Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Scarab Path

'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?'

'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 passed 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 shore, 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 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 .

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 hardship. 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.

Genraki cleared his throat and Angved glanced up.

'What is it?' he asked, speaking above the sound. 'Hrathen wants me?'