Part 23 (2/2)

Hrathen nodded, standing up straight. It had been like watching a slow-building rockslide, seeing the Scorpions take to the crossbows. The weapons were old Imperial Auxillian standard issue kit, second-hand and almost obsolete, but for the Many of Nem they had been a revolution.

Jakal had ordered her two advisers to examine them first. The old man, with his fetishes and charms of cogs and gears, had climbed all over them, muttering to himself, testing the action on the weapons, thrumming the strings with his thumb-claw. He had reported that they were good, a worthy armament for the Host of the Nem. Next, the young man, wearing a cloak of clattering chitin shards, had walked round the wagons with his eyes closed, trailing one hand near them. He had then announced that the land believed it was well time for the city of Khanaphes to be broken open like an egg.

Scorpion-kinden made bad archers, and Hrathen knew it well. It was their claws, arching over forefinger and thumb, that got in the way, snagging or even severing a bowstring as the arrow was loosed. Those few of the locals who still preferred the bow had cut notches into their claws to hook the string with, but they were poor shots even so. Most reverted to throwing axes, spears and javelins.

The big, pincered hands of the Scorpion-kinden could manage a crossbow, though. They were still slightly clumsy with it, but they were strong enough to re-c.o.c.k their weapons without the bracing and ratcheting the makers had intended. Once the crossbow was loaded they could pull a trigger as well as anyone. Eyes that had learned to foresee the flight of a spear could adjust to the swift s.h.i.+ver of a crossbow quarrel. There were hundreds of them, now busy eating through the stock of bolts that Hrathen had brought with him. Hundreds more were crafting new quarrels, with more and more confidence, out of chitin and wood and pillaged metal. There were not enough crossbows to go round, but about half the Scorpions were unable to use them anyway, crippled by their Inapt heritage. These would become the shock troops, the warriors of the traditional way, using greatsword and halberd and double-handed axe. There was a new fighting n.o.bility emerging, though, and it brandished a crossbow.

We have brought a revolution, Hrathen reflected, and was slightly awed by the thought. The population of Gemrar had doubled in the last tenday, was set to double again. Allied tribes had been summoned out of the mid-desert, eager to have their part in the destruction of their age-old foe.

'Why do your people hate Khanaphes so?' he had asked Jakal once.

'Of-the-Empire, you try so hard to be Of-the-Scorpion, but you will never succeed,' she had replied, with a cruel smile. 'So we are told that our ancestors fought with theirs when this land was yet green, when these broken cities still thrived. So we are told that, of all the peoples in their Dominion, only we did not bow the knee to their Masters. So we are told all of this. What other reason do we need but that we can, and that they are there?'

'Jakal means to leave in a tenday,' he told Angved now. 'Enough time?'

'We can practise on the road, when we camp,' the engineer said. 'They'll be rough but they'll be ready, as we say.'

'Good.' Hrathen pa.s.sed his eyes over the camp, not quite looking and yet finding. He saw the dark armour of a small knot of men and women. A stab of annoyance p.r.i.c.ked him. We should do something about them sooner, rather than later We should do something about them sooner, rather than later, he thought.

They were traders, he understood the only traders who had dared to come into the Nem to deal with the Scorpions, men and women in dark leathers or dark metal, and with that defiant open gauntlet emblazoned on their tabards.

'Since when do you tolerate merchants?' he had asked Jakal.

'Since they show us they are strong,' she had replied. 'Is Of-the-Empire jealous?' He knew she was leading him on, and part of him knew that he was letting her. She was drawing a reaction from him, and it would eventually lead to a coupling or a blood-letting. He was uncomfortably aware that the choice would be hers.

'Strong?' he asked, but then she had pointed out to him the Iron Glove's chief factor in the Nem, and he had understood. Scorpion-kinden were powerful, standing half a foot or more over the Wasps, but in the midst of the Iron Glove people stood a Mole Cricket, watching his minions distribute swords and metal ingots. Now Hrathen could see the same giant walking with impunity amongst the Scorpions, overseeing business.

Yes, we will have to deal with you, slave. There were three Mole-Cricket enclaves in Imperial hands, their populations decreasing, generation to generation, as the Empire siphoned off their menfolk for work in the mines or for the army. That prodigious strength and stamina, and their way with rock and earth, was too useful to conserve. The Empire spent it all too lavishly.

The huge creature noticed Hrathen's interest and strode over, putting him under its shadow. A runaway slave A runaway slave, Hrathen decided, or an Auxillian deserter or an Auxillian deserter. How else would a Mole Cricket come to be here? The Iron Glove had a lot to answer for.

'You wish to make a purchase, Captain?' it rumbled. It had a name, and its name was Meyr.

Hrathen stared up at the creature. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d must be eleven feet tall The b.a.s.t.a.r.d must be eleven feet tall, he reckoned. Meyr wore a vast hauberk of leather with metal plates sewn into it, and an axe the size of an ordinary man was thrust through his broad leather belt. His monstrous hands had great square nails that looked every bit the equal of a Scorpion's claws. Certainly, Meyr was the face of the Iron Glove as far as the Scorpion-kinden were concerned, big enough and strong enough to protect his people from their depredations.

I'll deal with you, soon, Hrathen promised himself, but he said nothing, just ignoring the creature and walking away.

Instead he went to find the officer of the Light Airborne that he had brought with him. The man was packed ready to go, along with half a dozen of his men. Their leader was a hollow-cheeked type, his receding hair cropped close. His mouth crooked up on one side into a dry little half-smile, as though enjoying some small joke that only he was privy to. As he was the ranking Rekef officer here, Hrathen thought that might be true. His name was Sulvec and he was obviously Rekef Inlander to the core, for Hrathen knew enough to recognize a man who had given himself over heart and mind to the service.

'Not forgotten anything?' Hrathen asked him, realizing that if his own task was intended to be a suicide mission, then Sulvec would be his executioner. He wanted to show the man he was not afraid. Scorpion thinking, since Wasp-kinden tread carefully where the Rekef are Scorpion thinking, since Wasp-kinden tread carefully where the Rekef are. The fact that half of Sulvec's men were staying with Hrathen's party had not escaped him. He was plainly not trusted, but that was hardly news.

'We'll depart presently.' Sulvec's fragment of smile made its inevitable appearance: it signalled disdain for everything Hrathen was or could be. 'Don't be too long in coming, Captain.'

'Scorpion-kinden move fast,' Hrathen told him. 'Make sure we don't outstrip you.'

'Hm.' A slight noise was the response, all the humour the man would voice. 'We'll liaise with you when you arrive with your thousands, Captain.'

Hrathen just nodded, and in the next moment the seven Rekef men were airborne, streaking across the sky towards distant Khanaphes with a speed born of well-practised Art, and Hrathen had no idea what their orders were, for implementation once they arrived in Khanaphes.

And if they are to betray me? Do they plan to win the Khanaphir by betraying the Many of Nem? He considered the possibility coldly. He considered the possibility coldly. Then they do not understand what the Scorpion-kinden are capable of Then they do not understand what the Scorpion-kinden are capable of, he decided, and left it at that.

With Hrathen gone, the Mole Cricket-kinden called Meyr took stock. He had a dozen people here: enough, when allied to his strength, to dissuade the Scorpions from precipitate action. The Scorpions would trade whenever there was reason not to steal or take. The Iron Glove turned up with small s.h.i.+pments, always promising more in the next, each visit a tentative link in the mercantile chain. Meyr was a cautious man like most of his kind and, given a free choice, he would not want to be the Iron Glove amba.s.sador to the Nem. He paid his debts, though. Totho had taken him in when he had been fleeing the Empire, and Meyr had been a slave long enough that working for a living, to another man's orders, had become second nature. He might hate it in himself, but he could not deny it.

'We're going to have trouble soon,' he said softly. His second-in-command, a Solarnese woman named Faighl, was nodding. She was a tough, compact woman, a mercenary out of Chasme for more than a decade before signing on with the new-formed Glove. She had already killed two Scorpions who a.s.sumed that her size meant weakness rather than a killing speed. Now they gave her s.p.a.ce at their fires and drank with her.

'Pull out?' she asked.

Meyr was a big man to be balanced on a knife-edge. Pulling out was safe, but he would not be thanked for it. It was not the trade that mattered, it was the information. Something was happening here that the Glove had to be informed of. The Empire was in the Nem, and had become everyone's best friend, giving out free presents and holding lectures. The Scorpions had no idea of secrecy, so word of their target had come to Meyr almost as soon as he and his team had arrived with their packs and crates.

But why? It makes no sense. Meyr knew the Empire well enough to understand, that, whatever their evils, they did nothing without reason.

'We stay,' he replied heavily. 'But ... Where's Tirado?'

'Here, chief.' The Fly-kinden man ducked forward under Faighl's arm. 'What, where and who?'

'I'll write it out,' the Mole Cricket decided. One of his people snapped open a folding desk, a square of wood smaller than Meyr's two open hands. He knelt by it awkwardly, taking a fresh slate out from his pack. His Art rose within him, and he put the corner of one fingernail to it. Back home, his people wrote their letters in stone. Pens were lost in his grasp and paper tore under his nails. His people had ways with the earth, though, which was why the Empire enslaved them so enthusiastically.

The tip of his nail scribed, carving blocky, close-packed script into the slate as though it was wet clay. He filled the square of stone from edge to edge, a solid ma.s.s of writing, trusting to Totho to decipher it. When he made an error he smoothed the stone over and wrote again.

When he was done he wrapped the slate in cloth and handed it to Tirado in a comedy of scale: the receiving hand would barely match one of Meyr's fingers for size.

'Fly to Totho at Khanaphes, swift as you can,' he instructed. 'This information must be known.'

Twenty-Four.

'The hunt ...' Amnon wrinkled his nose. 'I thought it had gone well. Perhaps I was wrong.'

Totho watched him empty the dregs of a beer jug. The Iron Glove staff had brought in plenty, though, and then left the room at his command. Totho had a.s.sumed that the Khanaphir First Soldier was coming to talk business, but it turned out that Amnon was seeking something simpler, and at the same time more fraught: a sympathetic ear. And I'm the ear? And I'm the ear? There was a whole city of Khanaphir out there, any of whom would have been honoured to receive the First Soldier of the Royal Guard as their guest. But Amnon was out of sorts, Amnon had worries, possibly for the first time in his life, and he wanted to bare his soul. Perhaps that was not something the Khanaphir did with one another: their secretive, mirror-placid nature went deep. Somehow, Amnon had looked on Totho and seen a kindred spirit. There was a whole city of Khanaphir out there, any of whom would have been honoured to receive the First Soldier of the Royal Guard as their guest. But Amnon was out of sorts, Amnon had worries, possibly for the first time in his life, and he wanted to bare his soul. Perhaps that was not something the Khanaphir did with one another: their secretive, mirror-placid nature went deep. Somehow, Amnon had looked on Totho and seen a kindred spirit.

I'm willing to bet the Ministers don't know he's here either.

Iron Glove business in Khanaphes had not been good over the last few days, after Ethmet's displeasure had filtered into the city. Totho reckoned it was only a matter of time before they had to write this city off as unprofitable. They would have been leaving soon enough, anyway, denied an outlet to practise their true craft. Totho had no real interest in bulk orders for ordinary swords and arrowheads.

'We took four of the land-fish, one as large as any I have seen,' Amnon explained, and then sighed ma.s.sively. 'I do not understand these Collegium women are they not impressed with such prowess?'

Totho found himself wondering what Che must have made of it. 'They're a perverse lot,' he agreed, feeling a pang of the old bitterness. 'Believe me, I tried to ...' And am I revealing this now, and to him, that I have kept to myself for so long? And am I revealing this now, and to him, that I have kept to myself for so long? The beer and Amnon's blithe innocence encouraged him. 'I tried to help the girl I ... tried to show her how I felt and what I could do. I even went halfway across the world to rescue her. For nothing.' The beer and Amnon's blithe innocence encouraged him. 'I tried to help the girl I ... tried to show her how I felt and what I could do. I even went halfway across the world to rescue her. For nothing.'

'So what do they want?' Amnon demanded, taking up another jug. 'Has she enemies I can slay? No, it is all diplomacy with them, and I am not allowed. How am I to show show this woman?' this woman?'

'They're very sentimental, Collegium women,' Totho told him. 'Sentimental to a fault. They read too much.' A sweeping statement, but he had just decided that it was true. Am I drunk? Am I drunk? It seemed likely. The empty jugs littering the table between them were not entirely the fault of Amnon. Mind you, just because he had been drinking, it didn't mean that it wasn't true. 'They prefer a hollow gesture to all manner of sincerity,' he added. It seemed likely. The empty jugs littering the table between them were not entirely the fault of Amnon. Mind you, just because he had been drinking, it didn't mean that it wasn't true. 'They prefer a hollow gesture to all manner of sincerity,' he added. One touch of Moth-kinden mystery and she virtually forgot I was even there One touch of Moth-kinden mystery and she virtually forgot I was even there.

'So you think I should woo her gently?' Amnon said. It did not quite match with what Totho thought he had just said, but he let that be.

The big man was thinking. 'I had not wanted to seem too forward.'

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