The seminary was bright and sunny, its lawn manicured, all its cottages restored and repaired. Panna arrived in a white carriage that pulled up to the front of the library, a stone building not much bigger than the Throme cottage in Hangman’s Cliffs. She was helped down by Stave Deroy, who then, with several other dragoons, helped Hap Stanson down from the same carriage. They gave him his cane, and assisted him the few steps to the library.
Inside, the librarian, a young man with a kind but faraway look, bowed deeply, welcoming the queen and the head of his order. He stood alongside Father Usher Fell. They had both been expecting these guests. “Follow me,” the librarian said. He picked up a lantern and walked to a spiral staircase.
“I’ll stay up here,” the High Holy Reverend Father said. “I’m afraid in my condition I cannot navigate stairs well. But I will await your findings with great interest.”
Panna nodded. “Chunk, will you follow Father Fell? I will follow you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Hap watched as the four descended. Then he hobbled back outside. Two dragoons, leaning casually against the carriage, straightened up. They gripped their pikes. “You’re not to leave,” one said to the priest.
“Of course not. I just require a moment next door.” He pointed at the chapel. “I have been unable to offer my accustomed prayers. You are welcome to accompany me.”
They both shook their heads. “You’re not to leave.”
“Are you not Christian men?” he implored. “It is a chapel. I will kneel and say my prayers, that is all.”
They gripped their pikes tighter.
“Let him go,” a voice said. All three men turned to find Ward Sennett standing alongside, holding a large leather binder in his hand, full of parchments.
“All right,” the more senior dragoon agreed. “But we’re going with.” And so, flanking him, they walked into the sanctuary.
Deep below the ground floor, the library archives went on and on. Rows and rows of books, scrolls, and boxes filled the musty space. Clearly this was not simply a basement, but a part of the tunnel system beneath the Old City. The single lantern lit almost nothing. “Back here,” the young priest said. “Follow me.”
They followed him to a small brick doorway, an arch no more than two feet wide. The librarian turned sideways, slipped inside. He walked to a wooden table, on which was laid out several sheaves of paper, slightly yellowed. “Here are the records which you seek.”
He turned back to find Father Fell standing by his side, and a big dragoon struggling to force his bulk into the space. One arm and one leg were all he could manage. He pulled himself back, and looked at Panna, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I’m too big.”
“You’re just the right size, Chunk. The doorway’s too small. But it’s all right,” she said. “You wait here.”
“Ma’am, no…you stay here with me. Let ’em bring the stuff here to you.”
Usher Fell hesitated momentarily, then said, “Certainly,” He picked up the papers, and brought them back out. “So long as we don’t take them upstairs, we can look at them here. The ancient scrolls, however, must be handled delicately.”
Panna read the documents expecting to find the proof of Packer’s innocence she had been promised. “These hint that Packer was removed from school for more than just cheating. But they don’t say what his offenses were.”
“But they do,” Usher Fell said, standing beside her, pointing to a spot near the bottom of the second sheaf. “Right here. It says, ‘According to the records the elder Throme now quotes freely, referring to the Deeds of Mission Achawuk led by Father Dorndel Botts, it is deemed unwise to continue the younger Throme’s association with the seminary. The incident within Father Fell’s cottage provides the appropriate vehicle for his dismissal.’ ”
“But what are these ‘Deeds of Mission Achawuk’?”
“Ah. It is an ancient document. The record of that historical mission reveals that the Firefish, or something that sounds like them, were sighted, feeding, near the Achawuk lands. But those documents are not necessary. This clears him, right here. It is an official document that says his father was running around quoting church records, and that is the reason Packer needed to be expelled.”
“I don’t see that this clears his name. It doesn’t say what happened in the cottage. It simply creates a greater mystery.”
Father Fell frowned. “I’m disappointed. But…I’m not sure how to clear that up. Certainly, only Packer and the girl were there with me.”
“Where is the girl now?”
“Deceased. Very unfortunate accident.”
She glared at him. “Unfortunate for her.”
“Well, I’m sorry you came down here for nothing.”
Her eyes narrowed. He was a clever man. “What else is in that document?”
“Which one?”
“The Deeds of Mission Achawuk.”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing really.”
“I would like to see it.”
Fell looked a bit forlorn. “I don’t think it’s necessary, but if that is your wish…”
“Yes, and also my command.”
“I’ll bring them. No, wait. Those must be read within, and your dragoon cannot enter. Perhaps you could find a slightly…smaller guard?”
“Heavens. I’ll go in. Stave, wait here.”
“But ma’am…”
“Wait here!”
And she followed Usher Fell into the records room. The old priest laid a scroll out on the table. The young priest held the lantern. Panna leaned over, and began to read.
Then, as if on cue, Dirk Menafee stepped deftly from the shadows, grabbed Panna’s hair with one hand and put his pistol to the back of her neck with the other. He cocked the hammer.
The sailors were tying canvas, having furled most of the sails, keeping the ship in place. Now they stopped, the sunlight illuminating the sea. They saw the Firefish below, more Firefish than they had dreamed existed in the world. The beasts swam around and among one another, like eels poured into a pot. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.
“We’re cooked,” Delaney said as he looked down into the teeming mass. He got the sick impression that the Chase was floating on top of them, that the ocean had turned to monsters. They all looked small, but he knew they were not. Some were bigger than others; some were very young. But most were fully grown, fully formed, and fully capable of destroying a whole fleet of ships the size of the Trophy Chase.
“Tannan-thoh-ah,” Mutter Cabe said. He looked around the shores, and saw the men entering the water, swimming out to the Chase.
“What will happen?” Talon asked him.
“I don’t know much. Just stories from my youth.”
“What stories?”
“ ‘The Mastery,’ they call it. When everything changes. In the next world, man becomes the glory of the beast.”
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head. “It means we won’t see the sun rise on this world again.”
From his perch, Dayton Throme also saw the sun break through, saw it illumine the Trophy Chase, dazzling the sea, and then he saw what was below, under the water. The whole bottom of the sea was illumined as though through a crystal lens. The Firefish were dark gray, but the scales caught in the sunlight gleamed golden yellow. More of them than he had ever seen before. Across the entire bottom of these still waters, masses of them. All the Firefish in existence, he thought. Enough to destroy every ship on the ocean. Enough, perhaps, to destroy the world.
And as he watched, the first of many human waves entered the water, men with painted faces swimming out, their spears on loops of leather or twine around an arm, or around their necks.
“We’re done here. Come about,” Andrew Haas told the bosun. “We need hard port rudder and matching sail. We’re goin’ back the way we came.”
“Aye, aye,” Stil Meander answered, relief flooding his eyes. And then to the crew he boomed, “Stop yer gapin’, ye sheet-slittin’ slackdogs! We’re comin’ hard about!” And he began the ordering of the sails.
The men aboard the Chase turned from the fearful sight of the Firefish to their duties. Delaney and Mutter were among those on the foremast who loosed lines they had just finished tying, and unfurled canvas they had just furled, and did it gladly.
Talon looked at the quarterdeck with blazing eyes, up at the masts with bared teeth. “Belay that order!” she shouted, but her voice did not carry to the topmost yards, and judging by the lack of reaction from the sailors, didn’t carry to the lowest, either.
She leaped down to the foredeck in one bound, then cleared the rail and landed on the main deck in one more. Sailors who couldn’t seem to hear her watched in wonder. She was up the stair to the quarterdeck with her sword in her hand. Andrew Haas had just enough time to unsheathe his own blade before Talon disabused him of it. Hers flashed once and his flew over the rail and splashed into the sea.
But she did not quit coming at him; she pressed forward, and he backed into the cabin wall behind him, the edge of her blade against his throat, her left elbow pinning his shoulder to the wall. “Belay that order!” she hissed at him, “or die a mutineer!”
Haas remained silent.
“Belay that order!” Stil Meander boomed, waving his arms frantically, trying to save the first mate’s life. “Belay it now!”
Talon saw the action cease above her, and let Haas live. She pulled her sword away, but did not step back. “You had your orders.”
Frightened as he was, Andrew Haas still did not back down. “Kill me if you want, Talon. We’re all dead anyway if we stay here. There’s too many of the things. Can’t you see that? We need out of here, and we need out now. Sailing into smoke! The Achawuk are out there somewhere. And the Drammune! It’s a trap—it’s all a trap! We can’t survive it.”
“Those are opinions, sailor, and should be stated as such to your captain. Who wanted to take soundings here? Who wanted to drop anchor here? Was that me, or was that you?”
“Why me, a’ course.”
“And who said it would be too dangerous?”
“You did. Ma’am.”
“And what would have happened if we had taken soundings, or dropped anchor down onto those beasts?”
He swallowed hard.
“So who was right?”
“You were. Ma’am.”
She released him. “I know what you do not. Why does this smoke not choke us?” She looked up at all the men, addressing the entire crew. “Answer that! How can we breathe smoke?”
No one said a word.
“It does choke…a little bit,” Delaney offered in a whisper. Only nearby sailors heard him.
“Wood smoke blinds and stings and gags! This stuff…it is more fog than smoke. It is made by the Achawuk! Not to blind us! It is what keeps the Firefish below the sea. The beasts want to come up here. They want to feast on you, Mr. Haas.” She turned away from him. “And every one of your putrid carcasses.” She glared up into the rigging. “But they will not do so unless we behave like prey, so that they cannot resist. Do you want to behave like prey, Mr. Haas? With hundreds of predators watching from below? Do you want to run, and invite attack?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think! Mr. Haas, I relieved you of your sword that you might not oppose me with it. The next time you disobey, I will relieve you of your head, and for the same purpose. Do you understand me now?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked above and around her. Satisfied they were meek enough, she turned back to Haas. “Now, heave to once again.”
“Heave to,” he managed, nodding at Stil Meander.
“We’re heavin’ to!” Meander called out.
“Yeah,” Delaney said darkly. “We’re heavin’ to. We’re heavin’ idiots to obey the likes a’ her.” And he took another look at Packer, who hadn’t even turned around from his perch on the bowsprit.
“He knows we’re powerless here,” Mutter Cabe said, climbing back up to work alongside Delaney. He was clearly relieved to get away from the decks, and farther away from both the Firefish and Talon. “The king has given up.”
“Packer? He’s done no such thing. He’s prayin’, that’s all.” But Delaney wondered.
Dayton saw still more Achawuk wade into the waters. Thousands upon thousands of warriors, faces painted dark blue or crimson or green, spears tied to leather thongs draped over shoulders. On each leather thong a chunk of blackened cork was fastened, flotation for the spear and, if required, for the man. Tens of thousands went, and more waited their turn. When they were all in the water, it would be enough to choke out the surface of the mayak-aloh, to assure that no ship could sail, or move. Enough to assure that no ship’s boat could be lowered, except into their waiting arms, and that no ship could be abandoned, except into their spears.
All these ships were doomed. Cattle to the slaughterhouse. He had been away from Nearing Vast for many years, and he knew his mind no longer worked along their paths. But why would these ships come here? There was nothing here. No rum here. No gold. No one from whom to steal. These were islands lost in time, a place of sand and water, sun and wind, of slow and peaceful life and sudden, brutal death. Firefish and Achawuk—those were their only assets. Both were deadly, and unmerciful. Why come here at all?
And why come to the mayak-aloh? If they had navigated through these waters two islands over, even one island away, they would have passed through the entire chain unmolested. Every Achawuk alive was gathered here, right here.
And still they came. One or two ships were still angling to enter. It seemed to Dayton as though the hand of God must have brought them here for judgment, or that the devil lured them all here to their destruction, to the one place in all the world they could never possibly escape.
It was a prophecy, after all—the tannan-thoh-ah. All of it was true.
And now there was nothing left in all the world to do but to stand and watch the slaughter.
“And now, they come,” Talon said softly, under her breath.
The sudden spike of sunlight was retracted back into the heavens. Clouds rolled back in, covering everything. The mist, or smoke, or whatever it was grew heavier. Andrew Haas stood by his captain’s side, watching the Marchessa appear from the haze astern, floating silently except for the slap of lapping waters on her prow. And then, well back, the Drammune ship Kaza Fahn. Haas was thankful there had been no fight between them as yet, but sorry they had come here at all. A fight in open waters would have saved at least some of them. The Firefish would not stop until all were destroyed.
“Their numbers…you believe to be in the thousands?” Talon asked.
Haas was confused. Then he looked where she was looking, over the port rail. She had not been talking about the Drammune, nor the Firefish, but the Achawuk. But he saw nothing, nothing except gray haze. “Where?”
“Look at the surface of the waters.”
All Haas could see were ripples coming toward him, out of the smoke. His heartbeat quickened. These tiny waves rode atop the larger ones, insignificant, the kind that might be created by two hundred pebbles strewn across two hundred yards of sea. Then he heard the gentle splashes, the sort children might make in a bathtub. These froze his heart.
The ripples grew denser.
“Battle stations,” Talon commanded quietly. “All hands. Your standing orders, Mr. Haas, are to heave to, and to fight like demons.” She looked him in the eye. “I trust you will find no reason to disobey.”
Haas shook his head. “No, ma’am. I won’t.”
She watched his eyes, studying him, impassive as a hawk.
He spun on his heel and called out, “Battle stations! Achawuk, port side!”
Stil Meander added his own booming voice. “To arms, ye blaggards!” he called out, “The savages have come to feast!”
Sailors dropped down from the rigging like coconuts from a palm tree. Talon walked among them as she went back to the prow of the Chase, once more to check on her prize, Packer Throme.
As she walked to the prow, she heard gunshots astern.
“Your Highness!” Stave Deroy shouted, pulling his pistol. But by the time he aimed it, the only person he could see was Panna. The gunman was behind her, using her as a shield.
“Do it!” Usher Fell hissed, barely above a whisper. “Why are you waiting?”
Dirk Menafee bared his teeth, but did not pull the trigger.
“Kill her! You will have your reward!”
Dirk swung the barrel of the gun toward Father Fell. “You have all the proof you need?” he asked, not at the priest, but into the darkness behind him.
“Yes, quite enough, Mr. Menafee.” Two deputies and the Sheriff of Mann stepped from the shadows. The deputies grabbed Father Fell by the arms and began to manacle his hands behind his back. The sheriff, a young, square-jawed official who radiated the integrity of competence, was a protégé and staunch admirer of the late Bench Urmand.
“This is outrageous!” the priest started. But then, after glaring once at Dirk, he thought better of protesting.
Dirk holstered his pistol. “Sorry, ma’am, if I scared you at all.”
Panna straightened herself. “You were…convincing. But no harm done. Thank you.” She turned to Usher Fell now, looked at him as she spoke, watched his expression slide from anger to dismay. “Your actions are punishable by death.”
“Persecution,” he said to her. “Martyrdom. Your retribution will only strengthen the Church of God.” Then he turned to Dirk Menafee. “And I’ll want my money back.”
“Not likely.”
Aghast, the priest asked him, “Do you have any idea what you’ve just passed up?”
“No, I don’t,” the grizzled one replied. “And see, that’s the problem. This queen here, she does what she says. Like it or not. But that one you serve? She’s likely to do or say anything to get her way. I think she’s out of her screamin’ mind, frankly.”
Fell could not disagree, and so spoke no more as he was led away.
Huk Tuth heard the roar of gunfire, too, but he ignored the sound. The blasts came from behind him in the haze. Drammune were attacking the Vast, just as he was about to do. Tuth had not seen the momentary shaft of light that illumined the beasts below. He had eyes only for his chosen prey. The great ship had slowed to almost a stop. He did not spend a moment worrying about why that might be.
“To port,” Tuth ordered, “fifteen degrees, all speed.” He glowered at the banner of the Vast flying high above those cloudy billows, above the ship that had become his nemesis. The Marchessa would provide protection for that ship on her starboard side, the weather gauge. Fine. The Fahn would attack from port.
“All hands to the lee rails! Ready cannon! Ready grappling guns! I want the Trophy Chase!”
The gunfire came from behind the Kaza Fahn from Rake’s Parry. The Achawuk had let the Fahn go, but now the warriors arrived, thick and dense, corks bobbing, spear tips up, as the Vast ship came to them.
The captain of the Parry ordered his men to open fire. Like the Marchessa, his ship carried huntsmen. They could shoot, and now they did. A hundred weapons fired, a hundred Achawuk ceased swimming and sank beneath the surface. These warriors, the first names written on the role of the dead within the mayak-aloh today, were pushed down under the surface by their brethren, who followed in their bloody wake without a word.
As the warriors neared the ship, their spears were in their hands, their solitary objective clear in their minds. When they reached the hull, the hammering began. Spears bit deeply into wood. Crewmen froze. They’d heard all the stories. They knew that sound. Their officers called out firm and unflinching orders, while unsteady fingers reloaded warm and empty weapons. The few cannon remaining after the refit barked futilely, like watchdogs chained to a post. The Achawuk were too close, too dense, too many. Sailors fired down on their foes from the rails, lightning lashing out in anger. But more foes came. For every swimmer shot, two more reached the hull. For every two shot on the hull, four climbed up behind. In the time it took the men to reload once, another rung of spears reached up the hull, a scaffold of destruction, a trellis built slat by slat, climbed by living vines, multicolored in shades of red and green and blue, growing upward at a deadly rate in some horrible dream.
The Parry would be boarded. She would be overrun. She was lost.
“The blood is in the water,” Talon said to Packer, listening as the firing continued astern. She stood on the deck just behind him, looking up toward him. “You must command the beasts. To save your men. To save your ships. You must command them to attack your enemies.”
He did not look back at her. He kept his eyes closed. He had been offering himself up alive, ready to die or live within God’s power. Her words were a hot knife down his back, pulling him away, drawing him toward her, toward a course that was as reasonable as any he could imagine in the world. But it was not his chosen course.
“They stir,” she said, and pointed down at the ocean floor. Her voice, more than her words seared him.
Packer’s eyes opened on their own, and were drawn down into the sea. Another shaft of light, not so strong but strong enough, filtered down to the ocean floor. The crawling movements of the beasts were something more than that now. A pattern had developed. They aligned themselves. The Firefish were circling. Slowly now, clockwise, like a whirlpool forming.
And then he saw the yellow glow begin.
“Yes,” she whispered. “They come alive. They rise.” The Firefish below the Chase were in fact rising. They were changing, turning from dark gray to yellow, growing larger as they came closer. The blood was in the water. They could not resist.
Fear rose in Packer. It was a physical sensation, like a cold sword blade in his belly, up through his chest. His knees and feet tingled, his joints felt loose, as though he were hanging out over nothing, a thousand feet up, and the ground was turning far below. He was a powerless puppet perched on a stick of wood above a lair of monsters, with another monster behind him.
He knew what Talon expected.
Do not forsake me, Packer prayed. But his heart melted. His hands and arms shook.
Talon saw the tremor and leaped up on the bowsprit just behind him. She whispered in his ear. “Where is your God?” she asked. “Where is His power? Does He yet hold you in His hand? Or is He gone?”
Resist not evil…Those words came to Packer. And they crushed him. He was ordered not to contend with Talon, and yet the power he trusted to save him was gone.
His mind relaxed, his head fell backward. He could not defeat her. He was in God’s hands. He was in her hands. And he could not tell the difference.
She grabbed his hair and held his head tight against her cheek. “You have the power,” she hissed into his ear. “You. God has given it to you. Use it! Do you think He wastes such gifts? No…He wants you to use it.”
“Look at him now,” Mutter said as Talon whispered to Packer. He and Delaney had descended at Talon’s command to the foredeck and stood at the port rail. Mutter gestured toward Packer. “Where’s all his big talk? He’s not so cocksure now.”
Delaney furrowed his brow. “Packer’s never been cocksure.”
Mutter shook his head. “Walkin’ to the prow like some holy man. He ain’t so big. Turns out he’s just a fisherman after all.” Mutter clearly took satisfaction in what he saw as Packer’s comeuppance.
Delaney tried to understand this. He and Marcus had heard the confessions, seen the torment of Packer’s soul. But what if someone never knew what was going on inside of Packer Throme? What if there had been no window into him? Could it be that Packer would seem confident, even arrogant? Yes, Delaney concluded, it might be possible.
“Firefish,” Cabe said suddenly, looking into the sea, over the rail. “Comin’ up now.”
“Achawuk!” another sailor said, and all looked up at the haze, saw the first faces appear from the mist, dark masks of death.
“Drammune!” another shouted from the stern. All looked to the Kaza Fahn, now sliding up on the port side.
Delaney almost felt thankful. At least there was something to fight. He looked at Packer once again. Nothing. The woman who had become their captain was still drawing the man who was supposed to be their king into her spell, whatever it was. Delaney checked his pistol one more time. “Hope you got plenty a’ ammunition, Mutter. We’re on our own now.”
“Look,” Talon was whispering in Packer’s ear. “Look down. Look deep. You will command them.”
Packer’s heart and mind gave way, and both sank, as though he were asleep. His heart was stone, a stone sinking now through dark, cold waters, falling, failing. There was no light here. No warmth. His mind…he felt his mind collapse, as though crushed by the cold, by the pressure of falling so far, so deep. His body quaked, and he let go, tumbling down into some place, some cold and stony place he’d never been.
And it was there he saw the vision.
This was not like Talon’s vision, of domination of the seas, and thereby the world. Nor was it like the one he’d been given before, when kneeling on the deck of the Trophy Chase. Then God had taken him to the cliffs to speak to him, that he might remember.
God was not in this place. This was a place of darkness, and Packer knew he was falling into that realm where souls go to be abandoned, where spirits without hope fall and remain forever.
In his vision, Packer stopped falling when he hit the deck of a ship. The ship was aflame. He landed face down, and his right hand went through the decking, through the planks of the ship. He pulled it out, and his hand was missing. He had a stump of an arm, just below the elbow. He looked up and he saw Talon, dressed in black. He now recognized this place. It was the quarterdeck of the Trophy Chase. The Trophy Chase was burning. Talon wore her robes, the robes of the Hezzan, but here they were all black. Her hair was wild, long, and loose, blowing slowly in an unseen, unfelt wind. Her eyes, though, were cold and calm. Before her was an iron cauldron, sitting amid the flames. In it, something steamed and boiled.
The witch, he thought.
Or perhaps he heard the words. That appellation, that nickname, that accusation…it was the one she never could escape, that followed her from ship to ship and shore to shore. And now it had caught her. She watched him, distant, predatory. She held his eye, then looked into the cauldron. Packer rose, and walked near, and he looked into the cauldron, too.
A mist floated across it, a steaming poison, dark gray, like soot. She blew on the mist, and it vanished. Underneath, clear waters boiled. In the boiling waters he saw snakes. Serpents, alive and angry, hundreds of them swimming under the surface, chaotic, frenzied.
They stir! she said. She was looking at Packer. They rise!
Now Talon dipped a wooden ladle into the pot, and she stirred. The beasts moved around in circles, and the water moved, and they all swam in unison, clockwise, faster and faster, until a whirlpool dropped down in the center of the cauldron. She let go of the ladle. As he watched, the wooden spoon spun into the center of the maelstrom. But it was not a ladle now; it was a ship. A ship with tall masts, white sails, a long, lean ship with a deep, deep keel. And men were on that ship. He saw one man standing atop the bowsprit, clinging to the guy lines, looking down into the water, watching the serpents as they circled.
Huk Tuth saw the yellow hair standing at the prow, with Talon behind him, as the Kaza Fahn slipped smoothly up beside the Chase. He knew what this pair was doing. He’d seen this before, had seen Packer at the prow of this very ship when the Rahk Thanu and then the Nochto Vare had been destroyed.
The yellow hair would command the Devilfish. And Talon, the Hezzan, would command the yellow hair.
Tuth snarled his disgust. He opened his mouth to shout the single word that would teach them both respect for the Worthy Ones. His men could open fire and end this. But he didn’t give the command.
Instead, he heard the knocks, the hammering. Spears like teeth biting into wood. And on his port side, where he had positioned no men.
He spun around. He peered into the mists as he ran to the port rail, now fully aware of his error. The warriors were thick, and covered the sea, choked it with painted faces, bodies, spears, floating blocks of cork, covered it fore and aft, like a thick wool blanket.
They were halfway up his hull. Halfway to the deck.
As the Marchessa slid slowly even with the Chase, just off her starboard rail, Moore Davies saw, as all his sailors did, Packer at the prow, Talon behind him on the beam, her hands now clamped on top of Packer’s hands, as he gripped the lines. She was whispering to him. His eyes were closed. He seemed limp. Talon, dressed in black, hunched over Packer, and all but wrapped around him—she seemed to Davies like some kind of cancer, a tumor growing on him.
Beyond the Chase, off her port side, Davies could see the Kaza Fahn, could see the danger she posed. As the Marchessa pulled even, Davies hailed the Chase. But he had no more than called out the “ahoy” when the rapping started. The Achawuk, swimming from the farthest shore, were on his starboard hull. They had emerged from the mists. They had surprised him just as they had Huk Tuth.
The Vast captain on one ship and the Drammune commander on the other, each flanking the Trophy Chase for a different purpose, protected the great ship between them from the Achawuk. Each captain gave the same command at almost the same time, and for precisely the same reason.
“The Achawuk, starboard!”
“Achawakah! Thantach!”
“Fire at will!”
“Charnak!”
Drammune and Vast sailors released their ammunition, lightning and thunder down the rails, clouds of smoke leaping out in an angry hurry, then rising slowly, calmly. Each pistol and each musket was aimed true by a trained marksman at a target much closer than those used on Drammune or Vast shooting ranges. Almost every shot found its mark.
The cannon was even deadlier. The Vast started with grapeshot, and after one round of cannon balls, the Drammune deck guns spewed canister across the water. Far less accurate but far more effective. Many more living swimmers became casualties, turning the water red. And yet more Achawuk pushed them under. Wounded or dead, it didn’t matter. If they could not continue, they were submerged beneath a canopy of those who could.
And they kept coming. Too many. Too many. The Achawuk boarded the Marchessa. They boarded the Kaza Fahn.
Dayton Throme’s heart withered as he watched. The mists were clearing as those who had been stoking fires, creating the smoky fog, now left to join their brethren in the seas. The Achawuk were now a solid mass within the waters.
The ships had followed, nearly all of them now, one after the other into the mayak-aloh. They had made it through the narrows, into the mists, only to find the Achawuk within that fog, deadly and waiting. After the first three ships arrived unscathed, the next six were simply overrun. And now all would be overrun.
He watched the brutal drama play out, remembering his own experience, the panic, the dread, the pit of fear into which he plunged as it came to him that there would be no way out, no way but death, and that this savage people could not be stopped.
He prayed for mercy for those aboard those ships, just as he had prayed for mercy for his companions six years ago. It was a mercy that had not come then, and he knew in his heart would not come now.
The crewmen of Rake’s Parry, Danger, Candor, Campeche, and Swordfish, fought, and died, with honor.
They had erred against the Drammune, and had come here to seek a pardoning glory in these waters. And here they found it, at the cost of their lives. More than one man, swinging a sword, or the butt end of a musket he had no time to reload, looked up into the rigging, saw the limp sails, and prayed for wind. But that storied miracle, the one that had saved the Chase, would not be repeated here today. The Achawuk were strong. Their spears were sharp, and bloody. A blind and mindless dedication drove them. And they were just too many.
These sailors would fight a losing battle here today. Blood would flow from earnest veins onto the decks of good, true ships, and then into the waters of the mayak-aloh. And their blood would mingle there with the blood of their enemies, of Tchorga Den, and all the sailors of the Hezza Charn, and then those of the Ganda Flez, Chammando, Herza Ko…all Drammune ships with storied pasts, now silent as the grave, their sailors driven from this life at the point of a spear. And their blood would mingle with their enemies, the Achawuk. What Achawuk survived the boarding of these ships would move quickly on, returning to the sea to swim to the next ship, red or white, it didn’t matter, and continue their trek toward the tannan-thoh-ah, the final destruction, the Mastery, the end of the world.
And all that blood would mingle, and seep downward, and dissipate, and raise the ravenous hunger of the Firefish.
In Packer’s dark dream he watched the small beasts swim in circles under the surface of her boiling cauldron. The little ship now spun, turning at the center, at the mouth of the whirlpool.
The blood is in the water, Talon told the serpents.
Then Talon had in her hand a wooden cup, and she poured red liquid from it into the waters. She poured and poured, and it turned the boiling liquid a dark and murky crimson. But the cup would not be emptied. And the liquid drove the serpents mad. They writhed, they rose, they swam at faster and faster speeds. As she kept pouring, Packer saw writing on the cup. He peered at it, stepped closer. He could read the words.
These were names. Many names. Packer saw them; he read them as she poured. He recognized them. Fen Abbaka Mux, John Hand, and Scatter Wilkins. Lund Lander. Jonas Deal. Ned Basser and Duck Tilham. Mather Sennett. Bench Urmand. Senslar Zendoda. Will Seline. There were many other names he knew, Cane Dewar, Seval Carther, Ricks Goodfellow…he recognized them from the roll of the dead he’d written after the last Achawuk battle. And then there were many names he didn’t know. Vast names. Drammune names. And Achawuk. Soldiers, sailors, men of war. Men with families and friends, with fortunes great and small, with homes and possessions and pasts and dreams, men with everything but futures. Men who had killed other men, and had done so with all the strength that they could muster. Talon poured their blood into the cauldron.
The serpents in the water glowed bright, bright yellow, bright like liquid gold. The blood turned the waters black, but it turned the snakes to gold. They swam, their eyes ablaze, their mouths agape, their golden teeth bared in their ravenous desire to devour, all wanting more. And she gave them more. The more she poured, the more frenzied they became, swimming in circles, angry, hungry. The more they devoured, the more they wanted. And Packer knew they would never be satisfied. There was not enough blood in the world to sate these golden beasts.
“Stop pouring,” Packer said to her. His voice was far away, and slow.
Talon looked at him as though she didn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend. “But you are the one who pours,” she said to him. “You have done all this.”
Packer looked at the cup again, and the hand that held it was marred, and scarred, and bore a signet ring. It was his hand, his right hand. He looked down at his arm, and it was still severed. He tried to drop the cup, but he couldn’t. Her hand was on his, covering his, holding his as he held and poured the cup. She just laughed, cold and present, in his ear. “You command them. I command you,” she said.
“No God?” she asked. “That is correct. No God has given you this gift. It is yours alone. Yours to use. You have renounced the sword, and taken up the Firefish. A greater weapon, greater by far. And it is not possible to renounce this weapon. You must use it. It is yours to use.”
And then he saw the ship, the small ship at the center of the whirlpool, go under. It sank to the bottom, and was attacked by the serpents.
And then the Firefish rose.
Dayton saw it. So did the Vast aboard the Trophy Chase. So did a handful of Drammune. So did a thousand warriors in the water, near enough to watch the beast, to see its massive, knobbled head, its yellow, glowing scales, its fiery eyes.
It rose to the bowsprit. And there it stopped, its eyes even with those of Packer Throme. It looked at Packer and at Talon. Talon saw into its eyes. She saw the question there, the hunger.
And then she saw its rage.
“Command it, Packer Throme!”
But Packer did not move. Nor did he open his eyes. Now Talon looked into its maw as its great jaw unhinged. As its huge mouth dropped open, she felt its heat. She saw along the jagged row of teeth a single tooth that protruded through a Drammune helmet, crushed and pierced.
“Command the beast, Packer Throme!” she cried. “Command the beast!”
Packer heard the words, felt the command, the urgency in Talon’s voice, but he heard all within his dream. He watched a golden serpent within the cauldron. And the cauldron itself had changed. It was golden now, and the liquid within it was golden. It was not a cauldron, but a crucible, and on the surface collected dross, every impurity. And still the golden serpent watched him.
And then it cocked its head to one side. And then it leaped toward him, flying from the crucible, its golden teeth bared, its golden skin alive and liquid, to devour him. Packer cried out, and opened his eyes.
There beside him was the Firefish, aglow, mouth open, eyes ablaze. It saw him, locked its enormous eyes on his, and cocked its head.
And Packer’s heart leaped within his chest. He knew this beast. This was his Firefish, the one who knew him, the one that longed to speak and couldn’t speak.
This was the very beast he had commanded once before. And it was awaiting his command again.