The Scarab Path

'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 pass to one side, to let the defenders here escape, but that will be filled at need,' Amnon said. 'We are building bands of walclass="underline" 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 spaces 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 shore,' 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. 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. 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 shield. 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 shore.

Totho had been about to pass 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.

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 cocked 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?'