The Night of the Swarm

This time the voice exploded from her, an unearthly roar that swept the length of the Chathrand. Thasha wrenched her eyes from the Nilstone and gazed left and right, studying the water, the island, the sky. The crew did fall back, leaving only the Turachs and Thasha’s closest friends looking up at the figures on the quarterdeck. The wind rose suddenly. Pazel felt a trembling in the planks beneath his feet. Thasha looked mad, and extraordinarily focused, but there was no hint of fear about her, none.

Then her eyes ceased roving, and fixed on one spot: the north shore. The thin arm of Stath Balfyr, that half- mile of forest between ocean and bay. The drachnars were pacing there in the surf.

Thasha staggered into the wheelhouse. Oggosk and Fiffengurt shrank from her, clinging to the wheel. With no purpose, no thought at all but that she was in danger, Pazel shouted her name. Thasha turned as though whipped. A convulsion racked her, so violent she almost lost her feet.

But what occurred beyond the ship was on another scale altogether. From out of nowhere came a furious wind. Timber groaned, pennants filled and strained at their tethers; the rigging shrieked as if in memory of hurricanes. On the north shore, the surf withdrew, leaving the astonished dranchnars on bare sand.

Suddenly the Chathrand rocked. The surface of the bay was undulating, as though some great submerged mass were rushing towards the shore, lifting a bow wave before it. The wave grew and grew. The drachnars saw it coming and wheeled about, fleeing for their lives. The wave struck the beach and raced up it, surging through the legs of the stampeding creatures, combing at last through the palms beyond the sand.

Thasha convulsed again, and the surge increased tenfold. It was horrific: the bay was stabbing at the island like a sword. The palms, their roots stripped bare, let go of the ground and flew like battering rams against those behind, and the wind kept growing. Through it all the mid-morning sun looked gently down.

Once more Thasha’s body shook. On Stath Balfyr there was a titanic explosion of sand, water, trees. Pazel gasped: the entire bay was shifting, and then turmoil caught up with the Chathrand and he found himself thrown, sliding with scores of others across the deck. Gods, she’s sinking us. But no, she was righting herself after all (good ship, sweet Rin what a darling) and the men locked arms like toy monkeys to save one another and Pazel was dragging himself to his feet.

The Chathrand was in motion, racing towards a huge wall of dust and sand that hung in the air over the north shore. They were not sailing; they were being hurled, leaning and pitching, helpless as a paper boat upon a stream. Pazel squinted at the oncoming wall, and perceived that a channel had been cut between the bay and the open sea: a second inlet, narrow as a village street, but widening even now.

Fiffengurt was roaring — ‘Away from the rails, away!’ — but few men saw or heard him. And suddenly the ship herself was in the channel, and there came an explosion of thumps and cracks and crashes: palm trees striking the hull. The ship careened, utterly out of control, rolling so far to starboard at one point that the torrent boiled over the rail, and Pazel looked up to see the tops of trees racing by at eye level. The deck was awash with foam, foliage, sand; and into that blinding slurry men tumbled and disappeared.

But Thasha had aimed her fury well, and before they knew it the tempest carried them out upon the sea, right through the humbled breakers, and left them revolving in an eddy that quickly died away to stillness. Away to the east stood the Promise, and to the north, the pale infernal glow of the Red Storm. Behind them, a great hole had been gouged through Stath Balfyr, like something done to a sandcastle by the heel of an angry child.

Thasha was still standing: almost an act of magic in itself. Hercol got to his feet and stumbled towards her, but before he closed half the distance she waved him off. He stopped. Thasha lowered the Nilstone, caressed its blackness thoughtfully, then set it down upon the deck.

‘That wasn’t so hard,’ she said.

29

Kiss of Death

13 Fuinar 942

Hercol and Bolutu left the topdeck at once, bearing the Nilstone and the wine of Agaroth. Thasha’s other friends crowded near her, touching her as they might something exceptionally fragile. Men crept gingerly through the wreckage, inspecting the rigging, the masts. Whole palm trees were heaved over the rail. A stunned Captain Fiffengurt began to issue orders, salvaging his ship.

The disorder was massive, but the damage proved slight, and by two bells they were underway. A few hours later, Captain Rose’s prediction was upheld: the little island east of Stath Balfyr yielded both fresh water and forage. With dusk approaching, Sergeant Haddismal led a Turach squadron ashore with casks and heavy equipment. The pumping went on well into the night, lit by the glow of the Red Storm.

The Promise followed the Chathrand to the little isle, and even as the marines were landing, she dispatched a second lifeboat. Folding ladders were lowered from the Chathrand, and soon the last members of the inland expedition were climbing aboard: Mandric, saluting the new captain and the Arquali flag; Neda, her sfvantskor tattoos still uncovered but her expression somehow changed; Ensyl and Myett riding Neda’s shoulders, scanning the deck for any sign of their people, and finding none. Next came Prince Olik. At the sight of him the Chathrand’s dlomu cheered and fell on their knees, and many wept with joy. They were all volunteers, the most loyal and loving of his subjects, and they had feared him dead at Macadra’s hands.

Last aboard were Kirishgan and Nolcindar. Tall, olive-hued, eyes glowing like pale sapphires in the dimming light, they struck wonder into the crew of the Chathrand, not one of whom had ever seen a selk. They went to Fiffengurt and lay their bright straight swords at his feet, and bowed. ‘Master of the Great Ship,’ said Nolcindar. ‘You carry the hope of the world upon your vessel. May the wisdom of the stars guide your choices.’

‘It is our heads that should be bowed, m’lady,’ said Fiffengurt.

‘Let us have done with bowing altogether,’ said Prince Olik. ‘Rise, Bali Adrons — and you too, my good selk. Captain Nolcindar, Captain Fiffengurt-’

The introductions were mercifully brief. As soon as they were over, Neda turned to Thasha and pressed her hand. ‘Sister,’ she said, ‘the Nilstone is not hurting you?’

‘It didn’t hurt me, no,’ said Thasha. ‘In fact I’m perfectly fine, at least as far as I can tell.’

‘She didn’t look fine,’ said Pazel. ‘She even shouted that the wine was poisoned.’

‘I was wrong. It was only bitter — and cold. Terribly, magically cold. Maybe wine from Agaroth has to be kept that way. In any case, I have an idea that the bottle is enchanted too. Opening it was like opening the mariner’s clock, and looking into another world — but not an inviting one like yours, Ramachni. It was a freezing, frightening land.’

‘A land we all must visit, one day,’ said Kirishgan.

‘I was only scared until I drank, of course. After that nothing in the world could frighten me: the wine worked perfectly. But I thought it would last much longer — hours, or even days. No such luck: in minutes, the fearlessness was gone, and so was my control over the Nilstone. There was no warning, either: suddenly I just felt pain. It was as if someone were trying to strike a match down my side, and if the match lit I’d burn up like a scrap of paper.’

‘As we have seen others do, who touched the Nilstone,’ said Hercol. ‘I was most relieved when you put it down, Thasha. You lingered, towards the end. I feared you were in a trance.’

Thasha turned and looked into the Red Storm’s eerie glow. ‘No, not that.’ Something in her voice made Pazel uneasy.

‘In any event, we cannot linger,’ said Ramachni. ‘What Macadra knows of our whereabouts is not yet clear. But if she has somehow learned our destination, she will not tarry. And we have