Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Scarab Path

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?'

'Of course. I shall drive your chariot.'

He had amused her at last. 'Will you, indeed? And you are so used to chariots in your Empire that even the word was strange to you, at first.'

'But your beasts will know their work,' he said. 'And I shall speak with them, and let them instruct me.'

'And you will follow my orders, without question?'

'I have brought you weapons, and the knowledge of how to use them,' he reminded her. 'Now you must use them — use them as you will. I shall bow my head to you, for as long as the battle lasts.'

Beneath the rim of her helm she was smiling. 'Have I conquered the Empire now?' she teased, one thumb claw coming up to rest along the line of his chin. 'Well then, you shall indeed have that honour.' Her eyes met his directly now, bold and fierce and utterly unlike the eyes of any Imperial woman. 'Perhaps you shall have other honours, when we have driven them from the field. Perhaps we shall celebrate, you and I, if I am pleased with you.'

The plume of dust that the Khanaphir army was raising was more clearly visible. They wanted to fight the Scorpions far enough from the city that the river would not become a barrier at their back. Hrathen was fretting at a lack of scouts, but he did not want to risk any Wasps to the bows of the enemy, and the Scorpions had no fliers, and slower cavalry than the defenders. He was obliged to rely on his telescope and the reports he had heard of older conflicts. At least the Khanaphir did not seem to be the type to innovate.

The difficulty, as he had discussed with Jakal, was to make best use of the Many's new-found advantages. The crossbows were slower than the shortbows the Khanaphir favoured, but they outranged them. And perhaps not really so much slower, for that matter . They were the old Imperial heavy crossbows for which the archers were supposed to draw the string back by winch, but most of the Scorpions had notched their thumb-claws and were tensioning the weapons by hand in half the usual time. The Empire had not considered just how strong they were. There would be more than a few broken claws by the battle's end, more than a few broken crossbows for that matter, but they had quickly made the weapons their own. It only remained to give them the best chance to use them.

The normal Khanaphir tactics were reliable and unimaginative, from what he had been told. They fielded an infantry-strong army with good cavalry wings and archer support. It was not something out of the Imperial tactics textbooks, but he could see the strengths and weaknesses. The Scorpions were more mobile, so that meant that, for a decisive victory, the Khanaphir would at some point have to come to them and follow them up. Otherwise the fight would go on all day, with the Scorpions picking and choosing the targets of their strikes.

The Khanaphir would understand the same thing, Hrathen was counting on it. The plans had been made, so no point worrying about them now. They would deform and change as soon as they met the enemy, just as plans always did. The Scorpions were not a disciplined force, but the Khanaphir knew that too, and it became just one more factor that a clever general could use.