The Night of the Swarm

‘Mr Aken, the honest company man, the quiet one. You could hear the wheels turning in his mind, you said, and for all I know you spoke the truth. But listen once and for ever, Captain: the wheels in your head are loud as grinding stones. You will not deceive me. When you feign madness, I know it. Just as I do when true madness directs your steps. Your plan to abandon ship was not one of the latter cases. You were deliberate. You had better tell me why.’

‘Go rot in the Pits.’

Not a flicker of response passed over Ott’s face. He waited, looking out over the sea.

‘You can’t sail this vessel,’ said Rose. ‘Elkstem can choose a heading, and Fiffengurt trim the sails, but neither can manage eight hundred men. Who’s going to keep them working as a team, as a family? Haddismal, at spear point? Uskins, who nearly put the ship at the bottom of the sea? You?’

‘What is the danger you haven’t spoken of, Captain?’

‘You know the danger,’ said Rose. ‘There’s a she-devil of a sorceress bearing down on Masalym, in a vessel packed with dlomic warriors. Macadra, she’s called. Arunis’ rival, the one who stayed behind when he crossed the Ruling Sea and set about teaching us to destroy each other. With your expert help, of course.’

‘Stick to the point,’ said Ott.

‘The point, bastard, is that she wants the mucking Nilstone, and we can’t assume she’ll believe it when they tell her Arunis took it away over the mountains. And even if she does believe, she may still want this ship. Pitfire, she may want us: human beings, to torture or take apart. Or breed. We were their slaves, once, and could be again.’

‘What is the danger, Rose?’

‘Gods below, man! Isn’t that enough?’

‘We stand a fine chance of evading pursuit,’ said Ott. ‘Something else weighs against our chances. Something so terrible you’d rather abandon this family, and run away in shame.’

Rose lowered his chin, glowering. His mouth was tightly closed.

‘You are asking yourself what kind of force I mean to apply,’ said Sandor Ott. ‘It does not involve pain — unless things go very wrong, that is. It will be worse than pain. But you should know that I never discuss my techniques. Some things are better demonstrated than described.’

‘The trouble,’ said Rose, ‘is that you won’t believe me.’

‘That is not your concern. Speak the truth. What were you running from?’

Rose looked the assassin in the eye. ‘Not running from,’ he said. ‘I was running to. The worst danger’s not the one that’s chasing us. Stanapeth and the tarboys and Thasha Gods-damned Isiq: they’re in the right. You don’t like it; nor do I. But it happens to be true. We’re going to be slow-roasted, all of us, the whole Rinforsaken world, if Arunis finds a way to use the Stone in battle.’

As Rose was speaking, Ott had once more grown still. Now he walked to the cabin door and opened it an inch. A Turach was stationed there, barring entry. Ott gestured, and the Turach passed him a pair of objects. A small glass pitcher and a shallow bowl.

Ott closed the door and returned, and Rose saw that the pitcher held a few ounces of milk. Ott knelt beside the captain’s desk, not far from where Sniraga crouched, tail twitching, watchful. He poured the milk into the bowl and set the bowl on the floor. Then he stood and walked to the gallery window. He picked up the bow and notched the arrow to the string.

‘You hate this animal,’ he said.

Sniraga raised her head, considering the proffered milk. Rose’s eyes widened. ‘Lower that bow, Spymaster,’ he said.

‘In killing her I’ll be doing you a favour, no doubt. You’ve thought of doing this so many times, but something has always stopped you from acting on the impulse.’

‘Nothing will stop me from avenging myself on you, if you harm the creature.’

For the first time, Ott smiled. ‘Halfwit. If only I could let you try.’

Sniraga nosed forward. It had been many weeks since she had tasted milk.

‘Speak the truth, Rose. Otherwise you may consider this a foretaste of something much slower and crueller I’ll be doing to your beloved witch. Is she your aunt or your mother, incidentally? Or are you still unsure?’

‘I can state my motives,’ said Rose, ‘but I can’t make you hear. Put the bow down. That’s an order.’

‘You are right in one respect,’ Ott continued. ‘I won’t be killing you. Not until the mission is completed, and Arqual’s victory achieved.’

‘That day will never come!’ Rose exploded from his chair, prompting Ott to bend the bow. ‘Damn you to the blackest hole! Forget the mission! It’s a fever dream. A lie you hawked to that deathsmoke-addled Emperor of yours.’

‘I will not tolerate slander of Magad the Fifth,’ said Ott, taking aim.

Rose was bellowing. ‘Greater Arqual, the defeat of the Mzithrin — rubbish and rot. One of these sorcerers is going to clap hands on the Stone and make sausage out of us. Out of your precious Emperor, out of Arqual and the Sizzies and the whole Rinforsaken North. Blind fool! You’re a soldier in an ant war, and the mucking anteater’s coming down the trail.’

‘Rose,’ said Ott, ‘do you recall that you’d become a disgrace? Removed from command by the Chathrand Trading Family, wanted in twenty ports, living off the last spongings from your creditors? Do you know what a boon of trust His Supremacy gave you, when he restored you to the captaincy of the Chathrand, and gave you nominal command of this mission you advise me to forget?’

‘We will see how nominal it is when the waves hit eighty feet,’ shouted Rose. ‘As for that boon: rubbish again. Put the bow down, Ott. The game was never winnable, but without me you couldn’t even play. You didn’t dare attempt the Ruling Sea — put the bow down, I say — without Nilus Rose at the helm. I alone know the soul of this vessel. I alone have the sanction of the ghosts.’

‘You alone see them.’

Rose’s body was rigid. ‘I am the captain of this ship. You are an adjunct, a supernumerary. If you challenge me openly you will bring anarchy down upon us all. That’s as clear today as it was when your mucking Emperor-’

Ott’s bow sang. There was a caterwaul (horrid, held) and Sniraga became a red tornado of fur and fangs and blood. The arrow had pinned her tail to the floor.

Rose leaped on the hysterical creature. He was bloodied instantly from hands to shoulders, but he wrenched the arrow free. Sniraga flew from beneath him, crashing against furniture, painting the room with the red brush of her tail. Ott leaned on his bow and laughed.

Then the wailing changed. Rose turned, bewildered; Ott snuffed his laughter. A second cry, a human cry, was drowning out Sniraga. It rose through the floorboards, a voice they had not heard in months. The only voice as deep as the captain’s, or as cruel as Ott’s.

‘WHERE IS IT? WHO TOOK IT? FAITHLESS VERMIN, PARASITES, OFFAL WORMS! UNCHAIN ME! BRING IT BACK TO ME NOW!’

Alongside the screamer, other voices began to rise, shouting in fear and wonder. Then commotion at the door. Ott dashed to it, flung it wide. A gnarled stick poked him in the chest, and Lady Oggosk, tiny and raging, hobbled into the room.

‘He’s dead, Nilus, get up! He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s alive!’

‘Duchess-’ began Rose.

‘Is she mad, Rose?’ Ott demanded. ‘Who is dead? Who is shouting below?’

‘Nilus, your arms are soaked in blood!’ shrieked the witch. ‘Get yourselves together, you pair of fools. The sorcerer’s been killed, and Pathkendle’s charm is broken. The spell-keeper was Arunis, all along. Do you understand now, Sandor Ott?’

A wild gleam lit the spymaster’s eye. He flew from the cabin, shouting at the Turachs to clear a path. Rose looked at Oggosk, but there was no hope under Heaven’s Tree of explaining, so before she noticed Sniraga he charged after Ott. He had a presentiment of disaster. It grew with each roar from below.

Sailors thronged the topdeck; some of them already knew. The captain waved them off, needing to see it before he heard them speak, needing to mark the disaster with his eyes. Down the broad ladderway called the Silver Stair he plunged, bashing aside Teggatz and his tea service, bellowing at dolts who froze at the sight of him,