Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

'The sea route is closed indeed,' Drellarek admitted. 'You'd tear a boat to pieces in all that. But surely there are calmer days?'

'Not more than one in twenty,' said Sandor Ott. 'Many weeks my men have had to wait in the Black Shoulders, with a hold full of arms or mail or medicines, listening for a break in the wind. The work is hazardous and slow — and now it will be slower still, for we must abandon the land route until-'

'Right,' Drellarek finished for him, nodding grimly.

Ott won't even consider fighting the eguar, thought Pazel, not with all his men. He knows how deadly that creature is.

Another mile, and Pazel could see the river itself, a dark, twisting waterway that burrowed into Bramian, and quickly vanished there. The river looked placid enough, but it had clearly proved mightier than the will of the Amber Kings, for just above the valley the wall came to its end. There was a last tower, and no more: beyond the river the jungle stretched unbroken over the rounded mountaintops.

They rode forwards into the tower. It was larger than the others, with many dark and chilly rooms. Ott announced that they were spending the night. For a few minutes they busied themselves with the horses, who were both famished and thirsty. Then Ott unbuckled one of the large saddlebags and drew out four sacks tied with rawhide.

'You will want to see this,' he told them all. Placing one of the sacks before him, he loosened the cord and tugged it open.

Green jewels blazed in the evening sun. 'Emeralds,' said Sandor Ott. He sank his hand to the wrist, raised it, let a shower of the precious stones fall back into the mound. Pazel could scarcely breathe. All the gold he had ever seen changing hands would not buy the contents of that sack.

Ott touched another. "Blue Sollochi pearls,' he said. 'And the last two hold bloodstone — choice eastern rubies, cut by nunekkam jewellers.'

'They're all for me, aren't they?' asked Erthalon Ness, rubbing his hands together in delight.

Sandor Ott laughed. 'In a sense, Maggot. Others will guard them on your behalf — and spend them, at need.'

'Spend them?' asked Saroo. 'Where? You could leave them untended for a year in this place.'

'No you couldn't,' said Ott. He glanced at the Shaggat's son, then pointed back out the door of the tower, along the wall. 'Take our friend to see the monkeys, Saroo. He overlooked them when we entered, I think.'

'I didn't see any monkeys, Mr Ott.'

'Do as I say, lad.'

Bewildered, Saroo led a happy Erthalon Ness through the eastern archway. Ott beckoned the others to follow. He walked in the opposite direction, through several dismal rooms, and at last into a chamber with a broad window facing west. Reaching it, he gazed down with satisfaction on whatever lay below.

Chadfallow reached the window next, and visibly recoiled from what he saw. 'By the gods,' he huffed, leaning heavily on the stone.

Pazel came up beside him. Far below the tower, the river made an especially sharp bend, almost an ox-bow. The teardrop of land within its curve was about the size of the city of Ormael. It was teeming with life. Men, cattle, chickens, dogs. There were barracks and stockades, wooden halls, tents of sewn hide, grain silos, mills where water-wheels slowly revolved.

'Our allies,' said Sandor Ott.

Where the river bent closest to itself, a stout wall of timber leaped from shore to shore, with a pair of mighty wooden doors at the centre. A lesser wall ran the whole length of the riverbank, broken only by the mills and some sort of massive lumber operation at the farthest point from the observers. Towers rose at intervals, each with a stout guard compliment. The fort was protected by water, wood, and men-at-arms.

'What are they building, Ott?' asked Drellarek.

'Ships,' said Pazel.

The sergeant blinked at him. 'You need glasses, if you can't see that much,' said Pazel. 'Those are framing timbers. And cutwaters. And keels.'

'Right you are, Pathkendle. Fifty ships, to be precise. There is no shortage of wood on Bramian. And we have no shortage of funds to pay for what they cannot manufacture here — sailcloth, cannon, the finer metalwork. Here they sit in the wilderness, gentlemen, unknown to anyone in the world but us, and a few dozen of my men. And yet thousands across Alifros have laboured unwittingly on their behalf. Flikkermen tracked down and kidnapped shipwrights. The slave-school on Nurth provides the wives. And Volpeks, those exquisitely useful outlaws, bring everything to the hidden anchorage at Sandplume, where my men meet them on a flagless ship. The Volpeks have no idea who their customers are, or where in Alifros their shipments go next. Bramian itself would be the last place to cross their minds! No one trades with these savages. We had the devil's own job building that wall, with their arrows raining down on us day and night.'

'But who's the wall protecting?' asked Swift. 'Who's down there, Mr Ott?'

A note of pride entered the spymaster's voice. 'They were castaways when we found them: war refugees, hiding in mangroves in the Baerrids, a few inches above sea level, surviving on gulls' eggs and rats. The Black Rags were unforgivably careless not to have killed them. Every year those men spent tortured by insect and typhoon, sleeping in burrows that filled with seawater, dying of scurvy or light wounds turned gangrenous, added to their hatred of the Mzithrin. They had spent a decade that way, since the Shaggat's rebellion was crushed at the end of the war.'

Chadfallow turned to the spymaster. His face was ashen. 'They're… his people?'

'Nessarim warriors,' said the spymaster, nodding. 'True believers, to a soul. As the Shaggat was fleeing east into our navy's gunsights, these poor bastards were running south, packed into one groaning vessel, just hours ahead of the White Fleet. Somewhere east of Serpent's Head they foundered on a reef, and half their number drowned. But that reef was good fortune, for otherwise the Sizzies would have caught them on the open sea. They were no longer taking prisoners by that point in the war.

'We took them first to a camp on Opalt, where the sick perished and the strong fought their way back to health. But on Opalt they could do little more than hide, and worship their mad king in secret. That is why, five years ago, we brought them shipload by shipload to this place. Now they number over three thousand.'

'And fifty ships under construction,' said Drellarek. 'That's impressive. But hardly a threat to the White Fleet.'

'Of course not,' said Sandor Ott. 'The contest will be as lopsided as pitting a dog against a bear, as Captain Rose put it once. You're a hunting man yourself, Sergeant.'

Drellarek smiled. 'How did you know?'

'I'd be a poor spymaster if I didn't know that much about the Turach commander. And I'm sure you'll agree that dogs have a role in any bear hunt?'

'That's a certainty,' said Drellarek. 'A good pack can corner a bear, bleed it with nips, exhaust it, until at last it can only watch as the hunter raises his spear for the kill.'

'Of course you must bring enough dogs,' said Ott. 'The colony below is just one in our hunting-pack.'

'And what of the dogs themselves?' asked Chadfallow quietly.

'What of them?' said Ott.

Grinning suddenly, he turned to Alyash with a gesture and a nod. The bosun hobbled forward, and Pazel saw that he too had extracted something from the saddlebags. It was a hunting-horn, stout and well-used, more powerful than lovely. Alyash faced the window, planted his feet and drew an enormous breath. Raising the horn, he sounded one long, keening blast. The high note shook the chamber, and carried far over the valley below.

When it ended, the sounds of labour from the settlement had ceased. Men were coming out of the buildings to gaze in the tower's direction. After a moment there came the sound of an answering horn.