you ragtag insurgents.’
‘I notice you haven’t left,’ Caldason observed wryly. ‘It’s not too late to get out even now, you know.’
‘So you keep saying. Want to get rid of me?’
‘No, but it’s not your fight. You shouldn’t feel compelled to stay.’
‘Forcing me to do anything I don’t want to do isn’t easy, Reeth. And as I understand it, it wasn’t your fight either at the outset. No, I think I’ll stay. For now, at least. I’ve a certain curiosity about how things will turn out. Anyway, I always did favour the underdog and hopeless situations.’
Caldason smiled. His initial opinion of the man had been turned on its head these past few months.
‘This is all beside the point,’ Darrok continued, ‘and I’ve got something to tell you. As you know, we decided to undertake the island’s first census. Well, not much more than a headcount really, but we just got the tally and I thought you’d find it interesting.’
‘I certainly would,’ Serrah confirmed.
‘The survivors of the Great Betrayal who managed to get here, including you, Reeth and Kutch, along with the Resistance pathfinders already installed and my people, amounted to just under two and a half thousand. We’ve lost a little short of a hundred since to pirate raids and natural causes. But we’ve gained, too. In the weeks after you arrived we had quite an influx of stragglers. Near as we can tell, the total now stands at a bit over three thousand seven hundred.’
‘That’s more than I expected,’ Caldason admitted.
‘Me too. And we’re still seeing the odd boatload coming in, though it’s a trickle now as getting here’s so dangerous.’
‘How does that figure break down?’ Serrah asked.
‘Unbalanced. Which could be a problem for the future. Assuming this place has a future. Approximately two thousand six hundred are men. Women amount to just about an even thousand. The remaining hundred are children, including babes in arms. Good news on the men is that all but around sixty of them are in their prime and capable of fighting.’
‘Do you have any idea how many people it’d take to defend this place?’
‘From a full-scale invasion of the island by either empire? Oh, about twenty to thirty thousand. Minimum.’
‘Damn their eyes!’ Serrah spat.
‘Who?’
‘Whoever it was who betrayed the Resistance and put us in this position.’
‘I think we’d all go along with that.’
‘If we live through this, and if I ever find out who did it, I’ll enjoy cutting their fucking throat,’ she vowed. ‘Slowly.’
‘You might have to stand in line,’ Darrok advised.
Caldason steered them back to the question of defence. ‘But the force we have can hold off the pirates, can’t it? Assuming they don’t attack in greater numbers than they have been?’
‘Probably.’
‘And we’ve had no word of Rintarah or Gath Tampoor mustering invasion fleets?’
‘As far as we know they’re not. Though we’re basing that on reports from latecomers drifting in, of course. We can’t be sure.’ He regarded Caldason quizzically. ‘What’s your point?’
‘If I don’t act soon I’ll never finish what I started.’
‘The Clepsydra,’ Serrah stated flatly.
He nodded.
‘Is this the right time, Reeth?’
‘It may be the only time.’ He saw the anxiety in her eyes. ‘This is really important to me, Serrah.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that. I’m just wondering how practical it is. A lot’s changed since you learned about the Source.’
‘Not for me.’
‘How can you be sure this Clepsydra thing isn’t a myth?’ Darrok chipped in.
‘I can’t. But it’s the only chance I have of a cure.’
‘Do you know how to find it? Or how it’ll lead to the grimoire or whatever it is you’re looking for? As I understand it, the Clepsydra’s on an islet, not much more than a speck in the ocean, along with a hundred others.’
‘Phoenix showed me maps. I think I can find it. As to the Source, whatever it may be…I’ll just have to take my chances with that, too.’
‘Nobody could stop you, of course, and I certainly wouldn’t want to. But you’re going to have to persuade the council to spare a ship and a crew. That’s unlikely in present circumstances, I’d say.’
‘I can be very persuasive.’
‘I’m so afraid you’ll be disappointed,’ Serrah said.
‘More than I have been?’ He softened, smiled. ‘Until just lately.’
She brightened, and smiled back.
‘You’ll be going together?’ Pallidea wondered.
Serrah looked to her man. ‘Reeth knows better than to try it without me.’
Darrok gave a gritty laugh. ‘Never thought I’d see you blush, Serrah.’
She made a suggestion concerning where he could put his hovering saucer, bringing a grin to Pallidea’s lips, a rare sight.
The snow was getting heavier. Somebody had planted a scorpion insignia on top of a nearby hillock, and the green pennant fluttered noisily in the bitter wind.
‘Whatever you decide, Reeth,’ Serrah declared, wrapping her cloak tighter, ‘you know I’ll back you. But I hope we can do something about Kinsel first.’
‘I won’t go until we do.’
‘Good. You know, Tanalvah told me something about Kinsel from when he was a boy that I’ve never mentioned to you. His father was arrested by the authorities. Some trumped-up charge, apparently. They forced him into slave labour, and then the army. It killed him. And it really struck me, and Tan too, I think, how that’s so similar to what’s happened to Kinsel himself. Like father, like son. Only we can’t let him end up the same way, can we?’
‘He deserves our help,’ Darrok decided. ‘You and I should talk this over, Reeth.’
‘That was my thought. Tell me, assuming it is Kinsel out there, and Vance has him, what do you make of the singing?’
‘Oh, you’d be surprised. For a man who acts like a savage, Vance has some unexpectedly cultured tastes.’
‘You think he’d be indulging them during a raid?’
‘You don’t know him, Reeth. He’s perfectly capable of something like that. To add a note of drama to the proceedings perhaps, though the gods know they seemed dramatic enough to me at the time. Or to cosset himself against our victory. He’s unpredictable. He could simply have been taunting us.’
‘You mean he might know about the connection between us and Kinsel?’
‘Who can say? After time on a galley, and left to Vance’s tender mercies, your friend might be made to reveal anything.’
‘The CIS’s torturers couldn’t break him. Or the paladins.’
Darrok raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m impressed. A brave man.’
‘I’ve often wondered,’ Serrah said, ‘why they sentenced Kinsel to the galleys rather than just executing him.’
‘You need to understand the nature of our rulers,’ Darrok offered. ‘It could have been a sop to the masses. A way of showing that insurgence won’t be tolerated, but without the stigma of actually being seen to put a popular man to death. Politics plays a big part in these decisions. Given the character of our self-appointed leaders, it was as likely to have been pure sadism. They had to know his end would be lingering and painful.’
‘That sounds like the bastards,’ Serrah remarked.
Darrok absently brushed snowflakes from his tunic and looked to the sky, blinking. ‘This is getting too rough. We’ll have to call off the exterior work, damn it. Let’s get inside.’
