The Night of the Swarm

into the forward batteries. Still the Death’s Head came on: Pazel could see her white sails looming beyond the wreckage of the forecastle. ‘How many dlomu are attacking?’ Neeps bellowed in Swift’s ear.

‘Lots of ’em. Hundreds.’

Hundreds? Pazel looked at the ship’s defenders, strung out along the rail. Where was his own sword? No time for it: he found a cutlass in a tangle of rigging, the hilt still smeared with the blood of the man who’d dropped it. Then he pushed his way to the rail.

The sea was full of dlomu, swimming as only dlomu could. The fastest were already close to the Chathrand’s pitching hull. The Death’s Head, barely a mile off, was firing its regular guns, firing with a will. But something strange was happening: all the shots were falling hopelessly short. And some of the Chathrand’s defenders were putting down their pikes, and casting about the deck for other tools.

‘What’s going on?’ he shouted.

A face glanced up at him: Mandric. ‘Don’t ye blary see, they-’

BOOM.

A great fireball rose from Macadra’s ship. ‘Oh hang me from Heaven’s Tree!’ snarled Mandric, as they dropped below the rail. The fireball screamed, then detonated — twenty yards from the Chathrand. The flame licked her hull, but there was nothing left in easy reach to burn.

Except the dlomu in the water.

Pazel looked at Mandric and the others near him: they were holding ropes and life preservers. The dlomu were deserting Macadra’s ship.

They stood up. The sea looked empty. Then a black leg surfaced. Then a body without a head.

‘That hag,’ said Mandric. ‘She don’t want to sink us and lose the prize, but she’s fine with killin’ her own. She just slaughtered a third of her mucking crew.’

Beside the Turach, Bolutu’s eyes were bright. ‘They almost made it. We could have pulled them aboard.’ He looked at Pazel in sudden wonder. ‘There was a selk among them.’

‘A selk?’ said Pazel. ‘A selk aboard the Death’s Head?’

Cries from the opposite rail. Confusion, then wild urgency, pointing fingers, laughs. The dlomu were surfacing on the far side of the Chathrand. The protected side. Nearly all had dived in time to escape the fireball, crossed under the Chathrand’s belly, risen unscathed.

Pazel sprinted for the far rail. Neeps was there ahead of him, beckoning. ‘Pazel, look!’

He leaned out over the rail. Among the two hundred or so black-skinned, silver-haired dlomu, one pale olive face stood out. It was Nolcindar.

Nolcindar!

‘Macadra didn’t kill everyone on the Promise,’ said Neeps. ‘She took prisoners. And that means-’

‘Olik!’ cried Bolutu. ‘Prince Olik!’

There he was, stern and serene as ever, helping a wounded dlomu seize the accordion ladder someone had just sent clattering down the hull.

Pazel could scarcely believe what he was seeing: Arqualis and Mzithrinis, helping dlomu (and one selk warrior) out of the waves.

A second ladder appeared. Once on deck, the dlomu knelt in surrender, unbidden. Some kissed the humans’ feet. Prince Olik, among the last from the water, knelt as well.

Sergeant Haddismal pushed forward. ‘Your Highness,’ he said, ‘Captain Fiffengurt’s just spoken. You have the freedom of the ship, but these sailors crewed a boat that’s attacked us twice. We’re to bind them, at least until the fighting’s done. We’ve been double-crossed too many times.’

‘Then bind me also,’ said the prince.

‘And me,’ said Nolcindar. ‘None of these men are officers. They served like slaves on the Death’s Head, and risked their lives to free us from the brig where we were held and tortured. Some leaped overboard and swam to the beach inside the Arrowhead Sound. Those Macadra did not slay fled into the mountains, chased by savage-looking men with tattooed necks.’

The Nessarim, thought Pazel.

The dlomu were holding out their wrists. ‘Bind us!’ they said. ‘Tie us, lock us up. Only do not send us back to her, back to the White Raven. Better to die than to return!’

Something, a surge of anguish, made Pazel turn. The main topsail was gone: the Death’s Head had struck it dead-centre with one of the burning tar projectiles it had used during the chase along the Red Storm.

‘Tree of Heaven, what does it matter if they’re on our side or not?’ said Saroo. ‘There’s enough of ’em still manning those blary weapons. Just look at this ship.’

‘He’s right, Your Highness,’ said Mandric. ‘You should have taken your chances ashore. We’re beaten, and she’s still comin’ on.’

‘We are not beaten,’ said a sharp, high voice.

It was Felthrup. Pazel turned and saw him standing on Captain Fiffengurt’s shoulder. And beside them, between her dogs-

‘Thasha Isiq,’ said Hercol sternly, ‘you promised to stay below.’

‘For as long as it made any difference,’ said Thasha. ‘But it doesn’t, not now. Macadra’s not a fool. She knows I’d have used the Stone to save the Chathrand if I could. And if it comes to a fight — well, I killed her brother. I can kill her too.’

‘Macadra does not have the Nilstone,’ said Felthrup, ‘and while she lacks it, we still have a card to play.’

‘Rin’s truth,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘She’s hurt our rigging, not our hull. We may be dead in the water, but we’re blary far from sunk. Change of orders, Sergeant.’ He waved a hand at the dlomu. ‘These men don’t need shackles, they need swords in their hands. Get busy!’

The crew raced back to their stations. The dlomu who were able leaped up and cried out their readiness to fight.

Pazel put his arm over Thasha’s shoulders. He looked across the dwindling space between the vessels. The deck of Macadra’s ship was a confusion of fires, gears, struggling men, clouds of smoke.

‘Nolcindar!’ Kirishgan raised his kinswoman and embraced her warmly. But Nolcindar’s eyes were grave.

‘The humans are valiant,’ she said in the selk tongue, ‘but if the White Raven closes, all is lost. That ship is full of killers and madmen. They will burn the crew off the topdeck, and kill them below with canisters of gas. Any survivors will be torn apart by athymars, or simply left to drown once she takes the Nilstone and staves in the hull.’

‘We can barely move,’ said Kirishgan. ‘How are we to prevent her from closing?’

Nolcindar had no chance to respond, for at that moment a bird of prey cried just overhead. It was Niriviel, of course. They looked up: the falcon crouched on the main yard, leaning forward, gazing intently at the Death’s Head. Then he shrieked: ‘By the Throne of Arqual! That one!’ He shot away towards Macadra’s ship. ‘What was that about?’ asked Thasha. ‘What in Pitfire did he see?’

Kirishgan narrowed his eyes. ‘There is something. . a small bird, I think. But it flies as if wounded. Yes, that is what Niriviel is aiming for.’

Then both selk winced. ‘Too late,’ said Nolcindar. ‘The bird has fallen into the sea. Unless — well! Your falcon dives better than a fish-eagle. He has snatched the little bird up in his claws.’

Dimly, Pazel saw the falcon returning. Then his eyes were dazzled by several concurrent flashes from the Death’s Head. Three fireballs streaked skyward. But what sort of attack was this? One shot climbed so high that it entered the Swarm, where it vanished without a trace. The other two, wildly off-target, exploded over the empty sea. Cannon-fire followed, but it too was erratic.

Then Pazel saw why.

The Death’s Head was sinking.