The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

  The Turachs have nets. Someone — Ott, Rose? — has commanded them to prevent this exodus, lest we find ourselves holding no hostages, and thus no cards. But the ixchel have mostly slipped through our fingers. Maybe a dozen get nabbed, or crushed underfoot19, but the bulk of the clan flows straight up the rails and rigging, like beads of oil drawn magically skyward, and the urgent swallows pluck them and make off across the bay, with Talag circling, shouting them on.

  Ere they vanish I catch one glimpse of his face. For an instant I think he is disfigured: something (an ear, an eye?) has surely been ripped away. Then I realise it’s nothing physical. It’s his confidence that has ruptured, his certainty. And that is a thousand times crueller in Lord Talag, that colossus of pride. He is still fighting, still leading his people somewhere, and furiously, but the reason behind it is gone.

  Monday, 9 Fuinar 942.

  Marila has come running. The Green Door has appeared on the mercy deck, and Felthrup’s mind cannot be changed. We are to meet there at once, to bargain with a creature of the Pits.

  25

  The Flight of the Promise

  25 Halar 942

  Her figurehead was a white horse, and its flowing mane swept back in delicate whorls along the prow. Thasha sat beneath it on the little platform that fronted the keel. Dawn light on her face, salt stinging her eyes. Before her was a spread of countless islets, drops of wax on the vast blue cloth of ocean. Thasha was murmuring a song that had come to her in a dream. Leheda mori che gathri gel, leheda mori aru. A melancholy song, she imagined. A song of farewell.

  The Promise was a swift, sleek three-master. Like the selk who built her, she somehow conveyed the presence of another world, or perhaps a version of this world governed by subtly different laws. There was a stillness about her, even as she rose and plunged on the waves. Her sides were painted silver, her masts and spars of a pale white wood such as Thasha had never seen. Her crescent sails were the blue-white of the mountain peaks behind them. Yet all these colours shifted slightly with the changing sun or clouds, as if the Promise were trying to blend in, to vanish against the sea and sky.

  You know what we’re facing, don’t you? Thasha asked the ship in silence. You know we’re a rabbit among wolves.

  She was far too small for the Ruling Sea. But Nolcindar, who captained her, had assured the travellers that she was ready for any waves to be found here in the Island Wilderness — and as fast as any boat in Bali Adro.

  Just as well, Thasha had reflected, for the Promise was no fighter. There were gunports, but no guns: the selk had long ago chosen lightness over force. But the crew looked forceful enough: twenty selk and twenty dlomu, the former from Nolcindar’s band, the latter fishermen from the tiny villages that were all the barren coast could support.

  The fishermen were a restrained, self-conscious lot: Thasha had yet to see one smile. The presence of Prince Olik left many speechless with awe, but the selk affected them even more profoundly. They were indebted to the people of Ularamyth for some deed long ago. Thasha gathered that it was this debt that had saved them, for when they looked at the humans the fishermen’s looks grew dark.

  ‘They are what they seem,’ Prince Olik had explained. ‘They are human beings, such as the oldest among you may recall from childhood. You need not fear them.’

  ‘We do not fear them,’ said the leader of the fishermen. ‘But two days ago the Platazcra was here, with a warship many times larger than the Promise. This was no surprise: they often snatch our ablest sons for crew, or for darker work in Orbilesc. But this time they had another purpose. They spoke of tol-chenni who had recovered from the plague: human beings who could think and talk, like men. They swore they were unnatural, and aided by criminals and traitors from Masalym.’

  ‘Such names the mighty have always given their enemies, and always will,’ said Kirishgan.

  The fishermen went on staring. ‘Tell them the rest, Jannar,’ growled a voice from the back of the crowd.

  Their leader’s face was grim. ‘We were told,’ he said, ‘that should we aid the tol-chenni, or even fail to keep them here, that we would all be killed, after seeing our children burned alive.’

  Silence fell. Prince Olik and Lunja bowed their heads in shame.

  ‘Those prepared to issue such threats will also be prepared to act on them,’ said Nolcindar. ‘I am sorry we came to you in this way. Of course, you must try to keep us, and we must fight and flee you, who have been our brothers so long.’

  The dlomic fishermen had bristled.

  ‘You do not understand,’ said their leader. ‘They have tortured us already, robbed us of our children, poisoned the very fish we eat. But things were different once. We came here starving, out of the Wastes of Siralac, and food appeared at the margins of our camps, and medicines that saved our children. We settled here, and in two years there were nut-trees sprouting in the clefts of the headlands, and fruiting vines. Whose gifts were those, Nolcindar? And when we were besieged, who came to us with blue steel burning, and put our enemies to flight? We are poor, and our numbers have dwindled, but we will never break faith with the selk. Your boat is waiting as it ever has been, in that cove no Imperial eyes have ever seen.’

  Their plan, it appeared, was to abandon their villages before Macadra’s forces could return. Thasha did not know how they would flee — by land, by boat? — or what havens they might find when they arrived. Nor did the fishermen themselves know where the Promise was bound.

  Safer that way, Thasha mused. Any of us could end up in Macadra’s hands.

  It had not been easy to escape the Coves. The fishermen had sent out scouting vessels, and placed lookouts on the headlands, peering into the darkness of the Gulf. For six hours the Promise had stood ready, every soul aboard waiting tensely for the all-clear signal. When at last it came they raced to their stations, and the ghostly vessel glided out from the dark cliffs and swept north by starlight.

  The Gulf was not actually empty; it was never empty, this close to the Imperial heartland. There were large vessels to the south, and beyond them a fell light over the shore, as of a bonfire of poisonous things. Another pool of light, due west, was so large that Thasha took it at first for an army encamped on an island. Then (her stomach lurched) she saw that the island was moving, crawling southwards like a monstrous centipede over the waves. Glowing shapes wheeled above it, and sudden flares like heat lightning illuminated its flanks. She did not know it then, but she was looking at the same Behemoth that had attacked the Chathrand, groping its way back to Orbilesc to fill its maw again with coal and slaves and sailors.

  Eleven days had passed since their depature from Ilidron. Behind them lay the charted islands, claimed by Bali Adro and heavily patrolled, no longer a true wilderness at all. Ahead lay the sprawling, uncharted northern archipelagos — and the Chathrand, as Ildraquin’s whispers to Hercol still confirmed. For a week they had been skipping and sneaking through these little foggy isles, their beaches crowded with nesting birds, or seals that lay in the sunshine like cast-off coats. Eleven days, and dangers aplenty. Hardly had they left the Coves when a fierce squall tried to dash them on the lee shore. They had scraped off with the sand showing yellow between the breakers, and the wives and children of the fishermen in plain sight atop the cliffs, near enough to wave, but too horrified to do so. Two days later a warship had risen up suddenly from the east, flashing an order to hold position. Of course Nolcindar had declined the invitation: the Promise had fled, and been chased as far as the Redvane before losing their pursuers in a fog bank.

  ‘We escaped,’ Prince Olik had murmured to the youths, ‘but this is a disaster all the same. For they were close enough to see us — to see selk and dlomu working the ship together. Macadra will hear of this in no time.’

  Nolcindar appeared to be of the same opinion, for that night they played a desperate trick: sailing the Promise through the narrowest gap in the Sandwall. The long barrier islands were breached in many spots, but the Empire kept close wa
tch on all the larger, permanent inlets. That left only the shifting channels, washed open by one storm or cyclone and closed by the next.

  ‘And even these may be guarded,’ Prince Olik warned. ‘It would be a simple matter of dispatching a few more boats from Masalym, or Fandural Edge.’

  So it had proved. The waterway was tiny and twisting, barely wide enough for the Promise to make her turns. And yet a dozen soldiers were encamped there, and two had enormous, feline mounts.

  ‘Sand cats,’ Bulutu declared, frowning into the telescope. ‘Sicunas bred for desert work. They’ll run fast along the beach.’

  ‘To some larger outpost, maybe,’ said Prince Olik, ‘or to a signal-point. Either way we cannot let them go.’

  The fishermen were in clear distress. ‘What do you mean to do, Prince?’ asked their leader.

  But it was Hercol who answered, not at all proudly: ‘We shall ambush them,’ he said, ‘like thieves in the night.’

  When darkness fell they brought the Promise to within three miles of the Sandwall. They tied swords and knives up in canvas, and the canvas to floats made of cork. Then some twenty selk and dlomic fighters began to undress and slip down ropes into the waves. Prince Olik and Lunja went with them, and so did Neda and Hercol.

  Thasha too prepared for the assault, tying back her hair and starting to undress. But when Hercol took notice he caught her roughly by the arm.

  ‘What is this?’ he demanded. ‘Have you forgotten everything? Have the tarboys and I been talking to thin air?’

  ‘You blary well know I can fight.’

  ‘Irrelevant,’ he snapped. ‘If we lose you we shall very probably lose this whole endeavour. Cover yourself, girl, and step back.’

  ‘Girl, am I?’

  ‘You will stay aboard, Thasha Isiq. We need another sort of strength from you.’

  He was trying to avert his eyes. Thasha knew with sudden certainty that she had aroused him, and that the distraction made him furious. She crossed her arms over her chest. Hercol was right, this was unforgivable, what in Pitfire was wrong with her?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered. ‘It’s just — fighting feels easier than-’

  ‘Than freeing Erithusme? I’m not surprised.’

  He still would not look at her. He had scars on his torso that she had never seen.

  ‘Do you recall what Ramachni said at the Temple of the Wolves?’ he asked suddenly. ‘About how quickly the Swarm is gaining strength? How long do we have before it covers Alifros, do you suppose? How many nights, before the night that never ends?’

  He climbed over the rail, naked but for Ildraquin and a cloth about his hips. ‘We can’t lose you, either,’ she stammered. ‘I mean I can’t. You know that, don’t you?’

  He made no reply, not even a smile or a frown. He just dived. Thasha stood there with her shirt open, watching the swimmers vanish in the dark. When she was barely of age she had dreamed that Hercol would touch her, take her, in the study or the garden or the little scrub room where she changed before their fighting lessons. Gently or furiously, silently or with whispers of love. She had never quite renounced those dreams, but they had fled somewhere so distant as to become almost chaste, part of the love she felt for the man, a love that was nothing at all like her love for Pazel, which could blind and devour her. To lose either of them — how could she survive that? And what if no one else survived? What if she were left alone?

  It could happen. Erithusme might give her a way out that was closed to everyone else. Could the world be so cruel as to force her to take it?

  But Hercol had not fallen that night, and neither had Lunja or Neda. The Bali Adrons, surprised and outnumbered and bewildered at the sight of Prince Olik, mostly obeyed his call to surrender, and those who did not were quickly subdued. The sicuna-riders sped to their mounts and tried to flee westwards, but Neda and Lunja were ready and waiting. Racing down from the dunetops, they leaped and tackled the riders, battling both men to the ground.

  Only two died in the operation: Neda’s rider, who fought to the death; and one of the dlomic fishermen, who was bringing up the rear as the raiders swam back to the Promise. The man simply disappeared. The captured warriors spoke of sharks, hunting along the inside of the Sandwall. Hercol nodded grimly. ‘We have met with them before. And this time there was blood in the water.’

  There was one other casualty: Lunja’s cheek, raked by the claws of the sicuna. The beast had whirled on her in fright when she tackled its rider, before the selk arrived and calmed the creature with a touch. Thasha winced at the sight: the wounds were pale and livid on her blacker-than-black dlomic skin. Later, as the Promise moved cautiously through the gap, Thasha heard Neeps and Lunja talking in the shadows.

  ‘What are you holding against your face?’

  ‘My cloth from Ularamyth. Kirishgan says I should cover the wounds with it until dawn.’

  ‘You must be tired of holding it. Give it here.’

  ‘I am not tired, boy.’

  A silence. Then Neeps asked, ‘Your people can grow back fingers and toes. Can you grow fresh skin as well?’

  Thasha saw the fierce gleam in Lunja’s eye. ‘Will I be scarred, do you mean? Will I be ugly? What is that to you?’

  Thasha moved away from them, not wanting to hear more. She took a turn at the halyards, in a line of selk, their blue eyes shining in the darkness like living sapphires. An hour later, as they cleared the Sandwall and emerged into the high, thrashing seas beyond, she saw Neeps and Lunja seated side by side against the hatch coaming. The dlomic woman was asleep with her head on his shoulder, and Neeps was still pressing the cloth to her cheek.

  That night Thasha held Pazel close, and he murmured a song into her ear. It was in the selk language he had learned on Sirafstoran Torr, but he himself could not say where he had learned the tune.

  ‘Someone must have been singing it in Ularamyth,’ he said. ‘There are times when I feel as if we spent years in that place. As if a whole stage of our lives passed there in safety.’

  They slept, and Thasha dreamed they made love, and in the dream Pazel changed many times. He was a selk, and then he was Hercol, and then a dlomu with the voice of Ramachni, singing Allaley heda Miraval, ni starinath asam, and then he was a sea-murth with sinuous limbs, and he sang a murth-song, and when she woke there were tears in Pazel’s eyes.

  The shadow of a bird swept over her face. Starting from her reverie, Thasha reached up and grasped the carved mane of the horse above her, and stood. It was very early; only a handful of selk were about, and none were near. She had spent an hour on this platform already, puzzling over the erotic dream and the song that came to her in such detail, Leheda mori, was that Goodbye in this lifetime, goodbye in this world?

  Idle fool. What impulse had brought her here? She had meant to rise and go straight to the struggle, that inner assault at the wall between herself and Erithusme. It was how she had begun every day on the Promise: seeking desperately for any fissure, any hidden latch or keyhole. Smashing, flailing. And finding nothing. You’re out of time, out of time, chided a voice in her head, and every day it rang more true. If they were caught on the high seas, pincered between warships or snared by some Platazcra devilry, what then? The selk and nineteen fishermen could not fight off a host, or shield the Promise from withering cannon-fire. No one could help — save possibly Erithusme, furious and caged. And every day she feared Hercol would draw Ildraquin and learn the dreaded news: that the Chathrand was leaving, setting off into the Ruling Sea, waiting no longer.

  The others felt the same urgency, now. Hercol had questioned her about every moment in the last year when she had noticed any trace of that other being inside her, however remote. She answered his questions dutifully, but they brought no breakthrough. Then Lunja and Neda had taken her off to a little cabin in the stern and asked other questions, mortifying questions, about Greysan Fulbreech. It seemed the builder of the wall might be Arunis himself, and Greysan the tool he used to put it in place. But Rama
chni had said that to do so would have required some force, and that Thasha would have felt it — unless greatly distracted. Were there such moments? Scarlet, Thasha admitted that there had been: two times, before her suspicions of Fulbreech became acute. No, she’d not let him go too far. But yes, Rin help her, she’d been distracted, aware of nothing but his kisses, his hands.

  A soft sound from the deck above. Someone was waiting for her: Hercol or Pazel or Neda or Neeps. Waiting and hoping: had she found the key at last? Thasha closed her eyes. One more day of disappointment. One more day when they would cheer her, warm her, salute her for the fight she was waging.

  She turned and ducked under the bowsprit, seized the top of the rail, pulled herself to the height of the topdeck. And froze.

  A few yards from her lay an ungainly brown bird. A pelican. It was splayed on its side, one black eye gazing skyward. It was so still Thasha feared it was dead.

  She slid over the rail. Nolcindar and several dlomic crewmembers had also noticed the bird. The dlomu stared with wonder, and Thasha realised with a start that she had not seen one pelican south of the Ruling Sea. The dlomu were edging nearer, but when Nolcindar saw Thasha she waved for them to be still. Thasha stepped closer. A muscle twitched in the pelican’s wing, but otherwise it did not move.

  Thasha knelt. The pelican was breathing, but only just; its eye had begun to glaze over. The moment felt unreal and yet absolutely vital: she was kneeling beside a bird and the bird was half dead of exhaustion and the fate of their whole struggle was in that failing eye. She stared: the orb was dreadfully parched. Once more bowing to impulse, she breathed on the eye, and saw the fog of her breath upon its surface.

  Then the eye blinked. The two halves of the yellow-orange beak parted minutely, and a sound emerged. It was not that of any bird. It was a voice, huge and deep but extremely distant, like an echo in a canyon far away. She could catch no words, but there was an awesome complexity to the sound, thunder within thunder, lava boiling in the earth. And Thasha knew she had heard the voice before.