The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

  ‘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 shou
ted 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!’