Part 45 (2/2)

Then the lookout began to howl: 'Sail! Dead astern three miles! It's the enemy, Captain, I can see the red stars!'

A general groan, shouted down at once by the officers. Rose leaped from the stool and barrelled aft around the wheelhouse, extending his telescope as he went. Thasha chased after him. There was the Jistrolloq Jistrolloq, tilted over like a white gravestone, slicing a neat white wake as she ran.

'Her topgallants are holding, blast her,' said Elkstem. 'By the Tree, she's a formidable s.h.i.+p. And closer to two miles than three.'

Rose lifted a hand for silence. A moment later he lowered the scope.

'She will have four knots on us,' he said, in a voice not meant to carry.

Thasha did not want to believe it. 'Four ? That would let them catch us in - what? Less than an hour?'

'Thirty-seven minutes,' said Rose. 'Mr Elkstem, at my command we shall be making a very sharp tack to the south. A very visible visible tack. But give no orders before my mark, do you hear? Don't even look at the men.' tack. But give no orders before my mark, do you hear? Don't even look at the men.'

Elkstem was clearly mystified, but Rose's face ruled out any questioning. 'Oppo, sir, she'll corner handsomely,' he said.

'You wanted to see me, Captain?' said a voice from behind them.

It was Pazel. He was looking at Rose, and quite determinedly not at Thasha.

Rose's eye did not leave the telescope. 'Aye, Pathkendle, but only to keep these grackle-mouths quiet. They have you mixed up with your father, and seem to think I need Captain Gregory's advice.'

' ”They,” sir ?'

Rose only frowned, and Thasha, ignoring Pazel's awkwardness, took his arm and tugged him aside. 'He's seeing ghosts,' she whispered. 'But he's not crazy, they're real. I can see them too. They're the old captains of the Chathrand.' Chathrand.'

Pazel was certainly looking at her now. ' You're You're seeing these things?' seeing these things?'

'Well, not this minute. Rose can scatter them, I think, but they keep coming back. Like flies. Right now I can hear them, and feel them. And this isn't the first time it's happened.'

'Are you talking about what happened the day you found Marila?'

Thasha shook her head. 'That was different. Those were real people, flesh and blood. But for weeks now I've been feeling . . . strange. As if people were surrounding me, when there was no one there at all. I think it was them, Pazel. I think they've been watching me.'

Pazel stared at her, aghast, but was he concerned for her safety or her sanity? She was on the point of asking him directly when Rose gave a startled grunt.

'The priest did not die,' he said, 'but the fire has driven him from the hilltop. He's watching us right now. He'll be blind to his own s.h.i.+p's whereabouts, though, unless that thing in his hand lets him see through solid rock. Ehiji Ehiji, what's this? He's got friends! Sfvantskor Sfvantskors, by the G.o.ds, sfvantskor sfvantskors coming out of the bus.h.!.+'

Thasha could just make them out: three tall figures in black, rus.h.i.+ng across the smouldering slope to join a fourth, bald-headed, with a long golden object in his hand. Even as she looked another sfvantskor sfvantskor emerged running from the trees. emerged running from the trees.

'That new one has a longbow,' said Rose. 'And d.a.m.ned if he isn't - firing! Aloft! Take cover aloft!' Aloft! Take cover aloft!'

Scarcely had the words left his lips when they heard a wail, sharp and ethereal, and then a man's scream from the rigging. Thasha looked up and saw Kiprin Pondrakeri, the muscular Simjan recruit, face down in the battle netting with an arrow in his chest. The strange wail continued for a moment, then lowered and died.

The next thing she knew Pazel had leaped on her and borne her down onto the deck. The air was suddenly full of the wailing noises, and from the spankermast came another cry of agony. Thasha struggled out of Pazel's grasp and got to her hands and knees. But even as she did so a boot kicked her flat again.

Sandor Ott had delivered the kick as he dashed to the rail with a great bow of his own. He fired in a blur, once twice thrice, and then he lowered the bow and took a breath.

'Done,' he said. 'That one will shoot no more, and the rest are running for cover. You can stand up now, la.s.s.'

As Thasha and Pazel rose, Ott reached up and seized the dripping end of the arrow embedded in Pondrakeri's chest. He pulled, and the netting sagged, but the shaft would not let go of the corpse.

'Singing arrows,' he said admiringly. 'We still don't know how they work - must be expensive, however; they fire 'em all in the first few volleys. Marvellous way to demoralise an enemy.'

He released the arrow, having not glanced once at the dead man, and set off smiling for the topdeck.

'He's enjoying this,' said Thasha. 'I think he lives lives for fighting and killing, the beast.' for fighting and killing, the beast.'

'He doesn't enjoy it,' said Pazel. 'He's . . . addicted. It's not the same thing.'

Thasha gave him a sceptical look. 'How do you know so much? Did you and Sandor have a heart-to-heart chat on Bramian?'

Pazel watched the spymaster swing down the ladder. 'Sort of,' he said.

A pool of blood was forming under the dead man. Thasha looked up and saw the other victim, a mizzen topman, dangling upside-down from the rigging some seventy feet overhead.

'We're making twelve knots by the log, sir,' cried a lieutenant.

'Send for a bucket, Mr Truel,' said Rose. 'And you, Pathkendle: find a mate and get these cadavers below.'

Pazel gazed wordlessly up at the bodies. The topman was swinging perilously. Blood streamed from the arrow in his throat to his fingertips, where the wind licked it away.

Thasha took a deep breath. 'I'll help you,' she said.

Pazel looked intensely relieved. He could not, after all, order anyone to help him. 'Let me fetch a rope. I'll be right back - thank you, Thasha.'

When he returned he brought Neeps as well as a rope. The small boy was fidgeting with irritation; he and Pazel scarcely looked at one another. But he had come nonetheless. The three scaled the shrouds, and Neeps continued up to the main spankermast yard while Thasha and Pazel stepped gingerly onto the netting. It was a long crawl to where Pondrakeri dangled. They had almost reached him when Thasha saw Rose's hand sweep down like a signal flag.

'Now, Mr Elkstem!'

'Haul away starboard!' boomed Elkstem, putting his weight on the wheel. 'Look sharp, lads, we're turning on a mussel tin!'

The order raced forward, the deckhands threw their shoulders against the ropes, and with startling speed the Great s.h.i.+p heeled around to the south.

Thasha and Pazel clung to the netting as the huge timbers groaned and squeaked, and blood from the topman spattered around them like rain. Thasha looked west at the Jistrolloq Jistrolloq. 'What are you hoping they'll do, Captain Rose?' she called.

Rose lowered the telescope, watching the enemy with his naked eye. 'They've just done it,' he said, 'and I didn't need to hope.'

Before Thasha could ask what he meant, the lookout cried: 'Black Rags altering course, sir, due south, matching us point-for-point.'

Rose favoured Thasha with a glance. 'Admiral k.u.minzat knows what he's up against,' he said. 'Unless he has the G.o.ds' own luck with weather, he has to take us soon. Every mile we can run out on the Nelluroq plays to our advantage. He's turned south to cut us off.'

'Around the far side of the island,' said Pazel. 'And you waited until he was almost on top of Sandplume, so that he'd have to make a hasty choice, didn't you?'

'A hasty choice and a bad one, Pathkendle. Maybe you do know something.'

Thasha could hear the ghosts whispering approval. In minutes Sandplume would hide the Chathrand Chathrand from the from the Jistrolloq Jistrolloq, and then Rose could turn as he liked without giving their course away. For the Mzithrinis, reversing direction was impossible: they would lose a good hour tacking against the wind just to get safely clear of Sandplume and back on the course she had abandoned. She could only run south now, and take up the pursuit after rounding the isle - but Thasha doubted that the Chathrand Chathrand would be anywhere near Sandplume by then. would be anywhere near Sandplume by then.

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