The Night of the Swarm (Chathrand Voyage 4)

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Blind again, Thasha listened to Pazel’s moans, Neda’s soft chatter in a tongue she didn’t understand. She was jealous of Neda, and tried to be amused by the fact. She could hear what her father would say: You’re a fool beyond all redemption, Thasha Isiq. With a smile to make it clear that he thought nothing of the kind.

  Her father. By now the admiral would have heard that she was alive, for all the good it would do him. Once again she thought of the odds of ever returning to the North, seeing him again, kissing his bright bald forehead. What was he doing now? Pazel’s mother had said only that he lived, in her single dream-visit with her son. Was he still in Simja, playing the part of Arqual’s ambassador to that island nation? Or was he back in Etherhorde, under the thumb of Emperor Magad, and Sandor Ott’s network of spies?

  She dipped a hand in the river, splashed tepid water on her face. No use dwelling on the bad possibilities. Then Neeps groped towards her and took her hand. He was trembling. Thasha found his cheek and kissed it, tasting lemon sweat, and steeled herself not to cry. No use, no use. She wished for somebody to fight. He embraced her, clumsily. ‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered, ‘I know what’s going to happen to me.’

  Neeps stayed close to her after that. She sensed the fear in him and tried not to return it. ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ she told him, much later. ‘You’re tired, and you’re a fool. Stop thinking that way.’ When her next shift came she stole glances at him: awake, alert, casting his blind eyes about as if searching for something. Each time she spoke, Neeps lifted his head in her direction.

  The hours passed, her shift ended; she was exhausted and filthy and bruised. She wanted to go to Pazel and hold him, but he was still sleeping peacefully, and Neeps looked cornered, lost. As the seeing-charm faded and the darkness flooded back, she went to him and knelt.

  ‘You need a shave,’ she said, as brightly as she could manage. ‘Marila wouldn’t know her husband.’

  Neeps smiled, touching his woolly chin. Then he raised his hand to his temples and the smile disappeared. ‘I can feel it already,’ he said. ‘Like an empty spot inside me, a place I can’t go any more.’

  ‘Just go to sleep, you donkey. When was the last time you slept?’

  This time he didn’t smile. Thasha took his hand. As her blindness gathered she watched his face disappear.

  She slept, Neeps’ arm over her shoulder and the world’s horrors forgotten, and the woman that was part of her and yet a stranger walked the catacombs of her mind, seeking egress, seeking light. She would fail of course. Thasha’s mind was a salt cavern beneath a desert, no mouth, no tunnel to the surface, no way in or out. The woman knew this better than Thasha herself; she knew every inch of the place, could have drawn it from memory, walked it in the dark. She had lived there seventeen years.

  ‘Light! Light!’

  Was she dreaming? Was that Ensyl, tugging at a lock of her hair? Someone whistled, bodies were stirring on the raft. Neeps just groaned and pulled her closer.

  Ensyl tugged at her again. ‘Wake up! Look around you!’

  Thasha raised her head, wincing. There was light, natural light, gleaming along one side of the trees ahead.

  ‘It stings at first, doesn’t it?’ said Lunja.

  ‘I don’t care if it stings for a week,’ answered the Turach.

  The river had narrowed; the raft was tumbling around a curve. All at once something dazzling spun into view. After a few painful blinks, Thasha realised she was looking up at high cliff walls, glowing in the midday sun.

  Neeps twitched, and Thasha looked at him again. He was awake, still holding her. Their faces were inches apart.

  Then Pazel said, ‘We did it.’

  He extended a hand to each of them. If he was disturbed to find them nesting like two spoons, his face showed no sign. They rose awkwardly, and Pazel threw his arms over their shoulders. They had reached the forest’s edge. Before them, the Ansyndra flowed out through a great crack in the crater and into a canyon of grey-blue stone.

  ‘Chins up, you dolts, we’re alive,’ said Pazel. Thasha gripped him tightly, felt Hercól’s hand squeeze her shoulder, and brushed it with her cheek. Gratitude was all she felt, so fierce and pure that it was almost pain.

  ‘Rin’s eyes, I never thought we’d make it,’ said Big Skip.

  ‘Some of us did not,’ said Hercól.

  Thasha squeezed her eyes shut. The image of Greysan Fulbreech, paralysed and mad, had suddenly risen before them. The Simjan youth had betrayed them, but he had betrayed himself long before. She had tried to fall in love with Fulbreech: had hoped, maybe, that his charm and handsome body would save her from the frightening, foolish immensity of what she felt for Pazel. Then, at Hercól’s insistence, she had used him: played the infatuated young woman, dazzled by his attentions, hungry for his touch. All with the aim of ferreting his master, Arunis, from his hiding place on the Chathrand. It had worked; they had found the sorcerer, kept him from killing anyone else on the ship.

  But in the end they could do nothing for Fulbreech.

  They were small matters, of course: his death, the soldiers’ deaths, the death of Ott’s agent Mr Alyash. The death of Jalantri, the young sfvantskor who had fallen in love with Pazel’s sister. The disappearance of Ibjen, the dlömic boy, into the River of Shadows. The deaths of the hunting dogs who had followed them under the trees.

  Small change, trivial losses, compared with the gigantic horror they were trying to prevent. Thasha knew this, and knew also that she would never believe it in her heart.

  When she opened her eyes the raft had cleared the forest’s shadow, and they were free.

  ‘Can you guess how I got this one, Thasha?’ asked Neeps.

  ‘No,’ Thasha mumbled. She did not particularly want to learn, either, or to see another of his scars. Both he and Pazel looked barbaric in the sun. Thasha glanced at their ten-day beards and thought of pig bristles, and wondered that she’d managed to kiss Pazel without scratching herself raw. No denying how strong they’d become, though. The tarboys matched her in muscle, now, and that was shocking. If she wrestled either of them she’d have to rely on skill alone.

  They had floated for several hours through the silent canyon, the sun playing hide-and-seek in a white fog that was gathering near the clifftops. The walls of the canyon were sheer to about a hundred feet, then broke into forbidding crags and boulders. The company squirmed and shifted. Holding still on the jittery raft was becoming a kind of torment.

  ‘My little sister bit me, that’s how,’ said Neeps.

  ‘You must have deserved it.’

  Neeps laughed aloud, as though she had said something very clever. Thasha smiled to hide her unease. Since that unexpected embrace in the forest Neeps had not left her side. Thasha had never seen him like this: so soft-spoken, so confiding. He talked of his brother Raffa’s treachery, those two pounds of Sollochi pearls chosen instead of Neeps’ life – and how his desire to kill Raffa had turned slowly into a desire to convince him, ‘intellectually, like’, that he had chosen wrong. He talked of his grandmother’s battles with crocodiles, the whistle his grandfather invented that could call catfish, the girl at the docks in Etherhorde who’d fancied him, and her gangster uncles who had made sure that they never exchanged more than burning looks. Neeps did not speak once of Marila.

  Now the canyon’s heights were lost in the mist. ‘We’re still trapped,’ said Corporal Mandric, staring up into the haze. ‘Mind you, I’m glad to be out of that mucking forest. But sooner or later we’ve got to find a way to scramble out of here.’

  ‘And what then?’ said Big Skip. ‘Getting out of the Forest alive was all I could think about, but there are hard choices waiting for us now. The road back to Masalym will be a dark one.’

  ‘Only if you take it,’ said Ramachni.

  ‘If?’ said Cayer Vispek. ‘Great mage, how could we do otherwise? We have no notion of what lies ahead. We know nothing of this peninsula except that it is vast and desolate, and that the sea l
ies much further to the west than we have travelled thus far. We must go back.’

  ‘There’s the small matter of the flame-trolls to consider,’ said Corporal Mandric.

  ‘Not to mention that iron ladder that came loose from the cliffs under Ilvaspar,’ said Pazel, ‘and that cliff was much higher than these. Without that ladder there’s no way up.’

  ‘A sfvantskor takes such hurdles as gifts from the Unseen.’

  ‘Gods of death, he’s serious,’ said the Turach, amiably enough.

  ‘It is true that we know little of the trail ahead,’ said Ramachni, ‘but we know a great deal about what awaits us back in Masalym.’

  ‘Our ship is there, maybe?’ said Neda.

  Ramachni sighed. ‘Hercól, it is time you settled that particular question.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said the swordsman. While the others looked on, uncomprehending, he moved carefully to the raft’s edge, as far from the Nilstone as possible. There he knelt and lay Ildraquin across his knees.

  ‘What is this?’ said Vispek. ‘More enchantment in the sword?’

  ‘The same, Cayer,’ said Hercól. ‘You know that Ildraquin can guide its wielder to any soul whose blood it has drawn.’

  ‘You proved as much with Fulbreech,’ said Lunja. ‘What of it?’

  ‘The morning we left the Chathrand, I drew the blood of Captain Rose.’

  ‘Pitfire, now you tell us!’ cried Thasha. ‘Why were you keeping that a secret?’

  ‘You’re talking about that scratch on his wrist, aren’t you?’ said Neeps.

  ‘Of course,’ said Hercól, ‘and I assure you it was done with his cooperation. As for my silence, the fact is that I hardly dared to think of Rose myself. The sword can follow but one blood-trail at a time, and if ever you turn aside, the trail goes cold, and cannot be found again. I dared not take that risk with Fulbreech: he was our only link to the Stone. But now—’

  He slid the blade a few inches free of the scabbard, and sat with his hand upon the pommel, closing his eyes. The party fell silent, watching, and Thasha saw the frown begin at the corner of his eyes. Then he opened them and looked gravely at Ramachni.

  ‘They are gone,’ he said. ‘Far from Masalym, and sailing further by the day. Since yesterday they have sailed northwards almost two hundred miles.’

  ‘Damn the lying dogs!’ exploded Mandric. ‘They promised to return for us! All that about laying low in them islands outside the whatsit, the Northern Sandwall, sending lamp signals, waiting for that hag Macadra to clear out!’

  ‘Perhaps she is in Masalym yet, or her ministers,’ said Ramachni. ‘Either way, Prince Olik will have been deposed. Do you see how foolish we would be to return, Cayer Vispek? Only death awaits us there.’

  ‘Northwards,’ said Dastu, clearly shaken. ‘So they mean to cross the Nelluroq, and abandon us for good. We’ll never see home again.’

  Hercól looked at Dastu with compassion. ‘When did you last see home, lad? When you walked the streets of Etherhorde as a spy? When you sat at your mother’s table, concealing the fact that her son was learning to slit throats, hide bodies, brew tasteless poisons? Even if you do return to Etherhorde, you will remain a creature of the shadows, pretending to a life more than living it, unless you break with Sandor Ott. Your home was lost the day you joined the Secret Fist.’

  ‘Go drown yourself,’ snapped Dastu, ‘although drowning’s a lot kinder than what’s in store for the rest of us. We’re going to live and die in this Rinforsaken country, surrounded by their sort—’ he waved at Bolutu and Lunja ‘—and treated like animals, like apes. That is, if we don’t become apes, the way your tarboy pet—’

  Thasha’s fist closed; she saw herself breaking Dastu’s teeth, saw the same rage in Pazel’s eyes. But before she could move, something whirled at the youth. Ensyl had leaped with that matchless ixchel speed onto Dastu’s shoulder. One hand gripped his ragged shirt. The other held her sword against the soft flesh beneath his eye.

  ‘If you dare say another word—’

  Dastu held his breath, motionless but for his darting eyes.

  ‘Ensyl,’ said Ramachni, ‘come away from the youth.’

  Silence. The raft bobbed and spun. Then, quick as a grasshopper, Ensyl sprang away from Dastu and landed by Hercól’s foot. She kept her eyes fixed on Dastu as she sheathed her blade.

  ‘This is a new life, with new requirements,’ said Ramachni, ‘and first among them is that we stand together. Let the old hates languish: you will find they vanish like dreams, if you permit them to.’

  ‘Don’t imagine that I mock your past allegiances,’ said Hercól, ‘for were they not mine as well? We need your skills, Dastu of Etherhorde. Stand with us, I say.’

  Dark emotions played over the youth’s face. He touched his cheek near the eye. ‘Those crawlies nearly sank our ship,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why you brought a pair of them along. But one’s dead. Get rid of the other, and then talk about standing as a team.’

  ‘Some are more wedded to hate than others, Ramachni,’ said Ensyl.

  ‘My mother’s table,’ sneered Dastu. ‘Maybe that’s how it was for you, Stanapeth, with your farms and manor houses. But as for me, I found my home when I joined Master Ott. The first in my mucking life. I’m not about to toss it off and go seeking another, though that’s clearly the fashion in this company.’

  The fog lowered. The canyon walls faded in and out of sight. It was disconcerting, but safer, Thasha knew: if the maukslar returned they would be hidden almost as well as before. The river ran swift, and looking down into its depths Thasha still imagined she could see veins of darkness, and feel the vertigo of endless space.

  At some point in the afternoon, Lunja suddenly called for silence. A faint, deep noise was echoing down the canyon.

  ‘Hrathmog drums,’ said Lunja. ‘The creatures send messages in this way. I have heard them often on the road to Vasparhaven.’

  Thasha tensed. She had seen a single hrathmog, dead in the jaws of one of the great catlike steeds called sicuñas. Even dead it had been menacing, an axe-wielding, fur-covered humanoid with enormous arms and a mouthful of knifelike teeth. ‘Do you think they’ve spotted us, Lunja?’ she asked.

  Lunja shook her head. ‘When hrathmogs spot an enemy their drums fall silent, unless they fear a rout. The silence itself alerts other bands of the creatures. We guardians of Masalym have learned this through many ambushes, many deaths.’

  The drums sounded again, even more faintly – but this time the echo came from downriver.

  ‘They’re just saying hello, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Big Skip. ‘Eight bells, and howdy-do-sir.’

  ‘Well,’ said Hercól, ‘better to learn of them while they are still at a distance.’ He squinted at the canyon walls, and Thasha could almost hear his thoughts: Hard climbing. For some of us, impossible.

  They floated on, and heard no more of the drums. Soon Neeps was beside her again, uncomfortably close. Thasha tried to draw Pazel into their chatter, but he was keeping far from them both, which maddened her. She was terrified for Neeps. He was Pazel’s best friend; this behaviour had to be a side-effect of the plague. He reached for her hand, and she let him hold it. She couldn’t bear the thought of hurting him, in what might be his last days of human life.

  Sometimes he grew flushed with excitement. ‘I didn’t expect this,’ he said. ‘What I’m feeling. It’s so good.’ Thasha turned away, wiped her eyes. Would they have to tie him like an animal? Would he have lucid moments, aware of what he’d become?

  Late afternoon, a sandy beach loomed out of the fog: it was an island, crowned with oaks and cedars, splitting the river in two.

  ‘Left or right?’ asked Bolutu.

  ‘Neither,’ said Hercól. ‘Twenty minutes ashore, to wash and stretch our limbs.’

  They beached the raft. Neeps bounded up and helped Thasha to her feet. She saw Pazel glance in their direction and turn quickly away.

  ‘Some of the vines have broken,’ said Hercól
. ‘Come here, Neda, and help me lift the frame. You too, Undrabust.’

  Thasha felt like running. She marched up the foggy beach and stepped into the trees. After a dozen yards she stepped behind an oak, then leaned out to look back at the shore. The others had stayed close to the raft. Pazel bent and tried to help with the repairs, but Hercól waved him firmly away – in her direction, as if by chance. She could have hugged him. Nothing escaped her mentor.

  When Pazel drew near, she whistled softly, then beckoned him near and hid again. Eventually she heard his footsteps approaching. When she could stand it no longer she stepped out and dragged him behind the tree.

  ‘You blary imbecile,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you help me with him?’

  Pazel made no reply. He shrugged off her hand and walked deeper into the mist-shrouded trees. Furious, she plunged after him. The land rose, and they scrambled up the brief incline. When the ground levelled off the mist was brighter, and a pale green moss covered the feet of the oaks.

  Thasha cornered him against a fallen tree. ‘I could kill you,’ she said. ‘You just mucking stood there! Couldn’t you see how bad he was getting?’

  Pazel nodded.

  ‘Look at me, you sorry—’

  He kissed her, gently at first, then with abandon, his hands under her clothes, his hips pressing hard against her. Thasha gasped; her arms went around him, and for a moment she did not know if she was struggling or urging him on, helping him free of his trousers, giving in to his need and her own. His eyes were half-shut, he was devouring her with kisses, how could she stop him, how could she keep these boys from pain?

  ‘Thasha—’

  ‘Stop talking. Stop talking.’

  He had a hand between her legs; she had her shirt up so that her breasts could touch his skin. This was the end, they were ruined. She was going to scream.

  He was still. She hadn’t screamed but her mind had gone elsewhere. Those were only his fingers, his fingers; she had lost all restraint but he hadn’t, thank Rin. Her mind was racing, bliss and sadness and memories and mad notions of her destiny, all bent by the prism of his touch. That wanton girl, Arunis had cackled. Not everything he’d said was a lie.