The Scarab Path

The question brought a slight smile to his face. 'He is Penthet. He is a desert locust. My grooms raised him for me, from the very egg. We two have been companions in the fray for many years.' He ran a hand down the long, segmented flank of the creature, and it resettled its legs, one glittering eye watching him from above the constantly-working mouthparts. 'From his back I shall command the battle.' His hand moved to the high-ended saddle that sat so naturally over the locust's thorax, just in front of the wings. His face darkened momentarily. 'I am glad to see there is one part of war that you wise foreigners do not understand. Perhaps your predictions are not so all-knowing as you think.'

'Amnon, she could not make herself come and see you,' Che told him.

He nodded grimly. 'I had assumed as much.'

'She fears for you. It is true that we do not understand your ways here – of all people, I know that! – but you do not understand what is coming, with the Scorpions. They are bringing a part of our world against you – the worst part. Praeda… she fears that she will lose you.'

'All men must die. Warriors die in battle. Your world is not so different, I am sure,' he said. 'What would she ask of me? That the First Soldier of Khanaphes hides away, while his army fights?'

'She would have asked, I think, that you changed your battle plan – that you changed your ways as the Scorpion have changed theirs,' Che said. 'She would have asked that you took all the weapons and armour that Totho could sell you, and thus sent the Scorpions back to the Empire asking for more and better in return. She is a logical woman, but she does not see where her logic would lead. Besides, I myself have seen battles, and she has not. You cannot change an army in a day. Order and discipline are built from practice. The Scorpions cannot have had so very long to become used to their new toys.'

He regarded her for a long time before responding, 'Speak the rest, O Foreigner. I see it in your face. These crossbows… Totho tells me they are a simpleton's weapon, that any fool can take them up and shoot. And the Scorpions have had many tendays to practise. Who knows how long the Empire has been dwelling amongst them? And the Many of Nem are truly many, in their war host. Never have we known the like, this swarming of them.'

'You see it all, don't you?' Che said.

'I see that we must fight. That is the true word of the Masters. What can we do but defend our homes? The Scorpions will accept no peace, give no quarter. They seek only to loot and kill. The Empire may have armed them, but it will not have changed them.'

'And we cannot change you.'

As he met her eyes, the force of his gaze was almost like a blow. 'The Ministers declare that the Masters will save us, at the end.'

'Do you believe that?'

'I will believe it at the end. I will have nothing to lose then.' Thirty It was a bright, cloudless morning, as they always seemed to be here. The dust of an army on the move had not yet started to choke the air. The war-host of the Many of Nem was just stirring.

In the distance, within a day's hard strike, the green that was the river Jamail was in sight, with all its treasures. Through a spyglass, focusing the little device awkwardly with his clawed hands, Hrathen could see the walls of Khanaphes in some detail. He passed the glass to Angved the engineer. 'Your professional opinion?'

Angved spent a long time passing the telescope back and forth, in minute increments. 'Big walls,' he said at last. 'Big old walls. Carved real pretty too, it looks like.'

'That doesn't count as a professional opinion,' Hrathen growled. 'How will the leadshotters fare?'

'Sir,' replied the engineer, 'given that it never rains round here, they might as well have made those walls of paper and spared themselves the effort.'

Hrathen frowned down at him. 'So confident?'

Angved shrugged. 'I've seen Beetle-kinden walls, and those aren't them. Those are great big blocks of stone set one on another, all beautifully cut and dressed, but there are walls and walls. We could bring those walls down with trebuchet and rock-throwers, maybe a tenday's investment, maybe less. With leadshotters? We'll have a breach in two days at the most. This is old, sir. It's all old work. When they built these walls, my trade wasn't exactly foremost in their minds.'

Hrathen nodded thoughtfully. 'So now we just have to get there.'

'They've moved their army out, then?'

'Just started to come for us, it looks like.'

'It's what I'd do, too. With walls like that, they must know they can't withstand a siege. A victory on the field is their best chance.'

Hrathen shook his head. 'Not like that, apparently. It sounds like this is what they always do whenever the Scorpions come for them. They tend to win, too, so you can see why they've not changed the recipe. The Scorpions have all sorts of excuses, but it comes down to basics. The Khanaphir are better disciplined, and the Many were never this many, before. Also, the Khanaphir had a superiority at range – with bows and the like.'

'Well, I can't say we've entirely solved the discipline problem,' Angved observed. 'Still, your woman there, Jakal, she seems to have them well in line.'

'We work within our limits,' said Hrathen. He had spent last night with Jakal, talking over what tactics they could reliably impose on the Scorpion warbands. Talking them over, and nothing further, despite what he had hoped for. The bitch is stringing me along, and she's enjoying every minute of it. He could challenge her, he knew. He could try to take her by force, but that would not achieve the Empire's goals here. And let me be honest with myself: I don't think I would succeed. She had not become the Warlord of the Many by anything less than ruthlessness and skill.

'The crossbowmen are looking good,' Angved remarked idly. 'They've picked up the idea of shooting all together, at least. When we started they were all for just popping off a shot and then up with the axe and go charging in. We were lucky to find that caravan. Live targets make all the difference for practice.'

The caravan had been a little convoy of foreigners, tomb robbers and relic hunters set on pillaging the ruins of the outer desert. They had been heavily armed, forming up around their wagons and hoping to stand the Scorpion outriders off, but instead of simply descending on them with knives and hatchets, Hrathen had sent for the crossbowmen.

It had been bloody work, and not swift. The thieves and their hangers-on had tried to stay together, to find cover, as the crossbows had loosed and loosed. The Scorpions had begun to learn the joys of killing at a distance: now the same crossbowmen would not trade a kill at thirty yards for all the savage delight of getting their claws bloody. It had been a useful object lesson, as they had begun to understand the archer's pride and joy in seeing the enemy wither and fall, without ever having a chance to fight back. For a Scorpion it was no great mental leap.

'Your woman's coming,' Angved reported, and prudently absented himself, heading off to check the siege engines. Hrathen turned to greet Jakal, finding her in her full armour, spear in hand.

'I have spoken to the chiefs,' she said. 'We have our battle order, as you call it.'

'Is it as we discussed?'

Her strange eyes regarded him. 'I have taken those I like least, or those who will not stand the fight, and made them our centre. I have gone among the others, telling them not to worry if these break, since they are marked as weak. The crossbows will make the claws on either side, with the better warriors, and you yourself have the sting.'

'Lieutenant Angved has the sting, yes,' Hrathen agreed. 'The weapons are designed for siege, not open field work, but it has been known. It will test the crews.'

Jakal shrugged, one clawed hand spread wide. 'Let them be tested, then. Have you found a place for yourself in all this planning, Of-the-Empire?'