Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

Thasha was no master fighter — that was the attainment of decades, not years — but she knew as they connected again that her opponent was not trained at all. Her left hand rose to meet the axe. Her eyes never left it. And his eyes followed hers, unthinking, so that he never saw the knife that ripped across his belly, parting shirt and flesh in a foot-long gash. Thasha spun beneath his still-upraised arm, twisting the forgotten axe out of his hand. As the man doubled over she clubbed him down with the weapon's heel. He crumpled, beaten but still conscious, holding his gut and screaming for aid.

Now Thasha leaped to Marila's side, her mind surfacing from its trancelike concentration — but only just. Marila, aboard. The others are coming. Why is it so cold?

For it was freezing now: her breath plumed white before her eyes. And wasn't that a skin of frost upon a barrel-top?

'Thasha,' gasped Marila, looking up at her in terror. 'Am I dead?'

'What are you talking about? Get up, hurry!'

'Where will you take me? Can you help me?'

'I'm trying, Marila. Get up!'

But it was clear that Marila wanted something more than protection from the men. Whatever that something was had to wait, however. Thasha pulled her to her feet, turned, groped for the lantern the first man had dropped-and watched oil gush from its broken side as she lifted it. Oil suddenly blinding as the flame jumped from the mantle to the leak, and then spread with a terrifying whump across the racing slick on the deck.

'No! ' cried Thasha.

The oil forked and slithered, and the flame moved with it. Suddenly the whole pack of men burst into the chamber. They stopped dead at the sight before them: two girls ringed in flames, above two wounded men. Then they all began shouting the same word:

'Surl! Surl! Surl!'

Thasha didn't have to ask what surl meant. She pulled Marila away as they attacked the blaze, stumbling into the darkness of the passage behind.

'Are you bleeding?' she demanded.

'No,' said the Tholjassan girl. 'Thasha, who are they?'

'I don't know. Stowaways, thieves. The Turachs will slaughter them. Blast it, dropped my knife-'

'Thasha, you're not — I heard them shouting that you were-'

'Dead? Not quite, Marila. Hurry up, now, before they find a way around.'

'That man will bleed to death, won't he?'

Thasha's breath caught in her throat. She hauled Marila by the arm. 'No more questions. Not until we're out of this blary mess. Rin's teeth, that's ice on the deck!'

They stumbled on, feeling their way through a Chathrand both familiar and intensely strange. The very air had a different smell, and the wood itself felt smoother, less cracked and pitted with age. Thasha had a vague hope that they were still making for the stern, where they could not possibly fail to come across a ladderway. But in darkness the ship felt larger than ever, and in truth she had no idea where they were.

Suddenly she caught the scent of animals again. Impossible! But there it was, dead ahead: the dim shape of the compartment door, the screeching birds, the cattle. Somehow she had turned about completely and run back to the bow.

They dashed through the straw-littered compartment. Instantly the air warmed, and the far-off howl of the wind died away. Thasha pulled Marila to a halt. She touched a beam: the chill was gone. And now she realised that the violent rolling of the ship had ended too. Thasha cast a wild eye back over her shoulder. What in the Nine Pits is happening?

Marila gazed at her, perfectly expressionless and still. Then she threw her arms around Thasha and hugged her, shaking from head to foot. Thasha patted her back. The girl smelled rather worse than the cows.

They walked on in silence. Daylight streamed down from the tonnage hatch. As they passed the surgery Thasha heard Chadfallow lecturing Fulbreech on the miracle of blood coagulants.

'There's Thasha now,' said an approving voice, farther ahead. 'Right on time.'

It was Hercol. The Tholjassan stood with the tarboys at the spot where Neeps had opened the ixchel door. But when the boys caught sight of Marila they ran forwards, muffling shouts of astonishment.

'You mad cat!' said a delighted Neeps. 'I thought we'd seen the last of you in Ormael! Where's your little brother? What on earth are you doing here?'

'Stowing away,' said Marila, in the flat tone she used so often.

'But what on earth for?' Neeps pressed.

Marila hesitated, looking at him. 'I didn't want to go home,' she said at last.

The boys looked at her awkwardly. 'Home must be blary rotten,' said Pazel.

Marila shrugged. 'There's always work in Etherhorde.'

It was never easy to read emotion on Marila's face, but when they told her that the ship was not bound for Etherhorde the corners of her mouth drooped visibly. And when they told her they were bound for the Ruling Sea her mouth fell open and her breath caught in her throat. She looked at them each in turn.

'You're crazy,' she said. 'We're all going to die.'

No one was prepared to argue the point. Then Thasha shook herself, as if trying to cast off a sudden drowsiness. 'The fire,' she said.

'Fire, fire?' cried the others.

Only Marila looked at her with comprehension. 'The fire! The men with axes! Where did they go?'

She and Thasha struggled to make themselves understood. Everything that had happened in the darkness — the freezing cold, the violent pitching of the ship, the quick, bloody battle — had very nearly disappeared from their minds. Only when Marila had said the word die had the memory rushed back, whole, like a dream recovered by them both. Now Marila was terrified. She had crept out of the sack where she'd been hiding because of the cold, she explained. But the ship she had found herself in was almost unrecognisable.

'I didn't know the men, or their clothes, or the language they spoke. They were horrible, like pirates or Volpeks.'

'They're gone,' said Thasha, looking restlessly up and down the passage. 'Can't you tell, Marila? They're not hiding. They're… somewhere else entirely. And the fire's gone too, and the storm.'

'It wasn't a dream,' said Marila firmly. "One of them tore out my hair. It still hurts.'

Thasha winced: a man had torn Marila's hair, and Thasa had slashed his belly open. If one was real, surely so was the other? She crossed her arms over her own belly, revolted.

Pazel noticed her distress. 'What's the matter with you?'

Thasha shook her head. 'Nothing. Dropped my knife, I think.' She groped at her belt as if making sure. The others were looking at her closely. She had not mentioned what she had done with that knife, and didn't much want to. 'I think I'm going to be sick,' she said.

'I am sick,' said Marila. 'And thirsty. I drank the last of my water yesterday.'

'Thasha,' said Hercol, 'take Marila to the stateroom and see to her needs, and your own. One of you boys put your coat over her head and shoulders. Let her pass for one of you if she can.'

'Right,' said Neeps, shrugging off his coat. 'Get some rest, Marila. You're looking green.'

Thasha took Marila to the ladderway, and they climbed out of sight. Hercol watched them go, then turned with sudden vehemence to face the boys.

'Do either of you have a guess as to what just occurred?'

'Yes,' said Pazel.

Neeps turned to him in surprise. 'You do?'

Pazel nodded. 'I think Marila stumbled into a disappearing compartment. Remember the rumours, Neeps, when we first came aboard? Places that just vanish, ghosts trapped in timbers, the names of everyone who ever died on Chathrand etched on some hidden beam? What if some of those rumours are true?'

'Ignus has always contended that mages played a part in the making of this ship,' said Hercol.

'He said there were old charms on her, too,' said Pazel, 'and that some of them slept until triggered, one way or another.'