The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

  But Diadrelu was improving. She slipped inside the sorcerer’s blows, stabbing at him, forcing him to parry with the axe. When he tried to grapple with her, she twisted under him and whirled and clubbed him down with her sword-hilt.

  Arunis rolled, and swung the axe one-handed, expertly. Dri leaped back, sucking in her stomach, and the blade passed within a hair’s breadth of her ribs. Arunis swung again, sensing his advantage, driving her back towards Thasha. Dri’s balance was lost. She dodged a third blow, reeling now, and Arunis came at her with a gleam in his eye.

  His fourth blow was too eager, and hence his last. Dri whirled out of range, then spun back again and kicked the mage hard in the chin. Arunis staggered, and whiplash-quick, Dri wrenched the axe from his hand and clubbed him down. With one foot upon his neck, she swung the mage’s own weapon. The axe severed his arm at the wrist.

  Arunis howled. But the wound did not bleed: perhaps there was no blood in Agaroth, as there was no true and final death. Diadrelu snatched up the severed hand and flung it with all her might into the dark.

  ‘Go!’ she said to Arunis, ‘and if you return, I will take your other hand, and both feet, and give them to the corpses in those holes.’

  A shadow appeared beside Thasha, hovering over her, speaking without words.

  Arunis groped to his feet and plunged into the darkness. When he was nearly gone from sight he turned and shouted: ‘You cannot prevail. Night comes for Alifros! The Swarm will devour these maggots you defend. There is no stopping it. I have already won.’

  With that he fled, cradling the stump of his arm. Then Thasha felt a gentle hand lifting her head, and cold liquid against her lips.

  The wine was delicious, here in the land where it was made. Thasha felt life returning even before she swallowed. A vibrant energy rushed through her from head to toe. The shadow closest to her took shape: it was Pazel. She could hear him, feel the warmth of his hand.

  Diadrelu rushed to her side. ‘They’ve done it, haven’t they?’ said Dri. Evidently she could not see the others in the cabin, or the bottle at Thasha’s lips. ‘Not too much!’ she cried. ‘Two swallows, and no more.’

  Thasha had just swallowed for a second time. With effort, she turned her head away. ‘Dri,’ she said, ‘is this really death?’

  ‘It is death unfinished,’ said the ixchel woman. ‘Agaroth is a strange and frightening land, but still more like the world of the living than what comes next, I think. The dead may reach backwards from here. It is that reaching that keeps them from sailing on with the tide of souls.’

  ‘The ghosts that walk the Chathrand-’

  Dri shook her head. ‘Ghosts are different. They are souls who have yet to come even this far. They are trapped in a living world, a world with no use for them. I think they suffer more than those in Agaroth. Captain Rose is among them, now.

  ‘But listen carefully, Thasha, while you can still hear my voice. I have been to the dark vineyards where this wine was made, and spoken with those decrepit spirits who guard its secrets.’

  ‘You did that for us?’

  ‘Listen! Erithusme’s spell on your bottle was a sound precaution, given the wine’s evil past. The Fell Princes used it for a century: they sipped the wine slowly, making each bottle last years. This allowed them to wield the Nilstone for years as well — and they did so, to the sorrow of Alifros. They exterminated whole peoples, made pyres of cities, withered entire lands.

  ‘Erithusme wished to leave a weapon hidden on the Chathrand, but she could never risk creating another tyrant. Hence the curse, which forces the drinker to finish the wine in a matter of days. Each sip gives a few minutes of perfect fearlessness, and so the ability to use the Nilstone. But each sip also forces the drinker to sip again within two days. Otherwise the poison is activated.’

  ‘I think Ramachni detected the spell at last, after it was triggered,’ said Thasha. ‘I heard them fighting about it. But Dri, what happens when I run out of wine?’

  ‘Very simple: you swallow the dregs at the bottom. They contain the final cure. Better yet, pour off the wine and swallow the dregs immediately. Only then will you be out of danger.’

  ‘But I can’t do that, Dri. We need this weapon!’

  ‘This weapon nearly killed you.’

  Suddenly Pazel’s voice cut through the fog: ‘Thasha! Can you hear me? Come back, please come back-’

  She could dimly make out his features, now — but Agaroth was fading, and with it Diadrelu. Thasha was suddenly, almost unbearably conscious of how much she had missed the ixchel woman. ‘Don’t go. Not just yet.’

  ‘It is you who are going, Thasha, back to the living world. But I have one last discovery to share with you first. You are bound for Gurishal, to cast away the Nilstone. But Gurishal is immense, and overrun with the Shaggat’s worshippers. You will have no time to search it shore to shore. Look for a sea rock called the Arrowhead, Thasha. Can you remember that?’

  ‘The Arrowhead?’

  ‘That is where you must land, if you have any hope of sending the Nilstone back to the land of the dead. Oh, if only you could place it in my hands! For I shall soon be crossing over, and would bear it gladly, and rest fulfilled.’

  ‘But Dri, how did you learn about this rock, this Arrowhead?’

  ‘By making a nuisance of myself. Many come to this land by the River of Shadows. They told me of a terrible fall into an abyss, down a stone tunnel, with a last round glimpse of blue sky above them, and endless darkness below. Some had heard whispers of the place before they reached it, and knew it lay near the shores of Gurishal, at the spot marked by the Arrowhead. Remember, Thasha.’

  The light was growing. Diadrelu’s form grew paler still, and Thasha fought back tears. ‘I’ll remember. Oh Dri, what they did to you, Taliktrum and the others-’

  ‘Never mind. Show them a better example, as you always have done.’

  ‘You’re the best of us all, Dri, and the strongest.’

  The ixchel woman smiled. ‘From childhood I thought my reason for living was to fight for my people. I was right about that. But it took a great deal longer to find out who my people were.’

  ‘Hercol still loves you.’

  Dri paused, then looked up at the sky, where the ceaseless flow of souls went on. ‘I must leave soon. I do not know what awaits me in the land of the dead. But make certain he knows that I died undefeated, with a heart made whole by him. And say that I will look for him when his turn comes to make the final journey. But Thasha — tell him not to wait for that day, and a reunion that may never come. Do you hear me well?’

  ‘I hear you.’

  ‘Tell him the kiss I send with you is a command. He must go on living. Embrace every joy that still awaits him, every scrap and crumb of life. That is my wish for dearest Ensyl, too. It is my wish for you all.’ She bent down, and pressed her lips to Thasha’s own, and Thasha lifted her arms and embraced her. For an instant she felt the hard strength of the woman’s shoulders, the warmth of her lips. Then both sensations were gone. Dri’s body lifted, escaping Thasha’s arms like smoke. The darkness vanished, and with it Agaroth, and Dri herself.

  The room was dazzling. Her friends were beyond words. They only embraced her, repeated her name, bathed her in tears of relief. Pazel was kneeling and kissing her hands again and again. She tried to hold him still but it was impossible; he was overcome.

  Even Ramachni was shivering with emotion. ‘You have aged me today, Thasha Isiq,’ he said. ‘By the time I guessed the nature of the curse, it was too late for any treatment I could devise. I nearly put you in the healing sleep, which slows poisons to a crawl. But by then you were too weak.’

  ‘How long has it been?’ she said. ‘I mean, how long since I drank the wine?’

  ‘Perhaps ten minutes, dear one,’ said Hercol. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Thasha closed her eyes, furious with herself. ‘I lost a chance to use the Nilstone, that’s why. I could have done something. Changed the winds, maybe even parted
the Red Storm. There are just a few swallows left. I can’t be wasting them.’

  ‘Wasting?’ said Neeps. ‘Thasha, that mouthful brought you back from the dead.’

  Thasha looked at him. Back from the dead. It was close enough to the truth. She’d gone much deeper this time than before, during the blane-coma. She looked at their bright, beloved faces. They could never know, never grasp what she had seen. It will stand between us, she thought.

  ‘I was. . told things.’

  ‘Told?’ said Marila. ‘By whom?’

  ‘Give her a little time,’ said Ramachni.

  ‘And some food, if there is any. I’m famished. Oh Pazel, stop.’

  He was devouring her hands with kisses. She raised his chin, and understood: he’d been hiding his face, afraid he’d break down once again. Thasha kissed him squarely on the lips.

  ‘Out, everyone, and let me dress. You too, Pazel, go on.’

  They obeyed her, limp with exhaustion. But as Hercol made to leave Thasha touched his hand. The warrior turned and looked her in the eye.

  ‘Stay a moment,’ she said. ‘I have something for you.’

  30

  Deadly Weapons

  15 Fuinar 942

  303rd day from Etherhorde

  Thasha’s brush with death had several immediate consequences. One was an end, for the moment at least, to any sign of division between Neeps and Marila. Pazel could not tell if they were truly reconciled, if the shock of nearly losing Thasha had made Neeps wake up to the danger of losing Marila as well; or if they were both simply making an effort to believe that his heart was not torn. Perhaps Neeps did not know himself. For now Pazel was simply glad to see him trying.

  Thasha had also managed to devastate Hercol. This second encounter with Diadrelu had come only through Thasha’s lips (in two senses), and yet it proved harder to surmount. In the wilderness he had faced new tasks and dangers by the hour. On the Chathrand, others took the lead, and no matter how busy he kept himself with shipboard labours, his mind was free to brood. He was kind and grateful to Thasha, but his mood clearly darkened in her presence.

  In a broader sense, of course, Thasha’s news had brought hope to them all. They had more than a vast island to aim for, now: they had a landing place, or at least a sign pointing the way.

  Neda confirmed at once that the Arrowhead was real. ‘Tabruc Derelem Na Nuruth, we call it,’ she told Pazel. ‘The great standing stone that ought to fall, but doesn’t. Cayer Vispek told us of it once. He said it was a holy place before the rise of the Shaggat. The elders of the Faith sometimes went there to die.’

  ‘Die how? Is there a great shaft, an abyss, like Thasha’s talking about?’ Neda shrugged. ‘After the Shaggat’s rise we were forbidden to speak of the place. Cayer Vispek was bending the rules even to speak about the Arrowhead. He said there was a legend that the great rock would fall when the Unseen takes its gaze from Alifros, and leaves us alone in the night.’

  Pazel asked if she knew where along that massive shoreline they should seek the Arrowhead. Neda shook her head, then laughed. ‘Ask the Shaggat,’ she said, ‘if you can get the marines to stand aside.’

  Ott and Haddismal had kept the Shaggat locked in the manger, hidden away from everyone but a few hand-picked Turachs. ‘I could, maybe,’ said Pazel. ‘Haddismal’s not spiteful like Ott; he just likes to win. And he might want to question the man himself. He doesn’t speak a word of Mzithrini.’

  ‘The Shaggat doesn’t speak a word of sane,’ said Neda. ‘He’s the devil.’

  ‘Maybe he’s calmed down,’ said Pazel. ‘And you’re a beautiful woman. He might drop his guard.’

  She looked at him blankly. Then she turned and showed him her tattooed neck. ‘See the hawk? That’s a sfvantskor emblem. I’m not a woman to the Shaggat Ness. I’m an enemy, a heretic, a spawn of the Whore of the Third Pit. You don’t talk to the likes of me. You kill us and mutilate our bodies and put what’s left on stakes by the roadside. And I feel the same way about him, do you understand? The only talking I’ll ever do is with a blade.’

  The ship ran west, and the Red Storm weakened further. Captain Fiffengurt kept double lookouts aloft, and ordered redundant inspections of every element of their fighting arsenal. Still the grey-green seas lay empty.

  ‘Rose built the fire-control teams into a force like you’ve never seen, after the Behemoth launched those blazing monstrosities at us,’ he told Pazel, shortly after Thasha’s ordeal, ‘but I hope we never put ’em to the test. Wood and tar still burn, and flaxen sails as well.’

  As for the wine of Agaroth, Thasha’s friends urged her desperately to take Dri’s advice and pour it out, swallowing only the dregs. ‘In two days you’ll collapse again,’ said Pazel. ‘You can’t put yourself through that.’

  ‘Or you,’ said Thasha, ‘and I won’t. I’ll take another sip in plenty of time.’

  ‘And delay the poison by two more days? What’s the point? What if we drop the bottle and it shatters?’

  ‘Guess I’ll lick the deck, won’t I?’

  No one could change her mind: they would still be prisoners in Stath Balfyr, she observed, if she had never dared to drink. But that night the choices before her loomed stark and grim, and in the morning she took Ramachni aside.

  ‘You said you thought of putting me to sleep. To slow the poison.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Could you still do it? Could I sleep until we need the power of the Stone again. For days, or weeks?’

  Ramachni seemed disinclined to answer, but Thasha would not be put off. At last he turned his black eyes on her fully. ‘It can be done,’ he said, ‘but you will get no closer to freeing Erithusme in your sleep.’

  ‘Why not? I found other answers in my sleep. Felthrup learned volumes in his sleep.’

  ‘Felthrup is a dreaming prodigy. And you found your answers on the shores of death, not natural sleep. But we are confusing the matter, Thasha. I want that poison out of you.’

  His concern touched her, and then gave her a fright. Night Gods. He doesn’t trust his mistress either.

  Still, she did not dispose of the wine. The hours ticked by, and her debates with her friends became arguments. They begged and cajoled, and even tried to shame her. At one point Neeps and Pazel marched her into her old cabin, demanded the silver key, and opened the safe where the Nilstone lay.

  ‘Erithusme had this idea that we could never succeed without her magic,’ said Pazel. ‘You’re beginning to sound just like her. Use the mucking Stone, then. Pour off the wine, drink the dregs and use it one last time. Maybe you really can part the Red Storm.’

  Thasha held the bottle in the crook of her arm. ‘I’ll drink before the night is out.’

  ‘Another little sip,’ said Pazel, accusing.

  ‘The dregs will still be there, damn it all! I’ll drink them when I have to. Don’t worry about that.’

  Neeps shook his head, grinning, furious. ‘I love you, nutter girl. But it takes gall to say don’t worry, straight to Pazel’s face.’

  Thasha wondered if the tarboys could possibly make things harder. ‘Forgive me,’ she said, ‘I’m not trying to-’

  ‘No,’ said Pazel. ‘I won’t forgive you, if you get sick again.’

  He closed the safe and walked out of the cabin. Neeps looked at her a moment, then followed. Thasha sat on her old bed, clutching the ancient bottle, feeling the cold bite her fingers. Dusk was here; the poison had struck at sunrise. She had some twelve hours left.

  ‘SAIL! ABAFT THE PORTSIDE BEAM! SAIL, SAIL!’

  It was the alarm they’d all waited for, and dreaded. When it came Pazel was aloft himself, tightening bolts along the main topsail yard in the weird red glow. He had no telescope, and could see no ship. Above him, the lookout howled: ‘A five-master, she is! Five masts and thirteen miles!’

  Those last words nearly made Pazel fall from the yard. Just thirteen miles? Was he sleeping? Rose would skin that man alive!

  He raced down the mast.
Below, men were pouring onto the deck, and Fegin was striking the ship’s bell as though trying to break it. When Fiffengurt emerged from Rose’s cabin, however, he did not run, but only climbed with swift decorum to the mizzen yard. He was a new captain, performing the role of the unrul ed leader, and everyone knew it and expected no less.

  Pazel was running aft when Kirishgan appeared out of the crowd. ‘It is the Death’s Head,’ he said softly. ‘Macadra has found us at last.’

  ‘But thirteen miles? How did the lookouts miss her?’

  Kirishgan gestured at the Red Storm. ‘Our back is to the bonfire, Pazel. She came out of the dark. We were dazzled, though we did not know it.’

  Pazel looked at him, stunned. It was such a simple thing, but who aboard had ever sailed alongside a bonfire? ‘And now, credek, they have the wind advantage too — it’s turned in our faces again. Is that Macadra’s doing?’

  ‘Very likely,’ said Kirishgan. ‘She did as much when she first tried to take the Promise.’

  ‘But this time she’s flanking us. She’ll close that gap in no time.’

  ‘Unless we find our gap first,’ said Kirishgan.

  They hurried to the quarterdeck, through the multitude of rushing, frightened sailors. Fiffengurt’s orders had gone out: skysails, studding sails, a third jib strung from the spankermast. Pazel knew it could not add much to their speed. Nothing could, save a change of wind or an about-face, or some massive jettison of supplies.

  Mr Coote was bent over the tonnage hatch. ‘Gunnery! Fire brigades! Come on, lads! Move like you mean to save this ship!’ Coote looked too old to bear the duties of a bosun. And we’ve no quartermaster, no no second mate. Fiffengurt’s running this ship with half a team.

  Pazel’s friends began to congregate around the Silver Stair. Marila was holding Felthrup; Neeps was holding Marila. Ramachni and asha stood a little apart, the mage perched atop a 48-pounder cannon that had just been run out through a gunnery door in the portside rail. The others were handing around Isiq’s fine telescope, examining the Death’s Head and quietly cursing.