'Kill, kill! It is the promised end! The Angel comes! Arqual shall be purified through blood!'
'Diadrelu,' said Hercol, and he was suddenly, obviously, a man broken by grief. He stabbed not downwards but upwards, driving the knife into the white rat's side.
Master Mugstur did not seem surprised by what had happened to him. 'The Angel comes!' he cried, gurgling. 'The Tree bleeds, the Nilstone wakes, and a thousand eyes are opening! Glory! Glory! War!'
Mugstur gave a last twitch and fell limp. Hercol lifted the creature on Ott's knife, then lowered the blade and let the rat slide onto the motionless spymaster. 'No more dreams of glory,' he said. 'They are finished, for all of us.'
But it was not finished. Ott stirred, moaning, and as he did so the white rat twitched again. The next moment it was on its feet, bleeding but very much alive. And at the same moment all the surviving rats grew still, and raised their narrow faces to look at the men. They were knowing looks, looks of conscious intelligence.
'War,' said Mugstur, and the rats began to grow.
38
9 Umbrin 941
The humans rushed bleeding from the Abandoned House. Rose was the last one out of the liquor vault, and he personally cut the bonds on the four prisoners, screaming orders at them as he did so. Haddismal carried the half-conscious spymaster, Neeps supported Pazel, and Thasha tried her best to drag Hercol into the passage, as he swung and stabbed and bludgeoned and hacked, and a mound of twitching fur rose about him.
The rats of Chathrand were awake, and mad. They had swollen to the size of hunting dogs, and their voices — mewling, screeching, speaking — were so loud and hideous that the men fell back as much from the force of them as from the creature's tearing nails and bolt-cutter jaws. When Rose at last heaved himself up onto the mercy deck, he found Fiffengurt and twelve men ready to skid a carriage-sized packet of sparwood over the hatch. The captain rolled aside, shouting, 'Do it!' No sooner were the tons of wood in place than they heard the first rats slamming their thick bodies against the door.
'Angel!'
'Kill them!'
'Arqual, Arqual, just and true!'
'Pray before eating! Pray!'
Rose spat a great mouthful of blood. He did not even glance at the wounds on his legs. Seizing Bolutu by the elbow and Neeps by the scruff of the neck, he dragged them at a near run towards the mainmast, as a throng of near-hysterical sailors billowed around him, howling death and disaster. Pazel, Thasha and Hercol had no choice but to follow him.
'Report!' he thundered. 'Who's the deck officer? Bindhammer!'
'Sir, they've gone and turned themselves into Pit-vomited fiends!' cried Bindhammer, waving his short, burly arms.
'I noticed that! Damn it, man, how many rats are we talking about?'
The answer, when accounts were tallied, appeared to be all of them. Not a single normal rat had been spotted; the mutants were bursting from deep recesses in the hold like bees from a broken hive. Two men had perished already. The entire hold had been abandoned.
'What did you drag Neeps and Bolutu here for?' shouted Pazel, when he could get a word in edgewise.
Rose released them both with a flinging motion. 'Because I wanted to be blary sure the rest of you followed me! Shut up! Not a word! Just tell me, true and fast: do you know what's happening?'
The sailors looked at them with fear-maddened eyes. 'There are just two things it could be,' said Thasha. 'Some trick of Arunis', though why he'd turn rats into monsters I can't imagine. Or the Nilstone, working all by itself. I'd bet on the latter.'
'So would I,' said Bolutu. 'Captain Rose, since early summer I have tried to draw your attention to the Chathrand 's fleas. They were always large and bloodthirsty. After you brought the Nilstone aboard, however, they became positively unnatural. And there have been other deformed and aggressive pests. Wasps, moths, flies, beetles. Anything, that is, that might have touched the Nilstone. Their numbers have been greatest at the stern of the orlop, where the Shaggat stands holding his prize.'
'The Stone?' cried Rose. 'I thought the damned thing killed whoever touched it!'
'Whoever touches it with fear in their hearts,' said Hercol. 'Perhaps insects have no fear, at least not as we understand it.'
'The effect on insects was noted centuries ago, when Erithusme showed the Nilstone to my people,' said Bolutu, 'but nothing came of it — the vermin lived only a day or two. We know also that the Waking Spell was cast by one who held the Nilstone. Today I fear something horribly new is occurring: the fleas must have lived long enough to infect the rats with their mutation. And as they change, the rats are also exploding into consciousness — of a sort.'
'There is worse,' said Hercol. 'Master Mugstur is still alive. He fell back, even as his servants rushed me. I did not kill him with that first blow, and I never landed another. He appeared to heal, in fact, as he grew to monstrous size.'
'He's been awake for months — or maybe years,' said Thasha.
Rose glared at her, blood running freely from his mouth. 'And is it months that you've known about him? Damn you all! I know what you think of this mission — Pitfire, I even understand it! But a rat? What could possess you to keep quiet about a blary psychotic woken rat?'
Pazel saw a struggle playing out on Hercol's face. With an inward gasp he realised the man was tempted to answer Rose's question — tempted to say Because you would have killed the rats, and the ixchel with them. Rose still knew nothing about the clan. What had happened to Hercol, to tempt him to betray Diadrelu's people?
The moment was shattered by a blast from Fiffengurt's whistle. They had left him behind near the scuttle; now he and eight or ten sailors came running and skidding up the passage as if demons were at their heels.
'They're on the deck! They're right behind us! Run!'
Men stampeded for the ladderways. Fiffengurt shouted at Rose as they ran: 'They're leaping up from crates, sir, through the stern cargo hatch! They must be clearing ten feet!'
Rose glanced upward: the roof of the mercy deck, where they stood, was eight feet above the floor.
'You, and you!' Rose pulled two long-legged sailors from the crowd. 'Turachs to the orlop! Twenty men at the tonnage hatch, with bows. Another twenty at the stern hatch. And a dozen at each ladderway. Now, d'ye hear me? Run!'
The sailors rushed ahead. Seconds later a many-throated howl erupted from the stern. Men turned in horror. The rats were coming: huge, twisted, loping animals, fur patchy and sparse, inflamed bites the size of walnuts on their skin. They ran shoulder to shoulder, screeching and jabbering about the Promised End. When they spotted Rose they gave another howl and redoubled their speed.
The remaining humans on the mercy deck leaped for the stair. Rose was last again, and the rats were on him as he climbed backwards, swearing and spitting blood at them, his broadsword flashing up and down like a metal wing. Hercol fought beside him, ruthless and wild. Ildraquin was scarlet to the hilt.
On the orlop there was no sign of the Turachs. Rose and Hercol and Thasha held the ladderway, as a squirming, drooling mass of the creatures tried to jam through together. The two men stood on the top steps, blocking the way with their bodies as much as with their swords. Thasha, wielding Ott's white knife (it felt good in her hand, disturbingly good) leaned over the stair from the opposite side and stabbed.
Neeps led Pazel a few yards away. 'Can you manage? I have to find out what's happened to Marila!'
'I can manage,' said Pazel, squeezing his arm in thanks. 'Go on, find her! Be careful!'
'Undrabust!' roared the captain over his shoulder. 'Send down Dr Chadfallow — or Rain, or even Fulbreech. Send the blary tailor if you see him first! Someone's got to stitch up my tongue!'