high on the mizzenmast, the brave lads were trying to save their mainsail by lifting it clear of the smouldering deck. But a line was fouled in the sail — a burning line. They couldn’t see it for the smoke, but they were about to spread the fire to the upper sails.
Captain Rose got their attention at last, and you may be sure they BELAYED. I looked around me, and by Rin, there was hope. All the creatures had been snuffed, the hoses were still blasting, and save for the mizzenmast the rigging was remarkably intact.
‘Two of them mucking animals burned up ’fore they could reach us,’ said Jervik Lank, popping up beside me again. ‘And when their fire died they just fell into the sea.’
So we were at the edge of their range. That answered one question: maybe they preferred to take us alive, but failing that they didn’t want us to escape. They’d waited as long as they dared to hurl those obscene fire-insects at us, then let loose before we could slip away.
The hose-teams went on blasting, and it began to look as though we’d won a round. The
‘Captain Rose, you’ve done it —
His left arm was on fire. ‘Nothing, pah!’ he said, calmly stripping off his coat. But the Turachs were taking no chances. They still had hold of that writhing dragon of a fire hose, and with a cry they swung around and aimed it at their burning captain — and blew him right off the shrouds and into the sea.
A fall like that (backwards, sixty or seventy feet) is a brutal thing for a young and strapping lad. Our captain is ox-strong, but also ox-heavy and far from young. We ran screaming to the rail, tearing life preservers from their hooks. I feared the marines had just written the last line in the tale of Captain Nilus Rotheby Rose.
It would have been so, surely, but for the hero that stepped forward. A dlomic sailor, barefoot already, tore off his shirt and leaped to the shrouds, just where Rose had been standing. He balanced there a moment, a jet black figure searching the waves. Then he saw what he was looking for, let go and dived.
It was a breathtaking sight: he sliced the waves like a black dagger thrown point down. Rose was unconscious, and already sinking, but the man surfaced beneath him and got his head above the waves, and swam easily enough (considering the great bearded bulk on his shoulder) to the nearest preserver, and held on there until we tossed him a sling.
Rose did not move as we hauled him up. Chadfallow and Rain were waiting — and so, on the other side of the hauling team, was Sandor Ott.
‘That’s a corpse you’re lifting,’ said the spymaster. ‘Fiffengurt, are we fifteen miles off that headland, as he requested?’
‘Nearly,’ I replied, not looking at him.
‘What was his plan?’ Ott persisted. ‘What was he building, with the blacksmith and the carpenters?’
No one knew, so no one answered. ‘Night Gods!’ Ott shouted. ‘The sun is going down, gentlemen! He must have told
‘Shut up, shut up ’til we revive him!’ said Dr Rain.
‘The man is dead, imbecile,’ said Ott.
We bent the captain over the rail. Water — quarts it seemed — gushed from his mouth. We laid him out, grey and cold upon the deck.
‘He is not breathing,’ said Chadfallow. ‘Rain, stand by to compress his heart. You know the procedure, I trust?’
Dr Rain blinked at him. ‘The procedure? Yes, of course! The procedure. He’s rather large, though.’
Chadfallow knitted his eyebrows, but there was no time for talk. He tilted the captain’s bushy head, pinched his nose, and sealed his lips to Rose’s own. He blew; Rose’s chest lifted like a balloon. Again the doctor breathed, and again. The crowd grew. Men were praying, quite a few upon their knees. Without Rose there would be panic; without Rose we’d be at the utter mercy of an assassin. Chadfallow delivered a tenth breath, then glanced up at Rain.
‘Now.’
The old fellow turned, took aim, and fell on his bottom in the centre of Rose’s chest. He began to bounce, vigorously.
‘Onesie! Twosie! Threesie —
Sandor Ott shoved him aside. He knelt over Rose’s chest and started pressing down with both hands. ‘Just twice!’ said Chadfallow, and at once started breathing again. We waited. The captain lay limp. The dlomu who had rescued him was hauled over the rail in turn. ‘Press harder this time, Ott,’ said Chadfallow, and the process went on.
I heard an old woman mumbling beside me: Lady Oggosk. She too was praying softly, leaning on her stick, tears caught in the wrinkles of her ancient face.
Ott and Chadfallow worked on. From above came an eerie sound: the beat of wings. Niriviel had just alighted on the fighting top.
The rain began at last. Then Sandor Ott ceased his efforts and stepped away. ‘It is over,’ he said. ‘Rose served his part well enough. And your skills are needed elsewhere, Doctor.’
Chadfallow ignored him, delivered the compressions himself. No one spoke save Ott and Niriviel, discussing what the bird had seen of the Behemoth’s weaponry. ‘A glass cube?’ said Ott, sounding almost delighted. ‘How intriguing. But are you certain it had no entrance, no doors?’
The rain strengthened. The light sank low. Finally, ashen, Chadfallow sat up. He licked a finger and held it to Rose’s parted lips. Then he shook his head. ‘Now it is over,’ he said.
Lady Oggosk shrieked.
From the look of agony she wore, I thought her heart had burst. Nothing of the kind: she raised her stick high and swung it like a club, narrowly missing the doctor’s chin. ‘Backstabbers! Parasites!’ she cried. ‘You’ve sucked his blood every day he’s been on this ship!’ We retreated. Oggosk swung her stick over and over, as though fighting wolves in the night. ‘I dare you! I dare you to stand there and watch him die!’
‘Duchess,’ said Chadfallow, ‘he has passed on. If I had any remedy-’
‘Silence, bastard, or I’ll kill you!’ She threw her stick away, dropped on her knees by Rose’s head. ‘I will drive you from the ship! Chamber by chamber, deck by deck! I’ll uproot you, tear you out with these hands, watch you blow away like dust!’ She curled her old fingers in Rose’s beard. ‘Are you listening? After all this time do you doubt my word?’
It was too sad. I knew she cared for the skipper, but this was beyond anything. It wasn’t just her heart that was broken but her mind.
Then Rose bolted upright.
He gave a horrendous, moaning gasp. His mouth was open and his eyes were bugging from his head. We stood transfixed. There were no cries of joy, only staggered silence. Lady Oggosk had raised the dead.
But wasn’t there something changed in Rose? Not just his pallor, which was still that of the drowned. No, it was something less tangible, but undeniably there. Like the charge in a cat’s fur: you could feel it, even before the spark that made you jump.
‘Captain,’ I whispered, ‘d’ye hear me?’
‘CLEAR THE DECK!’
The cry was in his old, storm-shattering voice. All at once he was scrambling to his feet, bellowing the command again as he did so, waving and gesticulating.
There were quite a few gawkers to be sure. ‘You heard the captain!’ I cried. ‘Clear out, there, give him some breathing room! Topmen, back to your-’
Rose leaped on me, smacked his hand over my mouth. ‘I SAID
There was of course no room for argument. We carried out his orders as though we had not just seen him lying dead at our feet. Even as we did so, a cry of dismay rang out: the men aloft had spotted something heading our way. ‘Down, down!’ we screamed, and down they came like troops of monkeys, some of them from three
