Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Scarab Path

Still, twelve of them? He flatters me . Or perhaps Brugan had some other mission in mind, and that was an unwelcome thought. If these men had received orders to assassinate the Warlord of the Nemian Scorpions, then this expedition would be everyone's last service to the Empire.

After the soldiers came the experts, who got to ride while the others walked. Chief amongst them, and most vocal, was Dannec, the political officer of the Rekef and its most overt representative. He was a thin-faced, ambitious man who did not relish being sent off into the wilderness, not even by the Rekef's supreme commander himself. He wasted no chance to complain, and even now he was suggesting that they drive the Scorpions off the ridge over to their left. Hrathen had ignored him from the start, and by now everyone else did, too. Aside from Dannec, there were eight men from the Engineering Corps, led by a grey veteran named Angved. They formed a mysterious and silent cabal of their own, and Hrathen was looking forward to putting them through their paces.

The sky was darkening but the horizon ahead was heaping up with a range of stark artificial shapes: one of the famous ruins of the Nem desert that the Scorpions had made their own. There were flames to be seen there, burning bluish-white. They were fuelled by a rock-oil, Hrathen understood, that the Scorpions, or their slaves, extracted wherever it bubbled to the surface. Here in the desert it was more readily available than wood, and continued burning for days.

The Scorpions began to close in now, bringing their mounts nearer and nearer until they had turned from scouts to an escort. They rode humpbacked black desert beetles that skittered along on high, long legs, fast over the dusty ground. They also rode low-slung scorpions, whose claws had been capped with sharp iron, sitting on them in strangely made offset side-saddles to keep the riders out of the path of the curved stingers. Others were on foot: tall and burly men and women with waxy-pale skin and snaggletoothed underbites, wearing brief garments the colour of dust. About half of these had armour too, some merely with primitive carapace scale, but many with mail or plated leather. One even wore an undersized banded cuirass that had once borne the Imperial colours.

'Savages,' Dannec muttered, but Hrathen smiled to see them. He stood up from his seat on the lead wagon, letting all the Scorpions see him and know him as the leader. Enough of them were now riding ahead towards the camp to ensure there would be the right kind of welcoming committee. These were not the Aktaian Scorpions he was familiar with, but there was enough traffic between their two peoples for him to know he could expect similar customs.

Here is fringe desert, with sporadic contact with the Empire , he reminded himself. The Warlord will not be so familiar or predictable. I must not become complacent .

Sure enough, the whole camp had turned out to see them arrive. The ruins here were no more than three or four stone buildings that looked as though some ancient fire had started what wind and time had subsequently brought close to finishing. The camp itself was no more than awnings propped on sticks, a scattering of canvas all around. Scorpions were a hardy folk and not a private one. Simply getting to sleep up against the stone walls here would be a sufficient mark of rank and favour.

As the caravan approached the camp a flurry of creatures rushed out to investigate. These were more scorpions, three or four feet long not counting the over-arching tail, and they scrabbled forth with their claws held high in threat. Hrathen heard Dannec swear and saw him recoil in fear. He himself jumped down from the wagon and dropped to his knees in the path of the leading beast, summoning up his Art, which had slumbered for so long.

It was an Art little known, these days, though all kinden possessed some facet of it, and he guessed it had once meant sheer survival to people when the world was young. Now few deliberately sought it, fewer still chanced upon it. Hrathen had always been the exception.

He extended his mind and felt the small, aggressive barb that was the beast's.

Well, now , he thought to it, how is it with you, little brother?

The creature was slowing, but its claws were either side of his head when it finally stopped. He could sense its confusion at the sound of the engines and the smell of the machinery. Confusion made it angry and it wanted to sting something.

Oh, I know how that feels , he told it, believe me . It did not quite understand the words, but it felt the sense of them, and calmed. When he went to walk beside the lead wagon, it trotted at his heels, its claws now drawn in. The other animals were unsure at first, thrusting spread pincers at the newcomers, darting towards Hrathen and the slavers in mock charges. The lead beast had been the dominant one, and by earning its trust he had thwarted them all.

He saw the chieftain approach, a hefty Scorpion wearing overlapping metal plates across his chest and shoulders. His hands were big and Hrathen could imagine them clenched into fists so as to free those scythe-like claws for fighting. The chief strolled up to the lead wagon as the artificers braked the engine, putting one taloned hand on the machine's flank.

'We were not expecting such wealthy visitors,' Hrathen heard him say. 'Perhaps we should be wearing our fine clothes for you.'

Hrathen faced him, making his stance a challenge. 'My name is Hrathen, of the Empire.'

The Scorpion turned to squint at him through small yellow eyes. 'You do not look "of-the-Empire" to me, but I have met with the slavers before, and I know they are slack in what servants they take on.'

'Is that so?' In fact it was indeed so. Some of the Slave Corps that Hrathen had once led had not been good Wasps: there had been Spider-kinden amongst them, rogue Ants and halfbreeds. Still, it did not do to let insults go unchallenged amongst the Scorpions.

'I am Kovalin,' the chieftain rumbled. 'What is this you have brought me, Of-the-Empire?'

'I bring many gifts for the Warlord of the Nem,' Hrathen said, loud enough for them all to hear. 'Will you show me to his camp?'

'She will be grateful. She loves gifts,' said Kovalin, and Hrathen blinked at that revelation. Thinking like an Imperial, shame on you . Scorpion women fought just as fiercely as their menfolk, and indeed there was little to tell them apart. A little slighter at the shoulder, a little fuller at the chest, but otherwise as hairless, fanged and clawed as the males. They were no other race's ideal of beauty.

'However,' Kovalin went on, revealing no more than Hrathen had expected, 'she does not love outlanders, not from your Empire, not from anywhere. It would serve better for your gifts to be given to her by one she knows well and loves well, such as I.'

'No doubt,' Hrathen said, 'but that is not my plan. I will give her these gifts myself, with all my men present, and explain the workings of them.' He saw that his people, even Brugan's shadowy lot, had done exactly as he had forewarned them. They were arranged in a loose double line either side of the first wagon, swords out and pointedly ready to fight. There were perhaps fifty fighting Scorpions before them, once Hrathen discounted the rabble of attendant children. The locals were not obviously about to attack, but there was not one of them that did not have a spear or axe or halberd to hand.

'And if I just take these things?' Kovalin asked. He was taller than Hrathen, his claws far larger. Hrathen's impure blood had given him a broad Art, but neither parent's inheritance showed as strongly as in a true-breed.

'Why need to take gifts that will be freely given?' Hrathen said easily. He shrugged his shoulders, loosening his joints for the coming fight.