The Night of the Swarm

blow.’

‘Do not think of aiding her,’ said Niriviel. ‘She is too far away, and the Death’s Head would catch you first. Where is my master? Wake him! Macadra is still racing towards us.’

Pazel cast an involuntary glance over his shoulder. It was a good question: where was Sandor Ott? Why hadn’t he shown his face even once since their return to the Chathrand?

‘There is something else,’ said Niriviel. ‘The Red Storm is weaker ahead: with each mile it shone less brightly. I saw no gap, but I did not fly so far as I hoped. When the Death’s Head turned in your direction, so did I.’

‘And the Swarm?’

‘That horror I did not see. I never wish to see it again.’

‘Pazel,’ said Hercol, ‘go and wake the captain. And you, brother Niriviel-’

‘Do not call me that.’

‘Your pardon. Whatever else you wish to be called, I hope strong and valiant are permissible. Come, I will tell you of your master while you rest.’

Captain Fiffengurt had ordered a thorough cleaning and straightening of Rose’s cabin, and conducted business there, but he still slept in his old quarters. Who could blame him? The stink of blood might be gone, but the memory of that carnage would take years to fade, if it ever did.

He woke like a startled cat at Pazel’s knock, and dressed while Pazel related all that they had learned. ‘Tree of Heaven, the Promise burned — and for our sake! And here we are running away from her. But we cannot help her, not from this distance. She’ll have beaten that fire or succumbed to it long before we could arrive.’

Then Pazel asked him about the spymaster. ‘Niriviel keeps asking for him. Wherever he is, can’t someone take the bird there, even for a short visit?’

Fiffengurt stopped buttoning his uniform. ‘No,’ he said, ‘the bird blary well cannot pay Ott a visit. Hasn’t anyone told you?’

‘Told me what?’

Fiffengurt leaned close to Pazel and lowered his voice. ‘That monster’s locked away.’

‘In the brig?’ said Pazel. ‘You locked Sandor Ott in the brig?’

‘Hush!’ whispered Fiffengurt. ‘No, not the regular brig. We couldn’t do that; Ott has too much support among the Turachs, and a fight between soldiers and sailors would mean the end of this ship. No, Ott locked himself up. Do you mean Ratty hasn’t told you about his great adventure? About what he found behind the Green Door?’

‘Yes, yes, but I thought he was raving. He said there was a demon on the other side.’

‘Not any more there ain’t. Someone let it escape — probably Ott himself, though he swears otherwise. I say he’s lying. Why else did he run straight there after he killed the captain?’

Pazel had to steady himself on the door frame. ‘Sandor Ott killed Rose?’

‘’Course he did. You don’t think that woman murdered our huge captain, and his steward, and very nearly Ott himself, all with her bare hands? And why was Ott there at all, before sunrise? And there was no blood on the steward — just a broken neck. A very precisely broken neck. No, Sandor Ott went to Rose’s cabin with murder in mind, and found more than he bargained for in our skipper. There’s one last proof, too: what else d’ye suppose is in the cell with the spymaster? Captain Rose’s foot locker, that’s what. Ott says he just found it there, and stepped into the cell to examine it, and the cell door slammed behind him. I’ve no doubt that last bit’s true. But there’s the Green Door too. You know it was wedged open with a metal plate.’

‘Was?’

‘I’m comin’ to that. As it happened, Mr Druffle sauntered by, and saw that the chains had been loosed around the Green Door. He poked his head inside and saw Ott, fouled with dry blood and trapped in a cage with no lock. And the best bit of luck is that Druffle came to me straight away. I swore him to secrecy, and we’d all best hope he keeps his word. Then I paid Ott a courtesy call.

‘He took one look at my face and knew I wasn’t there to free him. He spat out all sorts of threats, but he was powerless, and I think the fact shocked him deeply. He tried to appeal to my love of Arqual. I told him no one could have done more to harm my love of Arqual than he. I’d brought a sack full of food and water and some medical supplies, and I tossed them all in through the bars of the cell. Then I just walked out. Back in the passage, I pried loose the metal plate with a crowbar and shut the Green Door. It vanished at once. Sandor Ott’s in a cage he can’t open, in a brig no one can find.’

Pazel shuddered. He was glad, relieved — but behind his loathing he felt a pity for the horrible old man. Pazel alone knew the bleak, savage story of Ott’s life: the eguar on Bramian had shown it to him. Compared to Ott’s, Pazel’s own childhood had been a romp through fields of clover. Still it angered him, that pity. He wondered if the lack of it was what allowed beasts like Ott to rule the world.

‘I won’t breathe a word, Captain Fiffengurt,’ he said.

Fiffengurt put a hand on Pazel’s shoulder. ‘You don’t have to say “Captain” when we’re alone, lad. Not to me.’ Pazel grinned at him. ‘Oppo, sir,’ he said.

It was the hour before dawn when he returned to the stateroom. The chamber was still; Jorl and Suzyt rose to greet him without barking; Felthrup twitched in his sleep upon the bearskin rug. Neeps, to his surprise, lay wrapped in a blanket in the corner, alone. Pazel winced. From the moment he saw Neeps and Lunja together on the Nine Peaks Road he had known pain lay ahead for both of them, and Marila. It will fade, he thought. His heart’s full of her now, but she’s gone and not coming back. It will fade, and Marila will still be there.

He crossed to the master bedroom and slipped inside. The air was close, stuffy. They had removed the bed’s broken legs and nailed the frame directly to the floor. He smiled. Thasha had kicked away the blanket. She wore her father’s shirt like a nightgown; there must have been twenty of them in the wardrobe. Pazel sat on the edge of the bed and touched her hand.

‘Thasha? Oh Pitfire — Thasha!’

She was burning with fever. The shirt was soaked through, the sheet beneath her damp.

‘Where were you?’ she said, waking. But her voice was strained, and when he touched her face he found her teeth were chattering.

‘Why didn’t you answer me, Pazel?’

‘Answer you? When?’

‘I saw you, but you wouldn’t speak. I heard Marila crying, but that was — I don’t know when. And the birds. Thousands and thousands, all flying east.’

He was terrified. He made her sit up. Her skin like something fresh from an oven. He groped for her water flask and wrenched it open.

‘Drink!’

She stared at him in the moonlight. ‘Are you really here?’

She was looking right at him, but she wasn’t sure. He stood and opened the door and shouted for Neeps and Marila. When he looked at her again she had dropped on her side.

‘If that’s you, Pazel, give me a blanket. I’m freezing to death.’

She had saved them; she was leaving them. She loathed this world that had made her part of its destiny. Idiotic choice. Look what it’s earned you. Now I’m dying and taking your saviour Erithusme along for the ride.

The pain grew. A cold pain from deep in her gut, moving outward. As a child Thasha had once been struck by a galloping illness: sweats and vomiting that felled her in an hour and made her imagine death. What she felt now was quite different. It was more like blane, though the ixchel’s poison was merciful compared to this. Blane had hurt for a heartbeat or two. This pain went on and on.

Pazel was kissing her cheeks, asking questions: yes, he was really here. She tried to sit up a second time, at his urging. She drank a little water but it scalded her tongue. Then a stabbing light: Neeps and Marila in the doorway, staring, one of them bearing a lamp. Pazel shouted and waved his hands.

‘Get Ramachni! Get Hercol!’

Neeps sprinted away. Felthrup was on the bed, flying in circles, sniffing. ‘There is no infection about her. No