The Night of the Swarm tcv-4 Read online

  King Oshiram had told him about the shrine. The Babqri Father had been killed there, just after Treaty Day, and to the Mzithrini way of thinking such an illustrious death made the place unclean, from the first drop of blood until the end of time. The Mzithrini delegation had abandoned Simja. Now, months later, they were paying Simjan labourers to tear the once-holy shrine apart, and to cast the stones into the sea.

  They had still been at it, that chiselling, hammering mob, when Gregory and two of his officers had come for Isiq, declaring it time to make a run for the Dancer. Gregory had thanked the presiding madam with a shameless kiss. Once aboard the vessel, Suthinia had glared at Gregory, and even more so at Isiq, who had brought peril on them all.

  Now, as the little two-master picked up speed, Isiq looked across the water at the low hill where the shrine had stood. The work was finished, the shrine was gone; even the jade dome with its silver inscriptions had been given to the waves. Once defiled, for ever unclean. . can we ever hope to understand the Western mind? And without understanding, is there any hope of sharing Alifros in peace?

  More cannon-fire, distant but steady. Isiq sat down against the wall of the quarterdeck, watching the young men scramble. No work for him now, except to stay out of their way. He stretched out his legs, rubbed the knee he’d wrenched during his escape from Simjalla Palace. The witch had touched him there, and the pain had lessened instantly, but now-

  ‘Legs in!’ barked Gregory, storming by. ‘Damned if the old man’s not a menace!’

  Isiq folded his legs. Pazel’s father is a right bastard offshore. And just as well, just as well. Isiq would stand for any badgering, so long as men did their job. It was sloth and lies and clumsiness that could doom them, and those he would never tolerate in anyone again.

  Of course he had no authority on this smuggler’s boat. But he had power. He looked at his feeble, mutinous hands. How fast it had come back: the power, the certainty of strength. The knowledge that he had one fight left in him, and that its outcome would determine the worth of his whole life.

  All thanks to the witch and her astonishing news. Thasha is alive. On the far side of the Ruling Sea, and in danger — but alive, and trying to return. Pazel still with her, and Neeps Undrabust, and thank the good Lord Rin, Hercol. If anyone could protect her it was Hercol. And yet the witch appeared to believe that Thasha herself would decide the battle ahead, and who was Isiq to say that she was wrong? Thasha feigned death on Treaty Day. She fooled the sorcerer, fooled Sandor Ott. My blessed, brilliant girl.

  But — a mage? A spell-weaver like Suthinia? The witch herself had said no, not like her. ‘Thasha’s power is unfathomable. Think of me as a little trembling flame, your daughter as a wildfire roaring on a hill. If only she has unlocked that power. If only she’s found the key.’

  Slam, slam. Heavy guns, close action. Isiq heaved to his feet and gazed north, wishing his eyes could pierce the headland. On the other side of it men were dying, their bodies scorched or shattered. Isiq felt cold in his heart. The Third Sea War. Men were already calling it that. After soldiering away his life he’d turned to diplomacy, to peacemaking, his goal to prevent the ‘Third Sea War’ from ever becoming an entry in the history books to come. And here it was, breaking out around him.

  No matter. It would not be like the other two. There would be no illusions, no despised Sizzy horde, no blameless Arqualis, no songs about the Blessed and the Damned. If he had his way, there would only be accounts of its brevity: the war that endured just a month, just that last sad week of winter — and many longer chapters on the peace that followed, Alifros renewed and hopeful, a spring rebirth.

  For the witch had told him of a second miracle: the miracle of Maisa, Empress Maisa, rightful ruler of Arqual, the one to whom he’d sworn his oath. The one whose own nephew, the usurper Magad V, had vilified her and driven her into exile. An old woman the world had left for dead.

  He had thought her dead too, and told them so. Gregory had laughed and pulled at his pipe. ‘You come with us, Isiq. You’ll see how dead she is.’

  The witch had turned her eyes on him fiercely. ‘It was convenient, wasn’t it? To assume she’d died. Better to justify serving her pig nephew all these years.’

  ‘Things were never so simple,’ he’d objected. ‘Arqual needed a monarch; we had nearly lost the war. And we were told horrid things about Maisa. That she’d looted the treasury, corrupted children, taken flikkermen to bed. I was just a captain, then. It was decades before I caught a whiff of the truth.’

  The witch had glowered at him. ‘Explain it to your Empress,’ she’d said.

  The giant lumbered up to Isiq and held out a hand. Despite his pale hair he was not more than thirty, and probably younger. ‘We’re coming into the Straits of Simja,’ he said. ‘You’ll want to see, won’t you, Vurum?’

  Isiq grasped the hand, and the giant raised him effortlessly. Vurum, Grandfather: the huge fellow had taken a liking to him.

  The explosions quickened further. Isiq heard the giant muttering beneath his breath: ‘Fear rots the soul and gives nothing, but wisdom can save me from all harm. Fear rots the soul and gives nothing, but wisdom. . ’

  The Seventh Rule of the Rinfaith. The man was trembling. Isiq reached up and seized his elbow.

  ‘Tell me the rest of the Rule.’

  The giant stammered. ‘I shall. . I shall cast off the first for the second, and guard the sanctity of the mind.’

  Isiq nodded. ‘Keep a clear head, and listen to your captain. When the time comes you’ll do him proud.’

  ‘Oppo, Vurum.’ The giant managed a shaky grin.

  ‘Where’s your sword, lad?’

  ‘Belowdecks, like everyone else’s. The captain doesn’t want us armed yet. We’re not supposed to look dangerous.’

  ‘In that case you’d better go about on your knees.’

  This time the grin was wider.

  At the bows Gregory stood beside the witch — shoulder to shoulder, husband and wife. Both swore it was over, a marriage doomed from the start and ended wisely, decisively, when Gregory ran off into the shadow-world of the freebooters, the smugglers of the Crownless Lands.

  Pazel’s mother. And the love of Ignus Chadfallow’s life. Isiq had seen her that first night, outside her little house in Simjalla, but this was his first glimpse of her by daylight. She was tall and slender. Despite the chill her sea-cloak was thrown open, and her long black hair blew free in the wind. Isiq found himself longing to seize handfuls of that hair, to run his dry fingers through it, to hold it against his face. She was still lovely, and must have been heart-troubling in her youth. You’re an imbecile, Gregory. Whatever riches the man had earned, whatever freedom, whatever wild couplings with pirate girls or harlots on Fuln — he had walked away from that.

  She turned and caught him staring. ‘M’lady,’ he said awkwardly, with a slight bow.

  ‘Murderer,’ replied Suthinia Pathkendle.

  ‘She’s startin’ to like you, Isiq,’ muttered Gregory, his telescope raised. ‘That’s more or less how she used to greet me, when I came home from abroad.’

  ‘When you came home,’ said Suthinia.

  ‘Every night or two I say a little prayer for Neda,’ Gregory continued. ‘The fates got it backwards with that girl — gave her my looks and Suthinia’s lovely disposition.’

  ‘And Pazel?’ asked Isiq. ‘Do you say no prayers for your son?’

  Gregory and Suthinia both visibly stiffened. ‘Pazel’s never forgotten,’ said the captain, as Suthinia gazed hard at the sea.

  Isiq too averted his eyes. It’s true then. Pazel is Chadfallow’s boy, not Gregory’s at all. The doctor had been in love with Suthinia Pathkendle all the years Isiq had known him. And he had been stationed in Ormael in the twenties, hadn’t he? Just when the witch must have conceived. Isiq stole another glance at the two of them. Watch your mouth, old fool.

  ‘She spies on their dreams, you know,’ said Gregory, earning a look of rage from his wife.
r />   ‘I did not know,’ said Isiq.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the captain. ‘She has two vials of dream-essence, whatever that is, and when she warms them against the side of her face she can tell what they’re dreaming. She even entered one of Pazel’s dreams, and talked to him at some length. But it made his fits worse, and she had to promise not to do it any more.’

  ‘It’s none of his business, Gregory!’ hissed Suthinia.

  ‘She might still be able to speak with Neda — but then Neda’s gone and become a crazy priestess, and it mustn’t look good for a crazy priestess to have a witch for a mum. But Suthee looks and listens all the same. Because who knows? Maybe their dreams can give us some idea of where they’ve all washed up, and what they’re facing. Last night, for instance, she saw them floating down a river on a giant cow’s stomach — inflated, you understand — and doing battle with a — Pitfire!’

  They had just cleared the headland, and there beyond it was war. Enormous, horrific. A great line of Arquali warships began a mile or two from beyond Simja’s rocky terminus and ran away northwards, bow to stern, bow to stern. And west of them, in a curving, swift-running line: the white ships of the Mzithrin. Both sides belching fire, selectively where the lines diverged, frantically where they neared. At the closest point the battle was an orgy of blackness and flame, the ships’ masts rising out of the gushing, enveloping smoke. The tarboy brought a second telescope: Isiq reached for it automatically, but Suthinia turned and snatched it; the scope was for her, of course.

  Isiq squinted, shading his eyes. Plenty of death to go around. Ships on both sides maimed and burning, some limping out of formation, others helpless and adrift. A Mzithrini Blodmel was canted over on her beam-ends: fouled on a reef, most likely. Nearer at hand, an Arquali vessel was sinking fast, the decks awash, the men streaming out of her in crowded lifeboats.

  Gregory pointed at the doomed ship. ‘That’s the Vengeance, I believe. One Captain Kesper. You know him, Isiq?’

  ‘I know him. And the Vengeance as well. I trained on that ship, by damn.’

  ‘Hmph!’ said Gregory. ‘Now Arqual will be wanting a Vengeance II. Maybe they can give it to Kesper’s son.’

  Kesper, dying before his eyes! Isiq squinted at the line, wondering which of the young men he’d commanded were out there, dying in a battle that should never have begun.

  ‘Humourless old dog, Kesper,’ said Gregory. ‘Lend Isiq your scope, won’t you, Suthee, there’s a good girl.’

  Suthinia gave her ex-husband a withering glance. The man liked to bait her; who wouldn’t? Nonetheless she slapped the telescope into Isiq’s waiting palm.

  The carnage was worse than he’d thought. The Mzithrini were outnumbered but they had the wind, and their ships were smaller and faster. Where the Black Rags’ line bent closest to the Arqualis they were emptying their guns, one after another, then heeling about and running west. They were giving better than they got, and it was all the Arquali cruisers could do to hold the line.

  Isiq felt his chest constricting. Just as well he’d bucked up the giant lad when he did. He was not sure he’d be able to manage it now.

  ‘Who is winning?’ asked Suthinia.

  The captain and the admiral glanced at each other. ‘No one, I think, m’lady,’ said Isiq. ‘This battle is immense, to be sure, but it is just one battle, and little tactical change will come of it. The Mzithrinis cannot push east through the Straits, not with the heavy cannon on Cape Coristel, and the Third Fleet massed and waiting in the Nelu Peren. Nor can Arqual extend its reach far to the west. There is no base to hold, no part of the Mzithrin lands we can reasonably contest.’

  Suthinia gaped at the carnage. ‘Do you mean to say the Arqualis will withdraw?’

  ‘Both sides, most likely,’ said Gregory, ‘after dark.’

  ‘Then why are they fighting?’ cried Suthinia. ‘Why did the Arqualis leave the Straits to begin with? What in the Nine Pits is this for?’

  Huge and sudden flames from one of the Mzithrini ships: her powder room had exploded. A quarter of her portside hull simply flew out in burning fragments, a whirlwind of fire that raced horizontally over the water and across the deck of the Arquali warship that had bombarded her. The rigging of the Arquali ship bloomed bright orange; tiny figures leaped burning into the sea.

  Gregory looked at Suthinia and shrugged. ‘Practice?’ he said.

  Eberzam Isiq lowered the telescope. His hands were shaking. ‘You mean to run that gauntlet?’

  Now Gregory was amused. ‘Not to your taste, old man?’

  ‘Tell me your mucking intentions, or send me below if I’m no use.’

  ‘My mucking intentions are to leave these poor sods behind by nightfall, to stay out of the crossfire and the lee shore and that blary boat-gobbler of a reef, to lighten your purse by three-quarters, to get close to the Arquali flagship — and incidentally you’d better find me that flagship — and finally, to be sure none of your ex-proteges see your face. So yes, I will be stashing you below, and not very comfortably, I’m afraid. Enjoy your liberty while you can.’

  ‘You are a pig, sometimes, Gregory,’ said Suthinia. ‘Enjoy that? Do you enjoy it when your mates in the Fens get slaughtered?’

  ‘It’s a pleasant morning all the same. Look at them clouds, Suthee. That one looks like a sheepdog.’

  ‘Go rot in the Pits. They’re his countrymen. You didn’t even ask if Kesper was his friend.’

  ‘Didn’t need to ask,’ said Gregory.

  Isiq cleared his throat. ‘Your heart is kind, Lady Suthinia-’

  ‘Put your eye to that blary scope!’ she said. ‘Tell Gregory what we’re looking at. You’re the war-maker, and that’s your fleet.’

  ‘Alas for Arqual, that is merely a squadron.’

  Suthinia’s eyes danced with fire. ‘You spent your life among those people. You must know something about them — something beyond how to make them tear defenceless cities apart.’

  Isiq raised the telescope. Rin’s heart, that’s much woman. A few hours in her presence and he’d stopped craving deathsmoke. And who knew? A few days, if they lived that long, and the witch might cure him of missing Syrarys as well. Just as well that she despised him and all he stood for. There was no room for love in his plans.

  So: northwards. Three impossibilities to choose from. You could tack west for hours, in plain sight, and hope the Mzithrinis give you the freedom of the waters they held. You could run between the opposing forces and be pulverised. Or you try to slip east of the action, between the Arquali line and Cape Coristel. And that option was at least as mad as the others. Yes, there was a fair mile between the battle-line and the sawtooth rocks of the Cape. But the wind was onshore, and would contend with the Dancer league by league, trying to drive her onto those rocks. Such a wind called for prodigious leeway: a good skipper would sail another eight or ten miles west, before starting his northward tack. Of course that wasn’t going to happen today: that whole Arquali squadron would have been better off eight miles west. The Black Rags were not letting it happen.

  Gregory had them on a beam reach, sailing right into the slaughter. It was tactical, of course: you needn’t chase a boat that was coming straight for you. But soon enough he’d have to show his hand. They had to round Cape Coristel: Isiq knew no more than that. What cove or uncharted island or waiting boat they were making for neither Gregory nor Suthinia would reveal. Beyond the Cape lay the Chereste Sands, a long flat dunescape separating the Gulf of Thol from the vast, steaming Crab Fens. Isiq had guessed at first that they would make a landing there and trudge into the interior — but King Oshiram had heard that Arqualis were holding the Cape, with great guns hauled from Ormael, ready to blast any Mzithrinis who broke through the line. They would not put ashore on the Chereste Sands.

  Could they be bound for Tholjassa? Maisa had indeed fled to that mountainous land, decades ago, with her two young sons. Naval gossip had confirmed it, along with the fact that Sandor Ott had pursued them, assassinated t
he children, brought them back to Etherhorde on slabs of ice as warnings to any future foes, royal or otherwise, of His Supremacy Magad V. Isiq had always assumed Ott had killed the mother as well. Halfway measures were not to his liking.

  The cannon roared. They crept nearer the mayhem. Before them a Mzithrini ship dragged herself to shelter behind the line, trailing rigging, her foremast in pieces on the deck. Then Isiq saw what he’d been looking for. Behind the Arquali warships, lighter auxiliary craft were running the line, bringing fresh powder and replacements for fallen men. One of these, a sizeable brig, was trimming her sails afresh. Isiq pointed to her with the telescope.

  ‘Breakaway, Captain. They’ve been ordered to pay us a visit, sure as Rin made rain.’

  ‘We’ll be ready.’

  ‘Is that certain?’ asked Isiq. ‘You’ve never dealt with the navy until you’ve seen them on a war footing.’

  ‘What will they do to us?’ asked Suthinia.

  Isiq looked at her. ‘Anything remotely useful in a fight they’ll appropriate,’ he said, ‘water and provisions included. Then they’ll turn us back to Simjalla, and they won’t listen to a word we have to say.’

  The brig heeled round, and her sails began to fill. ‘They’re on intercept, true enough,’ said Gregory. ‘Right, old man, we’ll have to make them listen, won’t we?’

  Isiq made no reply. It was of course quite possible that they were going nowhere, that Maisa was long dead, that Gregory and his wife were lunatics. More likely they were just fools, used to trickery and luck, and the successes available to the bold in a place as chaotic as the Crownless Lands. Gregory was known as a dogged fighter and a slippery eel. But his fame had been earned in peacetime, and this was war again, Gods forgive us, Imperial war.

  She might also be alive, but senile and hopeless. That would be a joke to Ott’s liking, to kill her sons before they could grow up and menace him, and leave the broken mother to rave and wither and divert the energies of those who might oppose the usurper — to concentrate them behind a single, hopeless symbol of what they had lost.