The Night of the Swarm

‘Turachs to the deck!’ Rose howled. ‘Bindhammer, Fegin, get your men aloft — don’t concede the rigging to those mucking lice! Fire-teams to the chain pumps. Haddismal, send that sharpshooter of yours to the main top! The rest of you — stand by, stand by.’

Sandor Ott stood on the roof of the wheelhouse, bow in hand. The flock was swift approaching. Marines boiled from the hatches like armoured ants.

But this time the birds did not swoop down on the deck. Instead they flew straight and level across the Chathrand’s waist, parting around the top of the mainmast and flapping on, with the crawlies still held tight in their claws. A moment later the crew amidships was pelted with tiny objects, raining in their hundreds from above. ‘Take cover, lads!’ Fegin was shouting, but a moment later he added: ‘Belay, belay. What in Pitfire, Captain Rose?’

The bombardment ceased. Rose gaped in wonder at the objects littering the deck: tiny swords, tinier knives, bows and arrows fit for dolls’ hands. The ixchel had thrown down their arms.

‘Stand by!’ he shouted a second time, though no one would dare to move without his consent. The swallows turned eastwards, sailing out towards the mouth of the bay. They stayed far from the cliffs, as though the ixchel themselves feared assault from that quarter. Rose shouted for his telescope. By the time he had the birds in his sights they were descending again, upon one of the larger rocks beyond Stath Balfyr. As he watched they came in for a gentle landing on the barren stone, just a few yards above the lashing of the sea.

‘What’s that about?’ cried Sergeant Haddismal. ‘What in Rin’s name would make them want to come to rest out there?’

For several minutes nothing else happened, save that the dawn grew brighter, the air slightly less chill. Then the lookout cried that a single bird was flying back their way from the rock.

Rose found it with his telescope. The bird was carrying a crawly, and as it drew near he saw that it was none other than Lord Talag. As before, the swallow stayed high above the deck. But this time as they drew near, Talag shook himself free of the bird’s claws and flew on his own, in the swallow-suit, in a circle about the ship. His flight was laboured, and brief: he flew only as far as the tip of the main topsail yard, some four hundred feet above the deck. There he landed, folded his legs, and sat. Now Rose could see that the swallow-suit was in tatters, and stained with dark blood.

Fiffengurt was right. They’ve been fighting the island crawlies. And those two hundred — are they all that remain of his clan?

Commotion aloft: Talag was shouting to the topmen. They relayed the message at once down the human chain. Rose made them say it twice, as he could scarcely believe his ears. Talag was asking Rose to climb the mainmast, near enough for a private talk, ‘between men who care for their people’.

The gall! thought Rose. As if listening to more lies and duplicity could help my crew.

‘If the crawly wants to talk he can descend to the quarterdeck,’ he said aloud. ‘Otherwise, let him rot there.’

‘Better yet,’ said Ott, approaching from aft, ‘let me knock him off his perch with an arrow. You know he deserves it.’

There was a gleam in the spymaster’s eye. Rose frowned. ‘He has earned death,’ he agreed. ‘Very well, spymaster: bring the Turach sharpshooter as well. If the crawly does not explain himself in twenty minutes, you and he will have an archery contest, and the men may place bets.’

Ott looked at him, pleased. ‘You surprise me, Captain. I had almost decided that you’d gone hopelessly soft.’

The men relayed the captain’s answer to Lord Talag. The ixchel’s reply came immediately. Talag claimed to know the secret of the boulder-throwers. He would share it, too, if only Rose would climb up and talk.

You cunning bastard, Rose thought. A chance to free the ship was the one hope he dared not spurn. Even to appear indifferent would demoralize the crew. And now a dozen men at least knew what Talag had promised.

‘Clear the mast,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll speak with the crawly alone.’

He expected rage from Ott, but the spymaster merely gazed at him, eyes bright with curiosity — a more disturbing response than anger. Rose climbed. It had been years since he had ventured as high as topgallants. The descending topmen eyed him with concern, but they knew better than to speak. Captain Cree, lounging at his ease in the fighting-top, had no such reticence: ‘Take your time, old man! Nothing’s more pathetic than a captain fallin’ to his death on his own ship.’

Rose actually smiled at the ghost. Cree had done just that.

He was light-headed by the time he reached the topgallant spar. Lord Talag had risen and walked in along the heavy timber until he was a few yards from the captain. The two men were alone on the mast.

‘Thank you for coming,’ said Lord Talag.

Rose was gasping. He heaved one leg over the spar, hooked an elbow around a forestay, and leaned back against the mast. The sun was hot on his face.

‘What do you want, crawly?’

‘Death,’ said Talag, ‘but I have yet to earn that release.’

Rose shielded his eyes. Talag was seating himself on the mast, and though he tried not to show it, Rose knew he was in stabbing pain. The blood was not only on his swallow-suit: it had dried on his hands, his leggings, had congealed his hair into a sticky mass.

Talag spread his hands. A slight barren smile on his lips. ‘Behold, your enemy. The Ninth Lord of Ixphir House, the master of his clan. Of what is left of his clan.’

‘Why did you take your people out to that rock? They can’t be safe out there.’

Talag looked at him. ‘Safe,’ he said. ‘That is a fine word. Safe.’

‘Don’t start blary raving.’

‘Forgive me,’ said Talag. ‘Only that is what the dream was about, you see. To be safe. That was what I promised them, years ago. That is why we brought the Chathrand to this isle.’

A ruined man, a broken man. At another time it would have angered Rose simply to be in his presence. Today what he felt was something darker: recognition, a likeness between them. Rose was chilled by the thought.

‘You promised me some word about those boulder-tossers.’

Talag nodded. ‘I will tell you everything I know of my. . brethren, on Stath Balfyr. Indeed I’m prepared to tell you anything and everything I know, save the location of my people on your ship. My word on that. And no conditions.’

‘You want nothing in return?’

Talag fixed his vanquished eyes on Rose. No anger in them, no hope for himself. And no pride, utterly none. It was as if the man before him had been skinned.

‘I want something immense, Captain,’ he said. ‘But I know I cannot bargain for it. I am here to beg.’

Rose and Talag spoke for a surprisingly long time. Many on the deck below watched their conference for a while, before beginning to mill about in impatience. Only Sandor Ott stood like a statue, his telescope fixed on the pair from beginning to end.

The end was bellicose: Rose shaking his bushy head, the crawly pacing the spar and gesturing with increasing urgency, at last both of them shouting, and Lord Talag Rying away from the Chathrand in a fury.

Scores of hands gathered by the mainmast, watching Rose slowly descend. When he reached the deck at last Sandor Ott handed him a glass of fresh water.

‘From your steward.’

The captain drank like a horse, then wiped his beard and shouted: ‘Clear out, you staring gulls! Have you not duties enough?’

The crew dispersed, leaving just Ott and Haddismal. Rose picked up his coat, drew out a clean kerchief and mopped his face.

‘They’re done for,’ he said. ‘The islanders are less like Talag’s people than we’re like the Black Rags. They’re all crawlies, I don’t mean that. They can understand each other’s speech — or enough of it. But they have nothing else in common. Stath Balfyr is religious, and divided. They treat the lower orders worse than dogs.’

‘What do you mean, lower orders?’ said Ott. ‘The clans have different ranks, different privileges?’