The Night of the Swarm

30

15 Fuinar 942

303rd day from Etherhorde

Thasha’s brush with death had several immediate consequences. One was an end, for the moment at least, to any sign of division between Neeps and Marila. Pazel could not tell if they were truly reconciled, if the shock of nearly losing Thasha had made Neeps wake up to the danger of losing Marila as well; or if they were both simply making an effort to believe that his heart was not torn. Perhaps Neeps did not know himself. For now Pazel was simply glad to see him trying.

Thasha had also managed to devastate Hercol. This second encounter with Diadrelu had come only through Thasha’s lips (in two senses), and yet it proved harder to surmount. In the wilderness he had faced new tasks and dangers by the hour. On the Chathrand, others took the lead, and no matter how busy he kept himself with shipboard labours, his mind was free to brood. He was kind and grateful to Thasha, but his mood clearly darkened in her presence.

In a broader sense, of course, Thasha’s news had brought hope to them all. They had more than a vast island to aim for, now: they had a landing place, or at least a sign pointing the way.

Neda confirmed at once that the Arrowhead was real. ‘Tabruc Derelem Na Nuruth, we call it,’ she told Pazel. ‘The great standing stone that ought to fall, but doesn’t. Cayer Vispek told us of it once. He said it was a holy place before the rise of the Shaggat. The elders of the Faith sometimes went there to die.’

‘Die how? Is there a great shaft, an abyss, like Thasha’s talking about?’ Neda shrugged. ‘After the Shaggat’s rise we were forbidden to speak of the place. Cayer Vispek was bending the rules even to speak about the Arrowhead. He said there was a legend that the great rock would fall when the Unseen takes its gaze from Alifros, and leaves us alone in the night.’

Pazel asked if she knew where along that massive shoreline they should seek the Arrowhead. Neda shook her head, then laughed. ‘Ask the Shaggat,’ she said, ‘if you can get the marines to stand aside.’

Ott and Haddismal had kept the Shaggat locked in the manger, hidden away from everyone but a few hand-picked Turachs. ‘I could, maybe,’ said Pazel. ‘Haddismal’s not spiteful like Ott; he just likes to win. And he might want to question the man himself. He doesn’t speak a word of Mzithrini.’

‘The Shaggat doesn’t speak a word of sane,’ said Neda. ‘He’s the devil.’

‘Maybe he’s calmed down,’ said Pazel. ‘And you’re a beautiful woman. He might drop his guard.’

She looked at him blankly. Then she turned and showed him her tattooed neck. ‘See the hawk? That’s a sfvantskor emblem. I’m not a woman to the Shaggat Ness. I’m an enemy, a heretic, a spawn of the Whore of the Third Pit. You don’t talk to the likes of me. You kill us and mutilate our bodies and put what’s left on stakes by the roadside. And I feel the same way about him, do you understand? The only talking I’ll ever do is with a blade.’

The ship ran west, and the Red Storm weakened further. Captain Fiffengurt kept double lookouts aloft, and ordered redundant inspections of every element of their fighting arsenal. Still the grey-green seas lay empty.

‘Rose built the fire-control teams into a force like you’ve never seen, after the Behemoth launched those blazing monstrosities at us,’ he told Pazel, shortly after Thasha’s ordeal, ‘but I hope we never put ’em to the test. Wood and tar still burn, and flaxen sails as well.’

As for the wine of Agaroth, Thasha’s friends urged her desperately to take Dri’s advice and pour it out, swallowing only the dregs. ‘In two days you’ll collapse again,’ said Pazel. ‘You can’t put yourself through that.’

‘Or you,’ said Thasha, ‘and I won’t. I’ll take another sip in plenty of time.’

‘And delay the poison by two more days? What’s the point? What if we drop the bottle and it shatters?’

‘Guess I’ll lick the deck, won’t I?’

No one could change her mind: they would still be prisoners in Stath Balfyr, she observed, if she had never dared to drink. But that night the choices before her loomed stark and grim, and in the morning she took Ramachni aside.

‘You said you thought of putting me to sleep. To slow the poison.’

‘I did.’

‘Could you still do it? Could I sleep until we need the power of the Stone again. For days, or weeks?’

Ramachni seemed disinclined to answer, but Thasha would not be put off. At last he turned his black eyes on her fully. ‘It can be done,’ he said, ‘but you will get no closer to freeing Erithusme in your sleep.’

‘Why not? I found other answers in my sleep. Felthrup learned volumes in his sleep.’

‘Felthrup is a dreaming prodigy. And you found your answers on the shores of death, not natural sleep. But we are confusing the matter, Thasha. I want that poison out of you.’

His concern touched her, and then gave her a fright. Night Gods. He doesn’t trust his mistress either.

Still, she did not dispose of the wine. The hours ticked by, and her debates with her friends became arguments. They begged and cajoled, and even tried to shame her. At one point Neeps and Pazel marched her into her old cabin, demanded the silver key, and opened the safe where the Nilstone lay.

‘Erithusme had this idea that we could never succeed without her magic,’ said Pazel. ‘You’re beginning to sound just like her. Use the mucking Stone, then. Pour off the wine, drink the dregs and use it one last time. Maybe you really can part the Red Storm.’

Thasha held the bottle in the crook of her arm. ‘I’ll drink before the night is out.’

‘Another little sip,’ said Pazel, accusing.

‘The dregs will still be there, damn it all! I’ll drink them when I have to. Don’t worry about that.’

Neeps shook his head, grinning, furious. ‘I love you, nutter girl. But it takes gall to say don’t worry, straight to Pazel’s face.’

Thasha wondered if the tarboys could possibly make things harder. ‘Forgive me,’ she said, ‘I’m not trying to-’

‘No,’ said Pazel. ‘I won’t forgive you, if you get sick again.’

He closed the safe and walked out of the cabin. Neeps looked at her a moment, then followed. Thasha sat on her old bed, clutching the ancient bottle, feeling the cold bite her fingers. Dusk was here; the poison had struck at sunrise. She had some twelve hours left.

‘SAIL! ABAFT THE PORTSIDE BEAM! SAIL, SAIL!’

It was the alarm they’d all waited for, and dreaded. When it came Pazel was aloft himself, tightening bolts along the main topsail yard in the weird red glow. He had no telescope, and could see no ship. Above him, the lookout howled: ‘A five-master, she is! Five masts and thirteen miles!’

Those last words nearly made Pazel fall from the yard. Just thirteen miles? Was he sleeping? Rose would skin that man alive!

He raced down the mast. Below, men were pouring onto the deck, and Fegin was striking the ship’s bell as though trying to break it. When Fiffengurt emerged from Rose’s cabin, however, he did not run, but only climbed with swift decorum to the mizzen yard. He was a new captain, performing the role of the unrul ed leader, and everyone knew it and expected no less.

Pazel was running aft when Kirishgan appeared out of the crowd. ‘It is the Death’s Head,’ he said softly. ‘Macadra has found us at last.’

‘But thirteen miles? How did the lookouts miss her?’

Kirishgan gestured at the Red Storm. ‘Our back is to the bonfire, Pazel. She came out of the dark. We were dazzled, though we did not know it.’

Pazel looked at him, stunned. It was such a simple thing, but who aboard had ever sailed alongside a bonfire? ‘And now, credek, they have the wind advantage too — it’s turned in our faces again. Is that Macadra’s doing?’

‘Very likely,’ said Kirishgan. ‘She did as much when she first tried to take the Promise.’

‘But this time she’s flanking us. She’ll close that gap in no time.’

‘Unless we find our gap first,’ said Kirishgan.

They hurried to the quarterdeck, through the multitude of rushing, frightened sailors. Fiffengurt’s orders had gone out: skysails, studding sails, a third jib strung from the spankermast. Pazel knew it could not add much to their speed. Nothing could, save a change of wind or an about-face, or some massive jettison of supplies.

Mr Coote was bent over the tonnage hatch. ‘Gunnery! Fire brigades! Come on, lads! Move like you mean to save this ship!’ Coote looked too old to bear the duties of a bosun. And we’ve no quartermaster, no no second mate. Fiffengurt’s running this ship with half a team.

Pazel’s friends began to congregate around the Silver Stair. Marila was holding Felthrup; Neeps was holding Marila. Ramachni and asha stood a little apart, the mage perched atop a 48-pounder cannon that had just been run out through a gunnery door in the portside rail. The others were handing around Isiq’s fine telescope, examining the Death’s Head and quietly cursing.

Because his mind-fit had struck before the first attack, Pazel had never glimpsed Macadra’s vessel. What he saw when his turn came chilled his blood. e Death’s Head truly was a second Chathrand, but a Chathrand in terrifying disguise. From the water line to her fighting-tops she was armoured: crude, thick skins of cast iron enveloping the hull, which showed through only here and there. Even her figurehead (a great black bird) was made of metal. Huge and mysterious devices cluttered her deck, some throwing off long cattails of orange sparks that scattered on the wind.

‘Are those. . weapons?’

‘They are,’ said Hercol. ‘We saw them in action from the deck of Nolcindar’s vessel. We had good luck then: I doubt her weapons were precise enough to wound the little Promise without dropping her to the sea floor, along with the prize. Today Macadra’s reckoning may be different.’

‘But take heart,’ said Felthrup. ‘However vile, however truly sanguinary those weapons prove, they are nothing compared to the Behemoth. That was like being attacked by a whole city. And yet we survived.’

‘The Behemoth was slow, Felthrup,’ said Marila.

‘And this time we are,’ said Hercol. ‘Fiffengurt will blame himself for our predicament, but what else could he have done? We had nowhere to hide, except in the bay of Stath Balfyr. We could not sail north, and didn’t dare head south again.’

‘So all Macadra had to do was guess whether we’d turn east or west?’ said Marila.

‘Right, and that was simple,’ said Neeps. ‘She can tell that the Storm’s paler to the west, and she must know we mean to pass through. This is an ugly business, mates.’

Pazel crossed the deck to the 48-pounder cannon, where Thasha stood with Ramachni. The mage was still perched atop the gun, looking southwards, and holding exceptionally still. Thasha put a finger to her lips. Ramachni was up to something. They waited, leaning slightly together, as gun crews stormed around them and topmen scrambled in the rigging like nimble cats and battle-netting was stretched overhead.

At last Ramachni turned from his vigil. He looked at them sombrely. ‘We must prepare,’ he said.

‘For a firefight?’ said Pazel. ‘But that’s exactly what we’re doing.’

‘Not just for a firefight. We must prepare for slaughter. Macadra has no plans to capture us. If she offers clemency, it will be a ruse to secure our surrender. She wants us dead.’ He paused. ‘She also thinks the Chathrand will burn much longer than the Promise.’

‘You read her mind?’

‘The surface, Pazel. The outer thoughts and feelings, as Arunis did with many of you before his death. It could be a facade, or some other subtle ploy, but I doubt that. She is not in a subtle mood.’

‘Why does she care how long the Chathrand will burn?’ asked Thasha.

‘Because she is prepared to torch us entirely and then pluck the Nilstone from the flames.’

Pazel had a sense that the world was about to implode. As though they were all trapped in a crate and hearing the approach of some gigantic wheel. Thasha gave him a searching look. He dropped his eyes in shame.

‘Don’t say it. I was wrong. I’m glad you still have some wine.’

‘Can you stop her, Ramachni?’ Thasha asked.

‘Stop her? I would stand some chance, if it came to a duel. But that hardly matters now. I cannot protect us from the Death’s Head, and its terrible weapons. Still, we have gained one advantage: this close to the Storm, Macadra will not likely be able to harness the winds, for the Storm itself is one great weather-spell, and mightier than any she could cast.’

A sudden cry from above made Pazel flinch with apprehension. This time, however, the news was better than he or anyone had dared to hope. The gap had been sighted, some twenty miles dead ahead.

The men cheered, though the terror of the enemy was great in them. Pazel took Thasha’s hand and drew it quickly to his lips. He caught Neeps’ eye from across the deck, and saw a new light there, an almost unbearable hope.

Fiffengurt descended from the mast and made straight for the quarter deck, shouting as he went: ‘To the braces with your teams, gentle men! We shall come about, full to starboard! Mr Elkstem, lean on that wheel!’

There was a new explosion of activity; five hundred men attacked the ropes. Thasha looked at Pazel, bewildered. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘Tacking closer to the Storm, but damned if I know why.’

‘We’ll go faster downwind.’

‘Of course, but how far? We have to break east or west eventually.’

Fiffengurt climbed the ladder and helped Elkstem at the wheel. For many hours they had been obliged to follow a zigzag stitch across the seas. Exhausting tacks, endless reversals: but no ship could sail straight into a headwind. There was always, moreover, the danger of drifting into the Storm. Now Fiffengurt had them running straight for it.

‘Death’s Head trimming sails to match, Captain,’ boomed Fegin. ‘She’s got keen eyes, that witch.’

‘Right you are, first mate. Mr Coote, take thirty men to the cable tiers. I want extra stays on all five masts, coiled and ready to deploy. But keep ’em on the deck below, hard by the hatches but out of sight.’

‘The Turachs won’t like it, Captain — all that rope in their space.’

‘Perhaps they’d prefer six hundred enemy boarders in their space, bosun. You may enquire.’

The Chathrand sliced a clean, sharp path towards the Storm. Pazel and Thasha went below with Coote’s thirty and helped wrestle the vast, awkward ropes up to the main deck. Pazel had the uncomfortable feeling that the effort was pointless, that Fiffengurt was merely trying to appear as though he had a plan. The winds were steady, but hardly strong enough to call for doubling the mast supports.

‘About six miles to the Storm front, Captain,’ shouted Fegin. ‘And still sixteen or more to the gap, if it’s really there. Enemy holding steady behind.’

When they returned to the topdeck Ramachni was speaking with Kirishgan.

‘Your captain and his ship are as one,’ said the selk. ‘See how the men at each station look to their watch-captain, and the latter to the quarterdeck? They are speaking without words. Even Nolcindar would be impressed.’

‘Fiffengurt’s spent most of his life on this ship, the same as Captain Rose,’ said Pazel.

‘Which of them persuaded augrongs to join the crew?’ asked Kirishgan.

He nodded in the direction of the No. 4 hatch. Pazel smiled. Refeg and Rer, the enormous anchor lifters, were slouching to points on either side of the mainmast. The sailors smiled at them too, from a distance.

‘Rose found them, and they’re worth their weight in gold,’ said Pazel, ‘but I can’t imagine what they’re doing up here. They’ve never helped out with the rigging before.’

‘We’ve never been so short-handed before,’ said Thasha.

‘Quite so,’ said Ramachni. ‘We may need every advantage left to us. I too must beg your pardon, Thasha: you were right to keep the wine. For once I am glad of your stubborn-’

He broke off, his fur standing on end. His eyes snapped to the quarterdeck.

A figure stood there, facing Elkstem and Fiffengurt, who recoiled in horror. A tall woman, chalk-white of skin, so gaunt and narrow-boned that she appeared almost stretched. Her eyes were fixed on the captain, and a long, bony finger was pointing at his heart. Pazel knew at once that he was looking at Macadra.

Ramachni leaped from the cannon and raced towards the quarterdeck. Pazel and Thasha chased after him, though Pazel had no idea what they might be preparing to do. Up the ladder they rushed. The hideous woman turned her head and studied them — with recognition, Pazel thought, at least in Thasha’s case. But she’s never seen Thasha before. What does she sense?

Ramachni stood between the sorceress and the wheel, teeth chattering with rage.

‘Macadra Hyndrascorm,’ he said, ‘we have slain your Plazic servants, your devil-dogs, your Thrandal ogress and the demon for whose services you mortified your flesh. We have slain your foul brother Arunis. Do you think you will be spared, if you impede us?’

Her brother! thought Pazel.

Macadra threw her head back violently, as though her neck had snapped. High laughter rang across the deck.

‘Impede us! Do you mark his words, Arunis? I had best break off the attack and run for Bali Adro, and leave the Nilstone in the keeping of Erithusme’s mascot, and this ship of the diseased, the murderous, the mad.’ She lowered her head and pointed at Fiffengurt. ‘Turn the ship away from the Storm, Captain Fiffengurt! There need be no killing today. Strike your sails and await my vessel, and we will spare all your lives.’

Pazel had a great urge to shout at her: No you won’t! But Thasha squeezed his arm, and almost imperceptibly shook her head. Pazel shuddered at the recklessness of what he’d nearly done. For what if Macadra didn’t know that Ramachni could hear her thoughts? Why give away an advantage like that?

‘Yes,’ said Ramachni, ‘you must break off the attack, and run. There is power here to destroy you. Very soon it will reveal itself, and strike.’

Macadra sneered. ‘With the Nilstone? I think not. Across the Ruling Sea you carried it. Through the wilds of Efaroc, the hell of the Infernal Forest, the snows of Urakan. And never in all that time did the Nilstone serve you. Even Arunis failed to wield it, save in his last suicidal hour. Why keep it, Captain? What a danger and a horror it has been! Give it to me, and I will heal your people and send you benevolent currents to waft you home.’

‘Aye, madam,’ said Fiffengurt, ‘and when killers creep in at my window, I’ll put knives in their hands.’

‘A killer has crept in at your window, old fool. Turn your vessel, or watch me destroy it.’

Pazel risked a glance ahead. What was Fiffengurt doing? They were flying fast towards the Red Storm: could he possibly mean to sail straight in?

Ramachni looked back over his shoulder. ‘I love an albatross, don’t you, Captain?’

‘An albatross?’ Fiffengurt was startled only for a moment. ‘Yes, sir, I do adore ’em. But where’s a rat when you need one?’

‘Here I am!’ Felthrup squirmed in a frenzy. Hercol took him from Marila’s arms and raised him to the quarterdeck, where he scrambled to the captain’s feet.

‘Felthrup here is my negotiator,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘If you want the Nilstone, talk with him.’

‘If you want to live, turn your ship around, and clear the deck of these rodents.’

‘Rodent,’ said Felthrup. ‘Singular. My lord Ramachni is a mustelid, and specifically a mink. Now pay attention, sorceress! Without my consent the Stone will remain for ever beyond your reach.’

Without a glance at Felthrup, Macadra said, ‘No place is beyond my reach.’

‘But what an immodest trickster you are! Why, the Storm itself threatens to snatch away your prize. And the seabed? Perhaps you hope you can recover it from such depths, but surely you have some doubt? Otherwise, why didn’t you burn the Promise to ashes, when the Stone was aboard?’

‘I saw no reason to kill,’ said Macadra.

‘You lie, but what of it? However great your reach, some doors are still closed to you. The door of the Orfuin Club, for example.’

Macadra froze. Slowly, for the first time, she turned her gaze on Felthrup.

‘Yes, unpleasant person!’ he said. ‘I was there, and watching you. I do not fear the River of Shadows. And within this ship are doors to lands you do not know, and will never find. Erithusme built some; others were made by the Bali Adro shipwrights, and still others were accidents, fissures opened by too much powerful spellcraft in a single place. Burn the Chathrand and you destroy the doors. Will you gamble that you can steal the Nilstone away from us before we hide it in another world? If so, you have less sense than many a rodent I could name.’

Pazel was shocked. Felthrup! When did you become so fierce?

But Macadra only laughed again. ‘Rat! You have surprised me. There may be a place for you at court in Bali Adro, if you are wise enough to rethink your allegiances. Quick wit is not something to be wasted-’

‘Oh no, no indeed! Consider the parable of the nine golden-’

‘-but we both know your bluffis empty. You cannot take the Nilstone through one of those doors. Living flesh is one thing, but death takes its leave from Alifros by one path only, and that is through the River of Shadows. Of course, that is why you are making for Gurishal. That was Erithusme’s plan from the start.’

Felthrup pinched his eyes shut, rubbed his paws against his face. He was gasping a little; Pazel feared he had been beaten. Then the rat’s eyes opened wide and he shrilled, louder than ever:

‘How gravely, grossly, wantonly you wade in error, sorceress! Have you forgotten your great-uncle, Ikassam the Firelord? He knew a thing or two about journeys by night!’

‘He taught me the art, vermin. But how did you learn of him?’

‘In a book, in a book, a special book you may not borrow. Ikassam the Firelord, the tamer of beasts. His brother was your grandfather, and said that you should be hanged, and instead you hanged him. His father crossed the Ruling Sea and married the queen of Opalt, and their grandson had the tail of a pig.’

‘Turn your ship, Captain,’ said Macadra.

‘You may ask what this has to do with giving you the Nilstone,’ Felthrup went on, nearing her and gesticulating with his paws. ‘Everything, everything! For who are you but the product of your history? And who are we but the servants of our own? And this transaction, this epochal surrender you seek — someone must understand it, record it, write it down for the sake of history. And what of Sathek?’

‘Sathek?’ shrieked Macadra, staring down at him again.

‘Yes, yes — no. Sathek himself is not the point. But his Sceptre! Who can forget? Your Raven Society tried to steal it, just as you did the Nilstone, three times in six centuries, and Arunis makes four, last year on the Isle of Simja. He had a demonic servant too, and sent it to make off with the Sceptre, but instead our wonderful Neda used it to bludgeon the little demon to death — I was under the chair, the chair!’

Felthrup was squealing and hopping and running circles around her boots. Macadra seemed appalled and transfixed.

‘Orfuin’s chair, I was beneath it I say! Not a rat, not a rodent, I was the little wriggly thing called an yddek, Arunis called me a masterpiece of ugliness, Orfuin invited you to gingerbread and you ignored him, you went on scheming, but you schemed in bad faith, bad faith, bringing two servants with you instead of coming alone, now again you make promises, how can we ignore such evidence, Macadra, some of us have a sense of history and this, this is a HISTORY OF DUPLICITOUS INTRIGUE-’

Macadra wrenched her eyes away from Felthrup. Pazel did the same, and only then did he realise that five hundred sailors had quietly set their hands to the ropes. Pitfire, thought Pazel, the wind-

‘HEAVE BOYS IT’S NOW OR NEVER!’ screamed Fiffengurt.

The wind was turning, swinging round to blow from the east, and gaining strength by the second. Roaring in unison, the men hurled themselves at the bracelines, scrabbling for purchase on the heaving deck. The augrongs heaved alongside the humans, bellowing like bulls. The masts groaned; the huge squaresails turned; Fiffengurt and Elkstem all but leaped upon the wheel.

The Great Ship came violently about, rolling deep on her starboard quarter. ‘That’s what I like!’ cried Fiffengurt with a cockeyed grin. Men aloft swung like marionettes; those on deck seized the nearest fixed objects and held fast. Pazel snatched up Felthrup while Ramachni sheltered between Thasha’s feet. Only Macadra did not sway: her feet touched the boards so lightly she almost seemed to float like a tethered balloon.

The ship made her turn, levelled out, and began to fly downwind. ‘Shore up those stays, Fegin!’ roared the captain. ‘We’re in a ripper and we mean to ride ’er like one!’

Suddenly Macadra charged at Fiffengurt, hands raised before her like talons. But Ramachni was faster. He leaped from the deck straight at her. Just before his claws reached her, however, she vanished without a trace. Ramachni twisted in mid-air and landed on his feet.

‘Ha! I expected that. Macadra was never truly here: we were addressing a phantom. But her mind certainly was here — and what a fine job you did of keeping it occupied, Felthrup my lad. You need no weapon but words.’

‘Another minute and I should have been forced to improvise,’ said Felthrup.

‘But where did this mad wind come from?’ cried Pazel.

‘Ah, Pathkendle, you were distracted too!’ said Fiffengurt, laughing aloud. ‘We saw, didn’t we Ramachni? Two albatrosses. Two lovely birds moving like avenging angels, but hardly flapping their wings. Coasting, that is, due west along the edge of the storm. If we’re lucky, and I think we are, then we’ll find this wind’s gushing right through the gap ahead, like a breeze through a window.’

The ship was now racing west, and when the log was tossed the midshipman cried out their speed: eighteen knots.

‘Eighteen’s grand, but we’ll see twenty-eight when Fegin’s done, boys. There’s still two reefs to let out.’

‘The Death’s Head will catch the wind too, soon enough,’ said Kirishgan.

‘But she won’t catch us. Not before we reach that gap.’

A shout went, up; a hand pointed forward. There! Pazel saw it, twelve or thirteen miles out: a ragged, roiling edge to the scarlet light.

‘What if she follows us through the gap?’ asked Elkstem.

After a moment’s pause, Thasha said, ‘She won’t.’

She descended the quarterdeck ladder, and Pazel followed. Most of their friends were still gathered below. ‘Warn the crew,’ Thasha told them. ‘Tell everyone to brace for a shock. I’m going to put an end to this.’

‘Stay with her, Pathkendle,’ said Hercol.

The next moment a shock did come, although Thasha had nothing to do with it.

‘FIRE! FIRE! ENEMY ORDNANCE!’

Everyone groped for cover. Pazel glanced at the Death’s Head and found it wreathed in smoke. Then the sound reached them: clustered explosions, ten or twelve strong.

‘Hold fast to your stations!’ roared Fiffengurt, swinging his telescope skyward. ‘You can’t run, lads, you can only keep the blessed ship running! Think what Captain Rose would say if-’

He choked on the words. A look of disbelief washed over him. ‘Aloft there, lookout! Those are no fireballs! What in the Pits are they throwing?’

‘SWEET TEARS OF RIN, CAPTAIN! I CAN’T TELL YOU, BUT THEY’RE ALMOST-’

‘TAKE COVER! TAKE COVER!’

Something slammed into Pazel, lifting him right off his feet. It was Hercol. He had tackled Pazel and Thasha both, knocking them flat upon the deck. From above came a scream like cannon-fire — but not quite like cannon-fire. Pazel twisted his head around and looked up. Through the netting he saw a dozen black, undulating shapes fly over the Chathrand, scattershot. Then a roar went up from the topmen. A shadow fell. Close at hand something began to sizzle, and then Hercol gave an enormous lurch and rolled with Pazel and Thasha clutched tight in his arms.

They came to rest in a dogpile with Neeps and Neda and half a dozen sailors. Pazel looked back where they had lain. A huge, viscous black glob hung suspended in the battle-nets, eight feet above the deck. It smoked and stank of burning tar. Large droplets oozed and separated and fell bubbling upon the deck.

More cries from aloft. Pazel looked and saw that one of the projectiles had struck the main topsail and splattered like an enormous black egg.

Night Gods, what sort of weapon-?

Then he understood. The tar was running down the sail — and devouring it, like acid. It took just seconds: where the white flax had been there was a lengthening hole.

Fiffengurt stood waving his arms, howling: ‘Cut the mainsail free! Get it out of there!’

Too late: the sticky mass had reached the foot of the topsail. The cloth split. Black tar poured down upon the mainsail, the largest canvas on the ship.

Further forward, there were howls of pain. Another of the bombs had landed near the forecastle, coating some twenty men in scalding tar. Pazel shut his eyes. No hope. Their screams were like knives to his brain. A few men, near the edges, escaped by shedding their clothes or shoes. Others fell, upon their knees, or their faces.

‘Where are the Gods-damned fire-teams?’ bellowed Coote.

‘Thasha, Pathkendle: go!’ shouted Hercol. ‘We will do what we can here, but I fear it will not be enough. We have just lost half our speed.’

‘She’s going to lose more than speed,’ said Thasha. With that she was gone, racing down the Silver Stair, and Pazel was rising, stumbling after her, shouting her name.

‘Be careful, damn it!’

She was well ahead of him. Pazel wasn’t sure what he was afraid of — would she forget to drink the wine before she touched the Stone, would she hold it too long in her fury? — but he knew that if he wasn’t beside her in the crucial moment he would never forgive himself. Down the Silver Stair he plunged, through mobs of rushing sailors, through the Money Gate, along the passage of abandoned luxury chambers, through the invisible wall.

Thasha’s dogs were barking. She was already in the stateroom; she had left the door ajar.

‘Thasha, Thasha! Wait!’

She screamed. A wordless agony. Pazel thought his heart would stop. He flew into the chamber and thrashed towards her cabin, only to collide with her in the doorway as she tried to exit again, still screaming.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m a mucking fool, that’s what’s wrong! The key, the silver key! I can’t get to the Nilstone without it. Do you have it?’

‘Me?’

‘When I was poisoned, did you-’

‘No! I’ve never touched it!’

Thasha tore at her hair. ‘Marila. Oh Pitfire. I gave it to Marila — didn’t I?’

Back to the topdeck, faster than they had descended. The bombardment had stopped. Were they reloading? Heating more tar? Whatever had caused the delay, the Chathrand was still moving, however erratically, towards the gap. But now the Death’s Head had caught the ripping wind along the Storm’s edge, and was coming up behind them with terrible haste.

‘What do you mean you don’t have it? Marila!’

Thasha’s cry was soon echoed by Neeps, who seized his wife by the shoulders.

‘You can’t have mucking lost it!’

‘Lost it! I never had it!’

‘On the table! I saw it on the table by the biscuit tin!’

‘That was days ago, fool!’

What could they do? All four charged back to the stateroom, with Neda and Bolutu and Felthrup in tow. Pazel heard the first cannon-shots as he entered the chambers: the Death’s Head was close enough to try conventional fire, now. The dogs howled, frightened less by the explosions than the onslaught of people (shouting, frustrated, furious) who set about tearing the stateroom apart. Pazel himself did not know where they had all come from: Mr Druffle was here, bug-eyed, reeking of rum; Myett and Ensyl were searching every inch of the floor.

‘It has to be in Thasha’s cabin!’

‘Or the master bedroom. We were all there, she was dying-’

‘Someone fetched towels, where did they come from?’

‘The washroom-’

‘Chadfallow’s medical bag-’

‘If you say biscuit tin one more time-’

Thasha was already holding the bottle of the Agaroth wine. ‘Just calm down and think,’ she shouted. ‘Who does remember holding it, that night?’

CRASH. Horror. A direct hit on the wardroom, just below. Glass, chairs, timbers atomised; Pazel felt the shot burst through the compartment wall and carry on into the lower gun deck, heard the screams of the men on the chaser guns. They had yet to fire a single volley.

Another hit: the rigging, this time. The Chathrand pitched; the room heaved skyward. Thasha stumbled, cradling the bottle to her chest.

‘Gods damn it, people! Where’s that key? You can’t all have never touched it!’

BOOM. A third hit, horribly close, maybe just above the master bedroom. From the latter, Bolutu and Neda cried out. Through the open doorway, Pazel saw part of the ceiling collapse.

‘Neda! Bolutu!’They staggered from the bedroom, choking but unhurt. Dust and smoke billowed from the doorway. It was the chart room that had been hit, and its ruined contents had just collapsed into the master bedchamber.

‘Thank the Gods the chart room was deserted,’ said Ensyl.

‘Oh no,’ said Neeps. ‘Oh no, no, no.’

‘What is it?’ said Pazel. ‘Did you remember something?’

‘Maybe I had the key.’

‘Maybe?’

Neeps looked at them in panic. ‘Yes. I definitely had it.’ He gestured at the smoking doorway. ‘I put it down on the bed, when Thasha was waking up. I didn’t think about it. I was so glad she was alive.’

Marila’s glare could have melted an anchor-plate. ‘Just be glad you are, because when this is done I’m going to kill you.’

She charged into the bedroom. The others followed on her heels.

On the topdeck all was mayhem. Eight sails had been destroyed, and the bow was digging deep after each wave: they were in danger of foundering. The Death’s Head had come within three miles, and dlomic soldiers were already mustering on her deck. Somehow the Chathrand was still weaving towards the gap in the Storm.

Three hits at three miles, thought Captain Fiffengurt. Tree of Heaven, they’ve got fine gunners aboard. But so have we. Drop us a mast, Mr Byrd.

They were firing back at last. The mad pitch of the Chathrand — bow dropping, stern lifting like a pump-handle — had forced the men at the stern chasers to Rin knew what sort of alterations to the gun carriages, and the strange angle would do nothing for their aim. Still, there was hope, and every shot fired was a taste of it. And the gap was drawing near.

If only their mage. . No, it wasn’t right to ask more of Ramachni. He stood abaft the wheelhouse, gazing fixedly at the Death’s Head, with the selk man attending him silently. Not a safe place for either of them, as Fiffengurt had already pointed out. He glanced at the Silver Stair. Where are you, Thasha? Now would be a dandy time.

‘Why haven’t they thrown more tar?’ demanded Lady Oggosk. She had hobbled out in the midst of the carnage and demanded to be helped onto the quarterdeck. She never did like to miss out on a massacre.

‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘Maybe they threw all they carried. But there’s a monster gun on that forecastle, and it ain’t fired a shot. I hate the sight of it, I must say.’

‘What does it do?’

‘For the love of Rin, Duchess, do you think I’m keeping it a secret?’

Elkstem actually laughed. Fiffengurt wished he hadn’t; the man’s eyes were a bit unhinged. Then Kirishgan stepped into the wheelhouse. ‘The gun throws fire, Captain,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘Liquid fire. I have seen such devices slaughter a whole ship’s company in minutes, from a distance of five or six hundred yards.’

Fiffengurt swallowed. ‘There’s ten or twelve bastards working it right now.’

The selk nodded. ‘They are preparing.’

But meanwhile the Death’s Head kept blasting away with her bow chasers. Fiffengurt watched a ball shatter the crests of two waves, and in the same instant felt the thump as it struck near the keel: heart-sickening, but no death-blow. The waves had slowed the ball, and the cloudcore oak shrugged it off.

What if it had missed those mucking waves?

He gazed at his ship, saw five hundred sailors at a glance. He was fairly certain he knew all their names. Don’t think of them burning. Don’t see it. Of course he saw it with terrible vividness, the scorched and writhing bodies of these boys who had never given up, whom nothing had broken, these lads who trusted him with their lives.

‘Your weapons cannot pierce their armour,’ said Kirishgan.

‘Our carronades might.’

But the big carronades were not stern-mounted, and could not be moved in time. Another error. Fiffengurt bit the knuckle of his thumb. What, then? Smoke shots, to foul their aim? Useless in such a wind. Dump the fresh water, gain some speed? No, it would not be enough.

Turn into the Storm?

He could still do it. One more tack, hard to starboard, straight into that scarlet light. Even if the Death’s Head followed they would be unable to attack. The light was blinding, though it inflicted no damage or pain. And based on what they’d met with on the southward journey, there was no reason to expect rough weather. Only a falling forward, a plunge through time.

Cross that line, and lose everything. Give the order, and never again see Anni, never know your child.

Another boom, and Fiffengurt saw a man plucked from the rigging and carried by the iron ball out over the sea. He fell at least three hundred yards off the bow. Something Fiffengurt had never seen in all his years of sailing.

Then Kirishgan pointed back at the Death’s Head. ‘There! Look there! Arpathwin has done it!’

Fiffengurt raised his telescope. The enemy ship’s forecastle was burning. Tall flames surrounded the giant gun and trickled back along both rails. Men scattered and fell, their bodies like torches. Several hurled themselves into the sea.

‘That is your mage’s work,’ said Kirishgan. ‘He was searching for the minds of those gunners, and he found them. He knew he could not affect them greatly, or for long. But one does not need long: only a brief confusion, with matches and that horrible fuel.’

The flame trickled down the vessel’s armoured sides. The cannon stopped firing. The jibsail burst into flames, and then the flying jib above it. But the flames spread no further. Already a large team was dousing the blaze.

Ramachni came back to the wheelhouse. ‘Bless your soul, you’ve delivered us,’ shouted Fiffengurt.

‘Not for long,’ said the mage. ‘After this attack, Macadra will not even pretend to offer quarter. Nor will she permit any further mind-assaults. How soon will we reach the gap?’

‘If we’re not slowed further, thirty minutes.’

‘Thirty minutes!’ cried Oggosk. ‘In thirty minutes that sorceress will be standing here in our place, or this boat will be in splinters.’

She was right. Fiffengurt saw it, the next fifteen or twenty minutes, the several forms that ruin could take.

New explosions; new shots screaming by like furies. They had recovered already.

He walked out to the quarterdeck rail, fighting his body, and the urge to cling to the wheel, to pretend. When he was certain his voice would not betray him, he shouted the order to his crew. Hard to starboard. Into the Storm.

They dragged nearly the whole contents of the bedroom out into the central chamber. They ran with armfuls of books and charts, dumping them, sifting them, running back for more. They combed through the remains of the limewood desk from the chart room, the shards of floorboards, the shattered cups and inkwells, magnifying glasses and drafting instruments, Rose’s tactical chalkboard, Elkstem’s brass spittoon.

‘Did you feel that?’ cried Pazel. ‘That was a direct hit to the hull.’

‘Glancing, not direct,’ snapped Mr Druffle. ‘Drop that rubbish, Undrabust! I told you I checked it!’

‘And you watch those blary boots,’ Neeps shot back. ‘That’s Myett you nearly trod on.’

They fetched lamps, got in each other’s light. They shook out the bedclothes in which Thasha had lain. They found Pazel’s mother’s ivory whale, last seen before the ship reached Bramian; and a diamond earring that could only have belonged to Syrarys, which Thasha hurled at the wall.

‘We’re changing tack again,’ said Thasha, stumbling to the porthole. ‘Oh Gods, he’s heading into the Storm!’

They flung aside the horsehair mattress, the remains of the brass bed. They kicked and scrabbled through the ruins, checking everything again, waving at dust clouds, cutting their hands.

Suddenly, from the topdeck a great collective scream. Midnight blackness drowned the glow of the Storm.

Felthrup wailed as though his heart would break — ‘No! No! Not yet!’ — and then Ensyl found the key, caught beneath the broken foot of the dressing mirror, still bolted to the floor.

It came out of the east like a sentient cloud. It had swollen, larger than the bay of Stath Balfyr, larger perhaps than the island itself, and it flew arrow-straight and arrow-swift for the gap in the Red Storm. Kirishgan gave a keening cry and turned his face away. Ramachni faced it, but his tiny body shook.

The Swarm of Night. Hercol looked at the thing that had leaped skyward months ago, when Arunis held the Nilstone. Leaped from the River of Shadows, no larger than a little fish. It was obscene, solid, writhing like a clot of black worms. It reached the Death’s Head first, and only then did Hercol realise that it was lower than the mast-heads. The Swarm flowed around the high timbers, and those sailors who did not dive into the sea were swallowed by it, and when the Swarm moved on the ship’s rigging was devoid of life.

‘Abandon masts!’ Hercol screamed, waving his arms. ‘Down, down for your lives!’ A few men heard; a few were quick enough to live. Then the thing was above them, swallowing the masts as low as the topsails, and not even screams escaped.

There above the Chathrand the Swarm of Night stopped dead, like a cat with a mouse beneath its foot. The ship heaved; the masts were immobilised, and the waves wrenched and tore as though the ship had run aground. Hercol braced himself for the snapping that would mean death to them all. But it did not come. The masts held; the Swarm flowed on, anxious for the gap. The red light of the Storm washed over them again. But of the sixty men who had been working the upper masts, not one was left alive.

The Swarm entered the gap, racing towards the North and its bloodshed, its feast of death. It had almost vanished when a new light appeared on the Chathrand. A strange, white-hot light, pouring out through her gunports, and then up from the Silver Stair.

‘Thasha!’

She looked like a woman possessed. The light came from the Nilstone in her naked hand. Hercol shouted again but there was no reaching her; she knew what she meant to do. With the Stone thrust high she reached out with her free hand, as if to seize the vanishing Swarm. And indeed her fingers seemed to close on something. Thasha screamed, in fury or agony or both, and every muscle in her body tightened with effort. She threw her head back; she clawed at the air. Miles away, the Swarm of Night faltered, swerved.

Thasha gave a violent wrench of her arm. The Swarm leaped sideways, right out of the gap and into the Red Storm’s light. There was a brief flash and it was gone.

Not a voice could be heard. Thasha straightened, flexing her shoulders and her neck. A wild fury still glowed in her eyes. The ship was spinning, bobbing like a derelict. She staggered to the rail and Hercol followed. The light of the Nilstone was dimming. When he drew near her he caught the smell of burning skin.

‘Put it down, Thasha! Put it down before it kills you!’

She nodded. She made to drop the Stone at his feet. Then her eye caught something beyond the rail, and she froze.

The Death’s Head had spun into view, no more than half a mile away. Replacement crew were scaling her masts, and even as they watched, cannon were sliding out through the gunports, sixty or eighty strong.

Thasha stared at the vessel. She looked as though vomit or blood might be rising in her throat. But what she unleashed from her chest was a howl of rage and madness, and a force that leaped the water and slammed like a hurricane into Macadra’s ship. The Death’s Head rolled onto her beam-ends, the dlomu who had raced up the masts were swept away. Hercol fell on his knees, covering his ears, feeling the noise shake the Chathrand to her frame.

Thasha gave a strange, feline twist of her head and dropped the Nilstone. Hercol’s foot shot out and held it still, even as Thasha collapsed in his arms. Pathkendle appeared, and the others close behind. Hercol looked at the Death’s Head. It was not sunk, but its rigging was destroyed, and two of its five masts had been flung like straws across the sea.

Fiffengurt began to shout: ‘Strike the jibs! Get that mess off the jiggermast, we can’t steer a blary wreck! Fast boys, we’re drifting!’

Thasha raved: ‘Pazel, help me. Oh Gods. Oh Gods.’

Pazel turned over her hand, and stifled a cry: Thasha’s palm was a mass of blisters, white and oozing. ‘Get some bandages, Neeps! She’s scalded!’

Thasha spoke through her gasps. ‘Doesn’t matter. . I have to kill them, Pazel. . bring the wine.’

No one moved to obey her; no one was even tempted. Hercol raised his eyes. ‘Look, girl! We’re going to make it, thanks to you.’

They were in the mouth of the gap. It was undulating, and rafts of red light drifted across it like icebergs, but it was wide enough, and the wind they had ridden was pouring through it into the North. For a moment Hercol saw the world beyond: their own world, their own time. Then he felt Thasha’s fingers tighten on his arm. Her fury had rekindled. ‘Bring the wine, Pazel,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Pazel. ‘No more, not for a while, anyway. You held the Stone much too long, Thasha. You can’t just pick it up again.’

‘Can’t I?’

Thasha straightened, pushing away from Hercol, and began to stalk across the quarterdeck. His foot was still upon the Nilstone; he could not follow her. When Pazel did she turned him a glare so vicious that Hercol could scarcely blame the lad for hesitating.

But Fiffengurt did not see the look. Passing the wheel to Elkstem, he ran to intercept her.

‘Miss Thasha, enough! You don’t need to strike them again; they’re barely afloat! And that foul wine’s gone to your head-’

Thasha threw her shoulder against him, brutally. Fiffengurt was knocked off his feet, and Thasha crossed to the ladder, shouting: ‘Damn you all! Hercol, don’t you dare move the Nilstone!’

She threw herself down the ladder, onto the main level of the topdeck, and began to march towards the Silver Stair. But after just a few steps, something changed. Her feet slowed; her shoulders drooped. She cursed and stumbled. By the time she reached the Silver Stair the fight was over. She knelt, leaning heavily against the hatch coaming. She raised her eyes with effort, scanned the frightened faces. Then she toppled gently on her side.

Ramachni gazed down at her from the edge of the quarterdeck. ‘Sleep and heal,’ he said.

Pain flared suddenly in Hercol’s foot: the Nilstone was burning him, straight through his boot. He switched feet, staring into the impossible darkness. ‘Pathkendle,’ he said, ‘fetch me those gauntlets, before I kick this thrice-damned thing into the sea.’

The tarboy did not move. ‘Pathkendle! For Rin’s sake-’

Pazel had gone rigid, his face full of wonder and fear. All around them, pale, nearly invisible particles of light were swirling, drifting like a fine scarlet snow. A silence engulfed them, like the closing of a vault. Hercol raised his hand and saw the particles adhering to his skin. Unlike snow they did not melt.

The gap was imperfect. The substance of the Storm was thin here, but not gone. Only the world was gone. Behind them, ahead of them, North and South, Hercol could see nothing but a featureless glow. The veil of Erithusme’s spell had fallen. And when it rose again, how much of their world, their time, would it have stolen away?

The light began to coat the topdeck, the surviving rigging, the dead men sheathed in tar. Pazel was on his knees, beating the deck with both fists, unable to make a sound. Hercol longed for an enemy, for a reason to pull Ildraquin from its scabbard and whirl into battle with all his strength and skill. He closed his eyes but it made no difference; the light was inside.