The Night of the Swarm

by Robert V. S. Redick

  He’d flown ashore that first night under cover of darkness. But there was no true darkness in Orbilesc, only shadows and blinding smoke. The city stretched on and on, over hills and around the slopes of mountains, along both banks of a river the color of diluted blood. Parts of it appeared to be on fire: they throbbed in the distance like open sores, their orange glow reflecting dully on the filth-laden sky. The city was a point of convergence for great roads leading deep into the continent, to Bali Adro City and Kistav and other centers of Imperial might. Dlömu by the thousands thronged its squares, encamped in its denuded gardens and gutted shops. They were mostly poor and filthy, huddling with their scrawny dogs beside illicit fires that the rain was always putting out. It appeared that they had come to work the hellish factories, but whether voluntarily or at spear-point he could not ascertain. There were other races too in those shabby streets, mystifying creatures that fascinated and repelled him. All of these strange beings, dlömu included, spoke Imperial Common, but in such a variety of forms and accents that Taliktrum doubted everything he heard.

  Worst of all were the shipyards. He hardly dared approach those grim towers and black belching mills, from which great plumes of fire erupted, and cold shimmerings of yellow light, and noises loud as the maiming of Gods. Carrion birds wheeled above them; titanic sea-serpents of the sort that had threatened the Chathrand off Narybir writhed in the polluted bay, flailing at their chains. Huge gears and moving cables brought steel and lumber and lead and brass into the open jaws of the shipworks. Taliktrum flew nearer, alighting on one of the countless outbuildings surrounding the mill. Creeping to the edge of the roof, he found himself looking down on corpses, mangled corpses impaled on hooks, being cabled away toward a mountain of smoking rubbish to the south. Prisoners? Criminals? Aghast, he realized that they were neither: they were workers, slain and discarded by the monstrous industry they served. And for every dlömu killed there were surely five or six lined up at the doors.

  The city generated a kind of fear Taliktrum had never before imagined. Great Mother, he’d thought, don’t let me die in such a place. Send me to sea again quickly, far from this nightmare world.

  But the ship had lingered, day after day. Macadra kept to herself, awaiting word from her inland scouts. For five days she did not stir from her cabin. Then one morning she had stormed out on deck, screaming for horses. A vision had come to her in the night: battle in a wintry gorge, the maukslar killed or driven from Alifros, and another creature of great power slain as well. Macadra had been certain that the Nilstone was involved.

  Taliktrum frowns at the sorceress, wading like a rapacious bird. He still does not know what a maukslar is. But he knows somehow that he must stay near this vile mage. If he is to fight her, that is. If he is to have any chance of mattering in this world, after so much error and cowardice.

  “Look at her now!” hisses someone. The riders grow still. Macadra has drawn a knife and bared her bone-white arm to the elbow. With a swift motion she slices her own forearm: a deep, cruel cut. But she does not bleed: the wound gapes red, but dry.

  The sight is too much for the dlömu. “No blood!” they whisper. “Macadra has no blood in her veins!” Cursing, Macadra works her hand, in a motion like squeezing a ball. At last Taliktrum sees it: a slow, dark trickle on the too-white flesh. She lets it drip into the river: five drops, and then the wound runs dry.

  From out of the Parsua, something leaps into her palm: a red ruby, glittering in the sun. Macadra encloses it in her wounded hand.

  Her eyes shut. Then she screeches, with more lunacy and rage then ever Taliktrum has heard on a giant’s tongue.

  “Miña Scaraba Urifica! We ride, we ride! They have passed over the Water Bridge and descended Urakán! They are west of us and making for the sea!”

  She is flailing for shore, knife still in hand. Snarling: “Assist me, you dogs!”

  One of the generals plunges in and wades toward her, extending his hand. “My lady,” he shouts, “the horses are nearly spent.”

  “Did you not hear me? We ride at once!”

  “Yes, lady,” says the general, “but what of your demon? Is that not why we came here?”

  Macadra grasps his hand, pulls hard, and with a speed that even Taliktrum finds startling, cuts the general’s throat. The man’s mouth opens with hideous silence. He drops face-first; his coat balloons with trapped air. The sorceress presses down upon his neck as though feeding him to the river.

  “It lives, dog,” she says. “It will heal, with time and blood.”

  24

  From the Final Journal of G. Starling Fiffengurt

  Monday, 2 Fuinar 942

  It is truly extraordinary: our ixchel have charmed the birds of the air. One sort of bird, anyway—the swallows of Stath Bálfyr—and in truth just one ixchel appears to have the knack. His is Myett’s granddad, the old duffer they call the Pachet Ghali. At six bells today he pulls out a tiny flute & sets to playing on the forecastle, & in they swarm from the island, skimming low over the bay. Lord Talag stands among them in his swallow-suit, pointing & shouting, & thirty more of the little people materialize out of their hiding places, laughing at the birds with delight. Who’s in control, I wonder: the musician or the feathered lord? But how they do keep coming, until they outnumber the ixchel four to one.

  Suddenly they descend in a jabbering mass. Grown men fall back, protecting their faces, but the birds have no interest in humans. They seize the ixchel in their claws & rise, bearing them away toward the island & its steamy woods. Only the Pachet is left behind.

  This, then, has been their plan since Etherhorde: to bring us all the way here from Etherhorde, & then depart on swallows’ wings. They mean to repeat this trick again & again, until their whole clan is on dry land. And what then? Ott declares for a certainty that they’ll not let us go, & this time I fear the old snake is right. What if we talked about this place? What if we came back with catapults & fire-missiles, & burned Stath Bálfyr to a crisp? What if we came back with a navy?

  But there are surely hundreds of ixchel hidden on the Chathrand yet, & thus far only thirty have departed. When the first group vanishes from sight the old Pachet (the word’s his title, not his name) sets the flute aside & talks to us quite reasonably. He invokes Diadrelu, “our lord’s dear departed sister,” & compliments Marila & Felthrup & myself for befriending her.

  “She would have wished us to part without illusions, and without hate,” he says. “You are guilty of many crimes, but hating you has served us ill. Lady Dri understood this and would not pretend otherwise. She would not lie to us, or to herself. But the cost of seeing that truth was death.”

  I suppose I’m in the mood for a fight. “It ain’t just that she saw, old man,” I say. “It’s that the rest of you refused to.”

  “Not all of us,” he replies.

  I tell him he’s a mucking hypocrite. “If you think so much of her, why d’ye still serve the bastards who stabbed her in the throat?”

  The old man looks at me, untroubled. “I serve the clan,” he says, “as she did, to the end.”

  Some hours later the birds return. With them are just three ixchel: Lord Talag & two strangers, hard-faced sorts dressed only in breeches & weaponry. They are the first proof we have that ixchel really live on Stath Bálfyr. They’re outlandish, too: they have fantastic, elephant-like creatures tattooed on their chests, & their hands & forearms are painted red as though dipped in blood. They flank Talag & nod to him courteously, but Talag is all business as he speaks with the Pachet in that tongue we humans cannot hear. Now the old man looks surprised & uneasy. The birds have settled along the bowsprit, spattering the Goose-Girl with their droppings, but when he starts to play again they rise twittering & excited. This time they bear the Pachet away with the rest.

  It is hard not to stare at the spot on the island where they disappeared. Sometimes I think I see the treetops moving, as if a wind were trapped there, or some big hand were riffling the crowns. But there are o
ther urgencies. The gangs have exploded yet again; there are two dead & twenty wounded. And a deathsmoker who lost his mind & threw himself at the augrongs, who panicked a little & squeezed him to death. And a plague of horrible green flies from the island. They have settled in the heads & bite our arses, & give us great goose-egg boils.

  And there is a last thing, so terrible my hand is shaking as I write. About a week ago someone nicked a goat from the animals’ compartment. This was strange but not catastrophic: somewhere a confused & frightened sailor was hoarding goat-flesh, maybe, & no doubt the flies would soon give him away. But last night Mr. Teggatz noticed a change in the stench around the water casks, & had the good sense to pry the lid open before he sipped. He howled. The goat’s head & viscera were floating there, half decayed. The whole cask was poisoned, & so were four others beside it. The cook’s nose has saved lives—hundreds of lives, maybe; for he was about to boil up the evening broth. Is this the work of gangsters? Could they possibly have gone so far?

  Whoever the culprit, we are now once again low on fresh water. All this, & Dr. Chadfallow nowhere to be found. I have put eight tarboys on the hunt for him, & will have to watch my temper if I learn that he is poking about the lower decks yet again in search of his green mucking door.

  Tuesday, 3 Fuinar 942

  I cannot sleep, & fear the visions that would plague me if I did. My heart is pounding. My shoes reek so badly of blood I have had to tie them up in a sack.

  Last night Rose summoned us to a secret council in the galley—me, Ott, Uskins, Sergeant Haddismal, even Marila & Felthrup. Mr. Teggatz was instructed to make a great deal of noise with pots & boilers. In this way Rose hoped the ixchel would not catch our words, if they still bothered to spy on us.

  The meeting was a failure. It was clear to all of us that the ship would never be permitted out of the bay. Rose ordered Haddismal & Ott to pull together plans for a night assault on the island, & for once all three were in complete agreement. “They can throw boulders,” said Ott, “but that will be of little use against Turachs dispersed among the trees. They are still just crawlies, and we are men.”

  “We have enough small craft to put two hundred on the shore at once,” said Haddismal. Then he frowned and glanced at the spymaster. “Of course, that would leave us with no means to evacuate the ship.”

  “Timbers, then,” said Ott. “The bay is calm, and the water warm enough. Lower some mastwood under cover of darkness, and let the men swim ashore on either side.”

  The rest of us objected desperately. Marila said we should be sending gifts, not soldiers. Felthrup squeaked about shark fins in the bay.

  “And my officers have nothing to contribute?” Rose demanded with a snarl. Uskins shook his head sorrowfully, but I cleared my throat. Our best hope was to find the ixchel stronghold on the Chathrand, I said, & to seize their food & water, along with a good number of hostages. Then we could bargain our way out of this trap.

  But at this Felthrup only wailed: “You can’t, you can’t!”

  “Be quiet, Felthrup!” hissed Marila. But it was too late. Rose loomed over him like a mountain, ordered him to reveal all he knew. Felthrup only shook his head & muttered “Impossible, don’t try.”

  Then Rose exploded. He seized Felthrup & stormed across the galley, making for the oven. Marila screamed, Teggatz sputtered & waved a spoon. And I—I drew my knife & went for the captain. I do believe I would have stabbed him in the back. Ott moved like a panther, however. I caught a glimpse of his face (grinning) before something struck my skull. Then darkness swallowed me up.

  When I woke I was alone with Teggatz in the galley. “Out cold!” he said, helping me up with a grin. “It’s Monday. Like every Monday. Every one is the same.”

  “Felthrup—”

  Teggatz pointed proudly at the oven.

  “Gods of Death—no!”

  I shoved him aside & flew across the room & threw down the iron door. Felthrup was in there, all right—blinking, terrified, unharmed. The oven was stone-cold.

  “No plum duff,” said Teggatz. “No baking on Monday. Bah hah.”

  A few minutes later Marila appeared & carried Felthrup back to the stateroom. I sat there hoping Teggatz would produce his jug of rum, but he was all business tonight, readying the galley for lockup so that he might snatch a few hours’ sleep. I’d rarely felt more wretched. The boils in my trousers were as sore as my head. “Where in the shade of the Blessed Tree is Dr. Chadfallow?” I asked aloud.

  Teggatz closed the door behind me. I turned away & found myself facing Uskins, of all people. He was strangely lucid, & nervous in the extreme. “Thank Rin you’re awake,” he said, glancing nervously about. “I came looking for you, Fiffengurt. I have the most terrible news.”

  I felt my heart skip a beat. “What is it? The doctor?”

  Uskins started, then shook his head. “I know nothing of Chadfallow.” Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s the crawlies, Fiffengurt. They’re going to sink us for certain. I’ve found the proof.”

  I stared at him. “What sort of proof?”

  “Can’t you guess?” he hissed sharply. “You know this ship as well as Rose. You tell me: how could a man sabotage her from within? Swiftly, irrevocably, leaving no time for the damage to be stopped?”

  “There ain’t no certain way.”

  “But the most likely. Think, Fiffengurt: how would you do it?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe … the way Old Captain Ingle sank the Blaze in Rukmast Harbor.” He looked at me blankly. “Where were you in ’26, man? They say he braced a cargo jack against the keelson, and cranked it hard against the hull until a wale popped its screws.”

  “A wale.”

  I pressed a hand to my throbbing head. “A facing timber, Uskins. A blary plank. You know what a wale is, by damn. Now what’s this news?”

  He was silent for a moment, as though lost in thought. Then he looked up at me sharply. “What you’re describing is almost exactly what’s going to occur.”

  “Going to?” I cried. “Are you bent full sideways? What did you find, and why haven’t you been shouting your daft dirty head off about it? Flaming toads, Stukey—”

  He thumped me in the stomach, then clapped a hand over my mouth. He pressed his lips close to my ear.

  “Maggot,” he said. “I have your peasant girl in my cabin with a death scarab on her forehead. If she screams, or moves, or I but think the command, that scarab will burn down through her skull like magma. You will not shout. You will show me this cargo jack, and help me position it. And you will deflect any questions, and send crew members out of our way.”

  “Who—?”

  “Not a word, not a word but to my purpose. I will give her agony before she dies. I warned her not to cry out even if it burned. I told her to think of her child.”

  “Arunis!” I gasped.

  He gave me a little frown. “The scarab has just burned through her skin. Next will come her skull, if you do not heed me. The cargo jack. Take me to it. I will not ask again.”

  I started marching. Nightmare, nightmare. Arunis in Uskins’ body, intending to sink us at last. Arunis torturing Marila, disfiguring her. And damn him to the Pits, but she was strong enough to keep silent as her flesh burned. She could do that. He had chosen well.

  “You ruined our water, too, I suppose. With the goat innards.”

  “Be silent,” he snarled.

  My legs were wobbly. We crept down the No. 3 ladderway, then crossed to the narrow scuttle by the cable tiers. Uskins (Arunis) walked naturally at my side. He’d told me to deflect questions, but there wouldn’t be any. Nobody but Rose would question either of us; we were officers.

  At the mercy deck I lit a lamp. There were cargo jacks down in the hold, where the sabotage would have to be done. But why make it easy for him? I started aft toward the Abandoned House, that loneliest part of the ship, where a year ago the youths & I hatched our plans for mutiny. There was a jack here, too, in a crawl space. But there
were many crawl spaces, & they all looked the same. A man could get confused.

  The halls were narrow & black. Arunis (Uskins) grew twitchy. “What are you doing, maggot? This is not the hold.”

  “The jack,” I whispered. “Just ahead.”

  “What was that noise? Who is down here?”

  “There’s nobody here,” I told him. “But look: that’s the one.”

  Except that it wasn’t. In fact I wasn’t exactly sure what was behind the crawl space door at our feet, but I was blary sure it wasn’t a cargo jack. I was stalling, of course. I’d remembered that this particular door was triple-bolted, & the bolts stiff & rusted. But now I was seized with fear for Marila. Helping to sink the Chathrand wouldn’t save her, but how could I let him maim the girl?

  “Open it!” Arunuskins hissed. “Any tricks and that little whore will know pain beyond reason, I swear it.”

  I set the lamp down & knelt. The first bolt slid free easily (I cursed inside) but the second put up a fight. My hands were shaking. Marila’s face, Marila’s tears—

  “Chadfallow guessed,” said Arunuskins.

  I started, twisting about, & he cuffed me on the cheek. I turned back to the bolt.

  “Mr. Uskins died of nerves,” said the voice behind me. “Despite the plague, he tried to refuse my services. But before I left the ship I persuaded him to keep my scarf, just in case. It was my voice in his ear, that scarf. It stoked his terror as the plague advanced, until he could think of nothing else. And then he let me in, and I took over the house.”

  “And his soul?” I asked, shaking. “Where are you keeping it?”

  “Nowhere,” said the voice. “That coward’s mind was of no use to me. I forced it out through the window, and let the breeze carry it away. You should thank me, Fiffengurt. You despised the man. Didn’t everyone?”

  The second bolt slid free, & I moved on to the third. Slowly.