Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

Suddenly the ruins were full of maimed and bleeding men. A few were Simjans; most were foreigners (Arqualis, someone shouted) and all were running for their lives. The youths asked no questions, for nothing about the men's torn bodies was open to doubt. They ran, howling, beside the strangers, and the swiftest of them lived.

The battle raged through the night, as the plague of creatures spread from the hillside slums to the wealthier districts. The forces of King Oshiram were twice overwhelmed. After the second rout, just blocks from the palace, his commanding general emptied the barracks. Siege! went the cry. War inside the walls! Rise now to save the city! And every last spear-bearer, conscript and cavalryman joined the fray, along with a good many farmhands, stevedores, stonemasons and virile monks. The last of the beasts fell at midnight on the Street of the Coppersmiths, almost exactly where the king had stood when he described the fine lamps he'd ordered for the ambassadorial household.

Of the eighteen men who had served the Secret Fist, just three were captured alive. One had taken a wound to the throat and could not speak. The other two were brought before the king that very night. Oshiram, who had joined the fighting himself and lost considerable blood (not to mention hundreds of subjects), lifted the chin of the first man with the tip of his yet-to-be-cleaned sword.

'Talk, you monster.'

But the man was already talking, very softly to himself: 'The rats, the rats, the rats,' he said.

'We know they're rats!' exploded the king, 'in the same way that a godsforsaken whale-eating behemoth shark is a fish! Tell me what you know of them!'

'They can t-t-talk-'

'That's more than I can say for you, you slobbering dog! Who are you? What were you doing on that hillside? What sort of black sorcery turns rats into hog-sized killing machines?'

Suddenly the other man raised his head and looked directly at the king. His face was so white with chalky dust that he might have been a thespian painted for the stage — except for the blood that had dried in streaks.

'It's the queen's revenge,' he said.

'What's that? Who are you? What queen?'

The man moistened his dry lips. A small wart in the corner of his mouth began to bleed anew.

'Mirkitj,' he said, 'the crab-handed queen. We jailed a living man among her statues. We violated her unholy tomb.'

Oshiram had outlawed torture, very publicly, on the first day of his reign. Whether as a consequence of this decree or because their minds were broken, he learned little more from either captive. But armed with the mention of 'a living man' he sent eighty of his least wounded footsoldiers into the ruins of Mirkitj's palace. Following a trampled and bloody path they found a door — once well hidden, now torn from its hinges — and descended by stages through the remains of the palace, the basements, sub-basements, and at last to the kiln.

Months of shock and revulsion would follow, as the statues were brought one by one into the daylight and their possible lineages debated. But nothing was so strange as the discovery of a pale old man, barricaded in the cylindrical oven and emaciated, but very much alive. He could not tell them his name, or who had imprisoned him, or for what crime. Indeed none of the soldiers recognised him, and it was only the king who saw the Arquali ambassador and father of the first Treaty Bride beneath the blood and matted hair and months of filth.

He almost shouted, Isiq! It's you! But something made Oshiram hold his tongue. He stood a little apart from the delirious man and waved his scribe and chamberlain to silence. He thought of all that had happened in his city that year. A murdered girl. A Mzithrini elder slain in his shrine. A curious silence from Arqual. And no word whatsoever from the west regarding the happiness of Falmurqat and Pacu Lapadolma. He felt the stirrings of fear for his little country, ever between the hammer and the anvil, ever dreaming of the day it would cease to bleed. Then he beckoned to the chamberlain and had him take Isiq to a guest room in the palace, a snug but out-of-the-way place not far from the king's private library.

'Send a doctor — No, send my doctor, and have him report to me the minute he leaves this man's bedside. And see that neither he nor the guards nor you yourself ever mention this fellow to a soul.'

20 Freala 941

129th day from Etherhorde

At dawn the Chathrand was no longer alone.

They had heard nothing, and seen no vessel approach for as long as there was moonlight to see by. Yet somehow before dawn a small, single-masted cutter had swept down upon them, around the curve of one of the Black Shoulders, or else out of some hidden mooring on Bramian itself.

She had drawn up under their lee and was closing still. The lookout bellowed; the watch-captain gave a blast on his pipe. Archers raced to the Chathrand's fighting tops.

The cutter was some forty feet long. There was grace to her lines, her tight-fitted timbers, and her silent crew worked the headsails with confidence, riding her gently on the swells. Little by little she edged closer to the Great Ship.

Mr Alyash came on deck and ordered the archers to stand down. 'Let us have the ladder, gentlemen. Helmsman, nothing sudden if you please.'

The accordion ladder snaked down the hull. On the cutter the men were rigidly alert: if they drifted too near they would founder in the Chathrand 's underswell: a fatal accident beyond any doubt. The helmsman of the smaller craft fought the waves, shouting orders to the men at the staysail. The gap narrowed: twelve feet, tenSuddenly a man was airborne: he had taken a flying leap from the smaller craft. He cleared the gap and caught the ladder in both hands, smacking against the Chathrand's hull. For an instant he vanished completely in a wave; then the Great Ship rolled and his body punched upward through the water. Alyash, watching his progress from above, heard him laugh aloud.

The cutter veered hastily away. The man on the ladder climbed with easy assurance. Water streamed from his loose grey hair and the tip of the scabbard lashed sidelong on his back. Some thirty feet below the topdeck he raised his eyes to Alyash and barked:

'You're the new bosun — Swellows' replacement?'

'Aye, sir,' came the startled reply.

'You'll reopen the midship portal. This is no way to board.'

'We sealed it against the Nelluroq, Mr-'

'Open it. And let Elkstem know he must bear north around Sandplume Isle — tight in, there's a cove.'

'The cove at Sandplume?' Alyash sputtered. 'But sir, the reef blocks the mouth of that cove, it's unapproachable.'

'There is no reef, you fool. We tore it out six months ago. Where's the captain? What mischief has that cursed mage been up to? And what the devil happened to the Shaggat's son?'

'He… that is-'

'Never mind, give me a hand. By the Night Gods, your face is ugly!'

Alyash glared, but bent over and clasped the outstretched hand — a scar-covered hand that closed on his own like a trap. The bosun grunted and heaved backwards, and the newcomer sprang over the rail and landed four-square on the deck. They stood there, eye to eye. Then Alyash wrenched his hand free.

'You're one to talk, you old spittin' viper.'

A moment's silence. Then Alyash guffawed, and Sandor Ott cackled, and the two men locked arms in what was almost an embrace.

'Bastard!' said Ott. 'We needed you in Simja! I said we wanted you aboard eventually. I didn't tell you to ship out as part of the crew!'

'You left it to my discretion.'

Ott shoved the bosun away. 'That was before the Isiq girl's trick in the shrine! You've no idea how close we came to ruin, that day. Pacu Lapadolma's credentials were mistranslated! What good is "a general daughter," damn your eyes, when we need the daughter of a general? We had to enlist our reserve man from the shrine to argue on her behalf, keep them all talking and considering, while we dug out old letters from her family.'