The Night of the Swarm

soldiers’ revolt. He got it anyway, of course.’

‘It’s gone that far, has it?’

‘Much further, in fact. Burn the Lord Admiral and his son to death in their kitchen and you’ll pay, even if you do wear the crown.’

‘Night Gods, Commodore!’

Darabik shook his head. ‘A shameful tale, and a long one. The point is, there was a revolt: nearly a third of the Home Forces abandoned the Usurper, fled west, and joined Maisa’s campaign. I went with them, and have been fighting ever since. In that time I have won more battles than I have lost. But things have changed recently, and not for the better. Captain, you must make for Serpent’s Head.’

The gathering of Maisa’s forces was to occur on the fifth day of Teala, barely one week away. They could still make it, said Darabik. Fiffengurt reminded him that their task was to rid Arqual of the Nilstone, not the Emperor of Arqual.

‘Yes, the Nilstone,’ said Darabik uncertainly. ‘Prince Eberzam spoke of it with dread. I still don’t know what exactly it is.’

‘And you don’t want to,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘You’ve got the Gods’ own luck anyway. We’ll take you to Serpent’s Head, by way of the archipelago. There’s no safer course to Gurishal from here.’

Darabik had gone suddenly rigid. ‘To. . Gurishal?’

Fiffengurt grinned the grin of a suicide.

‘But that is madness, man. You cannot hope to slip past the Mzithrinis.’

‘Hope? What’s that? But you’re right, Commodore. That’s why Ott sent us off into the Ruling Sea to begin with, you know: to get around the White Fleet, and come up on Gurishal from behind.’

‘Madness,’ said the commodore again. ‘Perhaps before the war, the western flank of Gurishal was left unguarded. But not today. The Sizzies know Ott wanted to give the Nessarim back their Shaggat — we told them, we announced it to the world! Every harbour is watched, and every approach. The whole island is under quarantine.’

Fiffengurt’s grin was melting away. ‘You can’t quarantine an island that enormous,’ he said.

‘Can’t you? If it’s bursting with fanatics awaiting the return of the greatest mass-murderer in history?’

‘Trouble is, Commodore, we have to go to Gurishal.’

‘You can’t.’

Darabik said no more, and Fiffengurt was left blinking at the sunset, and trying to calm his nerves. But when darkness fell, Pazel and his allies gathered in the wheelhouse and spoke to the commodore again. Darabik’s mood had also darkened. He asked that they light no lamp. On that moonless night they could barely see his face.

‘I told you we numbered ninety thousand a year ago,’ he said. ‘That is true, and I might have said more: we took Opalt, for a time, and held the mainland all the way to the banks of the River Ipurva. But this year the fight has gone poorly. Magad has turned the east into a war-making machine. We sink a ship, and two more launch from the Etherhorde shipyards.’

‘North and South begin to mirror each other,’ said Kirishgan sadly.

Darabik took no notice. ‘The Mzithrinis are willing to sell us ships, but our coffers are empty,’ he said. ‘Without gold we are nothing to the Black Rags. Lately they have seen fit to drive us from their waters, into the teeth of our enemies. And. . there is another rumour, though I do not know whether to believe it.’

A deep note of worry had entered his voice. ‘Tell us,’ said Ramachni.

Darabik hesitated, then his dark shoulders gave a shrug. ‘A cloud that kills. They say it is as large as Bramian, and that in movement it is less like a cloud than a living thing. Nonsense, probably. Tall tales sprout like weeds in wartime.’

The allies sat in rigid silence, barely breathing, until Darabik asked them what was wrong.

All through the night the Chathrand sped west. With the first glimmer of dawn Fiffengurt sent men aloft to spread more canvas, indeed all the canvas she could bear. More rain fell, lashing and cold. More jagged islands appeared off the starboard bow. The ship followed these Baerrid Isles, tacking along one side of the snake. No one who had heard Darabik’s words repeated them — the crew was close enough to despair as it was — but they could not stop themselves from glancing at the sky. The Swarm was here already, and it had grown huge.

The days passed, grey gloomy light. Between the wave-tortured islands the lookouts spotted ships, plying the calmer waters of the Nelu Rekere, but they were too distant to be identified. Darabik was confident that they were Maisa’s forces, but Fiffengurt took no chances, and lit no flares. The nights were cool, but Pazel could not sleep. When he closed his eyes he felt the darkness crushing him, drowning him, a black wax pouring down from the sky.

In the outer stateroom Neeps and Marila shouted at each other, and some of the last dinner plates were smashed. The dogs howled and Felthrup wept. But late at night Pazel would creep out and find Neeps and Marila sleeping under the gallery windows, curled up together like children, arm in arm.

They are children. They were. All of us were, so recently.

Lying awake one night, Pazel saw a flicker of red in the window glass. He reached out a hand: the glass was trembling in its frame. Quietly, he left Thasha’s cabin. In the outer stateroom he found Felthrup staring out at the Chathrand’s wake.

The rat crept to his side. ‘You saw it too,’ he whispered. ‘We are almost there, Pazel. I can smell the reek of the volcano.’

They went above. The rain had stopped and the night was clear. There off the port bow stood Serpent’s Head, a tall black mountain-mass, spitting fire in great arcs over the western ocean, like a queen throwing riches to a mob. Pazel could smell it now, too: the rotten-egg smell of sulphur, the world’s carbolic breath.

The burning mountain terrified Felthrup. ‘Why would anyone choose to hold a gathering there?’ he asked.

‘Because no one lives on Serpent’s Head,’ said Pazel. ‘No villagers, no fishermen.’

‘No one to talk about you later, to an enemy?’

‘Or be tortured for their silence. That’s my guess.’

For the rest of the night they watched the strange island grow nearer. Several times ash fell from the heavens, a black sticky snow. But Serpent’s Head was not all smoke and fire: steep hills dominated the eastern half of the island, and at daybreak Pazel saw palm trees silhouetted against the sky.

There was also a ring of jagged islets about Serpent’s Head: spires of magma, coughed out by the volcanoes over the centuries. By the growing light, Pazel saw that their course would soon take them between these islets and Serpent’s Head.

‘I’ll be damned,’ he said to Felthrup. ‘Someone aboard knows this place. Look there, off to starboard. Do you know what that is?’

‘A seagull?’

‘A beach, Felthrup. Not much of one, but definitely a beach. And these little islets, they’re as good as a sea wall.’

‘Meaning that we could land a boat there?’

‘We could try.’

A moist hand dropped on Pazel’s shoulder. ‘We will be trying, lad.’

It was Mr Druffle: stone sober, grinning. ‘Don’t look so shocked. The twenty-foot launch can handle these waves. At least that’s the captain’s expectorant.’

Pazel and Felthrup blinked at him. ‘Expectation,’ corrected Felthrup.

Druffle shrugged. ‘Go roust your mates,’ he said. ‘Them as want to go ashore should assemble in ten minutes flat.’

‘Ten minutes?’ cried Pazel. ‘But Mr Druffle, they’re not even awake!’

‘Tough blubber, my Chereste heart. Empress Maisa’s officers are already landing on the north shore. It’s five Teala: her war-council starts today. And sure, the waves are becalmed here, in the lee of them lava-isles. But there’s a ripping strong current too. We can’t hold position, unless we anchor, and what fool would anchor here? No, the ship’s better off out in the Nelluroq, where she’ll have no company. She’ll circle round and collect us tomorrow, after we learn what Maisa’s rebels can give.’

‘But why not just head to the north shore ourselves?’