The Ruling Sea (64 page)

She turned and ran, straight out along the edge of the cliff, pulling on the swallow-suit as she went. Behind her Steldak was howling: “Lord Taliktrum! Murder! Regicide!” And Myett was giving chase. Dri ran so close to the precipice that earth and leaves sheered off with every footfall. How her back bled! The ancient coat would be defiled forever, and how would their descendants speak of the one whose blood stained the garment? Heroine, traitor, fool?

She stumbled. Her shoulder met the cliff’s edge, and then she was falling, spinning, the boiling waves rushing toward her. She closed her eyes and extended her arms, thrust her hands into the wingbone gauntlets—

And soared.

“What do you mean, refuses?” said Neeps.

“I mean he refuses—he flat-out won’t come near her,” said Fiffengurt with a significant look at Thasha’s cabin. She had retreated there well before sunrise, with Felthrup and her dogs, and had only responded to their knocking with irritated grunts. Felthrup’s muffled voice went on and on, however, as if the rat were delivering an endless speech.

The quartermaster entered the stateroom and closed the door behind him. He looked worried and morose. “As a matter of fact, Pathkendle doesn’t want to see any of you. He’s asked for his hammock to be brought to the midship compartment on the berth deck. He says he’ll be as safe there as he would in the stateroom, because there’s always hundreds of sailors around. And of course no woman may set foot there. I don’t think he’s in his right mind, Undrabust, if you want the truth. He says Alyash is a Mzithrini! And he says he watched Drellarek get
eaten.”

“Did Pazel get bumped on the head, maybe?” asked Marila sensibly.

Fiffengurt shook his head. “He
looks
like he’s been wrestling snakes in the bottom of the Pits. And there’s more, by Rin.” He lowered his voice, although they were quite alone. “Pathkendle says Rose has got a wolf burned into his forearm. How d’ye like that development, lad? Rose carries the same mark as you and Pathkendle and Thasha and Mr. Hercól. Does that mean what I think, now—that the captain’s going to help us?”

Neeps’ eyes widened in disbelief. “Pazel must be wrong,” he said. “He saw some other scar on Rose’s arm, and got carried away.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Undrabust,” said Fiffengurt uneasily.

“Hang that fool, he’s impossible!” Neeps exploded. “Gone for three days of Rin-knows-what on Bramian, and he can’t even bring himself to say,
Hello, I survived?”

“Obviously not,” said Marila.

Neeps glared at her. “Anything else
obvious
to you?”

Marila nodded firmly. She began to count on her fingers.

“Pazel won’t actually be safe on the berth deck, because it’s full of violent men. And all that chatter from Felthrup—it’s just like the night before last. He’s reading to her from the
Polylex
, Neeps. And Thasha must have asked him to, because who could put up with it otherwise? And Rose hasn’t imprisoned you yet because he thinks you’ll be useful to him, just like Pazel must have been on Bramian.”

“Finished?” Neeps demanded.

“No,” said Marila. “It’s also obvious that you and Pazel had a fight before he left—you get angry whenever he’s mentioned. And one more thing: since Ramachni left we haven’t won any battles, unless you count what happened on Dhola’s Rib. Mostly we’ve been fighting just to stay alive. We’re … lost, and our enemies are stronger than ever.”

Fiffengurt sighed and worried his beard. “That last part’s certain,” he said. “But they did take one hit on Bramian: Sergeant Drellarek met his death, in some horrid way no one wants to explain.”

Thasha’s door creaked open. There she stood, bedraggled and wild-eyed between her dogs.

“Where is Pazel?”

Awkward silence. Neeps and Fiffengurt glanced sidelong at each other, as if each was hoping the other would speak first.

Marila came to their rescue. “He’s annoyed with us—with the two of you, anyway. He and Neeps got into a fight—”

“What?” cried Thasha.

“—and Pazel’s mad at you for kissing Fulbreech—”

“What?”
shouted Neeps. “Thasha, you kissed that snake-tongued stooge? That palace bootlick?”

Thasha looked ready to smack him. “You don’t know a thing about Greysan. He’s no more a bootlick than you, he’s worked for what he’s got—”

“Aye,” laughed Neeps acidly. “I’ve no
doubt
he earns his wages. Just didn’t imagine you’d be paying ’em.”

“You
pig
!” Thasha took a step toward Neeps. “Did you try to strangle Pazel too?”

“Are you both touched in the head?” cried Fiffengurt, stepping between them. “I’ve never seen such a pair of beasts! Enough, enough, or by the Night Gods you can have done with any help from this old man!”

His rage shamed them all to silence. Fiffengurt took a deep breath. “That’s much better. Now then—”

A terrified squeal cut him off. It was Felthrup, still in Thasha’s cabin. They rushed into the chamber and saw the rat upon her bed, eyes riveted on the single porthole, which stood ajar. Collapsed on the sash was what they first took for an injured bird. But then the bird rose on shaky human legs.

“It’s Diadrelu!” cried Thasha, leaping to her side. “She’s been stabbed!”

She lifted the ixchel woman gently from the sill. “The coat, don’t harm the coat!” Diadrelu gasped.

“Devil take the coat!” said Felthrup. “Where is your wound, Diadrelu?”

“Lord Rin!” said Fiffengurt. “That thing’s a crawly!”

Dri looked up at him, copper eyes sharp.

“Put it down, Thasha!” cried Fiffengurt. “They’re worse than scorpions! Trust me, I know!”

“Will he talk?” said Diadrelu quietly.

“Will I talk?” cried Fiffengurt. “You can bet your ship-sinking blood I’ll talk!”

“No you won’t!” shouted Neeps and Thasha together.

Fiffengurt looked from one to the other, like a man being circled by strangers in an alley. “You don’t understand,” he whispered. “That’s a crawly.”

“We’ve no time for this,” husked Diadrelu.

“It’s your back that’s cut, isn’t it?” said Neeps, trying to peel the coat away from the bloody spot. Dri dug her nails into his thumb.

“You’re under attack,” she said.

The warning spilled from her, even as her blood soaked Thasha’s arm: the old priest on the island, Sathek’s Scepter, the
Jistrolloq
tearing east with a full spread of sail. The humans stood gaping. Once more Thasha was the first to reach a decision.

“Take her, Marila.”

Gingerly she passed Diadrelu to the Tholjassan girl. “What are you doing, Thasha?” Felthrup asked.

“Alerting Rose,” she said. “It has to be me, don’t you understand?”

Without waiting for an answer, she flew from the stateroom. They heard her shouting from the passage: “Turachs! Rose wanted me captured, right? Here I am, take me! I surrender!”

Neeps started to run after her, but a glance at Fiffengurt’s tortured expression stopped him dead.

“Listen,” he said, “we owe our lives to this
crawly
. She saved me and Pazel in the Crab Fens. And she was the one who guessed the right moment to turn the Shaggat to stone.”

“Then she’s using you, Undrabust—exploiting your good nature.”

“Oh come on,” said Neeps. “My
what
?”

Marila had put Diadrelu on the bed and was easing her out of the feather-coat. “We’ll need a doctor,” she said.

“No!” said Diadrelu. “I told you, the wound is not deep. Give me your knife, Mr. Fiffengurt.”

“You know who I am!”

Diadrelu sighed. “I also know that the
Jistrolloq
will make short work of this vessel, if her other officers move half as slowly as you do. Come then, do it yourself—cut this shirt from me.”

No room for modesty in her manner: she was a soldier in need of aid. “Do it!” shrilled Felthrup, pawing at the quartermaster’s leg. Stunned, Fiffengurt drew his skipper’s knife. He slid it under the blood-soaked shirt, and cut it with a quick upward slash.

Like any sailor worthy of the name, Fiffengurt kept his blade very sharp. The cloth parted neatly, and Diadrelu stood bare to the waist. The quartermaster blinked and dropped his eyes. He had never seen a more beautiful woman—
not a woman, a crawly, damn it all
. She twisted to examine herself: her back was crimson. A long diagonal gash crossed her shoulder.

“Brüch,”
she swore, “I can’t fly like this. Hear me, I beg you. We have just two swallow-suits, and my nephew is wearing the other. He and three of our people are on Sandplume. They cannot escape the isle except by relaying both suits back and forth—carrying an empty suit back to the isle after each trip, you understand?—and this must happen before the
Chathrand
escapes the harbor. We cannot fly more than half a mile without rest. Someone from my clan
must
take this suit back to Sandplume, immediately.”

“How can we make that happen?” said Neeps.

“Leave it to me!” said Felthrup, jumping. “I know where they are! And the Turachs will never catch this rat, even if they bother to try! Leave it to me!”

And he too was gone.

Diadrelu hissed: Marila had dipped a handkerchief in brandy and was swabbing her wound. Fiffengurt would not let himself look at her again—or just once, just to confirm a suspicion. There it was, by Rin, he hadn’t dreamed it: the wolf-scar, the same shape the others carried, burned into that astonishing—

“They will need you aloft, Quartermaster,” said the crawly woman, looking at him over her shoulder.

He wrenched his eyes away, blushing. “Never could I have dreamed that I would see such a day,” he mumbled.

The crawly woman laughed, though tears of pain streaked her face. “Stay alive long enough and you’ll see it all.”

Thasha found the captain in the chart room, checking figures in a logbook with Elkstem, a great map of the Outer Isles spooling over the table’s edges and draping to the floor. His steward blocked her way, but she shouted past him. “Captain Rose! Captain Rose! We’re under attack!”

He looked up at her, threatening. Then he lumbered to the door, waving the steward aside.

“How dare you,” he snarled, leaning over her.

“It’s true,” she said, meeting his wolfish eyes. “The
Jistrolloq
is running straight for us, Captain, on the other side of Sandplume. She’s probably less than ten miles off.”

Rose’s eyes blazed down at her. “The
Jistrolloq
. You are hysterical, girl. Steward, have the guard escort—”

“No!” said Thasha, seizing his coat. “It’s here, it’s followed us! Captain, for Rin’s sake—”

“Be silent, you little fool!”

Thasha said nothing, but a look passed between them. He had called her that before: in the Straits of Simja, when the fleshancs were storming the
Chathrand
, leaving dead men around them in heaps. Rose’s face paled slightly, and she knew that he remembered which of them had been in the right.

“How do you know this?” he whispered.

“Does it matter?” she said. “Look at me, Captain.
I know.”

Their faces were inches apart. One moment longer Rose crouched, stock-still, only his eyes whirling here and there like bats, and Thasha had the odd impression that he was listening to voices other than her own. Then he shoved her aside and charged from the room like a marauding bull.

“BEAT TO QUARTERS! EVERY LAST MAN TO QUARTERS! THE BLACK RAGS ARE MINUTES FROM OUR BOWS!”

28
The Hunt

24 Freala 941

For the first time in his life, Felthrup crossed a deck in broad daylight without fear of men. The only danger they posed now was trampling; rats were the last thing on their mind. After what had happened in Thasha’s cabin, moreover, Felthrup felt a strange, intoxicating liberty coursing through him. When two sailors locked in an argument over battle protocol jammed the ladderway, he shrilled, “One side, one side!”—making them leap from his path.
I scared them
, thought Felthrup.
I might have been a bear, the way they jumped! Although in fact they could kill me with one blow
. Reckless,
that is the word. I am a reckless woken rat!