The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

  But hours later Empress Maisa asked permission (permission!) to set foot on the sovereign territory of Ormael, and when it was granted she took Isiq and Suthinia with her and went ashore. She left her guards at the docks, over the sputtering objections of Sergeant Bachari, and walked out into the throng unguarded, holding the elbows of her admiral-husband and her witch. The crowd swallowed them. It surged and grumbled, stinking of blood and alcohol and sweat. There were some hisses, no cheers. Maisa ploughed forward like a soldier through a swamp.

  She took a cup of plum wine in a waterfront tavern, for that is Ormael’s drink, and dabbed a little on her forehead, and her ankle above her satin shoe, for that (who had told her? Suthinia?) was the region’s beloved pagan prayer: Let this sweetness anoint me, head to foot; let me age not as vinegar but as wine.

  Word of Maisa’s gesture rippled out from the tavern into the growing throng. Then she asked which neighborhood was the roughest in the city. When they replied that it was surely Tanners’ Row, Maisa set out for it afoot. Laughing and amazed, the crowd moved with her. Block by block Isiq watched it grow, fast as word and feet could travel, until it seemed there could hardly be anyone in Ormael who was not making for the Row.

  The squalor here was frightful. Blocks of rubble, homes built of scrap. Children watching from broken windows, thinner than castaways. Ashamed of what the Empress was seeing, the crowd kicked garbage out of her path, broomed away puddles of filth that nonetheless rushed back and soaked her shoes. Isiq looked at Suthinia, who walked a pace behind Maisa. There was fear in her eyes.

  When they reached the poorest, shabbiest streetcorner, Maisa asked for a platform. A crate was produced from somewhere, and she let herself be helped atop it. When she was certain she had her balance she gazed around her sadly, and shook her head.

  ‘Tomorrow it will be six years,’ she said suddenly, in a voice that shocked them with its power. ‘Six years that you have lived under the boot of the Usurper. You know what has happened to Ormael in that time. Slavery for some of you, starvation for others. A lean, bare, scraping survival for the lucky ones. Your wine stolen, your fisheries plundered, your shops strangled for want of goods. In just six years. Now here’s an ugly thought: what will it be like in sixty?’

  Then she looked over the mob and declared that if anyone thought Ormael would gain more by her death than by the war she had declared on the Usurper, that man should strike her dead. Here. Tonight. A chance to do what was right for your homeland, she shouted, taunting them. Perhaps the best chance you’ll have.

  The throng shifted nervously. Isiq gazed out at the harbour. The woman was mad to provoke them; she didn’t know the depth of their pain. He experienced a frigid stab of premonition: not fear, but awareness that this moment, like that one on the deck of the Nighthawk, was a fulcrum. They might well kill her, and thrust all Alifros onto a trail of blood and ashes. But if they did not: what new lands, what strange vistas would open before them, sweeping away into the future from this place of despair?

  The silence deepened. The city of Ormael stood transfixed, a single mind contemplating an old, grey woman on a crate. Finally, slowly, Maisa raised her arm, as if to grasp a piece of the night. Her voice rang out in the darkness like a siren’s call.

  ‘Ormael does not choose to slay me, because Ormael is rightly named. The people of the Womb of Morning cannot be kept for ever cowering in the dark. I will have my throne. I will see a world where thieves and murderers are brought to heel — and you, and this night, will never in a thousand years be forgotten.’

  By the next morning, her forces from the mountains had doubled in size, and there were more volunteers ready to join the rebel fleet than boats to carry them.

  21

  Out of the High Country

  12 Halar 942

  The soil of Mount Urakan was frozen hard as oak; the travellers could not bury their dead. They took the bodies to a level place south of the Water Bridge, and there built rock cairns over Cayer Vispek, Thaulinin and the other three fallen selk.

  Before she covered her master’s face, Neda set her finger in the blood that still oozed from his forehead, then dabbed the finger with her tongue. Pazel stood near her, helpless to ease her pain. If Vispek had died at home, there would have been a cup of milk in which to mix that drop of blood, and any Mzithrini present would have tasted it.

  A hand on his arm: Hercol. The swordsman beckoned, then crouched beside Neda, who looked up astonished. Hercol pressed his thumb to the bleeding spot on Vispek’s forehead, then licked his thumb clean. He glanced at Pazel expectantly.

  Pazel made himself do it. He was disgusted, but then it came to him that he was honouring the man who had given him back his sister, and gratitude welled up in him anew. For this the Arqualis called them savages, he thought. For this the Arqualis said they should be killed. Pazel looked up to find that Thasha and Neeps had joined them. Without hesitation they tasted Vispek’s blood, and Neda said calmly that she would die for any of them, and then they rose and finished building the cairn.

  At the cliffside, Bolutu knelt and said a prayer to Lord Rin for the safe keeping of his friend Big Skip Sunderling, and the selk sang for the comrade that the maukslar had slain. Pazel looked down into the gorge a last time. Ramachni, what’s happened to you? It had been hours since he took owl-form and went in pursuit of the maukslar. Had he slain the demon, or been slain? Had he prevented the creature from sounding the alarm?

  Thasha and Hercol were looking at the body of the ogress, still lying in the aqueduct’s flowing water.

  ‘She was a miserable creature,’ Thasha said. ‘You could see it in her eyes.’

  ‘Nothing but pain has ever issued from the Thrandaal,’ said one of the selk. ‘But the ogres had a hand in their own misery. I have heard it said that their leaders found fear and murder so useful in conquest that they came to think of little else, and at last fell into a strange worship of pain, even inflicting it on themselves. In time this practise dulled their senses and their minds, until they were left with nothing but an impulse to do harm, and a few grey memories of elder times.’

  ‘Let us try to move the body,’ said Prince Olik. ‘It is too foul a thing to leave rotting in the aqueduct.’

  Working together, the six humans, three dlomu and four selk just managed to heave the vast corpse onto the rim of the bridge, where it balanced for a moment before toppling into the gorge. As it fell, the cruel iron crown slipped from the creature’s head and caught upon a jagged spire thirty feet below, where it hung like a sinister wreath.

  ‘There’s a message for the sorceress, when next she sends her creatures here,’ said Lunja.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hercol, ‘but we must be far away before she does. If Ramachni prevailed against the maukslar we may yet be undetected, but other enemies will be waiting for these dead ones to report, and sooner or later their silence will be noticed.’

  He turned to the four selk. ‘Which of you will guide us now? For to my eyes the mountains are still a labyrinth, and the sea is still far off.’

  One of the selk, darker-haired than his comrades, shook his head. ‘It is not so far off now. But Thaulinin knew the roads best, and Tomid, whom the ogress killed, was second to him in that lore. I myself have been as far as the Weeping Glen, but that was centuries ago in my youth. All the same we may set out: there is but one trail that leads away from the Parsua.’

  They rose and pulled their equipment together; Pazel and Bolutu armed themselves with the swords of the fallen. Then they turned their backs on the Water Bridge and started west, following the narrow path among the trees.

  The sun blazed fiercely on the white mass of Urakan, rising above them like a great blunt horn. The cold was retreating; drops of meltwater glistened on the pine needles.

  ‘I hate to mention this,’ said Neeps, ‘but we’ve lost our tent. Big Skip was carrying it.’

  The dark-haired selk turned and looked at Neeps with concern. ‘In that case we should make for the Urakan C
averns,’ he said. ‘There are supplies hidden in their depths, and we need only turn aside for a few miles to reach them.’

  ‘Any detour worries me now,’ said Bolutu. ‘Hercol is right: we dare not linger in this place. Is there no shelter along the downward trek?’

  ‘I have never heard of any,’ said the selk, ‘but I can tell you this much: if you hope to escape the high country today, you must move faster than you have done since we left the Secret Vale. Urakan is the last of the Nine, but even the lesser peaks beyond her are severe. We have no tent, and no fire beetles — and bad weather is coming; don’t you feel it?’ Hercol shook his head. ‘At home in the Tsordons I might be able to read clues in the wind, but not here. Lead on; the rest of us will try to match your speed. But remember that we must aim for stealth also. The foe that sees us is a foe that must be killed.’

  They set off through the twisted pines, jogging along the narrow westward trail where Valgrif had pursued the athymar. The snow was deeper here, but it had clearly melted and refrozen many times, so that now it bound the land in a smooth crust that snapped like eggshell underfoot. Their slain enemies had broken a path, but their footprints were hard and icy. For several hours they struggled west, rounding Urakan, and in all that time they descended no more than a hundred yards. Pazel grew frustrated: the day was passing, and they were still almost as high in the mountains as they had been on waking that morning. But whenever there was a break in the trees he saw the reason for this roundabout course: the vast gorge was still beneath them, and until it diverged they could not dream of descending.

  The divergence came in late afternoon, when from a rock outcropping they saw the gorge twisting away to the south. ‘This is good news and bad,’ said the dark-haired selk. ‘The trail will soon start its descent into the valley, but we have not been fast enough. Tonight we must dig a snow-shelter, unless we chance upon some ruin or cave.’

  They carried on another hour, with the lowering sun in their eyes. Then, a short distance ahead, they saw that the pine forest ended, and that the snow was mounded high.

  ‘That’s a funny sort of drift,’ said Neeps.

  ‘There speaks a son of the tropics,’ said Hercol. ‘That is no drift, Undrabust. It is the remains of an avalanche.’

  They approached, and Pazel gasped at the spectacle. Across the trail, and stretching up and down the mountain for as far as he could see, lay a huge battlement of snow. It had obliterated the trees, and was indeed several yards taller than their highest tips. Looking up at the peak, he could see the vast hollow cavity from which the snow had collapsed.

  ‘Our enemies scampered right up,’ said Corporal Mandric, pointing out a line of footprints on the slope. ‘I guess we’ll be doin’ the same then, won’t we?’

  ‘No trees to hide behind, up there,’ said Ensyl.

  ‘And no other path,’ said Hercol. ‘We must cross quickly and hope for the best. Keep your hoods up, and your blades out of the sun.’

  They donned their white hoods and climbed the rugged snowbank. At the top they could see that the avalanche was at least a mile wide, and ran straight down the mountain for many miles. It was like the line a finger leaves when dragged across a dusty chalkboard. Nothing stood in its path.

  ‘Look there, in the next valley,’ said one of the selk, pointing. ‘Can you see two roads converging, and four standing stones? That is the Isima Crossroads, where we are bound.’

  Pazel could just make out the four stones, which were grouped together in a square. Then the selk hissed and drew everyone down.

  ‘Soldiers!’ they said. ‘Dlomic soldiers! They were hidden by the stones.’

  ‘I cannot see them,’ said Lunja. ‘I can barely see the stones themselves.’

  ‘Selk eyes are sharper than our own,’ said Bolutu, ‘and that is a good thing today, if it means that they will not be able to spot us either.’

  ‘Unless one of them produces a telescope,’ said Hercol. ‘Move along.’

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Thasha. She pointed down the length of the avalanche. ‘Is that our trail, by any luck?’

  Pazel shielded his eyes. Far down the slope, a second line of footprints crossed the ribbon of snow. The dark-haired selk shielded his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘that is the second switchback, and there is a third below it, much further, which perhaps you cannot see. Eventually there must be a fourth.’

  ‘A shortcut?’ said Lunja dubiously.

  ‘It would be that,’ said the selk, studying the slope. ‘There are some small snow-ledges, eight- or ten-foot drops at the most. That is probably why our enemies did not climb it themselves. But they would not hinder our descent. We could save a day’s march by that path.’

  ‘And get spotted, and killed,’ said Pazel. ‘Nice idea, Thasha, but we’re better off under the trees.’

  ‘Some days you’re thick as cold porridge, mate,’ said Neeps. He pointed back down the slope they had just ascended. ‘We can walk along the edge of the avalanche, and stay hidden from anyone in that valley. And after sunset we can climb up here and carry on.’

  ‘What, in the dark?’ cried Mandric.

  ‘In the dark,’ said Olik, nodding. ‘Yes, by damn, that’s a fine idea. This snow is packed: that will make for better footing than this trail.’

  ‘And that bad weather you say is coming?’ demanded the Turach.

  ‘All the more reason to descend quickly,’ said Hercol, ‘and along the path of the snowslide we can at least be confident of not losing our way. But you are right to be wary, Mandric. Tonight we must tie ourselves together as before.’

  It was decided. They retreated halfway down the snow mass, until its bulk hid them from the valley, and started straight down the mountain. The angle of the snow made walking difficult, but they were heartened by the thought of escaping the mountains sooner, and even the approach of nightfall did not dampen their spirits. Better to walk through the night than to try bedding down in this cold, Pazel thought. But the wind was rising, and the selk looked anxiously over their shoulders at Urakan.

  As darkness fell they climbed the snow ridge again. Once tied together they began to feel their way downhill, with the sharp-eyed ixchel on the shoulders of the selk leading the way. While a little light remained they made steady progress, never straying far from the edge of the avalanche, and before long they crossed the first switchback. The moons were hidden by the peaks, but the starlight helped Pazel find his footing, and now and then a selk would look back at him with a glowing blue eye. They dropped from several ten-foot ledges without incident, although letting himself fall into darkness frightened Pazel more than he cared to admit. Enough! he thought, after landing hard for the third time. Someone can blary well strike a match at the bottom next time, so that we know how far we’re going to fall.

  They reached the second switchback and pressed on. But shortly thereafter the wind surged, cold and brutal, and snow began to fall. Pazel was appalled at the speed of the storm’s arrival. Before any of them could speak they were staggering and shielding their eyes from the driven snow.

  ‘Down, down to the trees!’ roared Hercol. ‘Hold fast to the ixchel! Valgrif, keep that dog beside you!’

  They fled the open surface of the avalanche and began to burrow into its side. They used their picks, their scabbards, their bare hands. It was much harder than digging into the fresh powder on Isarak: this was old, dense snow, and many a broken pine lay buried within it, and there was no light at all. Meanwhile the storm became a blizzard, the snow slashing horizontally, the brittle pines crashing around them and the wind like a throng of tortured souls.

  Finally they were all out of the blast. They had dug a cramped burrow, mounding the excavated snow into a wall and propping branches against the opening to block at least part of the wind. But they were blind and soaked. The selk wine went around, but when Pazel’s turn came he found that he was shaking uncontrollably, and he spilled more down his chin than he managed to swallow. ‘Dry yourselves!’ said Her
col. ‘Use the cloths from the selk. Use anything you like, but do it now.’ Pazel’s cloth was at his neck. The outer layer was damp, but within its folds it was, amazingly, dry. He rubbed it frantically over his limbs, and a little feeling came back into them.

  ‘I have spread a canvas on the snow,’ said Hercol. ‘Squeeze onto it, the closer the better.’

  ‘Night Gods!’ shouted Corporal Mandric. ‘Mr Bolutu, your pack is hot! The blary Nilstone’s giving off heat!’

  ‘Do not warm yourselves by the Nilstone!’ said the selk. ‘Its heat is illusory; the old stories tell of just such a snare. It cannot warm you; it can only scald and kill. If Arpathwin were here he would explain.’

  ‘Well he ain’t here,’ growled the Turach, squirming, ‘and I don’t need a mage to tell me hot from cold. Give your pack here, Bolutu; let me move it to the centre. We’ll see who don’t warm his hands.’

  ‘Stay away from the Stone! ’

  It was Thasha — and it was not. Her voice had come out with more ferocity than ever Valgrif put into a snarl. Mandric froze, and neither he nor anyone reached in Bolutu’s direction again.

  Pazel had been cold before, but now he understood that it had only been a tease. This was agony, and they were all in it together, moaning, blind. Even the selk were quietly shaking. Hercol made them report one by one: were their toes dry? Were their heads covered tightly? Were they all sharply awake?

  ‘I’ve been more so,’ said Myett.

  ‘Then sleep — if you never mean to wake,’ snapped Hercol. ‘Where are you, crawlies? Come here.’

  In the ixchel tongue, Pazel heard the women laugh grimly. ‘He’s only trying to provoke us, to keep us alert and alive,’ said Ensyl.

  ‘Of course,’ said Myett. ‘Do you know, sister, I could almost love this man.’

  ‘But I do not love his armpit,’ Ensyl replied.

  Then Hercol passed out dried fruit and seed cakes and hazelnuts and hard black bread. ‘Eat!’ he said. ‘The food is coal, your stomach is a furnace; you will see how fast it burns away.’