Shadows of the Apt - 05 - The Scarab Path by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Author:Adrian Tchaikovsky
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780330511452
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2010-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Six

She had expected Totho to at least sit down and talk to her, after they bustled her into the Iron Glove factora. He seemed to have no time for her, though. She had assumed at first that this was some mad impulse of his, and that he could not know what a nest of hornets he would be stirring. Now she saw that he had planned everything.

They had moved her from room to room within the factora, ahead of a wave of fortification. Allotted such primitive facilities, the Iron Glove were not content to let them lie: the solid stone framework of the factora building was being re-edified even as she watched. She caught brief moments of the process as they moved her deeper inside. They were fixing metal grills over the windows, with apertures large enough to admit a snapbow’s barrel. They had replaced the main door with something iron-bound and reinforced. Iron Glove people were running everywhere, now, strapping on breastplates and buckling on helms, checking the workings of crossbows and snapbows.

He’s making ready for a siege. She could understand the logic. The Khanaphir could not stand by and allow these foreign merchants the run of their city. But they are not merchants. The staff of the factora had transformed their headquarters into a fort, and themselves into soldiers. She had no doubt that they practised regularly with all the different weapons that they sold.

At last she caught a brief glimpse of Totho again, helmet pushed back, his face appearing almost transformed. It was a look she remembered from when she had found him engaged in some artificing project or other, where everything was coming together just at the last moment.

She called out his name, even as two Iron Glove men began manhandling her up some stairs. She saw his head turn, then he strode over, leaving half a dozen metal-clad men waiting on him. He still wore his own elegantly fashioned mail, that made the serviceable equipment of the others look like something that should be hanging in a museum.

‘Later,’ was all he said, from the foot of the stairs, and then turned to go.

‘Totho, tell me what’s going on!’ she cried, struggling furiously with the men that held her. ‘This is me, Totho!’

‘Yes, it is.’ He turned sharply back to her, and he was actually grinning. It was an expression of desperation and elation all muddled together. ‘Oh, I’ll tell you all right what’s going on, but not now. Soon enough I’ll tell everybody what’s going on.’ Then he was off once more, marching back to his troops, and Che continued being hauled backwards up the stairs.

‘Curse you!’ she shouted after him. ‘You can’t do this!’ She was about to add that he had no right, but Thalric’s words came back to her, about what her ‘rights’ were worth.

‘Bring her in here now.’ She recognized the voice as Corcoran’s, though his helm left him as anonymous as all the rest.

‘You are all going to regret this so much,’ she warned him, because she had nothing else to say.

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