'Don't say that,' she demanded of the delta and its myriad denizens. 'Please, Achaeos …'

  Come! was the order it delivered and she felt it tugging at her mind with all its insubstantial fury.

  'Is it …?' She choked over the words. 'Is it so bad to be with me?'

  Agony. I am pierced and pierced. For a moment the encroaching green all around her became the twisted corpse of the Darakyon, and she shuddered away from it. The ghost, its hook fastened in her mind, was still dragging at her, just strongly enough for her to feel. He was throwing all his might — all that death had left him — into drawing her somewhere, some place he had sensed.

  'I'm coming!' she told him, and she floundered her way forward, heedless of monster fish or insects, determined finally to shed this burden, to set him free — and so to free herself.

  'Give me your alcohol,' Thalric ordered. He had snapped the arrowhead off, although with so much wrenching that Osgan had briefly passed out. Now the stricken man was conscious again, pasty-faced and sweating.

  'Don't know what you're talking about,' Osgan responded faintly out of the corner of his mouth, past the cloth bit that Thalric had given him to clench his teeth against.

  'You've come out here with something to drink. Hand it over,' Thalric demanded. He was acutely aware of the target his back provided but he knew he had to fix this sooner rather than later. He had a feeling that Khanaphir medicine would be as primitive as the rest of their culture.

  Osgan's good hand made a feeble gesture towards the pockets of his coat, and Thalric delved into them, ripping them open one after another until he found the bottle. He uncapped it and let the clear liquid drip onto the graze running down Osgan's ribs. Osgan hissed and twitched at the sting of it and, with that distraction, Thalric yanked the arrow from his arm.

  Osgan's scream sounded even through the cloth gag. He fought so hard Thalric had to kneel on his chest, dragging the arm out straight to douse both sides of the wound with burning spirits. Strips torn from Osgan's much-abused coat were all the bandaging he could muster.

  'Five minutes,' Thalric decided. 'Then we move.' He left Osgan sobbing quietly and went to see what attention their noise had brought. They were deep inside a stand of canes, as defensible a spot as he had come across. Now, dropping low, he crawled cautiously forward. The marshlands of the delta did odd things with sound: the foggy air deadened and distorted it. The assassins would most likely be unsure precisely where the sound had come from, unable to follow it up.

  How many? He guessed at four dead and reckoned at least a pair of them must be left. Two teams of three felt logical, and he had sent such men out on Rekef errands enough to trust his own judgement. This is not just some Tyrshaani malcontent. Somebody with power in the Empire wanted Thalric dead very much indeed. And then what? Kill the Regent and then what? Is my death the trigger for some uprising? Has a conspiracy eluded General Brugan? It was information he had to get back to Capitas, along with news of his own continued survival. Assuming that news is still current by the time I get a chance …

  Again the thought came to him: leave Osgan to the mercies of the swamp. If there were only two killers left, there was enough cover between here and the river to evade them. Assuming I still know which way the river lies.

  There had been no movement visible out there. The assassins were elsewhere, or they were close by and waiting patiently. There was no way to tell.

  'Osgan,' he said, as loud as he dared, 'time to move.'

  The quartermaster was now sitting up, looking as though he had died and come back to life. Thalric's uncharitable thought was that, without the wound, he'd have just assumed the man was suffering after a night's heavy drinking.

  'Move where?' Osgan managed to ask, and he was clearly doing his best. Old military instincts were struggling to make themselves felt.

  'Away,' Thalric replied. There was only one clear entrance to the stand of tall canes they were hiding in: one clear exit, too, therefore. Any killers that were watching could not help but appreciate that. 'We're going out the back way,' Thalric decided.

  'What back way?'

  'Have you the strength to use your sting?'

  Osgan closed his eyes. The Wasp Art that had taken the Empire so far was tiring to use: it lived off the body's own strength. He nodded wearily.

  Thalric levelled one hand towards the canes behind Osgan, and the quartermaster hauled himself round and did likewise. Worms of light now flickered and crawled across Thalric's open palm.

  He unleashed the golden fire, putting a hand up to guard his eyes from splinters as the searing fire of his Art shattered the canes apart. Something inside them was flammable, the pith exploding like a volley of snapbows. He and Osgan turned their faces away as a score of canes combusted together, flinging fragments and splinters across them.

  'Move,' Thalric urged, and he was already pressing through the gap that had been scorched between the canes. He lurched forward, across an open patch of water, ducking into the reeds on the other side. Laboured splashing behind him told him that Osgan was trying to keep up. He turned, tugging at the man's good shoulder, just as an arrow cut across the wat
er, clipping the ripples they had left. Thalric loosed his sting instantly, guessing at the archer's hiding place, then they were stumbling and staggering through the mud, the waist-deep water, burrowing ever deeper into the delta as the foliage around them grew taller and thicker, stilt-rooted trees and gigantic horsetails making a half-drowned forest out of the Marsh.

  'Thalric …' Osgan's voice, hoarse with effort, came from behind him,

  'Just keep moving.'

  'Thalric — water's getting deeper.'

  He did not stop, still plunging on, dragging himself forward in sudden bursts, then letting Osgan catch up. The man was right, though. Surely if they were heading into denser plantlife they must be reaching the river banks, the shallows. Then it came to him just where they were. This is a delta … the tide … Of course the water level would be rising. The tide was coming in, and that was why all the trees around them were on stilts. Soon their spidery roots would be submerged. Worse, the rising levels would not hinder their Skater-kinden pursuers, but it would drag Thalric and Osgan to a standstill. Can Osgan swim? Not with only one arm, was the answer to that. Time was running out.

  Thalric came to rest, dragging Osgan down beside him. They were in the shadow of some tall ferns, as hidden as he could make them. As they crouched, the water came to their chests. We cannot just run. We need a plan. Osgan was breathing heavily, sucking at the air in great gasps. There was little more flight left in him. The wound and the heat and the man's habitual dissipation were killing him.

  'I'm sorry I brought you to this,' Thalric said quietly.

  Osgan lacked the breath to respond, just shaking his head in a denial that could have meant anything. He grasped at Thalric's arm abruptly, pointing something out.

  Assassins, was Thalric's first thought. He hunched forward, putting a hand out ready to sting. Osgan continued pointing, jabbing a finger urgently. Thalric tried to follow the direction of it, seeing only more green, more ferns and rushes and canes, and …