The Behemoth was falling behind.
‘Give me an honest wind over magecraft any day of the week,’ said Elkstem. In a voice meant just for me, he added: ‘Tree of Heaven, Graff, I thought we were dead.’
Marila, bless her, brought tea and biscuits to the quarterdeck. Her own belly is showing now, a little fruit bowl tucked under her shirt. In her arms was Felthrup, squirming with impatience to move: it was his first venture beyond the stateroom since the attempt on his life. As soon as his feet touched the boards, he raced the length of the quarterdeck and back again, then dashed excitedly about our heels.
‘Prince Olik spoke the truth!’ he squeaked. ‘That ship is a mutant thing, a mishmash held together by spells alone! The Plazic forces are in decline. The power they seized has devoured them like termites from within, and turned them senseless and savage. But not for long! Olik said they were melting, those Plazic weapons, and that Bali Adro cannot make any more.’
‘Not without the bones of them croco-demons, is it?’ said Elkstem.
‘Very good, Mr Elkstem! Not without the bones of the eguar — and they have no more, for they have plundered the last of the eguar grave-pits. They are drunkards, taking the last sips from the bottle of power, and reeling already from withdrawal.’
‘Godsforsaken rat on the quarterdeck,’ muttered Darius Plapp.
‘I believe you, Ratty,’ I said, ‘but it’s no real comfort at the moment. Their last sips of power may blary well kill us.’
‘Do you really think so?’
As if the Behemoth wished greatly to convince one little rat, something massive boomed on her deck. I snapped my scope up, hoping that one of those furnaces had exploded and torn her apart. No luck: it was rather the opening of a tremendous metal door. At first I couldn’t see what lay beyond that door. But after several minutes I made out what looked like a bowsprit, and then a battery of guns. Something was detaching itself from the Behemoth and gliding out upon the waves.
‘Graff,’ Elkstem murmured to me, gazing through his more powerful scope. ‘Do you know what that is? A sailing vessel, that’s what. I mean a regular ship like our own. And blast me if she ain’t got four masts!’
‘You must be wrong,’ I said. ‘The monster can’t be that big.’
But it was not long before I saw for myself that it was true. My hands went icy. ‘That colossus,’ I said, ‘is a naval base. A
‘It’s the daughter ship that worries me,’ said Elkstem.
The daughter ship, the four-master, was narrow and sleek. She might have been a pretty vessel once, but now her lines were ruined by great sheets of armour welded to her hull. All the same she would be faster than the Behemoth.
Her crew began spreading canvas. Elkstem growled. ‘They’re clever bastards. That four-master will catch us, sooner or later, unless the wind decides to double. We could outfight her, maybe — but so what? All she needs to do is nip our heels, hobble us with a few shots to the rigging. Once we’re slowed, the monster can catch up and finish us.’
‘I tell you we should run downwind,’ said Darius Plapp.
‘They would only do the same, Mr Plapp,’ cried Felthrup, through the rungs of the quarterdeck.
‘The blary rodent gimp wants to be a sailor, now,’ muttered Plapp.
‘Wrong again,’ said Felthrup, ‘and may I say that against that
Plapp scowled. ‘I ain’t never provided you with nothin’,’ he said.
‘Mr Fiffengurt,’ said Marila, who had taken my telescope, ‘what if they don’t catch us by nightfall?’
‘Why, then our chances improve,’ I said, ‘so long as we keep the lights out on the
Marila started. ‘Something’s happening on the big ship,’ she said. ‘They’re moving something closer to the rail.’
Before I could take back the telescope there came a new explosion. From the deck of the Behemoth, a thing of flame was blasting skyward on a rooster-tail of orange sparks. A rocket, or a burning cannon-shot. Its banshee howl caught up with us, but the shot itself was not approaching, only climbing higher and higher. Suddenly it burst. Five lesser fireballs spread from the core like the spokes of a wheel: beautiful, terrible.
‘Maybe they’re trying to be friendly?’ said a lad at the mizzen.
Then, in unison, the fireballs swerved, came together again, and began to scream across the water in our direction.
Terror gripped us all. I bolted from the wheelhouse, shouting: ‘Fire stations! Third and fourth watch to the pumps! Hoses to the topdeck! Run, lads, run to save the ship!’
Marila had scooped up Felthrup and was racing for the ladderway. The fireballs had twenty miles to cover, and from the look of it they would do so in the next three minutes. But what sort of projectile could change course in mid-air?
‘Drop the mains, drop the topsails!’ Elkstem was shouting. And that of course should have been my first command: those ten giant canvasses made for a target twice the size of the hull, and they would burn far more easily too. Someone (Rose?) at the bow had given the same order; already the sails were slinking down the masts.
By the grace of Rin we got the big sails down, and even furled the jibs and topgallants. All in about two minutes flat. I was by now down on deck and heading for the mainmast. I saw the first fire-team near the Holy Stair, wrestling with a hose that was already gushing salt water. But there were none close to me. I leaned over the tonnage hatch, screaming: ‘Where’s your team, Tanner, you boil-arsed dog?’ When I turned, the men on deck were staring skyward. I whirled. A fireball was plummeting straight for us.
‘Cover! Take cover!’
Everyone ran. I threw myself behind the No. 4 hatch coam. But I had to look — my ship was about to be massacred! — so at the last second I raised my eyes.
What I saw was a nightmare from the Pits. The fireball was no shot, no chunk of phosphorous or glob of burning tar. It was a creature: vaguely wasp-like, its great segmented body blazing like a torch, and it struck the deck and splattered flame in all directions like a dog shaking water from its fur.
I dropped, horrified. My hair caught fire but I snuffed it quick. A blizzard of sparks blew past me; without the hatch I’d have been roasted on the spot. When I looked up and down the length of the ship I thought our doom had come, for all I saw was fire.
Heat struck me like a blow. The creature had smashed halfway through the deck and was lodged there, dying. It had made a suicide plunge, and when it struck its body had burst open like a melon. As it writhed and heaved, flame gushed from it like blood. Where was the rain? Where was our mucking skipper? I looked the ship up and down, and thought we were finished. Right in front of me a man caught fire: who he was I could not tell. He was running, screaming, and the flames wrapped him like a flag.
Then a mighty spray of water hit the man, knocking him clean off his feet. Rose and five Turachs were there behind me with a fire hose. They had wrestled it up the No. 4 and were blasting the poor wretch with all the force sixty men at the chain pumps could deliver. Thank Rin, it worked: he was doused, and two mates seized him and bore him away. Then Rose turned the spray around to the creature. It screamed and twitched and vomited fire, but it could not flee the blast. Very soon it was sputtering out.
Fire was still everywhere, though. At least four of the five creatures had exploded in like fashion. One had torn through the standing rigging, causing the entire mizzenmast to sway. The battle-nets were burning, the port skiff was burning, halyards were burning on the deck in coils. Beside me, Jervik Lank threw a younger tarboy into the life-saving spray, and I swear I heard the hiss as his burning clothes were extinguished. At the forecastle, Lady Oggosk opened her door, shrieked aghast and slammed it again.
Suddenly Rose exploded: ‘Mizzenmast! Belay hauling! Belay! Damnation! BELAY!’
The men aloft could not hear him. Rose left the Turachs and ran straight through the fire, then swung out onto the mainmast shrouds, over the water, waving his hat and screaming for all he was worth. I saw the danger:
