There were sounds of shoving and pushing, contending cries of 'Liar!' and 'Do as he says!' Then a fist smashed hard against the door, and a man bellowed at the top of his lungs, 'Let us out! Let us out!'
Others took up the chant; the calmer voices were lost in the din. Pazel whirled around — just in time to see a gigantic, blood-smeared rat scurry into the corridor from the side passage. It spotted him, and screeched, and from behind it came an answering howl.
Terror and ecstasy: Pazel saw the rat charge, felt the solid weight of the crowbar in his hand, felt above all the slowing of time that Hercol said came to many before combat was joined. In that instant so much of what the swordsman or Thasha achieved in battle-dance no longer seemed unthinkable. He could not do it, maybe, but he saw that it could be done. He had time to gauge the rat's strength and its madness, the momentum of its charge. Time to consider twenty steps and stances. Time to imagine it tearing him apart.
He turned sideways, giving himself room to swing. The rat was shouting Heretic! Looking him in the eye, and in its own gaze was hate and torment and an intelligence unhinged. But it was not all mad: as Pazel swung it saw the danger, and spun away, so that the blow that would have cracked its skull connected instead with its shoulder — wounding instead of killing. The rat whirled completely around and came at him again. Pazel's backswing barely kept its teeth from his face. He lashed out hard with his left foot, and struck the creature full in the flank. But the rat twisted with astonishing flexibility, and sank its shovel-like teeth into his thigh. Screaming with pain, Pazel brought down the crowbar again.
Crack. The rat shuddered, but did not let go. Pazel struck again, roaring. Again. Again. On the fifth blow the rat's jaw loosened; on the sixth it fell to the floor.
Pazel turned and sprinted for the main compartment. As he raced by a second rat entered from the side passage. He swung the crowbar, never slowing, and knocked the creature from his path. But from the corner of his eye he saw scores of the beasts flooding around the corner. Another few seconds and he'd have been trapped.
'Here they come!' he shouted, racing back into the main compartment.
For the first time in his life Pazel was overjoyed by the sight of Turachs. Eight archers stood in a gauntlet, with Haddismal beside them, looking as though he was at last in his element. 'Drop, Muketch!' he commanded. Pazel saw eight longbows levelled at him, bending, and threw himself flat on the deck.
The bows sang. Yards behind him, the rats gurgled and screamed, and the deck shook as bodies crashed to the ground. Pazel dragged himself aside, not daring to raise his head. The bows twanged again, and the sounds of agony redoubled. At last Pazel realised he was out of range, and turned over just in time to see the remaining rats fleeing back down the corridor. Ten or twelve lay dying.
Haddismal beckoned to his men. 'Advance! Advance with me! Viper stance, blades and bows! Onward, in Magad's name!'
In tight formation, the soldiers ran into the darkness. Pazel hurried back towards the stair. But halfway across the main compartment he saw Hercol, no longer needed at the ladderway, cutting across his path at a run, Ildraquin still naked in his hand. Thasha ran close behind him. She gave Pazel a look of grim apprehension, a look that begged him to follow. Hercol's face was darker than ever.
Pazel rushed to catch up with them, and even before he did so, he realised where they must be bound: the surgery. It was just a few yards off the main compartment. But why were they running in such a panic? Had Hercol taken some new injury? He wasn't bleeding, except a bit around his bandaged fingers. Someone else, then, Pazel thought, someone wounded before he came down to the hold.
He and Thasha caught up with Hercol just as he reached the surgery door. There, for one breath, Hercol paused; and squeezed his eyes shut. Then he flung the door wide.
Wreckage, everywhere: the floor was strewn with broken glass, scattered surgical tools. Fluids dripped from the screwed-down tables. The single patient, Old Gangrune the purser, was squatting atop Chadfallow's desk in the corner. His forehead was bandaged; his lips trembled in fear. Then Pazel's eyes swept right, to the far end of the chamber, and he gasped.
Ignus Chadfallow stood backed against a cabinet. With his left hand he gripped a jagged staff, part of a broomhandle, maybe. With his right, he held a small, bloody bundle to his chest.
Ranged before him on the tables stood some fifty ixchel. All were tensed for battle. About a dozen had their backs to Chadfallow, in a protective semicircle; the rest surrounded this smaller group, menacing it with all manner of arms.
When the door flew open the ixchel scattered, like chess pieces swept from a board. At the same time Old Gangrune scrambled off the desk and bolted for the door. 'Crawlies! Crawlies!' he howled, barrelling past them into the corridor.
The ixchel, to Pazel's amazement, simply let him go. After their first startled movements, they snapped back into positions that were almost unchanged. The larger group merely angled to one side, keeping the newcomers in view.
Hercol made straight for the doctor and his unexpected guard. 'Chadfallow, have they-'
'Stay where you are, monster!' shouted a familiar voice. It was Taliktrum.
The young lord stood among his shaved-headed guard. His swallow-suit draped on his shoulders like a holy raiment. Steldak stood just behind him, whispering something. A slim, catlike girl clutched at his arm.
Hercol took another step. Taliktrum shouted something, and ten archers fitted arrows to bows.
'We will drop you with the same poison you used on Lady Thasha,' said Taliktrum.
'I will kill half of you before I fall,' said Hercol.
'Gods below, man!' shouted Chadfallow suddenly. 'Are you out of your head? Why did you have me guard this body? What is her importance to you? I have seen them, that's enough. Rose will know what to do.'
'Hear the giant!' cried the ixchel with loathing.
'Who are you talking about? It's Dri, isn't it?' Thasha pushed past Hercol, as if daring Taliktrum to make good on his threat. Hercol gripped her shoulder.
'If I shoot you with pure blane this time, you'll never wake up, stupid girl,' said Taliktrum. 'Not without the antidote. And I can promise you none will provide it.' He turned to the dozen ixchel between him and the doctor. 'Ensyl, stand aside. You know the rites must be observed.'
'I know what my mistress believes in,' said a young ixchel woman at the head of the group, 'and how you betrayed her.'
'You will quit this room, my lord,' said Hercol softly, 'or by the infernal fires, I'll end your reign here and now.'
Steldak looked up with fear at Ildraquin. 'My lord,' he said in ixchel-speech, 'this man felled Ott in seconds, alone. Do not fight him. We can come back later, when they sleep.'
Despite himself, Pazel laughed aloud. 'Sleep! When's that going to be, you mad dog? Have you seen what's going on out there? Do you know what's happened to your friends the rats?'
Taliktrum frowned sharply. 'Friends?' he said. 'Steldak, you know what I think of those vermin. Have you been consorting with them again?'
Steldak looked suddenly exposed, and frightened. 'My lord, the boy speaks rubbish. Like any of us, I bump into rats, they can hardly be avoided-'
'Especially,' said Pazel, 'when you're squeezed into a space the size of a shoebox with one of them, waiting to attack the captain.'
Taliktrum's face tightened. His lips curled back from his teeth in a grimace of fury. 'Again. You dare defy us again — defy my father's last order, when your first breaking of it put him in the jaws of that cat.'
'Don't take his word-'
'Should I take yours, rather? No: it is your head I should take. Get out of my sight before I do so.'
Steldak backed away, sputtering with indignation. From outside the room, Pazel heard screeches and cries. The rats were getting closer.
Hercol flexed his bloody fingers on Ildraquin. His face astonished Pazel. This was what he used to be, he thought. A man without kindness, a man of use to Sandor Ott and his order.
A man capable of anything.
'Quit this chamber, Lord Taliktrum. Now.'
The young leader's nerves were clearly frayed. All the same he bristled at Hercol.
'What I do matters little. Steldak is right in one thing: we can come back when we please. You've lost more than her, you know. Wait a bit longer, and-'
'Now!' Hercol exploded.
Taliktrum fled the table, and his people fled with him, leaping, whirling, so many copper leaves in a gale. But with that uncanny ixchel coordination, they came together again a heartbeat later, schooling, sprinting as one body out the surgery door. The dozen ixchel standing guard in front of Chadfallow did not move.
Thasha rushed towards the doctor. Pazel followed, although a part of him wanted to run the other way, close his eyes, stop his ears. Anything rather than see what he was about to see.
The young ixchel woman brandished her sword at them. 'You are not to touch her, either,' she said.
'Peace, Ensyl,' said Hercol, his voice close to breaking. 'They will use only their eyes.'
'Pazel,' said Chadfallow, looking at him sternly, 'how long have you known they were aboard?'
Pazel ignored the question. He stared at the bundle the doctor held against his chest. He could not move. He felt Hercol standing close behind him, frozen like himself. At last, trembling, Thasha put out her hand — careful not to touch the bloodstained cloths — and gently tugged the doctor's sleeve. Chadfallow lowered his arm.
Diadrelu lay there, pale and beautiful and dead, her neck wrapped in a crimson bandage. Chadfallow had washed the blood from her shoulders and her hands, which were folded across her breast. She had never looked more calm, more full of vision, although her eyes were closed. Pazel didn't know just when he started to cry, but he knew he had never cried like this in his lifetime. Louder, sure, for his lost family, for Ormael, but not with this despair, this sense of something that was both part of him and too good to be part of him, and at the same time something he'd built — trust, love, language — torn away and trampled, gone. He was pathetic. Sobbing in front of Chadfallow. But so was Thasha, her head on Pazel's shoulder; and so was Hercol, leaning upon the table, his sword cast aside. The three stood there, weeping, stripped naked by their grief. Chadfallow looked at Pazel with shock. It was as if he had just realised that the boy had stepped onto some other ship, swiftly departing, leaving him behind. The ixchel too stared, as the humans cried for their queen; and one of them, Pazel never learned which, spoke under his breath.
'She knew. She insisted. They are not all the same. We used to talk as if we owned them, owned their debt to us, their sins. We were fools, because she knew them alone.'
It was a strange party that ascended the ladderway. Hercol held Diadrelu to his chest, where she passed for a thick bandage, hiding some wound. Ensyl and two other ixchel rode in the folds of his bloody shirt, and Thasha, Pazel and Chadfallow carried six more in similar fashion. Ensyl sent the remaining four off on foot, to contact whatever members of the clan remained loyal to Dri, and tell them who had slain her. How many will believe it? Pazel thought. A giant named Hercol was the only witness.
But another secret was out at last. Old Gangrune had seen to that. On every deck Pazel heard the gossip flying: It's not just the rats, it's crawlies too, they must be behind all this, they fed the rats something to make monsters of 'em all.
The men rushing to join the battle looked at the three climbing upward with contempt. 'Running off,' Pazel heard one sailor growl, 'just as we're getting the upper hand.'
It did appear that the humans were winning. The rats had not yet been driven from the orlop deck, but all those forwards of the main compartment were slain, and the Turachs were holding both cargo hatches. There was talk of a second outbreak at the stern of the orlop: rats in great numbers erupting from the manger, where the Shaggat Ness stood clutching the Nilstone. Sailors and Turachs were dying still, but the rats were dying faster. Doors slowed them down, and for all their ferocity they could not advance through a hail of Turach arrows, or a wall of spears.
If the crew could win back the orlop, Pazel mused, they could do the same with the mercy deck beneath it. But the hold? That was where the rats had lived all along. There were few doors and endless hiding places. Cable tiers, pump shafts, wing spaces, vents. Tunnels in the sand ballast, gaps between casks and crates. Rose would surely resort to smoking them out, or using sulphur gas. And he had crawlies to kill as well now.
The middle decks were all but deserted. Outside the stateroom, even the lone Turach had been called off to join the battle. Thasha was startled to find herself momentarily stopped by the invisible wall; then she silently gave permission to the ixchel she carried (and the other six, and Dr Chadfallow) to pass through. Moments later the party was inside.
They laid Diadrelu on the bench under the windows, exactly where she had woken Thasha all those months ago. 'Taliktrum spoke the truth in one way,' said Ensyl. 'The rites must be observed. My mistress must be parcelled, and the parcels given to the sea. No peace will come to her if this is not done.'
'Is that why the nine of you are here?' said Pazel.
'To see it done, yes. But not to do it ourselves. That privilege belongs to her kin, and it is a mortal offence to deny them the same.'
'Even if they're the ones who killed her?' asked Thasha bitterly.
'Not in that case, no,' said Ensyl.
'I thank you with all my heart,' said Hercol, 'for keeping her safe. And you as well, Doctor. And I must thank Felthrup, last of all: he rose from his deathlike trance mere seconds after that beast Steldak killed my lady, as if a part of him sensed the crime. And perhaps it did at that. In any case, he flew at them in such a rage that they blundered towards my cell. It was only because of Felthrup that I was able to take her body from them.'
'Ensyl,' said Pazel, 'you realise the whole ship knows about your clan, now?'
'I do,' she said grimly.
'They'll have to come here too, won't they?' said Thasha. 'All six hundred. They won't be safe anywhere else.'
'Do not let them!' cried several ixchel at once. Ensyl agreed. 'You must not, m'lady. They do not deserve your protection.'
'Nor do they need it,' blurted a round-faced ixchel youth. Ensyl gave him a sharp look.
'No?' said Chadfallow, peering at him. 'How is that? What defences have the ixchel against giant rats and sulphur?'
'We are not permitted to speak of it,' said Ensyl quietly.
Hercol sighed. 'That phrase I have heard before. Very well, keep your secrets. It is time to return to battle.'
'You must not, Hercol,' said Ensyl with a strange urgency. 'The parcelling-'
'We will decide all that when the fighting's done,' said Chadfallow.
Ensyl shook her head. 'You don't understand, there's nothing to decide. And by the time the fighting ends it may be too late. You are her kin, Hercol Stanapeth. She chose you, and you her, and none of us who loved her dispute your right. The parcelling of her body must be done by your hand, and no other. The last one to touch her must be you.'
Thasha closed the makeshift curtain over the washroom doorway, leaving Hercol, Chadfallow and Ensyl alone with Diadrelu's body. Pazel turned away with a shudder. Chadfallow had just handed Hercol a scalpel: probably the one blade in Alifros he didn't know how to use.
Thasha went into her cabin, and emerged a moment later wearing her sword. Then she went straight to her father's crossed blades, mounted on the wall above his reading chair, and took one of them down. She thrust the scabbard awkwardly through Pazel's belt. 'We'll fix you a proper baldric later on,' she said. 'Right now I want to get out of here.'
They left the stateroom and made for the Silver Stair. Pazel tried not to think of what was happening in the washroom. Twenty-seven pieces.
'It's blary cruel,' he said as they climbed the ladderway. 'To lose someone, and then have to do that to her. I couldn't do it.'
Thasha spoke without turning. 'You could if you had to. If your honour dep
ended on it. And… the other's.'
Yours? Pazel couldn't help thinking. If we were ixchel, and you died, would they expect me…? For a moment he thought he would be ill.
On the main deck she turned to face him suddenly. 'What is it?' he said.
'Draw,' said Thasha, and whipped out her sword.
He drew. Thasha was already lunging. He blocked her strike and another followed. She chided him — 'Faster, faster!' with every cut and thrust. It was a one-minute drill, his first with a real sword, and he was afraid to go on the attack. What if he actually stabbed her? He found himself driven in circles, barely able to parry her blows. I'm hopeless, he thought, as the force of their clashing blades wrenched his arm.
'Stop!' said Thasha abruptly. 'Good! You've learned something. Those were fine parries.'
'Thanks,' said Pazel, amazed.
'Fine, but useless. Blocking won't stop these rats. You stab, or they bite you. Stab them first, Pazel. Every time.'
They took to the stairs again. 'And don't let your blade swing loose in your hand,' Thasha added. 'I made that mistake once with Hercol, and broke my thumb in the knuckle guard.'
'Ouch,' he said.
'Yes. Ouch. But it sure as Pitfire taught me to-Oh!'
She caught his arm. They were emerging onto the topdeck, for the first time in many hours. And everything around them was strange.
It was past sunset; the world should have been dark. Instead it glowed a fiery orange-red. They stepped into the chilly wind. Straight ahead of the Chathrand, the Red Storm blazed across the sky, an unbroken wall of silent, softly boiling light. It was hard to tell just how big it was, and thus how far away — sixty miles, eighty? Whatever the distance, it was much closer than when the tarboys and Fegin had watched it at dawn.
But the storm was not the only wonder, or the worst. Roughly the same distance off the port beam, there was a lowering and twisting of clouds — and, Pazel realised with a sickening jolt, of the sea itself. A great, round expanse of ocean had become vaguely, but undeniably, concave, as if an invisible finger were pressing down on the dark blanket of the sea. The centre of the depression was beneath their line of sight. Above it, the clouds churned in a descending spiral.
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