The Night of the Swarm

‘The one spark that remained was eguar-fire: deep within me, I could still howl in the eguar’s tongue. And Pazel heard me, and responded in kind. But in doing so, he did what he always feared: set his mind to forming words in that language, which no human mind is meant to encompass.’

Neeps took off his coat and slipped it over Pazel’s shoulders: his friend had curled into a shivering ball. Thasha could read the anger and confusion in his face. What right had Ramachni to use Pazel in this way?

Ramachni must have sensed Neeps’ feelings as well. ‘I did not ask this of him, Neeparvasi. I was beyond asking. He simply heard me crying out in the darkness, and answered. But I do not think he has taken lasting harm. Probably he will suffer one of his mind-fits as soon as he regains a little strength. Later we must try not to speak of eguar, for it will be harder now to keep his thoughts from shaping words in that tongue.’

‘For long?’ asked Neda, touching her brother’s head.

‘Yes, Neda, for long,’ said Ramachni. ‘For the rest of his life, unless a merciful forgetting should strip him of the language. We mages have an old rule: that every act of enchantment takes precisely as much from the world as it gives back, though we rarely grasp the whole of the exchange. You should help him to a quiet place before the fits begin.’

‘We’ll have to carry him,’ said Thasha.

‘Then do so. And carry me to my rest as well. But first you must be warned.’ He raised his head and looked at Nolcindar. ‘The Kirisang, the Death’s Head, is coming. She was the last thing I saw before my reason fled. And she was already north of the Sandwall, flying fast over the seas — much faster than the wind should have allowed for. She has called up a false wind, somehow, and harnessed it.’

‘She is flogging the last drops of power from her Plazic generals, maybe,’ said Olik, ‘or else the pact that gave her a maukslar servant has given her other powers, too. I wonder what the price will be in her case.’

‘What matters now is that she is on our trail,’ said Nolcindar. ‘Go to your rest, Arpathwin, for I fear we will need you again before long. And I must see that foremast braced anew, if not better than before. We must outrun the Death’s Head, and the mistress of death at her helm.’

Ramachni’s sudden return lifted all spirits. But within the hour a sail emerged from the morning haze, fifty miles southwest. It was not one of the Behemoths, but it was a huge ship: the size of the Chathrand, probably. The keen-eyed selk soon confirmed it: the ship was the Death’s Head. The terrible news was allayed by one fact alone: that the larger vessel’s course paralleled their own without converging. Macadra had not spied them yet.

At once Nolcindar turned the Promise away, east by northeast, so that their narrow stern faced the Death’s Head, rather than their flank and sails. The crew hooded the lamps and draped the stern windows in sailcloth, lest any glass catch the sun. There were islands ahead, and for a time it appeared the little Promise might just reach them, and slip away into a maze. But a cry from the lookout dashed their hopes:

‘Death’s Head changing course. Two points to starboard, Captain Nolcindar. She means to intercept.’

‘Daram, let us see that she fails. Aloft, selk and dlomu! The white horse must gallop on the wind!’

In scant minutes the crew had spread topgallants and skysails, and were bending curious, ribbed wing-sails to the lower yardarms. But before they had even finished the job Nolcindar was giving orders for them to brace the main sails anew. The wind had turned suddenly fitful.

They were slowing — even as Macadra’s ship somehow gained speed.

Faces darkened: the gap between the ships was starting to close. ‘She has spoken to the wind,’ said Kirishgan quietly. ‘It does not obey her happily, but it concedes her something. I have not seen such a spell deployed in many hundreds of years. ’

Soon thereafter Pazel began to howl. It had all the hallmarks of his regular mind-fits (pain in his skull, babble from his lips, agony in the presence of voices), but it was far more punishing than any Thasha had witnessed before. His shaking grew so violent that he could not be left alone. They sat with him in shifts, trying not to make a sound.

Thasha found it hard to leave his side. After her third shift she began to wave the others away: she wasn’t tired, her lover needed her; surely it was almost through.

Then the explosions started: the Death’s Head had opened up with her long-range guns. Now everyone was shouting, hatches slammed and boots pounded, and beyond the hull the iron missiles began to scream. Thasha listened, transfixed, her arms enclosing Pazel’s head. Fifty yards to starboard. Now eighty or ninety to port. Twenty to port! A deep, sickening boom near the stern.

Neeps came and gave her a scrap of paper: Macadra can’t seem to close: when she draws near her own wind-charm speeds us up. But we can’t shake her, either. Maybe at sundown, if we last.

But sundown was still hours away. The barrage went on and on, and so did Pazel’s agony.

Mid-afternoon there came a rending, shattering noise. A direct hit, probably to a mast or spar. Crash of falling timbers. Soft, sickening thumps of bodies dropping to the boards. Pazel shook and twisted and made impossible sounds, jackal, steam-pipe, wildcat, wounded horse, his body drenched in frigid sweat. Thasha wrapped him in blankets, kissed his clammy cheeks, appalled at her own impotence. Erithusme could help him. Erithusme could turn those missiles around in mid-air.

Thasha did not notice when darkness came. She locked her arms about Pazel, trying to control his shaking, biting her lips to be sure she never spoke. In lucid moments he would smile at her, but the smile always cracked into a spasm of pain.

The cannon-fire ended. Pazel’s fit did not. Long into the night it raged. He vomited, wept from sheer fatigue. But at last it too was over, and he slept curled on his side with Thasha draped over and around him like a blanket. She let herself doze, then, and when she woke it was to his grateful kisses on her hands.

26

Good Sailing

Moments come in the life of any world when the forces shaping its future, however disparate they appear, begin inexorably to converge. In Alifros such a moment arrived in Halar, Western Solar Year 942. The month began with Empress Maisa’s secret mobilisation in the hills above Ormael, and ended with the collapse of the Red Storm. Between these events, however, were thousands of others, simultaneous but unglimpsed from one region to the next.

On the foggy morning of 6 Halar, fate handed Arqual a substantial victory over the White Fleet, when a Mzithrini commander on the Nelu Rekere mistook his position, and led his eighteen warships to disaster on the Rukmast Shoals. A lesser number of Arquali ships had shadowed the Mzithrinis for days; now they closed and raked the hapless vessels at their leisure. In a few hours they sank all eighteen without suffering a scratch.

Aboard the Arquali flagship, Sandor Ott’s regional lieutenant observed the carnage with satisfaction. The Black Rags were floundering, not just here but everywhere. One battlefield report after another confirmed their fragility. They had vast forces, but no steadiness of purpose, no unity. The latest dispatch even spoke of Turach raids below the Tsordon Mountains, in the very heart of Mzithrini territory. An almost unimaginable advance.

As he watched the enemy drown, the lieutenant came to a decision. They were off balance. It was time to unbalance them further. That night he dispatched a small clipper to Bramian with a message: The day has come. Push the fledglings out of the nest.

On Bramian the message had long been expected. As Pazel had learned first-hand, the huge island contained many surprises, one of which was a secret colony of religious fanatics. It was the world’s only community of Nessarim, worshippers of the Shaggat Ness, outside of Gurishal itself. They were just three thousand strong, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in eagerness and rage.