The Night of the Swarm

pig.’

‘Turn your ship, Captain,’ said Macadra.

‘You may ask what this has to do with giving you the Nilstone,’ Felthrup went on, nearing her and gesticulating with his paws. ‘Everything, everything! For who are you but the product of your history? And who are we but the servants of our own? And this transaction, this epochal surrender you seek — someone must understand it, record it, write it down for the sake of history. And what of Sathek?’

‘Sathek?’ shrieked Macadra, staring down at him again.

‘Yes, yes — no. Sathek himself is not the point. But his Sceptre! Who can forget? Your Raven Society tried to steal it, just as you did the Nilstone, three times in six centuries, and Arunis makes four, last year on the Isle of Simja. He had a demonic servant too, and sent it to make off with the Sceptre, but instead our wonderful Neda used it to bludgeon the little demon to death — I was under the chair, the chair!’

Felthrup was squealing and hopping and running circles around her boots. Macadra seemed appalled and transfixed.

‘Orfuin’s chair, I was beneath it I say! Not a rat, not a rodent, I was the little wriggly thing called an yddek, Arunis called me a masterpiece of ugliness, Orfuin invited you to gingerbread and you ignored him, you went on scheming, but you schemed in bad faith, bad faith, bringing two servants with you instead of coming alone, now again you make promises, how can we ignore such evidence, Macadra, some of us have a sense of history and this, this is a HISTORY OF DUPLICITOUS INTRIGUE-’

Macadra wrenched her eyes away from Felthrup. Pazel did the same, and only then did he realise that five hundred sailors had quietly set their hands to the ropes. Pitfire, thought Pazel, the wind-

‘HEAVE BOYS IT’S NOW OR NEVER!’ screamed Fiffengurt.

The wind was turning, swinging round to blow from the east, and gaining strength by the second. Roaring in unison, the men hurled themselves at the bracelines, scrabbling for purchase on the heaving deck. The augrongs heaved alongside the humans, bellowing like bulls. The masts groaned; the huge squaresails turned; Fiffengurt and Elkstem all but leaped upon the wheel.

The Great Ship came violently about, rolling deep on her starboard quarter. ‘That’s what I like!’ cried Fiffengurt with a cockeyed grin. Men aloft swung like marionettes; those on deck seized the nearest fixed objects and held fast. Pazel snatched up Felthrup while Ramachni sheltered between Thasha’s feet. Only Macadra did not sway: her feet touched the boards so lightly she almost seemed to float like a tethered balloon.

The ship made her turn, levelled out, and began to fly downwind. ‘Shore up those stays, Fegin!’ roared the captain. ‘We’re in a ripper and we mean to ride ’er like one!’

Suddenly Macadra charged at Fiffengurt, hands raised before her like talons. But Ramachni was faster. He leaped from the deck straight at her. Just before his claws reached her, however, she vanished without a trace. Ramachni twisted in mid-air and landed on his feet.

‘Ha! I expected that. Macadra was never truly here: we were addressing a phantom. But her mind certainly was here — and what a fine job you did of keeping it occupied, Felthrup my lad. You need no weapon but words.’

‘Another minute and I should have been forced to improvise,’ said Felthrup.

‘But where did this mad wind come from?’ cried Pazel.

‘Ah, Pathkendle, you were distracted too!’ said Fiffengurt, laughing aloud. ‘We saw, didn’t we Ramachni? Two albatrosses. Two lovely birds moving like avenging angels, but hardly flapping their wings. Coasting, that is, due west along the edge of the storm. If we’re lucky, and I think we are, then we’ll find this wind’s gushing right through the gap ahead, like a breeze through a window.’

The ship was now racing west, and when the log was tossed the midshipman cried out their speed: eighteen knots.

‘Eighteen’s grand, but we’ll see twenty-eight when Fegin’s done, boys. There’s still two reefs to let out.’

‘The Death’s Head will catch the wind too, soon enough,’ said Kirishgan.

‘But she won’t catch us. Not before we reach that gap.’

A shout went, up; a hand pointed forward. There! Pazel saw it, twelve or thirteen miles out: a ragged, roiling edge to the scarlet light.

‘What if she follows us through the gap?’ asked Elkstem.

After a moment’s pause, Thasha said, ‘She won’t.’

She descended the quarterdeck ladder, and Pazel followed. Most of their friends were still gathered below. ‘Warn the crew,’ Thasha told them. ‘Tell everyone to brace for a shock. I’m going to put an end to this.’

‘Stay with her, Pathkendle,’ said Hercol.

The next moment a shock did come, although Thasha had nothing to do with it.

‘FIRE! FIRE! ENEMY ORDNANCE!’

Everyone groped for cover. Pazel glanced at the Death’s Head and found it wreathed in smoke. Then the sound reached them: clustered explosions, ten or twelve strong.

‘Hold fast to your stations!’ roared Fiffengurt, swinging his telescope skyward. ‘You can’t run, lads, you can only keep the blessed ship running! Think what Captain Rose would say if-’

He choked on the words. A look of disbelief washed over him. ‘Aloft there, lookout! Those are no fireballs! What in the Pits are they throwing?’

‘SWEET TEARS OF RIN, CAPTAIN! I CAN’T TELL YOU, BUT THEY’RE ALMOST-’

‘TAKE COVER! TAKE COVER!’

Something slammed into Pazel, lifting him right off his feet. It was Hercol. He had tackled Pazel and Thasha both, knocking them flat upon the deck. From above came a scream like cannon-fire — but not quite like cannon-fire. Pazel twisted his head around and looked up. Through the netting he saw a dozen black, undulating shapes fly over the Chathrand, scattershot. Then a roar went up from the topmen. A shadow fell. Close at hand something began to sizzle, and then Hercol gave an enormous lurch and rolled with Pazel and Thasha clutched tight in his arms.

They came to rest in a dogpile with Neeps and Neda and half a dozen sailors. Pazel looked back where they had lain. A huge, viscous black glob hung suspended in the battle-nets, eight feet above the deck. It smoked and stank of burning tar. Large droplets oozed and separated and fell bubbling upon the deck.

More cries from aloft. Pazel looked and saw that one of the projectiles had struck the main topsail and splattered like an enormous black egg.

Night Gods, what sort of weapon-?

Then he understood. The tar was running down the sail — and devouring it, like acid. It took just seconds: where the white flax had been there was a lengthening hole.

Fiffengurt stood waving his arms, howling: ‘Cut the mainsail free! Get it out of there!’

Too late: the sticky mass had reached the foot of the topsail. The cloth split. Black tar poured down upon the mainsail, the largest canvas on the ship.

Further forward, there were howls of pain. Another of the bombs had landed near the forecastle, coating some twenty men in scalding tar. Pazel shut his eyes. No hope. Their screams were like knives to his brain. A few men, near the edges, escaped by shedding their clothes or shoes. Others fell, upon their knees, or their faces.

‘Where are the Gods-damned fire-teams?’ bellowed Coote.

‘Thasha, Pathkendle: go!’ shouted Hercol. ‘We will do what we can here, but I fear it will not be enough. We have just lost half our speed.’

‘She’s going to lose more than speed,’ said Thasha. With that she was gone, racing down the Silver Stair, and Pazel was rising, stumbling after her, shouting her name.

‘Be careful, damn it!’

She was well ahead of him. Pazel wasn’t sure what he was afraid of — would she forget to drink the wine before she touched the Stone, would she hold it too long in her fury? — but he knew that if he wasn’t beside her in the crucial moment he would never forgive himself. Down the Silver Stair he plunged, through mobs of rushing sailors, through the Money Gate, along the passage of abandoned luxury chambers, through the invisible wall.

Thasha’s dogs were barking. She was already in the stateroom; she had left the door ajar.