The boat tipped towards it, and then flipped over entirely. Che felt her wings flare automatically, dragging her up to hover inches above the river. The Mantids knelt stabbing at the insect as it continued to try and haul itself onto the boat, mindlessly seeking an enemy it could not understand. Then Amnon's boat was in the water alongside them, and he had brought company.
The second land-fish was not yet dispatched but Amnon had come to their aid even though the maddened creature was tethered to his craft. He reached down and grabbed Praeda's thrashing arm, dragging her, one-handed, up into his boat. His crew had set their spears against the enraged fish that was attacking them from the other side, while the smaller boats speeding past it loosed arrows to distract its attention. Che saw Manny floundering, first pawing at the capsized boat, then clinging to one of the water-insect's legs as it hung from the upturned vessel, more frightened of the water itself than of the things that lived in it. She tried to get closer to him, but Amnon was already there, the land-fish drawn away from him for the moment. Bracing himself, he caught hold of Manny's robe, pulling upwards with all his strength until he had tugged the fat man halfway out of the water. Praeda appeared beside him, grabbing for handfuls of Manny, too, and then a Mantis joined in on the other side. The real help came from the marauding insect, which finally claimed the keel of the capsized boat as its own, and pulled Manny up with it. For a second he hung there, dripping and shivering, still clinging to the creature, and then Amnon's boat closed the last foot of distance and they tipped him into it. The insect turned to stare at them, flexing its beak, then Amnon leant forward and grasped the arrow's shaft. For a second neither moved, and then the creature went for him, driving itself forward from the overturned hull. Amnon jerked back just as the lunging insect struck the side of his boat, shoving it away, then the creature vanished into the depths of the river. Amnon's hand now held the offending arrow, which he brandished aloft like a trophy.
Cheerwell.
She turned, still hovering ponderously over the water, and spotted him. He shuddered and stained the air, like paint running, an anguished grey form within the trees.
Here, Beetle girl, here!
No! she told it, but she knew she could not deny its summons. Just tell me what you want! What can I do?
Power. Strength, replied that harsh voice, the same commanding tones that had dragged her from her bedroll by the oasis. There is power here. I need it.
Achaeos… I cannot live like this. But she lumbered into the treeline, wings a labouring blur, chasing that fleeting, smearing image. Achaeos, I would free you if I could.
We would be rid of each other, returned that deathless voice, and it pierced her sharply. She fell from the air, landing thigh-deep in murky water.
'Don't say that,' she demanded of the delta and its myriad denizens. 'Please, Achaeos…'
Come! was the order it delivered and she felt it tugging at her mind with all its insubstantial fury.
'Is it…?' She choked over the words. 'Is it so bad to be with me?'
Agony. I am pierced and pierced. For a moment the encroaching green all around her became the twisted corpse of the Darakyon, and she shuddered away from it. The ghost, its hook fastened in her mind, was still dragging at her, just strongly enough for her to feel. He was throwing all his might – all that death had left him – into drawing her somewhere, some place he had sensed.
'I'm coming!' she told him, and she floundered her way forward, heedless of monster fish or insects, determined finally to shed this burden, to set him free – and so to free herself. 'Give me your alcohol,' Thalric ordered. He had snapped the arrowhead off, although with so much wrenching that Osgan had briefly passed out. Now the stricken man was conscious again, pasty-faced and sweating.
'Don't know what you're talking about,' Osgan responded faintly out of the corner of his mouth, past the cloth bit that Thalric had given him to clench his teeth against.
'You've come out here with something to drink. Hand it over,' Thalric demanded. He was acutely aware of the target his back provided but he knew he had to fix this sooner rather than later. He had a feeling that Khanaphir medicine would be as primitive as the rest of their culture.
Osgan's good hand made a feeble gesture towards the pockets of his coat, and Thalric delved into them, ripping them open one after another until he found the bottle. He uncapped it and let the clear liquid drip onto the graze running down Osgan's ribs. Osgan hissed and twitched at the sting of it and, with that distraction, Thalric yanked the arrow from his arm.
Osgan's scream sounded even through the cloth gag. He fought so hard Thalric had to kneel on his chest, dragging the arm out straight to douse both sides of the wound with burning spirits. Strips torn from Osgan's much-abused coat were all the bandaging he could muster.
'Five minutes,' Thalric decided. 'Then we move.' He left Osgan sobbing quietly and went to see what attention their noise had brought. They were deep inside a stand of canes, as defensible a spot as he had come across. Now, dropping low, he crawled cautiously forward. The marshlands of the delta did odd things with sound: the foggy air deadened and distorted it. The assassins would most likely be unsure precisely where the sound had come from, unable to follow it up.
How many? He guessed at four dead and reckoned at least a pair of them must be left. Two teams of three felt logical, and he had sent such men out on Rekef errands enough to trust his own judgement. This is not just some Tyrshaani malcontent. Somebody with power in the Empire wanted Thalric dead very much indeed. And then what? Kill the Regent and then what? Is my death the trigger for some uprising? Has a conspiracy eluded General Brugan? It was information he had to get back to Capitas, along with news of his own continued survival. Assuming that news is still current by the time I get a chance…
Again the thought came to him: leave Osgan to the mercies of the swamp. If there were only two killers left, there was enough cover between here and the river to evade them. Assuming I still know which way the river lies.
There had been no movement visible out there. The assassins were elsewhere, or they were close by and waiting patiently. There was no way to tell.
'Osgan,' he said, as loud as he dared, 'time to move.'
The quartermaster was now sitting up, looking as though he had died and come back to life. Thalric's uncharitable thought was that, without the wound, he'd have just assumed the man was suffering after a night's heavy drinking.
'Move where?' Osgan managed to ask, and he was clearly doing his best. Old military instincts were struggling to make themselves felt.
'Away,' Thalric replied. There was only one clear entrance to the stand of tall canes they were hiding in: one clear exit, too, therefore. Any killers that were watching could not help but appreciate that. 'We're going out the back way,' Thalric decided.
'What back way?'
'Have you the strength to use your sting?'
Osgan closed his eyes. The Wasp Art that had taken the Empire so far was tiring to use: it lived off the body's own strength. He nodded wearily.
Thalric levelled one hand towards the canes behind Osgan, and the quartermaster hauled himself round and did likewise. Worms of light now flickered and crawled across Thalric's open palm.
He unleashed the golden fire, putting a hand up to guard his eyes from splinters as the searing fire of his Art shattered the canes apart. Something inside them was flammable, the pith exploding like a volley of snapbows. He and Osgan turned their faces away as a score of canes combusted together, flinging fragments and splinters across them.
'Move,' Thalric urged, and he was already pressing through the gap that had been scorched between the canes. He lurched forward, across an open patch of water, ducking into the reeds on the other side. Laboured splashing behind him told him that Osgan was trying to keep up. He turned, tugging at the man's good shoulder, just as an arrow cut across the water, clipping the ripples they had left. Thalric loosed his sting instantly, guessing at the archer's hiding place, then they were stumbling and staggering through the mud, the waist-deep water, burrowing ever deeper into the delta as the foliage around them grew taller and thicker, stilt-rooted trees and gigantic horsetails making a half-drowned forest out of the Marsh.