The Scarab Path Part 43

What are we nearing? How large is this place? She felt they had been exploring, admittedly at a cripplingly cautious pace, for hours. She felt they had been exploring, admittedly at a cripplingly cautious pace, for hours.

They stepped through the archway and stopped. For a long time they simply looked.

The ceiling was at least another six feet higher, and it was supported by great columns that had been fantastically worked into the shape of abominations. It was an old motif. She had seen carvings like it in Tharn, but never as grandly detailed as these. Human features were merged with those of beasts so that each column became a monster with its arms or claws raised high to support the earth. There were spiders with the faces of women, and scorpion-tailed men with pincered hands, beetle-headed, wing-backed, joint-legged. One depicted a woman who was partly consumed within the sh.e.l.l of a great mantis, and this image in particular Che turned away from, finding it obscurely, disturbingly familiar.

Between the columns were the tombs, arrayed in earnest now. Where Garmoth Atennar, whoever he had been, had kept a lonely vigil, here were an even score of great stone sarcophagi interspersed with the grotesque carved pillars.

The eerie light leapt and dwindled on them, these sleeping statues, the ranks of the forgotten, the Masters of Khanaphes. She saw their names: Hieram Tisellian, who Raised the Temple and brought Life to the Parched Land, Lord Architect of all Time ... Killeris Jaenathil, the Beautiful, the all-Knowing, Lady of the Utmost Sorcery ... Iellith Quellennas, Bringer of Death, the Harvester of the Old Lands, the Chariot of War ... Hieram Tisellian, who Raised the Temple and brought Life to the Parched Land, Lord Architect of all Time ... Killeris Jaenathil, the Beautiful, the all-Knowing, Lady of the Utmost Sorcery ... Iellith Quellennas, Bringer of Death, the Harvester of the Old Lands, the Chariot of War ...

'How many hundreds of years,' Che wondered, 'since anyone last saw this?'

'Always a.s.suming you don't count the lamp-lighters.' The sense of awe and reverence had pa.s.sed Thalric by, and he was becoming increasingly unnerved, looking up at the hybrid visages of the carved abominations and shuddering. For impossible monsters, they had been rendered extremely lifelike.

They were crude, however, compared to the likenesses that the Masters had decreed for themselves. Each one of these was an individual, as recognizable and distinct as they must have appeared in life. The white stone flowed smoothly over their musculature, each curve of gut and jowl and breast. Theirs was an alien aesthetic, but one that seemed to overrule all others. They were not delicately beautiful as Spiders were, or Dragonflies or Beetles or Moths, or any other kinden. They were simply beautiful de facto de facto, commanding and magnetic. Even their stone facsimiles confirmed it.

'No wonder they are still revered as they are,' Che said in wonder.

'Oh, true,' Thalric snapped. 'They'd be able to give our Slave Corps a few lessons: how to keep an entire population under your thumb for a thousand years after you've died! How about that? The greatest slavemasters in the history of the world lie here, and I'm glad that, beyond this stinking piece of sand and stone, n.o.body even knows about them.'

'How can you say that?' Che demanded. 'Thalric, what we're seeing here ... it's an age of history that Collegium has never guessed at. In all the Lowlands, there are probably only a few records of this mouldering in the Moth-kinden strongholds. I could go home right now and claim my seat as a College Master just for being here. This is history history, this is the past right here for us to look upon. Can't you see that?'

'Do you know what I see?' he asked her. 'I see those pillars in the main hall of the Scriptora the hall with the little fountain, where they held that reception for us both.'

'I don't-'

'They were just like these monsters: pillars carved into figures that were holding up the ceiling. Very artistic. Only those ones were carved to look like Beetle-kinden. Your Your people, the Khanaphir. What did these dead Masters think? That it was your lot above ground, and monsters for servants once they were dead? They were mad, Che. They're better forgotten, believe me ...' He trailed off just then, and she heard his breath suddenly become ragged. She turned to see what had caught his eye. people, the Khanaphir. What did these dead Masters think? That it was your lot above ground, and monsters for servants once they were dead? They were mad, Che. They're better forgotten, believe me ...' He trailed off just then, and she heard his breath suddenly become ragged. She turned to see what had caught his eye.

One of the stone coffins was bare.

The sight the absence chilled her. For a moment neither of them moved. Then Thalric said, 'So, we're both thinking the same ridiculous thing just now, and we should stop it. After all, they wouldn't be the first people not to finish crafting a tomb. It's something you tend to have built late in life.'

Che walked closer and wiped slime away from the inscription to read it clearly.

'Elysiath Neptellian, Lady of the Bright Water, She whose Word Breaks all Bonds, Princess of the Thousand,' she translated.

'Maybe she didn't care for the likeness,' said Thalric harshly. 'Now, can we get out of this festering place and ...' His voice choked off and Che looked around wildly.

'What? What now?'

'I ... thought I saw something ...' he said, voice openly shaking. 'Ahead there. Something pale ...'

'The lamps. The shadows of the lamps,' Che said hurriedly. 'The lamplight on the stone.' She was tense as a drawn bow, waiting for whatever terrible thing was about to descend on them. The air was thick with it.

When it came, it came from behind them: a long, drawn-out scream of human agony. Thalric whirled around, his sword in his hand instantly.

'Wait-' Che started but he snarled, 'Osgan,' and was away from her at once, plunging back the way they had come, and leaving her to scurry in his wake.

Thirty-Nine.

Totho was awoken by the sound of stone, great loads of it being hauled up the span of the bridge by sled, and by the noisy efforts of a labouring draught beetle.

Are we building the barricade now? he wondered vaguely, but had they not already built it? Had they not defended it for a day already? he wondered vaguely, but had they not already built it? Had they not defended it for a day already? I refuse to go through that again I refuse to go through that again.

He sat up, seeing the great bow-backed animal settle, antennae twitching, as the sled was unloaded. By the barricade itself, the centre had been reinforced, going some way towards repairing the petard's damage, and some complex woodwork was being lashed together, a slope on either side of the central point, with what seemed like a vast quant.i.ty of rope lying about. He could make nothing of it.

He jumped up, looking for authority, and spotted Amnon. The big man was supervising the unloading. Meyr, whose watch it was, leant against the barricade well out of the way.

'What's going on?' Totho asked him. 'When did this start?'

'Hour ago,' Meyr said. 'That Amnon, he's got an idea or something. Look down at our end of the bridge.'

Totho did so, seeing a great many torches down below, and what seemed like two hundred Khanaphir busy hauling stone about. A second barricade A second barricade. 'Amnon!' he called out. 'I told you, once they get a leadshotter up here, they'll sweep away anything you put down at the sh.o.r.e. They'll just smash it to pieces.'

'That is indeed what you told me,' Amnon confirmed.

'Then what?'

'I have been speaking with Praeda about the engines of the enemy, and what they are capable of,' Amnon revealed.

'Yes, that's exactly what I meant when I said you should go home to her,' Totho remarked drily. 'So what did she have to say about it?'

'Firstly, she said she is an artificer, and a professor of artifice at their College, so she knows about these things,' Amnon told him.

Totho shrugged. 'That covers quite a range of competences.'

'She then also says that our stones cannot resist their shot, because our stones are rigid. She says that Collegium walls have a soft core to them, where the mortar is, that makes them move when struck, which is why these engines would not beat them down so easily. True?'

'True,'Totho admitted, 'all true. So what's going on?'

'Down there they are preparing a very great deal of stone, all of it we have dressed and ready to place. As of now there is a narrow pa.s.s to one side, to let the defenders here escape, but that will be filled at need,' Amnon said. 'We are building bands of wall: stone backed with wood and wicker, then stone again, and so forth, the whole of it a score of feet deep at least, and high as we can build it. The s.p.a.ces of softer stuff, Praeda says, will give the stones somewhere to go when they are struck. The enemy will take twice as long to batter through. And she says, when the leadshotters shoot at it, they will only be turning standing stones into rubble that they will have to climb across. We will have archers on every roof. What do you think, about my Praeda?'

'I think she's thought it through,' Totho conceded. 'As last lines of defence go, I can't think of a better one. I should have thought of that myself.'

'Good to be appreciated,' he heard a female voice interrupt. Praeda herself came walking towards them up the slope. She had traded her Collegium robes for hard-wearing artificer's canvas, and there was a crossbow of Iron Glove make slung over her shoulder. 'Amnon, you're sure the barricade can hold them off here while they complete the barrier down there, after you fall back?'

'Of course.' Amnon was looking at Totho as he said it, and the wince was evident, that told of the lie.

Every plan has its flaw. 'So what's this up here?' Totho asked hastily, to ward off more questions from Praeda.

'When this barricade is due to fall, my soldiers will still need time to flee down to the eastern sh.o.r.e,' Amnon explained. The labourers were loading great blocks of stone on to the ramps that flanked the barricade's mid-point, building them high and securing them against the slope with ropes. Totho extrapolated, seeing two big columns of stone, poised and straining, waiting to thunder together in the centre, an instant breach-blocker.

'That's mad,' he said. 'What if the ropes go? Anyone fighting in the centre will be squashed flat.'

'We make good ropes, and we know our stone,' Amnon replied. 'We have been building like this for a thousand years. The ropes will hold until we cut them. I will be in the centre of our line. It is my own life that I stake on this.'

Totho shook his head at it. Oh you say that here and now, with that confidence, because your lady is with you. It would not do to point out the cracks in this plan Oh you say that here and now, with that confidence, because your lady is with you. It would not do to point out the cracks in this plan. It would not take the Scorpions long to break through the barricade, as soon as its defenders had retreated. Another petard would suffice and they would surely have one ready. If there were sufficient bodies on the far side, or if they possessed the Art, then they might even just swarm straight over. At the foot of the bridge the fleeing soldiers would either be trapped by the barrier's completion, or the barrier would not be finished in time, letting the Scorpions through.

Unless. But he did not need to voice that 'unless' here. You are a fool, Amnon. You have more to live for than you know You are a fool, Amnon. You have more to live for than you know. Amnon's sense of duty was crippling to be near, and Totho could barely imagine it. If he himself had been born with all the advantages that Amnon owned, with his strength and energy and easy manner, and if he had a Beetle girl who loved him, then there was nothing in the world that would make him turn away from it. Not duty, not honour, nothing.

But, then, perhaps that duty is what makes Amnon what he is.

'You should sleep again,' Amnon told him. 'It is your turn.'

'Small chance of that,'Totho grumbled.

'They will be done here soon enough.' It was true, the piles of stone, immaculately placed, were now almost as high as the barricades. The webwork of ropes that held them in place had been run to pulleys fixed on the bridge's sides, and then back to a single ring set in the stonework behind. It would take a sword's blow to those taut ropes to drop four tons of stone together like clapping hands.

'I don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight,'Totho admitted. 'Tomorrow is oppressing me already.'

Amnon settled down with his back to the bridge's right flank. His glance, away from Praeda towards the western bank, caught him wearing a strangely irresolute expression. 'Praeda,' he said suddenly, 'would you leave us? Return to the city?'

The Collegiate woman frowned at him. 'Actually I ...'

'You were going to stay to face the dawn,' Amnon finished for her, nodding. 'You bought a crossbow from one of the Iron Glove people. You want to fight alongside me, tomorrow.'

'Yes.' Her expression was determined, set. Totho glanced from her to Amnon, who would not look at her at all.

'You must not,' was all he said.

'I have a right to defend you,' Praeda told him. 'How can you keep me away? I know you're First Soldier of Khanaphes, and all that, but that doesn't mean you're immortal.'

'No, it does not,' Amnon said heavily. 'But you have never fought before, and many will die here who have lived their whole lives carrying spear and s.h.i.+eld. And I will not be able to fight to my best, knowing that you are in danger. I will not.'

'Amnon, that's not fair ... I was up on the walls during the Vekken siege of Collegium. I loosed a crossbow then.'

'Praeda.' He said her name very softly, and that silenced her. In the pause that followed, Totho felt unbearably awkward, a voyeur to something intensely private.

'Praeda,' Amnon repeated. 'Do not make me choose between you and my city. If I knew that you were fighting here, and might be hurt at any moment, I would give commands that would compromise our position so that you might remain safe, or at least safer. If you forced me to it, I would give over my people just to save your life but I would never forgive myself, after, for doing so. Do not tear me apart.'

Totho saw tears come to her eyes, glinting red in the torchlight. 'Amnon,' she whispered, then she knelt down beside him, throwing her arms around him, kissing him. She was shaking slightly, after she stood up again.

'Come back to me,' she urged him. 'You must.' Then she was running back towards the construction works at the bridge's foot, heading towards the eastern sh.o.r.e.

Totho had been about to pa.s.s some comment about how much Amnon loved his city, but one look at the big man's face warned him off it. Instead he sat down beside him, feeling all his bruises from yesterday complain. And soon I shall have to put the armour on again. Joy And soon I shall have to put the armour on again. Joy.

The broad shadow that was Meyr joined them, setting a cask down in front of him, and a stack of clay bowls. 'In the Delve, when a great construction is completed, we drink to it,' the Mole Cricket murmured. 'I had called for this, so that we might drink before tomorrow sees the colour of our blood, but shall we not drink to these stones behind us instead? How well they are laid, one on another. Nothing compared to my own people's work, of course, but pretty enough. They will do their job.'

His huge hands laid out the bowls one, two, three and then he craned his head to look back. 'Mantis-girl, come and join us in a drink.'

Teuthete stepped down from the barricade, head c.o.c.ked to one side. 'The Khanaphir do not know how to brew,' she said. 'I will not drink their beer. It is sour.'

'Then drink some Imperial brandy,' Meyr told her, 'which is not.'

'We were keeping that as a gift,' Totho pointed out, 'to cement our trading links with Khanaphes.' He considered it. 'So let's crack it open, why not?'

'Where is Tirado?' Meyr asked, the fifth and final bowl cupped in his hand.

'Your Fly-kinden sleeps like a dead man,' Teuthete said. 'You could launch him from one of the Scorpion war-engines and he still would not wake.'

'We'll save him some,'Totho decided, gesturing for Meyr to start decanting. The little barrel looked just like a cup in the Mole Cricket's broad hands. Teuthete slipped down to kneel beside him, looking childlike in comparison. Meyr pa.s.sed the first bowl to her.

'My people are pragmatists: we do not acknowledge freedom,' Meyr said, pouring a bowl in turn for each. 'We were slaves of the Moth-kinden before we were ever slaves to theWasps. There is no one alive who is not a slave, we say: slave to city, slave to past, slave to feelings. Even the wild beast in the wastes is a slave to hunger.' He put the barrel down carefully, replacing the bung that he had dug out with one thick, square fingernail. His own bowl sat neatly in his palm. 'In all my life,' said Meyr, 'I have been no happier than in my servitude to the Iron Glove. Of all my slaveries it is the least onerous.'

'We do not admit to slavery. Where our respect has been earned we serve with honour,' Teuthete stated flatly. 'My people cannot be slaves.'

Except to that honour, Totho completed for her, but he left the words unsaid.

They drank. The Empire's purloined finest was smooth on the tongue, fiery in the throat, with an aftertaste of apricots.

'We have no illusions here about the morrow,' said Amnon. 'That is why I sent Praeda away. Not all battles can be won.'

Totho cast a look back at the monumental barrier that was slowly taking shape at the foot of the bridge. 'Amnon, about your plan ...'

'You have a comment?' Amnon's smile was edged.

'Just to say ... when the call comes for everyone to run for the east sh.o.r.e, well, I'll be right behind you.'

'Will you now?'

Totho shrugged. 'Well, it's true I've not got a woman or a city's love to live for, and it's true that the woman that I I love has vanished, and is probably dead by Imperial hands. And that she'll never know what I've done here to try and make her approve of me. But even though you have so much to live for and I so little, yes, I shall be right at your back when the moment comes. You know what I mean.' love has vanished, and is probably dead by Imperial hands. And that she'll never know what I've done here to try and make her approve of me. But even though you have so much to live for and I so little, yes, I shall be right at your back when the moment comes. You know what I mean.'

'I do,' said Amnon solemnly, 'and I am grateful.'

'And I shall be at your back,' Meyr told Totho.

'There's no need-'

'What? You can be an idiot, and not I?'

Amnon laughed quietly. 'We are four fools. No, three fools and one too honourable woman. What would anyone think of us, sitting and drinking like this?'

'Who cares what anyone thinks?' Meyr asked.

Totho smiled weakly. 'A man of Collegium once said that the only parts of us to dodge the grave are the memories we leave behind with others.' So if you live, Che, remember me this way: the man who tried to save a city, not the killer of thousands So if you live, Che, remember me this way: the man who tried to save a city, not the killer of thousands.

There was a high, tooth-jarring buzz coming from one of the abandoned buildings that had been swamped by the Scorpion camp. It had begun around midnight and two hours before dawn it showed no signs of letting up. Most of the Scorpions nearby had been evicted by its constant irritation, shambling off to find somewhere else to sleep. Others had wanted to go and silence the noise. The problem was that, in the single lit window, they could see one of the foreigners crossing backwards and forwards. This noise was their doing, perhaps preparing some weapon to inflict on the Khanaphir. To interfere with them might bring down Jakal's wrath. Threat of superior force was one of the few strictures they held sacred.

Eventually they elected a spokesman, by democratic application of superior force. The man chosen was Genraki, most promising of the new-minted artillerists. His use of artillery to settle personal feuds had already been noted and approved of. It was therefore reckoned less likely that Jakal would have him killed if he did something wrong.

Genraki entered, stooping, through the building's kicked-in door. It was a decent-size two-storey, this one, where some Beetle family of means had lived, enjoying their view of the river. The thought amused him, for it was about time the Khanaphir knew fear and hards.h.i.+p. They had lived behind the safety of their walls for long enough. Genraki loved the Empire, for everything it had given his people. They had always possessed claws to cut flesh; now they had a fist to break stone.

The noise, that skull-boring sound, came from above, and he padded up quietly, taking a moment to peer around the corner, from the head of the stairs. There were two Wasps there, and one of them was Angved. They were hunched over some small mechanism, looking duly impressed.