The Scarab Path (59 page)

They
burst in through three windows at the front of the building, two of which had
not even been shuttered. The sound of the third window’s wooden frame giving
way was the first warning the Collegiates had of an attack.

‘Into
all the rooms. Drag everyone out to the main hall,’ Vollen snapped at his men,
setting himself down beside the front door. He could hear various sounds of
confusion from the house, but no outright panic yet. ‘Tell them that they’ll
live so long as they cooperate,’ he added. It was not true but it might be effective.
He wanted them all rounded up, as peaceably as possible, and the entrance hall
was the quickest place for it. His men were already spreading out, some to the
downstairs rooms, others heading up the stone steps to the landing and the
bedrooms. Once the residents were gathered in one place he could put them up
against a wall and make an end of them all together. Vollen was a neat-minded
man.

He
waited, looking at the blandly ceremonial decorations with which the Khanaphir
had adorned the hall. They were different to those in the Imperial embassy, and
yet they might as well have been the same. Their hosts clearly had a taste for
the meaninglessly ornate – like all those little carvings they put everywhere.

His men
were returning now, and he began his count.

The fat
man came first, ballooning out his nightshirt and complaining vociferously. He
had a half-full bottle in his hands and nearly tumbled down the full length of
the stairs, saving himself only by clutching at the soldier who escorted him.

‘What in
the wastes is going on?’ he demanded of Vollen. ‘I’m a Master of the College of
Collegium, curse you!’

‘Shut
up,’ growled Vollen, and backhanded him into silence. In the ringing echo of
the blow the fat man reached up to touch his reddening cheek and there were
actual tears in his eyes. His flabby lips phrased words of protest, but no
sound emerged. Vollen smiled approvingly.

The
others were appearing now. A half-dozen servants had been rounded up by two of
his soldiers, young Khanaphir men and women, wide-eyed but docile, being herded
like beasts out into the hall.
Best to kill them as well
,
Vollen decided.
No witnesses, then. Not that this will be
any great mystery, but let them wonder about it nonetheless
.

The
older man and the proud-looking woman were being hustled after them. He wore a
loosely belted robe that bared his dark chest, wiry with grey hair, and thin
enough for Vollen to have counted his ribs. The woman had obviously succumbed
to the Khanaphir heat, for she was wrapped in a bedsheet and he guessed she was
naked beneath. She was a good-looking piece of flesh as well, for one of
inferior kinden. For a moment he wished he had more liberty and time to spare
on this mission. She would have proved a welcome reward for staunch Imperial
service. The Rekef came before personal pleasure, though, and besides, his men
would all want a piece. That was bad for discipline, and this was not the Slave
Corps, after all.

‘Hurry
it up,’ he hissed, mostly to himself. There was another coming now from
upstairs, a black-skinned Antkinden who was fully dressed, even to the
now-empty scabbard at his hip. The soldier with him kept a few steps behind,
well out of striking distance. Of the lot of them, he was the only one who
looked dangerous.

There
was a flurry of activity further along the landing. A small figure flitted out
and over the rail, landing so close to Vollen that his forehead and Vollen’s
palm were just an inch from touching.

‘Vollen,
isn’t it?’ Trallo began, with a cheerful nod. He was fully dressed, and Vollen
guessed he had been flying in and out this night already. They had not expected
him to be here.

The Fly
was now smiling up at him. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, looking around the
academics and the soldiers.

‘Just
stand with the others, Fly-kinden,’ Vollen told him sharply.

‘Now,
wait, you know me and Ambassador Thalric …’ The sentence died as Trallo
registered Vollen’s expression. Vollen saw something click into place in the
little man’s head, an understanding quicker and deeper than any to be found amongst
the Beetles.

He goes first
, Vollen decided.
If
anyone has a chance of escaping, it’s him
. ‘Keep a stern watch on that
one,’ he instructed his men.

The last
of his force was leaning over the landing rail now, waiting for orders.

‘Where
are the others?’ Vollen demanded of them.

‘That’s
all there are, sir,’ one of them reported. ‘We’ve gone through every room.’

That’s not right
. There was that woman who had met them
when they arrived, and most of all there was the ambassador. Something else was
niggling at him too, but he could not immediately place it.

‘Where’s
your ambassador?’ he demanded of the old man.

‘Abed,’
was the dignified reply. ‘My name is Berjek Gripshod and if you have diplomatic
business, at this late hour, I shall assist you.’

‘There’s
nobody else here, sir,’ the soldier left on the landing insisted.

Vollen
put a hand out to pincer the old man’s chin with thumb and forefinger, the heat
of his sting already warming his palm. ‘Where,’ he said again, ‘is the
ambassador?’

‘She was
here.’ It was the Beetle woman. ‘She’s been here all day, and I saw her going
to bed.’

How did she know?
was Vollen’s immediate thought, because
he understood instantly that the woman Cheerwell had somehow fled the embassy
already, abandoning her companions to their fate.

He had a
sudden and unwelcome conviction that she would be somewhere with Thalric. The
two of them had seemed too close for Imperial propriety.

‘Where
is the other woman? The …’What was the name now? ‘Coggen.’

‘Dead,’
Gripshod explained. ‘Some days back.’

Vollen
released him, stepping back and levelling his hand. It seemed to him that he
had heard something of that, now it was mentioned.

‘What is
going on?’ the old man asked, rubbing at his jaw. ‘You must be mad.’

‘Vollen,
listen to me,’ Trallo spoke quickly. ‘Vollen, there are other ways than this.
There’s no war between Collegium and the Empire – not yet. Do you really think
that this will go unnoticed? Vollen, nobody wants these kind of complications,
really, when you think about it clearly, come on—’

Vollen
turned his open palm on the little man, choking off the words.
Fly-kinden – loathsome, treacherous vermin, and this one most of
all
.

‘Deal
with them,’ he snarled.

The
crossbow bolt took him by surprise, lancing into the back of the man standing nearest
to the Vekken prisoner. Vollen’s own stingshot went wild as the Fly-kinden
ducked desperately away. There was another Vekken on the balcony.
There were two of them? Of course there were two of them!
So little had been seen of either of the Ants that somehow the two had become
one in his mind. The ambassador’s had been the absence that Vollen had fixated
on.

The
soldier on the balcony turned his sting towards the newcomer, but the Vekken
had closed already, and they were sword to sword instantly.

‘Kill
them!’ Vollen shouted. ‘All of them!’ The first Vekken was now wrestling with
another of his men, holding both wrists away, trying to bend the Wasp
backwards. Vollen turned back to the Beetles.

The fat
man moved. It was a ponderous lunge at the man next to him, but unexpected. The
bottle smashed over the Wasp’s head, and one thick hand closed about the man’s
sword-hilt and wrenched the blade from its sheath, hard enough to spin the Wasp
half around. With a grunt of effort he drove it into the disarmed soldier as
hard as he could. It punched into the man’s armour, leaving a savage dent and
knocking the man off his feet. The Wasp’s sting flashed, more by instinct than
intent, knocking the fat Beetle backwards.

The old
man made a try for Vollen, but the Wasp punched him in the face as hard as he
could, laying him out on the floor. The Khanaphir slaves were cowering away,
keeping as low as they could. Vollen snarled and looked around for the woman
with his hand already extended.

Something
struck him hard, almost throwing him from his feet. He felt a blade scrape
across his armour, and then the Fly-kinden, Trallo, was fighting with him,
trying to wrench his arm aside. Vollen made a grab for him, but the little man
was agile, tugging and pulling at him and escaping his clutching hands – a
nuisance with a small knife, but a nuisance that was taking all of Vollen’s
attention.

The
Beetle woman lunged at him and broke a chair across his back, smashing the
priceless Khanaphir craftsmanship to splinters. Vollen hit the ground hard,
feeling his shoulder take the brunt of the attack. He turned onto his back,
palms up. The woman grabbed one of his arms, trying to twist it flat. Trallo
raised his dagger, his face a white mask of fear.

The
flash of the soldier’s sting warmed Vollen’s face, and the little man was
thrown halfway across the entrance hall by the impact of it. The woman screamed
and leapt away, staring at the Fly’s charred body.

Vollen
whisked himself to his feet with a flick of his wings. ‘Right,’ he said, fully
aware that he would receive no commendations for this. Then the front door
burst open.

He
turned to see a huge Beetle-kinden in Khanaphir armour, a sword in his hand and
bloody murder on his face.

Emperor save us!
he thought.
It’s the
First Soldier
.

Amnon made
a wordless sound and charged. Vollen’s sting spat its fire, melting a
hand-sized section of scale mail but not slowing the giant in the least. Then
Amnon’s leaf-bladed sword was thrust, effortlessly to the hilt, into his chest.

Vollen
fell to his knees, everything around him suddenly more than he could cope with.
Amnon had his sword raised again, and the two Vekken were still spoiling for a
fight. Two of his men fled out of the windows, the rest were already dead save
for one man, who made a feint at Amnon and then plainly decided the big
Khanaphir was too much to deal with. He tried to fly away, too, but the Vekken
crossbowman picked him off even as he lifted into the space of the entrance
hall.

Feeling
the world fall from him, Vollen toppled face-first onto the tiles of the
Collegiate embassy.

Praeda crouched beside Berjek Gripshod, calling his name and shaking him
roughly. At last his lips moved and his eyelids fluttered. Peering up at her
from floor level, his gaze was unsteady. ‘Uncalled for,’ he murmured. ‘Quite
uncalled for.’

‘They
killed Trallo,’ she got out. ‘Oh Berjek, they killed Trallo.’

She
looked up, and saw another fallen body. Her hands went to her mouth again, she
was feeling ill. ‘Oh, Berjek …’

The old
man levered himself up, and then saw what she had seen. He struggled to his
feet, a hand to his head, and staggered over.

‘Gorget!
Get up! Manny …’

Praeda
saw him stop as he reached the great sprawling form, then drop painfully to his
knees. She joined him there tentatively. There was no doubt at all from the
outraged expression in those open eyes, or from the char-edged burn-hole in his
chest. Mannerly Gorget was dead.

Praeda
stared about her, as though, somehow, someone would be able to help.
Do magic. Bring back the dead
. She saw the two Vekken
standing close beside each other, like some trick with mirrors.
And we would all be dead, if not for them
. Then her eyes
found Amnon. His face, though expressionless, was watching her.

Trembling,
she put out a hand towards him. Without a moment’s thought he swept her up in
his arms, clasping her to his broad chest where the armour was still warm from
the Wasp’s stingshot. There she let herself go, sobbing into his embrace,
shuddering over and over until at last she could manage the words.

‘You
came,’ she said. ‘You came for me.’

‘It
should have been sooner,’ he said gently. ‘But I had a dying friend I could not
leave. This has been a night for death. First my Penthet, and now your
companions. I am sorry, I should have come sooner.’

‘You
came,’ she said.

Berjek
gave a long, sad sigh. ‘This is too much,’ the old man’s voice came to her.
‘Too much to bear. War … murder … the time has come to cut our losses, Praeda.
We should have left long before, while we all could.’

She felt
Amnon’s arms tighten slightly and she said to her colleague, ‘Go. You must
leave. The Khanaphir will find a ship for you, and lower the Estuarine Gate.’
Around Amnon’s shoulder she met his gaze. ‘But I will stay.’

‘I
suppose I should not be so surprised at that,’ he said sadly. ‘And, as for
Cheerwell, she will not leave, I am sure. Something in this city has its hooks
in her.’ He glanced up at the Ants. ‘And you two?’

‘We have
a task unfinished here,’ replied one of them. Berjek could not guess at the
conversation that they were holding, in the space between their heads. ‘We may
decide to leave with you, but it depends on other factors. Perhaps, if the
ambassador leaves with you, she could assist us on the journey back.’

‘I’ve done what I can for your arm,’ Che said. It had involved more of
her night’s work than her earlier talk with Thalric. The wound was infected,
and she had cleaned it out and applied whatever salves she had handy to keep it
pure and deaden the pain. Osgan was conscious but pale, his forehead shiny with
sweat even in the cool of the night.

‘Thank
you,’ he croaked.

‘If we
were in Collegium …’ Che shrugged. ‘I can’t guarantee that you’ll keep the arm,
though. I’m sorry. It’s not gone rotten yet, but …’ Her gesture took in the
shabby little room that Thalric had found them, a cellar dug out beneath a
drinking house and with one of the walls cluttered with barrels. The first dawn
light glimmered through the two wide shafts cut into one wall, where the
river-borne goods came in. They were also the way Thalric would escape, if the
worst came to the worst.