The Scarab Path

'Fascinating,' she said finally. 'You realize there are no nails in this boat at all?'

'Don't be foolish,' Ma

'Rope,' Praeda revealed. 'Just rope, passed round and through and round again. It must shrink in the water, to hold everything together. But it's perfect Inapt boatbuilding. The techniques must be centuries old.'

Just like everything around here, Che thought.

Another boat came up beside them, the mirror of their own but twice as long, four Mantids back-paddling to bring the craft alongside. Amnon was standing at its carved prow, stripped to the waist and wearing only a kilt. Che heard Praeda murmur, 'Oh, grace and favour, look at him!' in civilized horror. She kept looking at him, though, Che noticed, and when she glanced away her eyes were drawn back to him soon enough. A conversation with Ma

The big man gri

Che grimaced up at him. 'Captain, I think you should first let us know just what we are hunting, and how to go about it,' she said weakly. 'We are rather new to this.'

'Of course, of course. You should watch me make the first kill, perhaps.' He put a bare foot up on the side of his boat, sca

'Fish basking in the…' Che could see nothing but rocks amongst the foliage, but she heard Ma

'Oh, loose knives and bloody thunder,' Ma

'Land-fish,' Amnon said proudly, as though he was personally responsible for their existence. 'But we will not hunt these, of course. They are only young. It would not be fair to pit our skills against them until they have fully grown.'

'I want to go on the barge,' said Che, but the Mantids were suddenly thrusting the boat forward, almost toppling her backwards. Amnon's crew did the same, and she saw a few other boats like their own coursing ahead over the water, moving beyond the wallowing barge.

'Catch these!' Amnon called out. 'You must have the tools to hunt them!' He took up a leather-wrapped bundle that was as long as he was and cast it, with no appreciable effort, across the water towards them. Ma

'Nets and things,' said Che pointedly to Ma

'That Amnon, he claimed it was fishing,' the fat man protested.

'Well, to him, this probably does count as fishing,' Che snapped. 'We will keep well clear of all this hunting, and Waste take the honour of Collegium.'

'Agreed,' said Ma

From the far side of Amnon's craft another boat emerged. It had two Mantids poling it forward, but a third man was standing near the bows, spear in hand and cloak billowing. It took Che a moment to recognize him.

Thalric. And of course what she should be doing now, instead of performing this ridiculous charade, was talking to Thalric and smoothing things over. But it would have done no good to seek him out, she saw, because she was not the only ambassador to have been invited on the hunt.

He glanced over at her, and on his pale face she could see bruising, and her heart sank. Totho thought he was rescuing me. Trallo had explained to her how Thalric had taken her from the Fir-eaters, only to lose her to the Iron Glove. I am changing hands so often, they should put customs duty on me.

She raised a hand to send a feeble greeting over the water. She saw him nod in response. That small contact, the opening of negotiations, brought her a disproportionate relief. Has Totho now usurped him as the person I know best in this city? Or do I know Thalric even better, at this remove? Thalric has been drifting nearer, while Totho began close to me but he seems so far away now.

There was a series of shrill whistles that Che could not locate. As they sounded again she realized they came from beyond the river proper, amid the cha

Two of the little reed craft suddenly shot on to the broad waters of the river as though they had been spat out, their occupants poling them with precise grace and astonishing speed. There was a line trailing from one – Che could see it cutting ripples on the water – it was attached to-

It was attached to one of the land-fish, but a creature almost as long as Amnon's boat. Its maw, snagged by a harpoon head and gaping with fury, could have swallowed Che whole. It powered over the mud and ferns, its stumpy front fins granting it a startling pace, and then sloughed into the river with a bellowing grunt. Amnon's boat was cutting close, as the big man stood ready with a bow strung and drawn back. For a second the fish was invisible in the brown wash of the water, but something guided Amnon's hand as he loosed the arrow into the murk, and then the fish leapt to the surface to meet this fresh assault.

They want it in sight of the barge, Che realized, but still in the shallows, where it can't escape. Amnon and the Mantis-kinden were playing a dangerous game, herding the enraged monster up and down the river bank, not letting it slip into any of the smaller cha

'What a barbaric spectacle,' Praeda remarked, sounding disdainful, but she was clutching tightly at the boat's side. Ma