Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Scarab Path

'What …?' Thalric's eyes narrowed as he tried to understand. 'What do you want with her? Where did you even come from?'

'Vek,' Accius said, his arm tightening so that Che almost choked. She stamped hard on his foot, but his boots were steel-toed and it got her nowhere. 'Vek requires answers.'

'Then seek them from me-' Thalric started, but just then the Ant hurled Che aside, hard enough to bounce her off the wall. A stingshot danced through the air where Thalric had been.

Thalric had ended up on the floor, reacting to some instinct he could not name. He turned on his back, hands out. One of the Wasps went straight overhead, the other dropped straight on him.

Marger? He was fighting Marger. The man tried to pin him down with one hand and a knee, his sword drawn back. Thalric was stronger, though, and better at this kind of back-alley fighting. He twisted round, put an elbow into the side of Marger's head, and threw him off. They both loosed stingshots at the same time, and both missed.

'Run, Che!' Thalric snapped. He saw the Beetle girl rise shakily. The other Wasp was coming back fast. Accius was loading his crossbow unhurriedly, with a soldier's calm professionalism.

'Run!' Thalric shouted again, and jumped on Marger, feeling the heat-flash of the man's sting warm his own side. He put a fist into the man's face, feeling Marger's nose shift, and then he had his own sword drawn back. Marger snarled in desperation and slung both of them aside, colliding with Accius as he loosed his crossbow. The bolt vanished into the darkness and the second Wasp had now landed, arm outstretched for a target as Marger and Thalric wrestled.

Accius hit Thalric. He had probably not been aiming at either Wasp in particular, but Thalric had the bad luck to get in the way and the Ant's fist hit him in the stomach like a battering ram. Through three layers of silk, he felt every link of his copperweave armour dent into his skin, and he sat down heavily.

Marger turned his hand on to the Ant, but Accius grabbed his belt and one arm and threw him a full ten feet with a bone-jarring crash. Art-given strength was virtually boiling in waves off the Ant-kinden.

The Vekken turned to find the other Wasp with his hand outstretched, but out of reach. That was when Che appeared out of the dark behind the threatening figure, armed with Accius's own discarded sword, and stabbed him in the back.

The stingbolt was loosed, but flew far over Accius's head. As the Wasp dropped Che stabbed him again for good measure, leaving the sword buried between his shoulders. Thalric saw that her hands were shaking.

He backed off from the Ant, ducking to collect his own sword again, prying it from the oozing ground. 'Che, come here,' he ordered quietly, then looked around for Marger, saw him upright. The Wasp cast a half-glance behind him, and his expression of betrayal revealed, more than any words could, the fact that he had thought there were reinforcements behind him.

'Thalric,' he said wearily. 'Thalric, you've got to die. Let the Beetle go, let the Ant go, I don't care. But they'll just keep coming for you. At any cost. You've got to die.'

'I disagree,' Thalric told him. 'To the pits with Imperial politics.'

'Thalric, this isn't politics ,' Marger stressed. 'I saw the orders, they were sealed by General Brugan himself. Thalric, if you don't die, none of us goes home alive.' He took a deep breath, steadying himself against one of the tombs.

'Brugan?' Thalric felt a strange chill. He remembered his own briefing with the general, that had sent him here. 'Why?'

'Brugan's currently having this whole city destroyed just to cover your death,' Marger snapped. He bared his teeth in utter frustration, crooking his fingers into claws. 'What did you do? What did you do to piss him off that much? Why won't you just die? '

Che glanced sideways, and saw that Accius had retrieved his crossbow, and had recocked it even as the Wasp spoke. He was aiming it at no one, not yet. His eyes flicked between the two Wasps, his face expressionless.

Marger was now approaching, step by dragging step, limping slightly from whatever hurts he had taken when Accius had thrown him. Thalric hefted his sword, levelled his hand. 'Marger …'

'Then do it! ' the other Wasp shouted. 'Because they're going to kill me anyway, if I fail, and probably even if I succeed. Why did you have to go and mess with the General of the Rekef? '

It was obvious, in retrospect, that he had been going to charge just then, whatever the consequences, but instead he stopped, jaw dropping, staring past Thalric and the others. A small, strangled noise emerged from him.

Accius followed his glance, and Thalric heard the Ant hiss, turning and raising his crossbow. With that Thalric could do nothing but glance behind him, despite all his training. Once he had glimpsed what was there, he had to turn to face it too. Although it brought him closer to Marger, he started backing away. They were all of them backing away, the four intruders seeking what dubious retreat they could in the face of what they saw.

'Oh,' Che breathed, watching the apparition walk ponderously into view. It was a woman ten feet tall, and massively proportioned, her frame a cascade of curves running down shoulders, breasts, stomach and hips, voluptuous with fat and yet unencumbered by it. She walked with the assurance of kings, and her hair was long and black, lustrous with the gleaming slime that coated her. She wore only a few folds of cloth about her loins, but she would have been fit for the court of the Empress. Her face — with a majesty no Beetle or Ant or Wasp could ever muster — was that of the effigies on the tombs, the dancers atop the pyramid, the forbidding giants of the Estuarine Gate.

It occurred to Che now that probably more than one tomb was missing its effigy, but she felt with certainty that she could put a name to the imperious woman that stood before her. The words welled up in her mind, and she mouthed them: 'Elysiath Neptellian, Lady of the Bright Water, She whose Word Breaks all Bonds, Princess of the Thousand.'

Accius made an animal sound in his throat and raised his crossbow. The woman extended a commanding hand, with a faint smile on her lips.

The world flew apart.

The Scorpions had been massing since before dawn, forming up into great clattering, complaining companies along the western bank. The eastern sky barely showed the first grey signs of light as they made their first sortie. It was a rabble. Totho had already seen enough to know that there was a hierarchy of usefulness within the enemy ranks. These were the losers, first to be cast away and first to die. They came in a great screaming horde, and if they possessed any appreciation of their place in the world, Totho could not perceive it.

If we could bottle that mad fervour , he thought, then we could sell it for a fortune to any general or tyrant you'd care to name .

The archers took their places and drew back their bowstrings. The poor light would work against their aim, and the Scorpion charge was uneven, the faster outstripping the slower and leaving gaps for arrows to fall into. Sometimes poor discipline offered its own tactical value.

Four dozen strings sang almost as one. The militia, denied any use for its spear detachments, had packed the barricade with bowmen, shoulder to shoulder. So far they had been the blade that had killed score upon score of the invaders, whilst the Royal Guard, with their armour and spears, had been the shield to fend off the enemy strike. The Guard had died steadily throughout yesterday's fight, their numbers already savagely depleted from the disastrous field battle. From the way they stood firm, Totho guessed they would do so until the last of them fell.