The Night of the Swarm

Rin forgive me, I brightened at the thought, but Ramachni declared it all but impossible. ‘That is not how the Swarm does its work. Look at Serpent’s Head: men were still dying among Maisa’s forces, but the Swarm passed over them, attacked the epicentre of death, and flew on in search of another place where the war was at its height. Always it hunts the largest prey. But that will only protect us while there is large prey left to hunt.’

‘And the Nessarim?’ added Stiff-Neck. ‘Who will protect you from them? We control the seas, but they own the land, and guard it like war-dogs.’

‘But this whatsit, this Arrowhead Sound we’re making for — Neda says it’s blary remote.’

‘They will be there, regardless,’ said Stiff-Neck.

After Serpent’s Head we had a week of cold and blackness. Then a dawn came when even the Turachs wept with joy, for half the sky was free of the Swarm. That ugly malignancy had glided northwards, and its terminal edge was almost directly above us.

Here was a proof that raised our hearts: proof that the thing did not yet fill all the skies of Alifros. Proof that we were not too late. We felt the sun for a good eight hours before it drifted back again and plunged us into the dark. Now it has been nine days, and I begin to wonder if we shall ever see blue sky again.

It was in those eight bright hours that I made a play for Stiff-Neck’s trust. Pazel’s sister and Hercol urged me to it, and I see now that they were right. What we did was take him down to the manger, to the Shaggat’s filthy lair. We let him bring his men-at-arms, but told them nothing before we arrived. Neda insisted on that point.

I unlocked the door and swung it wide. His Nastiness (as Rose called the Shaggat) stood in the middle of the chamber, wearing nothing but a rag about his privates, holding a large and soiled book. A massive chain linked his ankle to the stanchion. Chadfallow had fitted a brass cap over the stump of his left hand. The nails on his right were long and yellow, like the teeth of rats. He was glaring. He seemed somehow to be expecting us.

Neda was first into the room. But before she entered she spat on the threshold, rubbed the spittle with her boot, and spoke some words in Mzithrini in a kind of sing-song, like an incantation or a charm.

‘That’s him,’ I said to Stiff-Neck. ‘Your devil incarnate, your hated man.’

Stiff-Neck looked at me, scandalised. ‘Liar,’ he said. ‘The Shaggat drowned forty years ago. Why do you Arqualis insist on peddling this tale?’

We filed inside. Neda’s hand was on her knife-hilt. She glared at the Shaggat with a loathing that transformed her pretty face. The Shaggat did not move, but his eyes, like a marionette’s, followed our every move. I found his calm almost as disconcerting as his frothing rage had been. Then those eyes turned on me.

‘Warden,’ he said, ‘have you brought me the Stone?’

The Sizzies circled him, muttering, unable to look away. Neda spoke to them in their own tongue, and pointed to the Shaggat’s tattooed neck.

‘She speaks the truth,’ said Hercol. ‘Our ship was to convey the Shaggat to Gurishal, that he might lead his throng against you once more. We were a minority on this ship, but we fought their wicked plan from the start.’

‘No one fights me,’ said the Shaggat. ‘Men and Gods, murths and demons: all are my tools. I use them, break them as I please. As I burned alive the army of King Morlach, and starved his masses, saving only the daughters for my legion’s delight, so shall it be in this kingdom. And you who dream of opposing me, opposing your Living God, shall suffer first and longest.’

I saw belief dawning in the Sizzies’ looks. Belief, and rage, and something else I couldn’t yet identify. They kept their distance. When Neda spoke to them, they quickly shook their heads.

‘You draw near Gurishal,’ said the mad king, ‘but I have flown ahead of you. Already I have touched my people, woken their anger, slain the faint-hearted, rewarded the bold. I am there, and in every land. You cannot escape me, Warden. All Alifros is mine.’

I cleared my throat. ‘See here, Commander, I figure this man belongs in your hands-’

Stiff-Neck cut me off, his voice strange and thin. ‘He calls you warden — that is a kind of jailor, yes? You kept this monster in secret. It’s all true. Your depravity exceeds our wildest dreams.’

‘The cold has come, and the darkness!’ boomed the Shaggat suddenly. ‘My wrath has brought them, and will devour you.’

‘Oh shut up, it ain’t your doing,’ I said.

The Shaggat’s eyes were still locked on my face. ‘It is long since I saw you kneel,’ he said.

‘You’ve never seen it, you old bilge-mop.’

‘Warden,’ he said, ‘I am going to rip open your skull, stake you writhing to the ground, slash your stomach open and pour in scalding-’

Neda gave an eagle’s scream. She jumped high, turning in mid-air like a temple dancer, and as she came to earth she buried her knife in his chest.

The Shaggat gave a little cough, shut his eyes deliberately, and fell forward, dead, with a crash that dislocated his jaw.

‘Partha, it is done,’ she said.

Hercol was the first to come to life, jumping between Neda and the Sizzies. I don’t know what he expected, but their response floored everyone but Neda. They ran. Even the commander leaped for the door, naked fear in his eyes. Only then, after all this time, did I grasp the power of the Shaggat cult. These men had always loathed him and all he stood for. They’d all have sworn on their grandmothers that he’d died long ago — that was the official story of their faith. But they still feared him. They still thought he might be a God, or a devil. They expected us all to be blasted right out of the manger.

‘Stay, stay!’ bellowed Hercol. ‘By the Unseen you revere, be brave! He was a man, nothing more, and now he is dead!’

The soldiers were out the door already. But Stiff-Neck raised his hands and grabbed the door frame, as though restraining himself by brute force. He struggled there a moment, then turned with a jerk to stare at the corpse.

‘Your sister has killed the Shaggat Ness,’ said Hercol.

The man was trembling, drenched in sweat. I didn’t think he would ever find his voice. But at last he looked at me and spoke.

‘Embalm him. Now, very quickly. Can you do it?’

‘We can manage,’ I said.

‘And the knife: do not clean it! His blood, his blood must be left there, to dry.’

‘I’ll send for a coffin.’

He whirled on Neda, hissing something, and Hercol drew Ildraquin with a swish. But the man wasn’t threatening her. Bending low, he touched her feet. Neda blinked in amazement and made him rise.

I got no more Arquali out of Stiff-Neck; he was too moved to use our tongue. But hours later over a cup of selk wine (the Shaggat in vinegar, Neda’s knife sealed in a box), Hercol explained what had transpired.

‘She gave them his death,’ he said, ‘but also his body. His unmistakable body, with all its tattoos and birthmarks and legendary scars. The Mzithrinis have tried to stamp out the Shaggat cult for decades, Captain. But how do you prove a man dead without his corpse? Now that they have it, they believe they can at last eradicate belief in this madman, and heal their faith. Of course, none of this will matter, unless we triumph at Gurishal, and lift the curse of the Swarm.’

‘What about Neda?’

‘They are already calling her the Assassin, and speaking of her like a saint.’

Hercol looked a bit unsteady, and I told him so. He smiled wistfully.

‘I am fond of the girl, that’s all. I wish no destiny upon her, or her brother for that matter. They have both seen trouble enough.’

Fond of her, is he? Rin bless ’em both, though nothing is likely to come of it. Neda Pathkendle is still too much the Mzithrini, and Hercol likes his women small. As in eight inches.

‘There’s something else gnawing at you, though, ain’t there?’ I asked.

After a moment, he nodded. ‘I have been to see my old master,’ he said.

‘What, you mean Ott? In the brig behind the Green Door and all?’

‘I had to tell him, Fiffengurt. About what Neda did. All his life Sandor Ott has dreamed of destroying the Mzithrin. His plot was brilliant, to stoke the fires of the Shaggat cult to war again. But now it seems that all his