Kelos raised his hands. The Llothriall's masts rose from the deck and the sails unfurled. He grabbed a speaking tube and shouted down to Emuel to begin the song. As the deck shuddered beneath him, Kelos brought the Llothriall about, swiftly cutting a path towards the Faith vessels.
He ran to the prow as they neared, raising his arms and shouting, 'Stop! You're killing them!'
Perhaps it was Kelos's plea, perhaps it was the realisation that the Faith's fugitive ship was amongst them, but the bombardment finally came to a halt.
By the time the Llothriall reached the fleet, more of the Faith's ships had succumbed and only three remained. Kelos realised then that this must be a suicide squad of some kind, sent to enact Makennon's vengeance with no hope of returning.
As they came alongside, Kelos extended the Llothriall's protective field to encompass the diminished fleet, before leaping onto a neighbouring deck, only to be immediately seized by men in robes.
'Let go of me! What are you doing?'
'You are a fugitive of the Faith. We are detaining you in the name of the Anointed Lord.'
'For god's sake, we're trying to stop you killing the Calma.'
'The Calma? What are the Calma?'
As if summoned, a Calma vessel surfaced nearby. A door dilated open in its topside and out stepped Silus and Katya, followed by several of the creatures. The craft drifted towards the ship and the small party climbed onto deck.
'Those are the Calma.' Kelos said, nodding towards the creatures. 'Now why did Makennon send you to kill them?'
A man with the symbol of the Faith tattooed onto his face backed away from the visitors, his hand going to the dagger at his belt, but before he could wield it, one of his shipmates had knocked it from his grasp.
'No. Leave them. They're not your enemy, the Chadassa are.'
'The Chadassa,' Kelos said. 'What do you know about them?'
'They have been attacking the Twilight coast. Makennon's inquisitor — '
'Fitch?'
'Yes, Querilous Fitch. Through his methods of interrogation he managed to get one of the Chadassa to give up the location of its base here. Makennon's mages teleported us in to destroy it.'
'You'd give your lives for her?'
'Gladly, it is the most holy duty one can perform.'
'Then I'm afraid,' Kelos said, 'that your colleagues have died in vain. The Chadassa citadel does not lie below you. It is the Calma who reside here and they are peaceful, no threat to Twilight. The Chadassa have tricked you, sold you a lie. As you have been destroying the Calma's home a new breed of the Chadassa are marching on Twilight.'
'Lord of All, what have we done?'
'Is there any way of getting a message back to Makennon?' Kelos said. 'If Twilight is pre-warned then they may be able to defeat the remaining Land Walkers.'
'Spalding, our mage, should be able to help you reach her. Spalding?' The man with the tattooed face stepped forwards. 'Take this man below. He wishes to converse with the Anointed Lord.'
Spalding sketched the symbol of the Faith in the air, before nodding to Kelos to follow him.
An intense chemical smell emanating from the gun decks- a marriage of bad eggs and burning hair — hit Kelos as he followed the mage down a short flight of narrow steps. Compared to the Llothriall, the Faith ship was squalid and cramped. Kelos's shoulders brushed the sides of the narrow corridor, and twice he stumbled in the candlelit gloom, falling over ropes and thudding into crates. Eventually they reached a box room, the walls of which had been daubed with the symbol of the Faith. In the centre stood a pedestal supporting a bowl of water.
Kelos shuffled in beside Spalding and looked up at him expectantly.
'So, are we going to talk to her, or did you just want to get close to me?'
Spalding looked down at Kelos with something like contempt before waving his hand over the bowl.
A soft glow suffused the room and Makennon's face came into focus upon the water.
'Spalding, is it done?' Katherine Makennon said. 'If so you have my blessings. May the Lord of All take you into his arms.'
Spalding nodded at Kelos and the mage leaned over the bowl.
'Hello Katherine.'
Shock briefly crossed Makennon's features only to be quickly replaced by her usual cold expression.
'Kelos. You're not dead.'
'No, I'm not. Although your fanatics have been doing their best to rectify that.'
'Do you still have my ship?'
'Yes, and we'd like to keep it if it's all the same to you. Anyway, this isn't a social chat Katherine. You have sent your suicide squad on a wild fish chase. The Chadassa aren't here, they've tricked you. Your boys have been killing the wrong creatures.'
'Kelos, if you're trying to sell me on some- '
'No, listen to me for once! The Chadassa are going to launch another attack against Twilight, but this time with a new breed of creature. We managed to destroy the majority of them, but some got away. Now, if you prepare your best Swords you have a chance of defeating them, but you have to mobilise now. Drag Pontaine into this if you have to. The Land Walkers must not be allowed to reach the World's Ridge Mountains.'
'How do I know that you're not spinning me lies?'
'Tell her Spalding, you've seen the Calma.'
For a moment he thought that the fanatic wasn't going to say anything — was perhaps mute — but after staring at Kelos as though he were going to kill him, he leaned over the bowl and said, 'It's true. The Chadassa are not here. There are… other creatures.'
'Makennon — Anointed One — we can use the Llothriall to fight the Chadassa,' Kelos said. 'After all, wasn't that what the ship was intended for all along, to be a holy weapon? And we have some of your most fanatical followers to fight beside us.'
Katherine Makennon's head turned to one side and Kelos could hear her speaking to someone out of view. After a moment she turned back to them.
'When you have defeated the remaining Chadassa forces you will return the Llothriall to us.'
'Like f — ' Kelos caught himself in time. 'Of course Anointed Lord. We shall return directly to Turnitia once the battle is won. We shall, of course, be treated with leniency?'
'Goodbye Kelos.'
The image in the bowl dissolved.
They were going to need a bigger boat, Kelos considered, as he ushered the remaining Final Faith fanatics on board the Llothriall. At this rate, if they picked up any more refugees they would have to sleep three to a bunk. He had no idea what they were going to do with them once the battle was over. Makennnon had demanded that he return the Llothriall to Turnitia, but Kelos had absolutely no intention of doing so. He had only warned her of the impending assault by the Land Walkers because he had dreaded the consequences otherwise.
As they descended in the Llothriall to the Calma city the last of the fires were dying out. Kelos almost wished that the shroud of smoke had remained, because now that he could see the extent of the devastation he realised what little hope they had against the Chadassa. All but a handful of the glass domes had been shattered — though Kelos's horror was somewhat alleviated when he saw that the dome Dunsany had been recuperating in still stood — while the rest of the city seemed to have melted into the seabed. Within the soot stained ruins he could just make out the few surviving Calma, pulling the dead and dying from the rubble. Silus was out there already, doing what he could to help. Kelos would have offered his own assistance but, as he pulled on an underwater exploration suit, he had thoughts for only one man.
Dunsany.
Once out of the ship he headed for the glass dome. There Kelos could see several Calma working on sealing a crack in the structure's side, a stream of bubbles steadily rising from the fissure.
He stepped through the entrance membrane to find himself ankle deep in water.
'Dunsany!'
There was no reply. The only sound was the steady trickle of the sea as it poured into the dome. Ahead of
