The Night of the Swarm

mind made its choices? The lead shark reached the swimmer, and Thasha saw the dlomu turn and open its arms — a gesture strangely like an embrace. Thasha closed her eyes for an instant; when she looked again the swimmer was gone.

Ramachni passed over the sharks, folded his wings, and dived.

The dlomu were making for the Chathrand with what remained of their strength. But now the sharks turned like a single body, resuming the attack. The lifeboat fell further behind. Neeps was almost sobbing as he cried Lunja’s name.

Suddenly a change came over the water around the sharks. At first Thasha could not tell what it was. Then she knew: the water was boiling. Seconds later it was turning to lethal steam.

Oh, thank the Gods. Ramachni was surfacing, in eguar-form, and the unimaginable heat of his body was literally vaporising the sea. They could see him, a dark monstrosity suspended in foam; and they could smell the sulphuric fumes. The nearest sharks were killed instantly; those behind swam on, blood- maddened, to their deaths. Many scattered in confusion, but they never regrouped and pressed the attack. In another minute the first dlomu were hauling themselves into the skiff that bobbed by the Chathrand’s side.

The beast that was Ramachni kept its distance, but its white-hot eyes blazed at them out of the steam. ‘Row on!’ cried Hercol. ‘Our mage himself is in some danger, I fear — else he would not turn those eyes upon us.’

At last they neared the ship. High above, men were labouring at the capstan, raising the skiff and the wounded dlomu to the deck. Then a high voice rang out over the water:

‘Triumph! Triumph! Triumph! Triumph! Triumph!’

Thasha looked up and burst into tears of joy. Fiffengurt and Marila were waving from the rail, shouting their names over and over. The mastiffs were baying to raise the dead, their paws and faces appearing and vanishing again. Suddenly Fiffengurt turned and beckoned, and a mob, a throng rushed the rail, cheered them, bellowed at last without reservations, without divisions or doubt. And through it all she could still hear Felthrup, hysterical, squeaking Triumph! as though it were the only word he knew.

Ramachni, still in eguar-form, raced away from them at high speed. ‘Where in the Nine Pits does he think he’s going?’ asked Pazel. But at that instant the great, black form of the eguar vanished, and the small, helpless form of the mink took its place.

‘Gods of death, he is barely swimming!’ said Bolutu. He stood and dived without another word, and swam powerfully towards the mage.

‘Don’t you understand?’ said Thasha. ‘Ramachni had to be moving fast when he changed back. If he let the water heat around him he’d have been killed just like the sharks.’

When Bolutu returned with his small burden, the mage was too exhausted even to stand. Thasha took him and tried to dry him with her shirt.

The cheering went on and on. Soon the lifeboat from the Promise was snug in the davit-chains and rising up the Chathrand’s side. ‘That transformation has cost me,’ said Ramachni. ‘I may recover my strength before I leave this world — but then again, I may not. You must not depend on me if it comes to fighting again.’

‘Just rest,’ said Thasha. ‘We’ll do the fighting, next time.’

Ramachni let his head drop onto her knee. ‘I believe you just might,’ he said.

The moment they cleared the rail, Neeps jumped to the deck and threw his arms around Marila. She had watched them ascend, wild-haired, round-bellied, hands in fists. She had screwed her face up into a frown, struggling desperately not to cry. Now he kissed her and the struggle ceased. Her arms went around her husband, and her loud, nasal sobs made Thasha understand why she tried so hard to repress her feelings at other times. Neeps laid a gentle hand on her stomach, and a look of wonder came over his face.

Felthrup, for his part, had stopped shouting only because he too had been choked by tears. ‘Thasha, Thasha, you have been gone a lifetime. You have brought goodness back to this ship and redeemed her!’

‘Not yet, Felthrup dear.’

‘And you have done it, you have taken the Nilstone back from Arunis, and killed him!’

‘Felthrup! How did you know that?’

‘Arunis,’ said the rat. ‘Oh dear, there are volumes to tell-’

‘Rascals! Reprobates!’ Fiffengurt was laughing, an arm around the neck of both tarboys, coating his uniform with soot. ‘Lady Thasha, how’d you manage to live so long with this pair of apes?’

‘How did you manage to keep the ship afloat without us?’ said Pazel. Neeps was about to make a quip of his own, but his smile vanished when he looked at the wounded dlomu, who were being treated a short distance away by the tonnage hatch. The youths had been making their way to the dlomu to give them their thanks, and to help bind their wounds if they could. Hercol and Bolutu were already among them.

Marila looked at Neeps’ face. ‘What is it?’ she said.

Neeps pulled away from Fiffengurt and ran ahead. He pressed among the wounded, shouting. Then Hercol rose and took him by the shoulders.

Neeps cried out, his voice sharp as a child’s, and covered his face with his hands. Marila turned to the others in a panic. ‘Someone’s died,’ she said. ‘Who was it? Tell me, Thasha, for Rin’s sake!’

Bolutu came and spoke to them. It was Lunja who had peeled off from the other swimmers. Not with the hope of saving herself, but because she knew the sharks would follow her, bleeding profusely as she was from her cuts on the reef. ‘That is the Bali Adro I remember, the way of love and sacrifice,’ said Bolutu. ‘My brethren owe their lives to Sergeant Lunja as surely as to Ramachni.’

‘What about Neeps?’ asked Marila. ‘Did she save his life too?’

Yes, they told her, so swiftly that they sounded false. As though there were something to be ashamed of, some betrayal. Marila closed her eyes. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said. ‘I want to hear it from him.’

Thasha looked at Pazel. ‘The berth deck,’ she said. ‘Take me right now. Before anything else happens.’

‘What could happen?’

‘Oh Pazel, don’t say that! Just take me there, you buffoon.’

‘One thing first,’ said Pazel. ‘I won’t be a minute, I swear.’

He ran forward, skipping through the well-wishers who tried to stop and cheer him, who slapped his back and shouted, ‘Bravo, Muketch, you’re a wonder, you’re a man!’ en he raced down the Holy Stair and was gone.

Thasha smiled. ‘He’s heading for sickbay,’ she said.

‘Don’t tell me he’s ill,’ said Marila.

Thasha shook her head and laughed. ‘For once, he’s not. There’s nothing wrong with him at all.’

A look of understanding, and deep dismay, came over Marila. She glanced at Fiffengurt, whose face had also darkened. Then she raced after Pazel, shouting his name.

‘Oh Missy,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘There ain’t been time even to mention it yet. Dr Chadfallow was murdered.’

Tears, once more — how they could surprise one. She had never warmed to Chadfallow, but surely that would have changed. She knew Pazel loved the man, though he had spent half the voyage pretending otherwise.

‘Niriviel told us that there was just one doctor aboard,’ she said. ‘I thought he meant that Dr Rain didn’t count. Who killed him, Mr Fiffengurt? Was it Ott?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘That bastard’s in no position to hurt anybody. He’s got himself in a fix, and I can’t say I’m sorry.’

‘Who did it, then? Who would kill a blary doctor?’

Fiffengurt drew a deep breath. The weight of all that had transpired seemed etched in his dry and weary face, and Thasha knew she would only ever grasp a part of it, that most of the tale would be lost.

‘Arunis,’ said Fiffengurt.

Shark bites were ragged, hideous things. Eleven dlomu had been attacked; one man was in danger of losing his arm. Neeps moved among them, his eyes red, cleaning wounds with an iodine solution someone had brought from the surgery. The survivors grinned morbidly, passing around a yellow, serrated tooth the size of a playing card. It had been extracted from a swimmer’s leg.

At length Bolutu took the humans aside. ‘Your help is a blessing,’ he said, ‘but another task awaits you. Go, and take the Nilstone, and do what my people fought and died to let you do. We have enough hands here.’