The Night of the Swarm

keep their oaths, not break them. To prove their courage and the hard steel of their loyalty-’

‘Well, then-’

‘-by daring to fight for the only one who, by law and Rin’s favour, deserves to sit in the Chamber of Ametrine. I mean Her Majesty the Empress, Maisa daughter of Magad theThird. She lives, and many thousands of true Arqualis are fighting, bleeding, dying for her cause. We were not wrecked in a storm, Turach. We were fired upon by the warships of the Usurper, Magad the Fifth.’

Haddismal started forward, snarling. ‘Usurper! You’re speaking of His Supremacy, you traitorous son of a whore!’

‘His Supremacy’s own grandfather named Maisa to the throne,’ said Hercol quietly. ‘And your grandfathers, dare I remind you, swore an oath to that man.’

The Turach hesitated. He looked hard at Darabik again. ‘You weren’t making for Pulduraj,’ he said. ‘Where were you headed, and why?’

Darabik paused, studying the face of the huge marine before him. ‘We were bound for the island called Serpent’s Head, and a gathering of all Maisa’s forces.’

‘And Maisa?’ asked Haddismal. ‘Will she be there, rallying her turncoat troops?’

Darabik shook his head. ‘That I cannot say.’

The Turach’s eyes narrowed. ‘Beg to differ, Commodore: you can.’

Never taking his eyes from Haddismal, the old commodore unbuttoned his shirt. Pazel recoiled: the man’s chest was like a window cracked by a stone, but the cracks were raised red scars. They had very clearly been made with a knife.

‘The Secret Fist thought so too,’ he said. ‘I chose not to betray our country to the Secret Fist. Do you think I will betray them to you?’

Sergeant Haddismal was leaning forward, hands in fists. But he made no move against the commodore.

‘It has been a savage fight, but a proud one,’ said Darabik. ‘Generals and governors, princes and counts have joined our rebellion. Whole legions have broken with Etherhorde. And Magad faces other enemies, too: the Mzithrinis still bleed him to the west; Noonfirth has cut supplies from the east. The Crownless Lands support us with shelter and armaments and food.’

‘The Crownless Lands,’ scoffed Haddismal. ‘So you’re begging from waifs. Doesn’t sound like a winning hand to me.’

‘We are not winning, but we have not lost. This time last year our forces numbered ninety thousand.’

‘Ninety thousand!’ cried Hercol, his eyes flashing.

‘Ninety thousand my bleedin’ arse,’ growled a Turach. ‘Commander, this is all rot and betrayal.’

‘Aye, lad, it is betrayal,’ said Darabik sharply. ‘You marines were the first betrayed, when you were told all manner of lies about your Empress. You have given your lives and blood for a false king, a warped image of the Arqual you deserve. Oh, to the Pits with you all-’

Darabik spread his hands wide. ‘Kill me and be done with it. Or be as brave and true as you have sworn to be, and choose the harder fight.’

A terrible stillness followed. The Turachs stood like wolves before the pounce. But it was Hercol who moved. With a speed Pazel had only ever glimpsed in Sandor Ott, he struck the sword from the hand of the Turach nearest him, then twisted around Haddismal’s sudden thrust so that he stood behind the man. Hercol’s left arm slid over Haddismal’s shoulder; his elbow caught the marine under the chin.

Hercol gave a brutal backward heave. Both men crashed to the floor and were suddenly still: Haddismal flat on his back, Hercol beneath him, with Ildraquin across the sergeant’s throat.

‘Stay!’ wheezed Hercol. ‘Sergeant Haddismal, hear me: I did not wish to assault you. Indeed I fear what I have done.’

‘You should,’ said Haddismal.

‘We cannot go on divided,’ said Hercol. ‘If shipmate kills shipmate again, we shall all be lost. I feel this in my heart’s core, Sergeant Haddismal. I am not an Arquali, nor wish to be. Yet I have served the true Empress of Arqual in secret these many years. I trust this Darabik. And I shall trust you, now: with my life, and the life of Alifros itself.’

‘Hercol — no!’ cried Thasha. She tried to shove a path towards him, but the Turachs seized her arms.

‘Be still, Thasha!’ cried Hercol. ‘All of you, be still! Turachs, I disarmed your leader so that you might know that it was hope, not fear, that led me on. Now I say the same as Darabik: stand with us, or kill us. We will not kill you.’

He opened his hand, and Ildraquin fell to the floor. Instantly a Turach lowered the tip of his sword to Hercol’s neck. Haddismal rolled to his feet and took the weapon. He gaze was murderous.

‘You were a mucking fool to disarm,’ he said. After several gasping breaths, he added, ‘Or a saint. I don’t know. Corporal Mandric’s risked his own life since he returned, swearing you’re all in the right, that the Nilstone’s the enemy, that your quest is the only one that counts. He called Magad a fraud. I had to throw him in the brig or throw him to the fishes.’ Haddismal swallowed. ‘He ain’t with the fishes, yet.

‘As for you-’ the sergeant shot a glance at Darabik ‘-you sound like the kind of officer my old man was. The kind who could hold his head up, before the world and Rin’s judgement. Get up, Stanapeth, and take your weapon back. I’ll stand with you lot. I’m mucking tired of lies.’

33

Nightfall

28 Modoli 942

360th sailing day from Etherhorde

Burned, battered, weary, leaking, lost. And for all this, a ship united. The other Turachs followed Sergeant Haddismal’s lead, and few appeared to regret it. Many even looked relieved to be siding with Pazel and his allies, and nodded to them when they passed, as though they’d been conferred some honorary rank. Corporal Mandric was let out of the brig.

Marila said that the ground had been shifting since Ott’s murder of Captain Rose. ‘For a while everyone pretended not to know. If you said out loud that Ott had killed him, the Turachs might kill you.’ Now even the Turachs began to speak of Ott with contempt. Something in Pazel felt healed. The Chathrand was one ship, and this time no one had died for her.

Thanks to Darabik, moreover, they were not lost for long. The commodore knew with some accuracy where his ship had gone down: just fifty or sixty miles south of the Baerrid Archipelago, and some eight days west of Bramian. Fiffengurt kept the Chathrand on her northern course, and by six bells land was in sight: two tiny islands, little nuggets of tree-crowned stone, the serpent’s vertebrae. Yes, these were the Baerrids. Fiffengurt had seen the island chain several times over the years — from the north side, of course.

‘You haven’t lied about our position, anyway,’ he told Darabik.

‘I rarely lie,’ said the commodore, ‘but perfect honesty — well, that is a luxury reserved for those who suffer neither want nor pain. I have suffered both. After Maisa launched her rebellion, we divided our naval forces into thirds. I said goodbye to Thasha’s father in Ormael, and sailed east across the Nelu Peren. On the third day, a huge force of warships from Etherhorde surprised us, and decimated my squadron. My own quarterdeck was blown out from under my feet. I fell into smoke and darkness, and when I awoke I was in the hands of the Secret Fist.

‘For months they tortured me, body and soul. I prayed for death. I told them lies, then truth. At last I confused the two myself, and said whatever I thought would make them stop. Nothing made them stop. I tried to starve myself; they injected me with a poison that left me limp, and forced gruel down my throat.

‘But a day came when I was delivered from agony. Only then did I learn that I had been taken to Etherhorde, and tortured in the bowels of Castle Maag itself, somewhere beneath those pretty walks and gardens. Word of me had reached the admiralty, and Emperor Magad surrendered me to my brothers-in-arms. Above all he feared a