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The breach in the wall was sixty feet wide, Hereward reckoned, and though bricks were still tumbling on either side, there were none left to fall from above. The Sea-Cat could be safely towed inside, to disgorge the pirates upon the wharves or, if they had rotted and fallen away, to the quay itself.
Hereward looked aft. The xebec was some hundred yards behind, its lower yardarms hung with lanterns so that it looked like some strange, blazing-eyed monster slowly wading up the gorge, the small towing craft ahead of it low dark shapes, lesser servants lit by duller lights.
“Rest your oars,” said Hereward, louder than he intended. His ears were still damped from the mortar blast. “Ready your weapons and watch that breach.”
Most of the pirates hurried to prime pistols or ease dirks and cutlasses in scabbards, but one woman, a broad-faced bravo with a slit nose, laid her elbows on her oars and watched Hereward as he reached into his boot and removed the brassard he had placed there. A simple armband, he had slid it up his arm before he noticed her particular attention, which only sharpened as she saw that the characters embroidered on the brassard shone with their own internal light, far brighter than could be obtained by any natural means.
“What’s yon light?” she asked. Others in the crew also turned to look.
“So you can find me,” answered Hereward easily. “It is painted with the guts of light-bugs. Now I must pray a moment. If any of you have gods to speak to, now is the time.”
He watched for a moment, cautious of treachery or some reaction to the brassard, but the pirates had other concerns. Many of them did bend their heads, or close one eye, or touch their knees with the backs of their hands, or adopt one of the thousands of positions of prayer approved by the godlets they had been raised to worship.
Hereward did none of these things, but spoke under his breath, so that none might hear him.
“In the name of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, acting under the authority granted by the Three Empires, the Seven Kingdoms, the Palatine Regency, the Jessar Republic and the Forty Lesser Realms, I declare myself an agent of the Council. I identify the godlet manifested in this fortress of Cror Holt as Forjill-Um-Uthrux, a listed entity under the Treaty. Consequently the said godlet and all those who assist it are deemed to be enemies of the World, and the Council authorizes me to pursue any and all actions necessary to banish, repel or exterminate the said godlet.”
“Captain Suresword! Advance and clear the cha
It was Fury calling, no longer relying on the vasty bellow of Jabez. The xebec was closing more rapidly, the towing craft rowing faster, the prospect of gold reviving tired pirates. Hereward could see Fury in the bow of the Sea-Cat, and Fitz beside her, his thin arm a-glow from his own brassard.
Hereward touched the butts of the two pistols in his belt and then the hilt of his mortuary sword. The entity that lay in the darkness within could not be harmed by shot or steel, but it was likely served by those who could die as readily as any other mortal. Hereward’s task was to protect Fitz from such servants, while the puppet’s sorcery dealt with the god.
“Out oars!” he shouted, loud as he could this time. “Onwards to fortune! Give way!”
Oars dipped, the boat surged forward and they passed the ruins of the Sea Gate into the black interior of Cror Holt.
Out of the moonlight the darkness was immediate and disturbing, though the tu
“Keep her steady,” he instructed, his voice also echoing back across the black water. “Watch for the wharves or submerged piles. It can’t be far.”
“There, Captain!”
It was not a wharf, but the spreading rings of some disturbance upon the surface of the still water. Something big had popped up and sank again, off the starboard quarter of the boat.
“Pull harder!” instructed Hereward. He drew a pistol and cocked the lock. The Sea-Cat was following, and from its many lanterns he could see the lower outline of the tu
“I see the wharf!” cried the bowman, his words immediately followed by a sudden thump under the hull, the crack of broken timber and a general falling about in the boat, one of the lanterns going over the side into immediate extinguishment.
“We’ve struck!” shouted a pirate. He stood as if to leap over the side, but paused and looked down.
Hereward looked too. They had definitely hit something hard and the boat should be sinking beneath them. But it was dry. He looked over the side and saw that the boat was at rest on stony ground. There was no water beneath them at all. Another second of examination, and a backward look confirmed that rather than the boat striking a reef, the ground below them had risen up. There was a wharf some ten yards away but its deck was well above them, and the harbour wall a barrier behind it, that they would now need to climb to come to the treasure houses.
“What’s that?” asked the gold-toothed pirate uncertainly.
Hereward looked and fired in the same moment, at a seven-foot-tall yellow starfish that was shuffling forward on two points. The bullet took it in the midsection, blasting out a hole the size of a man’s fist, but the starfish did not falter.
“Shoot it!” he shouted. There were starfish lurching upright all around and he knew there would be even more beyond the lantern-light. “Sea-Cat, ware shallows and enemy!”
The closer starfish fell a second later, its lower points shot to pulp. Pirates swore as they reloaded, all of them clustering closer to Hereward as if he might ward them from this sudden, sorcerous enemy.
Louder gunfire echoed in from the tu
“Cap’n, the ship! She’s backing!” yelled a panicked pirate. He snatched up the remaining lantern and ran from the defensive ring about the boat, intent on the distant lights of the Sea-Cat. A few seconds later the others saw pirate and lantern go under a swarm of at least a dozen starfish, and then it was dark once more, save for the glow of the symbols on Hereward’s arm.
“Bowman, get a line over the wharf!” shouted Hereward. The mortuary sword was in his hand now, though he could not recall drawing it, and he hacked at a starfish whose points were reaching for him. The things were getting quicker, as if, like battlemounts, they needed to warm their blood. “We must climb up! Hold them back!”
The six of them retreated to the piles of the wharf, the huge, ambulatory starfish pressing their attack. With no time to reload, Hereward and the pirates had to hack and cut at them with sword, cutlasses and a boarding axe, and kick away the pieces that still writhed and sought to fasten themselves on their enemies. Within a minute, all of them had minor wounds to their lower legs, where the rough suckers of the starfish’s foul bodies had rasped away clothing and skin.
“Line’s fast!” yelled the bowman, and he launched himself up it, faster than any topman had ever climbed a ratline. Two of the other pirates clashed as they tried to climb together, one kicking the other in the face as he wriggled above. The lower pirate fell and was immediately smothered by a starfish that threw itself over him. Muffled screams came from beneath the writhing, yellow five-armed monster, and the pirate’s feet drummed violently on the ground for several seconds before they stilled.