The Night of the Swarm

deck. Somewhere in the crowd, the Mzithrini commander was shouting: ‘Why this panic? We are three warships, and she cannot manoeuvre with her back to the cliffs! Is the maukslar so very deadly?’

Neeps and Pazel stepped through the invisible wall and raced along the aft-leaning corridor to the stateroom. Most of their friends were already here. Thasha had gone straight to her cabin, leaving the door ajar.

‘Macadra!’ shrilled Felthrup. ‘She is every bit as vile as her brother! But is she mindless, too? Can she be blind to the abomination above us?’

‘No,’ said Ramachni, from the bench by the gallery windows, ‘but perhaps she believes that with the Nilstone in hand she can simply banish the Swarm. If so, she is deluded. The Swarm is close to swallowing Alifros, as a snake gulps down an egg. No spell will affect it now.’

‘But how did they manage to repair the Death’s Head so quickly?’ asked Marila. ‘They needed two masts just for starters.’

‘They did not act quickly,’ said Kirishgan. ‘Don’t you see, Marila? The sorceress needed only to choose a better moment than we did to plunge through the gap in the Red Storm. It was weakening, after all. For every day she waited, she could expect to reach this side earlier, not later. The Death’s Head may have spent a month in some sheltered harbour in the Island Wilderness, cutting and fitting those masts, and yet arrived well ahead of us.’

‘They made short work of the Mzithrini patrols boat, in any case,’ said Bolutu. ‘Who knows? Perhaps they have driven the Shaggat’s worshippers inland, if there were any nearby.’

‘Or enlisted them,’ said Neeps.

Pazel moved to the gallery windows. The Arrowhead Sound. It was a great fjord, wide at its mouth but narrowing as it pierced the towering cliffs of southwest Gurishal. And right in the mouth of the fjord stood the Arrowhead itself: a truly monstrous stone, the size of five hundred Chathrands. It had evidently once been part of Gurishal, for it stood as tall as the cliffs. But the rock had eroded from the waves upwards, leaving the base much thinner than the crown. The arrow was balanced on its tip.

He thought of his sister’s words. The rock that ought to fall, but doesn’t. The place the old masters went to die.

And from atop the Arrowhead, he knew, the maukslar was watching them. It had flown there, clutching a half-eaten Mzithrini sailor, when the burning patrol ship finally sank. You could see the demon plainly through a telescope, though not with the naked eye. The Chathrand stood four miles out, and Fiffengurt was keeping them here until they chose their next move. Pazel could see the Death’s Head, however. She stood at anchor beneath that massive stone, as though tempting fate. They could not possibly enter the sound without confronting her.

Hercol arrived and made at once for Thasha’s chamber. Pazel and the others followed. Thasha had opened the outer door of the hidden cabinet. The bottle of Agaroth wine stood on her desk beside the Polylex. On her bed lay the two halves of Big Skip’s steel box and the gauntlets from Ularamyth. Thasha looked straight at Hercol and held out her hand.

Reluctantly, Hercol passed her the silver rod. Neeps was right: they had no choice but to prepare. Thasha had used the Nilstone twice already and survived. Once more and it would all be finished: the wine, the poison, the temptation.

Thasha turned the key in the round hole, then seized the handle and gave a fierce tug. With a shriek of metal the iron slab slid out into the room.

Everyone winced: the Nilstone was throbbing, blazing with an energy so fierce it was like the heat of a bonfire. And yet there was no heat. Pazel shielded his eyes. Was it because they were so near their goal, so near the end of the River of Shadows, so close to death’s kingdom? Was the Nilstone reaching out for the land it came from?

Thasha returned the key to Hercol and put on the gauntlets. ‘What do you mean to do, Thasha?’ asked Felthrup.

‘Show Macadra the Stone,’ said Thasha. ‘If she clears out I’ll let her go. But if she so much as aims one cannon our way, I’ll hit the Death’s Head so hard she’ll have nothing left to repair.’

‘Alas for my brothers aboard,’ said Bolutu. ‘Some of them serve only out of fear or hunger, I expect.’

‘Like soldiers everywhere,’ said Kirishgan. ‘But Lady Thasha, hear me a moment. Macadra will have mighty telescopes, and things more powerful than telescopes, trained on us. I do not think you should show her the exact location of the Nilstone.’

‘Kirishgan’s right,’ said Pazel. ‘Remember the Promise. She wants to take the Stone, not sink it to the sea floor. That may be the only reason she hasn’t-’

A howl cut him off: a cry of abject terror from the topdeck, on five hundred throats.

‘It’s started,’ said Hercol simply, leaping for the stateroom. The others followed. Through the gallery windows, Pazel saw that a ball of red fire had risen from Macadra’s ship. It was hurtling towards them, slower than a cannonball but still very fast, illuminating the black underbelly of the Swarm.

‘Away, away from the windows!’ howled Felthrup. ‘Thasha, call your dogs!’

Neeps was standing on the window bench. ‘Get down from there, idiot!’ screamed Marila, hauling at his arm. Neeps tugged his arm fiercely away.

‘Look! That ball’s off-target. It’s going to miss us by a mile. Unless-’

The fireball screamed by the Chathrand to portside. There came a boom and a blinding flash. Literally blinding: Pazel groped forward, seeing nothing but white-hot stars. As his vision returned he saw that someone had thrown open the door to the reading room, which had a view to portside. Through the doorway he saw the Mzithrini ship in flames. The ball, it seemed, had exploded against her stern.

The ship was devastated. Her sternpost split in two. The decks above the waterline were pulverised; the quarterdeck collapsed into the inferno below. Already the sea was gushing in through the shattered hull.

Oh Gods. All those people.

There were two hundred men on the Mzithrini ship.

‘Now we know what happened to all those Mzithrini patrols,’ said Marila.

Thasha looked Pazel straight in the eye. Her face was set, her look beyond fury. She removed the selk gauntlets, let them fall to the floor.

He almost stopped her, almost said Wait — but how could he? The next target would be the Nighthawk. What exactly were they waiting for?

They followed her back into the cabin. Thasha lifted the bottle from her desk and stepped in front of the pulsing Nilstone. Then she tore open the stopper, tilted the bottle to her lips and drank it dry.

Her gaze softened. She lowered the bottle and passed it to Marila. In the sudden silence Pazel heard Fiffengurt giving orders for a rescue operation. Thasha placed a hand on her chest.

‘I’m. . cured,’ she said. ‘The poison is gone. I can feel it.’

Pazel threw his arms around her, undone with relief.

‘And if I touch the Stone again, I will die.’

The feeling of doom that gripped Pazel in the next few minutes was unlike anything he could recall. The dregs of the Agaroth wine had done their work, but had given Thasha no last moment of fearlessness. She would never use the Nilstone again — not as Thasha, at any rate. And now they were helpless. Macadra had weapons they could never hope to match, and the maukslar as well. Pazel glanced at Neeps and saw an echo of his own shame. They had never admitted it, but they had counted on Thasha to save them once more.

‘Say nothing about this,’ urged Hercol. ‘Let the men hope: if they cease to, we are finished.’

They sealed the Nilstone in the cabinet and returned to the topdeck. All was mayhem. Eight or ten lifeboats were already in the water, and the rowers were pulling with all their might for the Mzithrini ship, already more than half submerged. ‘Hard to port, Elkstem, bring us up behind them,’ shouted Fiffengurt. ‘Mr Coote, the Nighthawk is following in our lee! Where’s your blary signal?’

‘Already sent, Captain. They ain’t listening, is all.’

‘Gods damn the old fool!’ bellowed Fiffengurt. ‘Does he want his people killed as well?’ Then, seeing Thasha, he cried, ‘Get up here, Missy, and show yourself to your father! He’s watching us through a scope this very minute. Wave him off, for Rin’s sake, before Macadra fires on the Nighthawk. One more boat can’t