Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

For a moment Uskins looked like a man stripped naked. Then he screamed at the Turachs to get 'that demented slagman' off the topdeck. Frunc went on shouting even as the marines thumped him down the ladderway: 'Stukey! Ouch! Stukey!' His voice floated up to the shocked amp; silent topdeck longer than you'd expect, amp; each cry brought a wince from Uskins. It also brought certain men who hated Uskins closer to helpless mirth. Uskins had made a career of mocking the so-called lowborn.

'Who's laughing? Who's blary laughing?' Uskins was now racing this way amp; that, charging at one stone-faced sailor after another, making things infinitely worse for himself. Even some of the prisoners looked morbidly amused. Then Rose's crashing voice silenced everyone:

'D OWN!'

The word was scarce out of his mouth when the cannon boomed. We threw ourselves flat, as a ball screamed from the Sanguine, bashed a hole in the midship rail, carried off part of the mainmast shrouds amp; continued right over the deck, to drop into the waves on our starboard flank. There were men on the whaler yet! Uskins snapped out of his madness amp; yelled for Byrd amp; Tanner, who let loose with the most cacophonous broadside I have ever heard or hope to, amp; from my place by the mizzen I saw the little Opaltine craft slashed open, like a fish by a gutting knife, right along her middle deck. And still Uskins was shouting: 'Reload! Haul in and reload! Tanner, are ye blary deaf?'

We were all half-deaf, of course — amp; then our own smoke billowed up amp; draped the topdeck like a shroud. Rose sent his clerk running into it, amp; I followed on the man's heels. Gasping amp; retching I saw the man at Uskins' elbow, making cease-and-desist gestures. The first mate understood amp; somehow croaked out a Stand down.

The smoke lifted amp; I turned to the rail. All over: there was no deck on the Sanguine from which to fire at us, no man in one piece to attempt it. She was toppling our way, bubbling, sinking; inside of five minutes her mainmast lowered at us like an accusing finger; in another five she was no more than trash amp; splinters amp; a smell of burning whale.

I set about getting the gawkers off the deck. Drellarek watched me with a hand on his sword-hilt. As if he expected some trouble from me, broken old coward that I am. Captain Magritte had regained consciousness amp; stood weeping between his guards. Chadfallow amp; Fulbreech staunched wounds. Pazel Pathkendle looked at me amp; said simply, 'Why?'

'Clear off, lads, clear off.' I made my way along the rail, now amp; then persuading a Turach to put his blade away. Ahead of me Bolutu was scribbling in his notebook. When I drew near he looked up suddenly amp; held it out for my inspection. I read: Every outrage plays into his hands.

Our eyes met. 'Rose's hands, you mean? Or Arunis'?'

Bolutu shook his head. A quick scrawl. Sandor Ott's.

'The spymaster? He's still hiding in the gutters of Ormael, ain't he?'

Bolutu just looked at me.

'Anyway,' I went on uneasily, 'how does a crime like this work to his favour? Weren't you paying attention? Our men were fit to mutiny!'

More scribbling. But they didn't.

'Well that's just fear,' I said. 'But it can't last forever. We'll see how things stand when they're more afraid of the Nelluroq than they are of Rose or Arunis.'

Bolutu considered me a moment, his eyes perplexed. Then he tore out a page, wrote until his pencil snapped, whipped out another amp; finished the message off. He gave the page to me.

They should fear Ott. First he made them lie. Then he made them seem to perish. Today he makes them murderers. Tomorrow he will make them believe. And they will do so. They will have no other purpose in living but the cause.

Rose is Ott's tool, sir. And Arunis you must leave to us. We will fight him when the time comes. To fight him now would be to fight with shadows merely.

'Us?' I said.

Before I could answer Mr Latzlo blundered up amp; pawed at my elbow. He looked deeply affronted. 'The oil!' he cried, 'All that precious oil! It's a humiliation! Why didn't we pump her dry first, Quartermaster?'

I barked him off the deck in a voice I hardly knew was in me. Then I came back to Bolutu, still wanting an answer to my question. But the black man was finished with me. The horror of what we had done was back in his eyes, which looked skyward amp; past me. I turned around amp; saw the great plume of our cannon-smoke, rising higher amp; higher as the wind swept it south. The cloud's heart was ink-thick, amp; seemed like it would go on rising forever, a dark balloon bearing word of our crime to the heavens. But the tail of the cloud was stretching, paling, dwindling to near invisibility. Even as I watched it was gone, amp; with it a dozen-odd living souls, hope amp; memory amp; will amp; love amp; struggle, all ended in a moment, so that the heedlessly alive might forget them amp; rage on.

Need it be so? I ask myself (it is late, I am wretched, the day's blood stains these final thoughts). Need I wait for the next such outrage? I'm the quartermaster. Rose doesn't trust me, but he's not yet stripped me of rank amp; privileges. They'll admit me to the powder room with no questions asked. Should I bring the era of the Chathrand to an end?

Saturday, 14 Freala 941. Well into the Rekere Current. Orange heat lightning all night: the Bramian Beacon, as it's known. Thursday dawn picked up the autumn westerlies amp; doubled our speed.

Midmorning today (warm, mild, cloudless yet) I let Miss Thasha and her tarboy friends persuade me to inspect a part of the orlop deck, just astern of the live animal compartment. 'Bring a bright lamp, Mr Fiffengurt,' they pleaded, amp; I did so. Lady Thasha in particular was spooked by the darkness: strange, that, for she is as far from cowardly as any soul on this vessel. I should like to know what they were after. We found very little of note: just a deep axe-mark on a stanchion, a souvenir from the ancient days. The mark fascinated Lady Thasha, somehow. Could I explain it? she asked.

I could, in fact. I knew what legend made of that mark. It came from a dark time in Chathrand 's history, when the Yeligs leased her out to Jenetran slave traders. They were in the Nelu Vebre in the far north-east, amp; it was winter, amp; the slaves were dying of cold. Well, one girl grew so thin she slipped her irons, amp; hid away for weeks. And when they found her she ran, cursing them amp; crying out for help. And just as they seized her another girl appeared, her mirror image, pale where the slave-girl was dark. A spirit-girl, if you please. She fought like a devil, though, amp; cut one man's gut wide open, amp; set fire to the deck. When the men quelled the fire they searched high amp; low, but they never saw that girl or her protector again. They'd vanished as if they never were.

'And this mark was made by one of those Jenetrans, who took a swing at the devil-girl with his axe. That's the story. And there's hundreds more, if you like that sort of thing.'

They were staring at me as if I'd grown three heads amp; a tail. And then Miss Thasha took my hand in both of hers amp; asked if the crew-member had died. 'Well the story ain't that specific,' I said with a laugh. At that she turned right around and faced the wall.

No, I cannot kill them yet. Not those boys, amp; not dear Thasha, who has given me this new journal amp; a safe place to keep it here in her chambers, beyond the reach of Uskins, or Stukey, or whatever the fool's real name is. There is some new hope in the faces of those three youths: I see it when they look at Hercol, as if at a man they had never before seen clearly. And the Tholjassan too has the look of one girding himself for battle. Imitate them, Fiffengurt. You may save your honour yet.

19 Freala 941