The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

  ‘Look! That ball’s off-target. It’s going to miss us by a mile. Unless-’

  The fireball screamed by the Chathrand to portside. There came a boom and a blinding flash. Literally blinding: Pazel groped forward, seeing nothing but white-hot stars. As his vision returned he saw that someone had thrown open the door to the reading room, which had a view to portside. Through the doorway he saw the Mzithrini ship in flames. The ball, it seemed, had exploded against her stern.

  The ship was devastated. Her sternpost split in two. The decks above the waterline were pulverised; the quarterdeck collapsed into the inferno below. Already the sea was gushing in through the shattered hull.

  Oh Gods. All those people.

  There were two hundred men on the Mzithrini ship.

  ‘Now we know what happened to all those Mzithrini patrols,’ said Marila.

  Thasha looked Pazel straight in the eye. Her face was set, her look beyond fury. She removed the selk gauntlets, let them fall to the floor.

  He almost stopped her, almost said Wait — but how could he? The next target would be the Nighthawk. What exactly were they waiting for?

  They followed her back into the cabin. Thasha lifted the bottle from her desk and stepped in front of the pulsing Nilstone. Then she tore open the stopper, tilted the bottle to her lips and drank it dry.

  Her gaze softened. She lowered the bottle and passed it to Marila. In the sudden silence Pazel heard Fiffengurt giving orders for a rescue operation. Thasha placed a hand on her chest.

  ‘I’m. . cured,’ she said. ‘The poison is gone. I can feel it.’

  Pazel threw his arms around her, undone with relief.

  ‘And if I touch the Stone again, I will die.’

  The feeling of doom that gripped Pazel in the next few minutes was unlike anything he could recall. The dregs of the Agaroth wine had done their work, but had given Thasha no last moment of fearlessness. She would never use the Nilstone again — not as Thasha, at any rate. And now they were helpless. Macadra had weapons they could never hope to match, and the maukslar as well. Pazel glanced at Neeps and saw an echo of his own shame. They had never admitted it, but they had counted on Thasha to save them once more.

  ‘Say nothing about this,’ urged Hercol. ‘Let the men hope: if they cease to, we are finished.’

  They sealed the Nilstone in the cabinet and returned to the topdeck. All was mayhem. Eight or ten lifeboats were already in the water, and the rowers were pulling with all their might for the Mzithrini ship, already more than half submerged. ‘Hard to port, Elkstem, bring us up behind them,’ shouted Fiffengurt. ‘Mr Coote, the Nighthawk is following in our lee! Where’s your blary signal?’

  ‘Already sent, Captain. They ain’t listening, is all.’

  ‘Gods damn the old fool!’ bellowed Fiffengurt. ‘Does he want his people killed as well?’ Then, seeing Thasha, he cried, ‘Get up here, Missy, and show yourself to your father! He’s watching us through a scope this very minute. Wave him off, for Rin’s sake, before Macadra fires on the Nighthawk. One more boat can’t help us now.’

  Still in shock, Thasha hauled herself up the ladder. She took the signal-flags from Coote and mimicked his Desist and withdraw signal, her movements jerky, her face a blank. But the Nighthawk held its position, cannon at the ready, men-at-arms upon her deck.

  The rescue effort, meanwhile, was well underway. The first lifeboats were already reaching the Mzithrinis. Dlomu had swum ahead of them, seeking out the wounded and the weakening, pulling them towards the boats. And now the Chathrand herself was drawing near. Jervik was standing by with a stretcher-team. Accordion-ladders snaked down the hull.

  Then the Death’s Head fired again.

  ‘Cover, cover, fore and aft!’ howled Fiffengurt.

  The fireball rose from Macadra’s ship. But once again they were not the target. ‘That one’s for the Nighthawk!’ shouted Coote.

  It was all so swift. The fireball closed. Thasha cried out, the sound of a heart breaking if Pazel had ever heard it. And then, explosions — eight, twelve, sixteen cannon, booming from the stern windows of the Arquali warship.

  Mere yards from the Nighthawk, the fireball disintegrated. Its flame swept on, parting like water around both sides of the hull. But it had not exploded. It had been torn to bits, and the Nighthawk emerged from the short bath of fire apparently unscathed.

  ‘What happened?’ cried Ensyl, from Hercol’s shoulder.

  ‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘Grapeshot! The admiral filled his stern chasers with grapeshot, and took that blary projectile apart! Rin’s gizzard, he’s a tough old bird!’

  The ‘old bird’ did not need more urging to withdraw, however. As Thasha wept with relief, the Nighthawk’s mainsails rose and billowed, and the warship began to glide away from shore.

  Pazel turned to face the Arrowhead, and the small, menacing shape that was the Death’s Head. One ship had been driven off, another destroyed. And Macadra’s vessel hadn’t even moved.

  Corporal Mandric appeared on the quarterdeck. ‘Captain,’ he said to Fiffengurt, ‘my sergeant’s advice is that we fall back too. Approach Gurishal from somewhere else, get the Nilstone ashore that way, carry it overland to this death-portal, wherever it is.’

  ‘No, Mandric, we cannot withdraw,’ said Ramachni. ‘Have you forgotten how Dastu taunted us at the beginning? How he said that even those who studied Gurishal, and lived here, had never heard of that portal? We have no time to go searching, to fight our way up cliffs and through mountains, to say nothing of battling the Nessarim. It is darker today than yesterday. Tomorrow, the darkness may be complete. And remember that Macadra, too, must act before the Swarm kills us all. I do not think she will permit us to sail away.’

  Ramachni looked at Hercol, Fiffengurt, and the youths in turn. Pazel gazed into his black eyes, breathed deep, and nodded.

  ‘Captain-’ he said.

  ‘Save your breath, Pathkendle, I understand,’ said Fiffengurt. Then, raising his voice to a roar: ‘Mr Elkstem, bring us around if you please. Fegin, Coote, to your stations, and lit matches on the gun decks. This is it, gentleman: we go forward, or we go down.’

  They were a ship of lunatics, thought Pazel, and so much the better for it. The men perhaps only dimly grasped what they hoped to do in the Arrowhead Sound. But they knew the goal — to wipe away that hideous cloud — and they knew that death alone would follow, if they failed.

  He and Neeps helped set the mizzen topsail. The Chathrand turned neatly, despite her wallowing stern, and began to plough straight for the Death’s Head. From four miles out, it appeared that they could enter Arrowhead Sound on the opposite side of the great rock, avoiding Macadra altogether. But that would only have told the sorceress that she had nothing to fear — and a bluff, Hercol noted grimly, might be their only chance.

  ‘But is it even a chance?’ Neeps whispered to Pazel, tightening the sword-belt he had just strapped about his waist. ‘Last time Thasha was here with the Nilstone in her hand, and Macadra saw her, sure as Rin makes rain.’

  ‘I know,’ said Pazel, sliding his own sword half out of its sheath. ‘This may not fool anyone, but there’s nothing else we can do, unless we bring Thasha up on deck waving a pumpkin.’

  The tarboys were on the forecastle, gazing straight ahead. Thasha had agreed to stay below until the charge was over. As it would be, soon: the Chathrand was gaining speed. And now at last the Death’s Head too was spreading canvas. Macadra had no intention of being pinned down against the cliffs. She was sailing out to meet them.

  Three miles between the ships, now. Fegin blew his whistle, hustling a crowd of gawking steerage passengers below. Lady Oggosk stood alone by the mainmast, the high wind tearing at her hair and shawl. Refeg and Rer, for once, were already on deck, pacing, breathing like bulls. Someone had had the foresight (and courage) to wake them. Niriviel wheeled in circles overhead.

  Pazel glanced around the deck. ‘Where’s your wife, mate?’

&nb
sp; Neeps jumped, looked at him sharply.

  ‘Pitfire, what’s the matter with you?’ said Pazel. ‘Didn’t you marry her? Didn’t you want to?’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish. Of course.’ But Neeps’ voice was bitter, and his eyes were cross. After a moment, he said, ‘If you had to die for someone — no, forget that. If you had to die next to someone, are you sure you know who you’d choose?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pazel’s certainty did not help his friend at all. ‘Well good for you, damn it, but I’m not such a — never mind, you can’t — oh, Gods damn it.’

  Neeps shut his mouth. Two miles. Pazel went to Hercol and borrowed his telescope. There were dlomic soldiers crowding the deck of Macadra’s vessel, and standing thick upon her spars.

  ‘They could be an amphibious unit, like the ones we fought at Cape Lasung,’ said Hercol. ‘That would be one way of taking the Chathrand without sinking her.’

  ‘I guess we’ll know,’ said Pazel, ‘if they start diving into the sea. But that’s not what I’m worried about. Our stern is riding lower than ever. If they strike us there, who knows how fast we’d flood and sink? And it can’t be the crack in the keel that’s causing it — we’d already have sunk if the keel were that far gone. In fact we don’t have a clue why it’s happening.’

  ‘I have a clue — or a guess at least.’ said Ramachni. Pazel jumped: he had not heard the little mage approach.

  ‘Tell me, then,’ he demanded.

  ‘Later, Pazel. Right now, I must ask you to remember the clock. Thasha’s clock. If we should have to evacuate this ship, do not leave it behind. Remember that it belonged to my mistress.’

  ‘That’s a good reason to leave it behind,’ said Pazel.

  ‘Pazel,’ said Hercol.

  ‘Many things have failed to go as Erithusme hoped,’ said Ramachni, ‘but that does not mean that she acted without reason. She always had a reason.’

  Pazel looked away. He could not bear to think of Erithusme. She was here, even now, a soul within Thasha’s soul. And she could save them, slap the Death’s Head away like a gnat. But it wouldn’t happen. A wall no one could see or touch or explain had thwarted her, and now they stood alone.

  ‘We will take it, Ramachni,’ said Hercol.

  ‘Good,’ said the mage. ‘And now I’d best be on my way.’

  ‘What?’ shouted Pazel. ‘You’re leaving now, by the festering Pits? Leaving us again?’

  Ramachni just looked at him, unblinking. Then the cry went up: ‘The demon, the maukslar! It’s taken to the air!’

  Pazel whirled. He could see it, a moving speck in the half-light, swooping towards them from the summit of the Arrowhead. When he looked for Ramachni again the little mink was gone, and a black owl was climbing into the sky above the Chathrand, making for the distant enemy.

  ‘I’m a blary idiot,’ he said aloud.

  ‘But we tolerate you somehow,’ said Hercol.

  The maukslar was closing with frightful speed. Pazel could see the broad, leathery wings, the searchlight eyes, the sputtering glow of its fire-spittle. The owl that was Ramachni looked smaller and smaller as the two forms converged.

  ‘Motion on the Death’s Head,’ said Hercol, his eye to the telescope again. Then his voice rose to a warning howl. ‘Dlomu in the water! They’re diving, diving by the score! Ah, Denethrok, take cover! They’re aiming those Plazic guns!’

  The warning swept the ship. There were curses and terror, but no panic: the men had left that emotion behind. Pazel and Hercol stood their ground. Above them, the maukslar spat a huge glob of liquid fire, straight at Ramachni, but some unseen power summoned by the mage parted the fire in a wedge to either side of him, and the owl flew on.

  The maukslar gave a sinuous twist. Ramachni swerved in answer, but he was too late: the creature was past him, hurtling for the Chathrand. Behind him, Neeps was shouting: ‘Clear the deck, clear the mucking deck! It’s going to burn us to a crisp!’

  Sudden flashes from the Death’s Head. Pazel and Hercol threw themselves flat as the thunder of cannon smacked the ship. But no fire or cannonball followed, no burning tar. Pazel rolled over to face the sky.

  Oh, Gods.

  Ramachni was diving, closing the gap. Even as Pazel watched he reached the maukslar, fanned his black wings — and exploded into eguar-form.

  The maukslar screamed. The huge black reptile seized it with jaws and talons, and the two spun flailing in the air. No fire, demonic or otherwise, could harm Ramachni now. He tore at his foe, merciless and deadly. But he had not counted on the force of the maukslar’s own dive. They carried forward as they fell. Men screamed and dived for any cover they could find. The two creatures struck the deck just astern of the forecastle, like a bomb.

  Fire and ruins were everywhere. Shrouds and bracelines snapped; the longboat was crushed like an eggshell; the jiggermast collapsed into the sea. The two foes roared, rolled, twisted, an impossible writhing mass of flame and fangs and talons and blood. Sailors ran for their lives, hurling themselves down the hatches, even leaping over the sides. Pazel, Neeps and Hercol stood pinned against the bowsprit. Suddenly Pazel recalled the mage’s words at Stath Balfyr, after the killing of the sharks: You must not depend on me if it comes to fighting again.

  That was exactly what they were doing. But how could they help? The eguar’s fumes alone were so strong that men were dropping senseless at thirty feet.

  The warring creatures rolled to the portside rail, splintering it to pieces, nearly toppling into the waves. Then the maukslar tore itself away from Ramachni and leaped upon the forecastle. Its tail crushed a sailor against the foremast, then wrapped around another and began to squeeze.

  Hercol looked at Pazel, a strange twinkle in his eye. ‘You’re not a bad diver, Pathkendle,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Prove it again. Hold your breath.’

  He took a great gulp of air and leaped to the attack. Terrified, Pazel knew he must find a way to do the same. He circled left. The maukslar was spitting fire at Ramachni, still below on the main deck, but its tail seemed to have a mind and malevolence all its own — that long, lethal tail which had plucked Big Skip from the bridge over the Parsua Gorge. The sailor tried to stab at the coils, but they tightened, crushing his chest. The tail let him drop and groped for another victim.

  What it found was Ildraquin. Hercol brought the dark sword down in a flashing arc, biting deep into the flesh.

  With an infernal scream the maukslar turned its fell eyes on Hercol. Bleeding but still serpent-quick, the tail circled his waist, raised him high and dashed him down against the deck. Hercol fought on even then, hacking with his one free hand.

  Ramachni, seizing the moment, began to haul his elephantine body onto the forecastle. The maukslar tossed Hercol away and closed on him, hissing. Pazel saw his chance. He leaped once, twice, over the whiplash tail. Just as the maukslar crouched down to leap upon the eguar, Pazel stabbed downwards with his sword, two-handed, and pinned the demon’s tail to the deck.

  The maukslar’s lunge fell short. Recoiling with a scream, it tore Pazel’s sword from the deck plank, struck him aside like a trifle, and spread its wings.

  A roar. The eguar pounced. Its crocodilian jaws snapped shut on the demon’s snake-like neck. Its talons shredded the wings, then gripped the creature’s torso. It ripped. With a gush of black blood the maukslar’s neck parted from its body. It fought on, biting and snapping, as Ramachni thrashed it against the forecastle. At last the red eyes went dark, and the thing lay still.

  Pazel fell on all fours, gagging. Everyone left alive on the forecastle was struggling to breathe. The eguar looked at the devastated ship, the burned and dying men. Its eyes turned last of all to Pazel. Then it leaped at him.

  Pazel was knocked off his feet. The creature landed almost atop him, its toxic vapours like a blow to the stomach. Pazel’s vision dimmed. Ramachni, he thought. You’re killing me. Why?

  A monstrous crack rent the air, followed by the
pop and zing of snapped cables. The foremast fell and shattered across the eguar’s back.

  The creature’s legs buckled. With a groan of agony, it shrugged off the mast to one side of Pazel. It was bleeding, black blood that sizzled where it fell. One white-hot eye passed over Pazel, Hercol, Neeps, the whole of the ruined ship. Then the eguar leaped over the starboard rail.

  Pazel tried to stand up, and failed. He crawled, and burned his hands and knees. Then Hercol loomed over him, wheezing, bloody from scalp to shoulders. Pazel felt the warrior lift him and begin to stagger away. The two most terrible languages his Gift had forced on him — those of the eguar and the demon itself — were roiling and seething in his brain:

  I will never (ITHAPRIGAL codex of hatred heartsblood burning blistered eater of life) speak another (IMGRUTHRIGORHIDISH realms of damnation codex of pain) word (CURMASINDUNIK nine Pits nine lairs nine soul-shattered Gods Arunis among them eater of worlds kill the fair kill the gentle the morning mountains minerals rivers forests insects oceans angels newborns hope) for as long as I (codex of misery) live.

  Hercol slapped him. ‘Breathe, lad! Get that poison out of your lungs!’

  Pazel gasped and bolted upright. The battle raged on. From the Death’s Head, bursts of fire were still leaping, and now the Chathrand had opened up with her own forward guns. Along the rails, Turachs and ordinary seamen — and Mzithrinis, by Rin — stood with pikes in hand, ready to repel boarders, gazing down into the waves. They looked hurt and tired. How many had just been killed?

  He became aware that his whole body was one agonizing itch. He turned and saw Neeps beside him, reeking, vomit-covered. Simply disgusting.

  ‘Hold still.’

  Someone began to douse him repeatedly with seawater. Feeling stronger, he looked up to see Swift and Saroo, his old antagonists, gazing down at him with concern.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said.

  The brothers looked at him, a bit shamefaced. ‘Yeah, Muketch, I reckon you are,’ said Swift. They leaned down and helped Pazel to his feet.

  The Chathrand’s guns were deafening: Fiffengurt was throwing everything they had into the forward batteries. Still the Death’s Head came on: Pazel could see her white sails looming beyond the wreckage of the forecastle. ‘How many dlomu are attacking?’ Neeps bellowed in Swift’s ear.