She was gone, and Hercol sped forward, shouting to Haddismal, and Pazel was swept into the martial frenzy of a ship preparing for violence. The cargo hatches were sealed with oilskins, the lower gunports were closed (too near the water, Fiffengurt had decided); the wheels of the deck cannon were greased; damp sawdust was flung down for traction; the firing crews assembled and rehearsed their cues. Arqual! rang a furious cry from the main deck, as ninety Turachs raised a clatter with sword and shield. Corporal Metharon, the Turach sharpshooter, led his archers to the stern.
The sun began to set. Fiffengurt hobbled for the quarterdeck, bellowing down ladderways, firing orders up the masts. Tarboys streamed up the Holy Stair, lugging cannonballs and buckets of powder; gunners darted about with match-pots like small, fiery lunch pails. Ixchel were everywhere: racing up the shrouds ahead of sailors to warn them of broken ratlines, adjusting the chafing fleece where ropes abraded, diving into guns to scrape the rust out of fuse-holes, retying sailors’ bandannas before they could slip. Humanity was their science: not a task existed on the Great Ship that they had not watched in secret.
As they ran north the sandbar grew taller, closer to the surface. The waves broke over it, choppy and low. Ship and swimmers were converging on the same point: that deeper blue where the bar finally ended, where the ship could jackknife east and run with the wind at her back, every inch of squaresail thrusting her faster. Lookouts scanned the gulf: no boats, no place to hide them. Whatever the attackers were doing, they were doing alone.
Off the starboard bow the water grew shallower yet, the waves collapsing into foam. “Ease away windward, helmsmen,” shouted Fiffengurt. “If we shave that bar the game’s up. Steady on.”
Pazel arrived just as Fiffengurt was starting up the quarterdeck ladder. He could see that the man was in pain-a rat’s jaws had savaged his left foot, and the wound had not yet healed. Pazel tried to steady him from behind, but Fiffengurt shook him off with a twitch.
“Pathkendle, I want you right there”-he pointed at the tip of the mizzenmast yard, twenty feet higher than the quarterdeck and about as many out over the gulf-“with a great blary Turach shield. We’ll have to judge depth by eyeball, see? Look straight down from out there. When that point clears the sandbar, you shout, ‘Mark!’ Not a second before-and not a second later, lad.”
“Oppo, sir. But our practice shields would be better up there. Hard to handle all that Turach steel.”
Fiffengurt waved consent. “Just don’t fall in the blessed sea.”
Warning cries from the stern: the dlomu force had split in two. One mass of men continued straight at the Chathrand; the other broke east, toward the sandbar. Moments later the shouts were renewed, this time mixed with shock: the splinter group was wading. Thigh-deep, knee-deep, and then they were running in mere inches of foam, sprinting along the sandbar’s crest. The fastest were drawing level with the Chathrand. Pazel stared, transfixed. Their belts jangled with strange hooks and daggers and coiled ropes. Their silver eyes looked the ship up and down.
Boom.
The first carronade shook the timbers under Pazel’s feet. Through the smoke Pazel saw the huge ball’s impact, the white spray, and two black figures crushed into the sand as if by a giant stake. The others did not flinch; indeed they put on a burst of speed. Then Pazel heard Metharon’s cry, and the shrill twanging of longbows. Six or eight more dlomu fell.
“Pathkendle!” raged Fiffengurt.
Pazel’s trance shattered; he swung out to the mizzenmast shrouds. Even as he climbed he felt tiny hands on his shirt, a tiny foot on his shoulder. “Get down, Ensyl!” he cried. “You won’t be safe out there! I don’t need help, I’m just a spotter!”
“Two can spot better than one,” she said.
Pazel argued no further: to judge by that grip, he wouldn’t lose her unless he lost his hair.
Four more blasts-and hideous carnage among the runners. The ship had opened up with grapeshot guns from the stern windows. The spray of flying metal ripped bodies to pieces. Yet those behind came on undeterred, through the pink foam, leaping the fallen and the maimed. Pazel felt his body clench with nausea. The gunners reloaded, visibly shocked at their handiwork. Ensyl was retching. Pazel forced himself on.
More arrows now, more death. What are they doing, what do they want? Pazel stepped onto the footropes, eased out along the mizzenmast yard. Beneath him, Hercol and Metharon fired their bows with deadly accuracy, bringing down one soldier after another.
In the waning light, Pazel could just make out the end of the sandbar, sixty or eighty yards ahead. He caught Fiffengurt’s eye and nodded, laying a finger beside his eye: I’m watching. Then someone among the dlomu gave a short, clipped command, and in perfect synchrony the runners dived back into the waves.
There were ragged cheers: some of the men thought the attackers were retreating. But who could tell? The dlomu had dived deep; Pazel could see no more than shadows in the depths. The archers hesitated; all their targets were gone. For a moment no one was shouting. They had fifty yards to go.
It was Uskins who broke the silence. “Oil, pour the oil!” he screamed suddenly. Pazel hadn’t noticed the first mate until now, and neither, it seemed, had Mr. Fiffengurt, who whirled on him in a rage. “Belay that order! Stukey-”
“Do it! Pour the oil!” shrieked Uskins, more desperate than before.
“Belay!” roared Fiffengurt again. “Stukey, you guano-eating worm! I ordered you to clear off the quarterdeck!”
For an instant Uskins’ eyes flashed with rebellion. He had been cowed after nearly destroying the ship in the Vortex, but his hatred of the quartermaster was stronger than his shame. Livid, he advanced toward Fiffengurt. “Ordered me? You’re not the Gods-damned-”
“Captain Fiffengurt!” howled a topman. “They’re boarding! They’re boarding portside aft!”
All eyes turned to port. At that moment a sailor at the gunwale screamed and twisted. A light, barbed grappling hook had just arced over the rail and snapped back, pinning him by the hand. Other grapples followed.
“Damn it, we can’t see anything here,” said Pazel.
“Yes we can,” said Ensyl, pointing down at their wake.
Pazel gasped. Half a dozen dlomu were clinging to the rudder. No, not just clinging-scaling it. They were swinging those scythe-shaped hooks, embedding them in the wood of the rudder stem, hauling themselves like ice- climbers up toward the deck.
Pazel howled a warning-and the climbers heard. Silver eyes snapped onto him: the only person on the Chathrand from whom they were not hidden by the ship itself. Two of the dlomu put their hands into small, tight shoulder pouches, tugging something loose. Then the hands flicked violently. Fierce insect whines sounded around Pazel, and near his left hand something struck the yardarm with a tok! It was a star of razor-sharp steel.
“Oh credek.”
Pazel yanked in his legs and clung sidelong to the spar, hiding as much of himself as he could. He saw Turachs leaning out from the taffrail. They had seen the dlomu on the rudder at last, but could still not get off a decent shot. The dlomu could certainly take shots at Pazel, however, and did: once again he heard the whines, and the t-t-tok! of steel striking wood.
“Don’t move!” said Ensyl. “I’ll watch the sandbar, you keep us alive.” She had curled herself into a ball, her feet on his neck, holding tight to his shirt and hair as she leaned out over the gulf, staring straight down. Even in that moment he was stunned by her fearlessness. This is why Dri wanted her for a disciple.
“Twenty yards,” she said. “You must shout to Fiffengurt-he’s listening for your voice, not mine. Fifteen-”
Breaking glass. Pazel peeked under the yard. The attackers had smashed a window in the stern. The officers’ wardroom, he thought.
“Ten yards, eight-”
Surely the Turachs were already there. Surely someone had dispatched them.
“Now!” hissed Ensyl.
Pazel shouted, “Mark!” with all his strength, and heard Fiffengurt respond instantly with commands of his own. Then the creak of the wheel, the groaning of cables and counterweights-and sudden howls of agony from below. The dlomu were being crushed between rudder and sternpost. Pazel looked, wished he hadn’t, wished he could spit the images back out of his mind. Their skin was not human; it ruptured like the flesh of some dark, plump fruit. But under the surface there was no difference-the blood, the muscle, the shards of bone…
“Pazel!”
