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“Look, there are halberds,” said Wre
The chest was full of fyrd-issue swords with double-edged blades and brown mass-produced leather scabbards. Their pristine hilts flashed in the light as he swept the lantern over. “I’d like to test one. Here we are-”
“Put it back! Wre
But Wre
“By god, what does Mist expect us to do to Tris?” I said.
“Maybe the islanders are fierce.”
“Don’t be a fool. Mist said Tris has no Insects; they’ve nothing to be violent about.”
We went forward, seeing more of the same; the Melowne’s hold was a ship’s chandlery and well-stocked armory. I hesitated. “Can you smell something?”
“What?”
A sharp metallic scent like spilled blood or cut leaves lay very faint beneath the hot greased-iron smell of Wre
At the bow a huge black tarpaulin hung floor to ceiling like a curtain. A skittering sound came from behind it, as of something metal not made fast. Wre
A massive Insect launched itself at us.
I ducked. Wre
Its back legs slipped on the steel floor, scraping bright scratches. Its mandibles opened, a smaller set gaped inside and it jumped again, into the bars. An enormous knife-sharp foreleg stabbed out at us. It clicked and snapped; the bars boomed as it hurled itself against them. Wre
Wre
“Where’s the-Ow! Damn it!” I burned my fingers on the hot oil leaking out. I stood back, seething with frustration as Wre
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure? There’s all that bloody rum up there!”
“There’s a sodding great Insect right here!”
Wre
I shouted, “For fuck’s sake! Give me it, you daft fucking featherweight!”
He hauled his new sword from its scabbard; with the blade balanced in his hand his composure returned.
The Insect raked the bars with its foreclaws. It chewed them, mandibles clicking like shears. Strands of drool hung down and wrapped around its feet; glutinous bubbles stuck to the floor. The Insect rubbed its back pair of legs together; it turned around and around furiously in its four-meter-deep cage. Its body hung from long legs jointed above like a spider’s. It was one of the biggest Insects I had seen, the size and strength of a warhorse; it battered the bars in absolute desperation to reach us.
It tilted its head and tried to push through, but the bulbous brassy eyes wouldn’t fit. It pressed against the bars until its stippled thorax creaked, reached out its mandibles and gnashed. The mottled brown jaws met and overbit; they were the length and shape of scythe blades, chitin-hard and so powerful they could bite a body in two. A foreclaw swept the air. Wre
“I don’t know. I mean to find out.”
The cage’s sliding door was secured by another big padlock. Its roof was a dented metal sheet. Wre
I grimaced. “I thought I could smell the magnificent beast.” I thrust the lantern at Wre
I flexed back upright and swarmed to the orlop deck. I scrambled onto the companionway and emerged from the hatch onto the main deck. All the sailors were eating their breakfast and rolling up their hammocks. Mouths full of porridge hung open in astonishment as I bounded past.
“Comet!” Wre
“Kiss it,” I said. I jumped off and flapped across to the Stormy Petrel.
Mist is, of course, an early riser; she was already in her office eating ginger biscuits from a toast rack and walking a pair of brass compasses across an expansive chart draped over the table. I touched down outside next to the red hurricane lamp. I pounced into her cabin, right onto her, bearing her to the floor, my knees on her belly. The biscuits and a cafetière went flying. Mist was in control of herself; she saw my expression and screamed, “Saker!”
“No more deceit!” I spat.
“Jant,” she said. “Uppers make you manic. Why don’t you calm down, before I have you locked in the brig?”
Her long white hair spread out, finer than silk. Her right hand edged behind the table’s baluster leg, reaching for a paperknife. I snatched it and clattered it away against the bulkhead. “An Insect!” I said. “All those boxes of halberds! Why is there a live Insect on the Melowne?”
Mist’s fair skin turned paler, her amethyst eyes wide. “An Insect?”
“In a fucking cage!”
She caught her breath. “Please get off me.”
I didn’t want to let her move. I could only see one course of action. “We must sail back to Awndyn. Fulmer will turn these over-ornamented crates around and take us home. In the Emperor’s name, with god’s will and the Circle’s protection, you can consider yourself under arrest. I’ll bring you before San, at knifepoint if need be!”
“Comet…” she said calmly.
“The only good thing about being at sea is we won’t be eaten by Insects. And you bring one along! A huge one! I’ll throw it overboard…”
She saw there was no point in dissembling. “Aye, I thought you would pry into everything like a starved rat. Let me up and I’ll explain.”
As I disentangled her cloak folds from around us, Lightning glowered into the cabin with a cursing eye. The sea wind ripped his fur-lined coat into billows. He grabbed me and pushed me away from Mist. I hit the wall hard and sprawled down in a winded pile by the joist. “Damn it, are you fucking trying to break my wings?”
“What is going on?”
Mist held her upper arm as if I had hurt her. She conjured an expression of gratitude for the Archer and sobbed experimentally but it had no effect on him. “Jant is such a junkie.” She shrugged. “He’s so screwed up I am tempted to Challenge him myself.”
“No! This is nothing to do with cat!” I can’t escape my one failing; my fellow Eszai use the label to taint everything I do, even when I’m clean. With always the same friends, I can’t move on and begin anew, my mistakes stagnate around me. I smacked my fist against the joist, to take the heat out of my frustration. “Don’t tell me it’s a hallucination, because Serein saw it too! There’s an Insect, hundreds of cut-and-thrusters, a hundred caissons of arrows.”
Lightning listened carefully and at the latter he held up his hand. “I know about them. Of course, Jant, think about it. Stop flouncing around and sit still. Would you travel to an unfamiliar country without armaments? Our ships are our only means of returning home so they’re worth more than the Empire to us now. We have to protect them.”