They had been invited to join the hunt, of course: they had ignored the invitation. Instead this had seemed to them a golden opportunity for a little quiet, some space to think without the Collegiates crowding them with their constant noise.
We have watched for long enough, Malius decided. The King would expect some action from us by now.
The King does not know the conditions here, Accius thought darkly.
We are merely being distracted. No doubt that is the intent.
Agreed. Accius watched Khanaphir servants outside as they tended the gardens of the Place of Honoured Foreigners. This city is irrelevant.
Primitive, agreed Malius. There is no advantage to be secured for Collegium here. Even ten thousand Khanaphir soldiers could not stand for more than a moment against aVekken army. Bows and spears! In the voice of the mind, derision was so much purer and more satisfying.
So why are they here? Accius posed the riddle they had been slowly pondering for days.
Their scholars are almost certainly nothing more than that, Malius admitted reluctantly. They may have other standing orders that have yet to come into effect, but we have witnessed nothing about them to suggest that their claims hide anything more devious.
They are the typical irrelevant chaff with which Collegium always hides its true purpose, Accius agreed. Which purpose-
Which purpose is therefore embodied in the person of their ambassador. No doubt we were intended to watch the academics, or the city itself – the Collegiate contempt for the abilities of others, once again. Malius loaded the thought with particular emotion. It was their one pastime, really, this disparagement of their enemies. It enlivened the silence, and it even made the noise more bearable.
Her movements have been mysterious. She has been evading scrutiny and she has been impossible to track, Accius thought. She has an agenda that even her foolish compatriots do not realize. She is the real reason they are here, and they can look at all the stones and rocks they want. That much is clear.
That much is clear, Malius echoed. And we must now unearth her purpose. It is obviously something more than we had thought.
The King was wise to send us on this mission.
Indeed. We have seen where she visits most, who she associates with.
And that skirmish in the courtyard, Accius recalled. How swift she was to disarm it, and then spending so long speaking to the Wasp.
It is clear they have come here, so far from the Lowlands, because it is a neutral city where arrangements can be made.
They both paused then. Their joint conclusion, inexorable, was sufficiently dire for neither to wish it voiced. At last it was Malius who finished the thought.
Collegium has no stomach for another war, therefore they seek an alliance with the Wasp Empire.
Neither needed to state the obvious consequence of that. Where else could the combined eyes of such an alliance turn, save to Vek?
We must prevent this, at all costs, Accius decided. We must create disharmony between our enemies.
There is only one way, Malius concluded for him. Their secrecy shall be their undoing. We must kill both ambassadors. For the glory of Vek. Scorpion dens were seldom quiet places at night. The darkness was punctuated by the sounds of drinking, brawling, vendettas abruptly realized, the crash of pottery and the clash of steel, but when the explosion ripped across the night of the city-camp of Gemrar it was of a different order. The entire city was shocked into panicked motion instantly, Scorpions surging out naked or half-dressed, weapons in their hands, shouting at each other or rushing for the gap-toothed outer wall to confront the attack. Even Hrathen himself was momentarily disoriented. He felt the desert chill and in his mind he was back in the Dryclaw during the war, bellowing orders to the Slave Corps officers who had followed him into infamy. The Empire has found us, was his first thought, as he shrugged on his banded armour, took up his shortsword and stepped into the night. His eyes scanned the sky, looking for the Light Airborne or the square bulk of an Imperial heliopter.
Then he remembered. This desert was the Nem, not its domesticated cousin. He was far from the Empire's reach.
'Report!' he bellowed, hoping that one of his men was in earshot. Most of the Scorpions were still rushing outwards, roused to a single purpose by the thought of an assault on their capital. There was a counter-current, however, that was calling some of them somewhere within the city's bounds. Hrathen joined the latter, sheathing his sword and tightening the buckles of his armour. Whenever the Scorpions got in his way he elbowed them aside, for all that they were bigger than he was. It was the only way.
He smelled the smoke soon enough, the acrid bite of spent firepowder in his nostrils. Has some fool fired the magazine? But the resulting explosion would have been greater than that, and besides, they weren't so easy to light, for the firepowder was packed in small charges, little metal-bound barrels not much bigger than a man's fist. The Imperial engineers had made the stuff as safe as possible, if only because it would be them who would be standing next to it most of the time.
He spotted the dark-and-light of an Imperial uniform up ahead. 'Report!' he shouted again, shouldering forward through the gawping crowd. Once he got clear of the scrum, the story was written plain ahead of him, although it took him a moment to take it in.
Those ravages time had begun in one of the ruined buildings of Gemrar, an instant's work had completed. What had previously been a sound enough shell of a building, a small dome-roofed structure with three intact walls, was now a broken eggshell, punched in upon itself, so flattened that very little of it still stood stone upon stone. Hrathen went close enough to see, in the bluish lamplight, what must have been at least three bodies lying torn apart within. He glanced back along the line of devastation, into the mouth of the leadshotter, still wisping smoke. Lieutenant Angved, the engineer, had arrived by now and, true to his trade, was inspecting the weapon for damage, heedless of the carnage nearby.
There was a Scorpion standing near the device, Hrathen saw, who looked defiant, and pleased with himself. That was all Hrathen needed to see to complete the picture.
'Where is the Warlord?' he asked.
'At your elbow, Of-the-Empire.'
He had not sensed her, though she was standing very close. She wore only a long hide hauberk, but she had her spear to hand and her helm on. He felt those red eyes studying him coolly.
'Do you regret giving us these weapons now, Of-the-Empire?' she asked him. He amused her, Hrathen knew. He was Scorpion enough to touch on her world, but she found the Empire and its ways tedious, pointless. When in her company, he almost felt he agreed.
'I am only glad that I have given you some enemies to turn them on,' he told her. 'A man has a right to use his strength. If his strength is in the mind, then so be it.' He gestured at the siege weapon and its victims. 'This is no business of mine.'
'That he took your weapon, does that not anger you, O possessive Empire?' Beneath the rim of the helm, she was smiling through her fangs.
'It is yours, given to you and your people. If he took it from you, then the theft is yours to punish,' Hrathen said, trying to match her grin. She put him off balance, and he knew it was because his Scorpion side – his rapacious father's side – wanted her. She was no whore like the Empress, though, who ruled through others' weakness. Jakal was strong and would seek only strength. She would yield herself to his strength, or else he would force her, or she would kill him. And now she drives me to the second of those, or perhaps the third.