The Night of the Swarm

He started off at once, and Ramachni went with him. Pazel studied the archway. There was something about it he did not like at all. He glanced at the others and saw that they did not feel it. They were curious, and perhaps slightly worried by the mystery, but none were suffering from the dread he felt, the sense that something terrible was near.

Arim and Ramachni climbed the stair, and stepped before the archway — rather cautiously, Pazel thought. Then they walked inside. ‘Valgrif,’ Pazel murmured, ‘what sort of creature is this guardian? Why was Lord Arim so concerned that we not approach?’

‘Because we could not help, only imperil ourselves,’ said the wolf. ‘Let us speak no more of it. They will return at any moment.’

But the selk and the mage were gone much longer than Valgrif predicted. Through the stone, Pazel thought he felt a low, angry rumble, as though thunder were shaking the earth. At last the two figures emerged from the opening and started back. Ramachni walked straight to Pazel, and in his black eyes was a look of concern.

‘My lad,’ he said, ‘the guardian is an eguar.’

‘An eguar!’ cried Pazel. ‘Oh credek, no!’ Of all their party, he alone had ever faced one of the demonic reptiles — and it had savaged him, burned him, and dug like a mole into his mind. Worst of all, his Gift had forced him to learn its language, and it was the weirdest and most painful tongue Pazel had ever heard before that of the demon in the Infernal Forest.

‘Ramachni,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to see an eguar. Kirishgan told me the selk sometimes talked to them, but I didn’t know they used them as blary border guards.’

‘The creature will not harm you,’ said Ramachni. ‘Arim and I had words with it. They have an accord of long standing: the selk permit the beast to live on the doorstep of Ularamyth, hidden from enemy eyes by the same spells that hide the Vale itself. And in return the eguar keeps watch on the North Door.’

‘It is a task well suited to the eguar’s stillness,’ said Lord Arim. ‘Forty years have passed since last a traveller came to us by way of the Sky Road. But each door must have its watch, and this eguar has been a friend to Ularamyth for centuries. I am sorry, Pazel: I did not know that you had faced an eguar before. They are deadly, of course. But as a rule they are not evil — not given to killing for its own sake, or to mindless hatreds. The creature you met on Bramian is an exception. I know him: Ma’tathgryl, a wounded and embittered beast. This one is also an exception, but of the opposite sort. He has given us many timely warnings of the enemy’s deeds, and has even descended into the Vale, and bathed in the waters of Osir Delhin. He discarded his birth-name in favour of the one we gave him: Sitroth, which means Faithful. We selk revere him for his wisdom, and his guardianship.’

‘But you protect him as well?’ asked Bolutu. ‘What threatens him?

‘In the past, nothing,’ said Arim. ‘But today the Platazcra madness has brought death to the eguar as it has to many others. You know that the Plazic weapons were made from their ancient bones and hides, dug from eguar grave-pits by the alchemists of Bali Adro. In time those pits were emptied, and the warlords faced an end to their power. They tried to leach that power from other materials, such as the bones of dragons and the teeth of the Nelluroq serpent. None of these efforts succeeded. At last, in desperation, they sought out living eguar to butcher and exploit — at a terrible cost in dlomic lives, needless to say. And these experiments too were failures.’

‘But not perfect failures,’ added Ramachni.

‘No,’ said Arim, ‘and for an addict, even the smallest whiff of one’s chosen poison can be irresistible. To our knowledge, fifty-one eguar were sought out and killed to provide such whiffs: a sword that splintered on its third use, a siege engine that exploded on the battlefield, a helm that gave the wearer titanic strength, then burned through flesh and skull like some horrible acid. Fifty-one eguar: and to our knowledge that leaves but eighteen alive in all the world.’

Corporal Mandric hissed. Pazel looked up, and terror seized his heart: from the archway a sea-green light had begun to shine. It grew stronger even as he watched, and so did the heat.

The dog growled. Pazel was struggling to breathe. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to hear it. He stepped backwards, and would have tripped if Neeps had not caught him.

‘Rin’s blood, Ramachni!’ said Thasha. ‘That mucking thing’s language is a torture to Pazel, you know that!’

‘Peace, Thasha,’ said the mage. ‘The creature has pledged not to speak in his native tongue.’

‘But what a splendid gift, Pazel Pathkendle!’ said Thaulinin. ‘Not even the selk have ever learned to speak the language of the eguar.’

Pazel was shaking all over. ‘Never. . try,’ he said.

At that moment a shimmering vapour began to pour from the archway. It was exactly the same vapour that had engulfed Pazel on Bramian — and there, there was the smell: rank, acidic, burning his nostrils. Out it came: the sliding, slouching black creature, lizard-shaped, elephant-huge, hotter than the depths of a furnace. The row of spines along its back scraped the top of the archway, and above the black crocodile jaws its eyes glowed white- hot.

The creature emerged only halfway from the arch, then settled on its belly at the top of the stairs, with one great clawed foot dangling over the ledge. Within the cloud of vapours it was hard to look at steadily. But its eyes drilled down at them with an intensity that was almost physically painful.

‘Humans!’ it said, and its voice was like a boulder shifting. ‘Woken humans! Come forward, and do not fear me. It brings me joy to see you.’

‘Why is that, old father?’ said Ramachni.

‘So many reasons,’ said the eguar. ‘Because their form is fair. Because I sense friendship, even love, between them and their dlomic comrades, although the dlomu enslaved and killed them. Because to see the proof that their race is not extinguished gives me hope for my own.’

With each breath, the creature threw off waves of some great force; Pazel could not see anything, but felt them pulsing through his body. His mind was thrown into confusion: the eguar had spoken with undeniable courtesy, and yet it was so much like that other, a creature that had swallowed a man whole before his eyes.

‘They must pass swiftly on, Sitroth,’ said Lord Arim, ‘but I shall return within the hour, and will count myself blessed if you will talk with me awhile.’

‘You honour me, my lord,’ said the eguar, ‘but can they not tarry a little while? Since I cast my lot with the selk my blood is thinned. I crave company, and speech, although my kind would call me weak if they heard of it.’

‘Our kind calls you friend,’ said Arim. ‘But no, they cannot wait. The humans are castaways, and the one ship that can bear them home is drawing away even now. They must hurry to catch up with it while they can.’

The eguar lowered its head onto its forelegs. ‘That need I understand. The fate of the castaway is hard. Go, then, humans, and seek your ship.’

Pazel dared another glance at those burning eyes. Dumbfounded, he realised that the terrifying creature was lonely, starved for companionship of its own kind or any other. It had allied with the selk, and been changed — as they themselves had, perhaps. For just an instant he felt tempted to speak to the creature in its own tongue. But no, that was impossible: eguar put whole speeches into single, unimaginably complicated words. On Bramian, just hearing one of them had felt like being screamed at for an hour by a mob. Trying to form such words might just drive him mad.

But he could speak to it in the common tongue.

‘I wish-’ he said aloud, sputtering (what in Pitfire did he wish?). ‘Oh, credek — that is, I wish you could be happy.’

Happy? Neda and Neeps were both staring at him, incredulous. The selk warriors looked simply astonished. Slowly, the eguar turned its enormous head in Pazel’s direction. Black lids closed slowly over the searing eyes, opened again. It spoke.

‘When my grandfather first took this spire in his claws, little eel, the world beneath it was still a tomb of ice. He lived in the long, terrible ages before any creature with hands yet walked the earth. In his day the Gorgonoths still crawled, who ground the bones of the earth in their teeth, and cut the chasms of the sea. And then in my father’s day the world caught fire, and ashes rained from heaven for a century; but he waited, and new trees grew, and Urmesu the Bear emerged from her cave and prowled the forests of the South.

‘I can see through their eyes: I can examine the world that was. Even now I look, and see that cold star