Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Scarab Path

'What are they here for?' Che asked him. The Dragonflies and the Iron Glove men had gone into one of the tents, leaving a single painted warrior standing watch outside.

'Not that they exactly told me,' the Fly said, 'but it's the weapons trade. I hear the Monarch of Princep doesn't like the Gloves and won't deal with them. They make the best kit, though, so all the little chiefs are falling over themselves to set up deals like this. No need to say, we've none of us seen any of this.'

Wake up!

Che did. She started awake in the tent, shocked out of a deep sleep to utter wakefulness by the urgent command. Her eyes were already penetrating the dark without her summoning the Art. She sat up.

The others lay crammed around her. Praeda Rakespear was a sloping, blanket-covered form to one side, and the Solarnese teamster was curled up on the other, knees drawn up almost to her chin.

Wake up!

'I-' She stopped the words, realizing the voice was inside her, not in her ears. She formed the name in her mind, as tentatively as touching a wound. Achaeos?

Get up! Now! The voice inside her was harsh, impatient. She stumbled to her feet, shaking off her blankets like a landslide, colliding with the tent pole. Her hand found her scabbarded sword by instinct.

The voice was urgent. Now!

I'm going mad . She slung her grey cloak over her nightshirt and blundered from the tent, hearing the Solarnese woman cursing sleepily behind her.

Outside, the world was immense. The sky reached cloudless, star-studded, from every horizon. For a moment she could only stare. Is this what he wanted to show me? She had not guessed at it, how vast the sky was, out at the desert's edge. It was well worth seeing.

Then: Hammer and tongs but it's cold!

'Bella?'

She jumped. The Solarnese, Trallo's hired man, stood nearby, frowning at her. The two of them stood in the middle of their triangle of tents, and beyond was the big marquee of the Spider slaver and the pitches of the Dragonflies and the Iron Glove. She stared about at it all, trying to read a secret that the scene did not possess.

There was a shimmer and a shadow in the air. The Solarnese man clearly could not see it. It was there nonetheless.

'Achaeos …?' she said, and she reached out, and who cared what anybody thought. 'Please …'

Draw your blade! the voice snapped, and the weapon was in her hands in the same instant. There was a startled shout from the Solarnese, a whisper of steel as his own curved sword leapt out. The shout further drew attention. A Dragonfly woman Che had not even noticed had abruptly stood up, drawing back her bow. One of the Spider's slave-guards appeared, running round the edge of her tent with a crossbow at the ready.

Everyone was staring at her.

'…' Her voice was dry. There were words inside her, but she was fighting to keep them down.

Say it .

'There's …' I don't know this. I can't say this . 'There's about to be an attack.'

They continued to stare at her. She saw that Trallo had put his head out of the tent he shared with Manny and Berjek, and that one of the Vekken was also looking out from their compact little billet.

'There's going to be an attack,' she said helplessly. 'An attack. Going to be an attack.'

'Woman …?'Trallo said hoarsely. The Dragonfly woman let loose a shout, and abruptly their tent started moving as her kinsfolk began to rouse themselves. Everyone else was still staring at Che, but the Dragonflies were moving. They're Inapt. They're Inapt and so they …

No. They can see better in the dark .

She turned, using her Art to penetrate the night, seeing the dust they were throwing, no matter how carefully they approached.

'There!' she shouted, a real shout now, born of true knowledge. 'There! There! There!'

The camp seemed to explode with life. It seemed that Che was now the only still point in it, the hub of a spinning wheel. The two Vekken were kneeling before their tent, each buckling the mail hauberk of the other with absolute concentration. There were half-dressed Dragonflies spilling from their painted tent with spears and bows. The Spider-kinden woman stepped fully out, wearing a nightdress of silk and with a rapier in her hand. She snapped out single words, and her guards were hurrying past her. To safeguard her slaves , Che realized. Her slaves were the most valuable thing at the oasis.

The first of the Iron Glove men was out now, half-armoured, helmed. There was a slender weapon in his hands that Che barely registered at the time.

The raiders arrived, breaking into a run as they neared the camp. There was something monstrous in front, a shape that Che's eyes could not piece together, rushing across the ground in a sudden scuttle, with something high above it. Behind it were men, huge men. She saw their blades first, great bludgeoning swords and massive axes that they held in hands jutting with claws. They wore patches of dark armour: hide and metal. Their skins were white.

Scorpion-kinden . For a moment she could only think of old Hokiak in Myna, but these were the wild version, the real thing, Scorpion raiders from the desert.

There was a rattle of crossbows as the Spider's guards loosed their shots. Che saw at least one of the attackers go down, then the tide was on them. The vanguard thing was revealed as a scorpion longer than a man, its sting poised like a fencer's blade.

Trallo knelt beside her, loosing a bolt from one small crossbow, then taking up a second. 'Someone load for me!' he snapped, and to Che's surprise it was old Berjek who took the slack weapon and wound the string back.

The huge scorpion lunged forward, and the Spider's guards scattered out of its way. Arrows seemed to spring off its carapace as the Dragonflies loosed, but it just shook itself once and lunged forward again. This time it caught a man in its claws. Che heard bones snap and then the sting darted in delicately, and stopped his heart.

A huge man loomed in front of her, drawing back his axe for a swing. The weapon was as long as she was tall and she stalled, sword loose in her hand, unable to strike. A crossbow bolt flowered in the giant's side, slowed by his armour, and he turned on Trallo instead, bringing the axe down. The Flykinden abandoned his bow and darted up and away, the axe-head following him with surprising deftness. Che lunged.

She had not meant to. Her blade skidded and then dug in and she looked up into that furious white face, with its monstrous, tusked underbite. Another shortsword raked shallowly across the man's ribs and he roared, turning with axe raised high. As it went up, the second Vekken rammed his own blade into the Scorpion's armpit all the way to the hilt with effortless strength, and then the two of them were moving on, wordless in their teamwork.

The great scorpion had torn a gash in the Spider's tent, and her guards had taken up spears to keep it back. Abruptly there was a series of harsh snapping sounds and the monster recoiled, claws raised high in threat. Che turned to see the three Iron Glove men calmly reloading, slipping finger-length bolts into the chambers of their snapbows.

Snapbows?

There was no time to wonder. Another Scorpion-kinden thundered past, another giant. They were all at least seven feet tall for sure. She stumbled back, seeing the huge man take a sweep with his greatsword, catching one of the Dragonflies and almost cutting the woman in half. The Scorpion roared in defiance, and then his head snapped back, the fletchings of an arrow jutting from between his eyes.

Abruptly there was nothing to fight, and Che was wandering amid a trampled camp with her sword in her hands. The Scorpions and their monster had fallen back into the desert. She spotted them regrouping, assuming themselves unseen, two hills away.