‘A very army, who’d have expected it?’ agreed Mall, then touched finger to lips in puzzlement. ‘So many? But how? They’d scarce have room for supplies!’
‘Aye, I did hear they were layin’ ’em in heavy while they were in port,’ put in Pierce. ‘For long voyaging, said they, and nobody cared – longer the better, said we!’
‘While they must’ve been living just day-to-day,’ mused Jyp. ‘But on the inward voyage … Hell, they must’ve been starved for days – deliberately! Starved and dry! You don’t do that – even Wolves – ‘less you need to cram in the most bodies possible. Like for slaves – or maybe …’ He whistled softly. ‘Maybe soldiers. Maybe they were an army, right enough.’
‘Soldiery?’ Mall gave a little laugh. ‘Don’t be daft, man – for what?
Looting the Port? A tenfold force wouldn’t serve, not even if they’d
contrived to let loose that
Hand to mouth, she stared – at me. Jyp nodded. ‘The Port, no – but elsewhere? Wolves alone’d never be able to do it – but with that critter to captain them?’
I stared, ‘Captain them? You mean lead them? That thing had a mind?’
‘Better’n yours or mine, maybe. Sure as hell different – sure as hell. With a thing like that to do the Wolves’ thinking for ’em, scare them on – well they just might risk it, mightn’t they? Take a real cunning mind to set up that kind of a team, cunning and nasty – which is just what I’m starting to see at work!’
‘What’re you saying?’ I demanded.
‘That maybe this foraying into the Core wasn’t so wild as we thought it. Maybe that’s where they were headed all along. Part of their plan.’
‘But … what could they do there? Against police – soldiers –’
‘Who’d have to find them first. Anyone see those Wolves coming to your office, either time? Or headed away? They’ve ways. They could make all kinds of hay, striking in the right places – robbery here, murder there, maybe a full-scale attack …’
For a moment it drove Clare from my mind, the effort to imagine it, a band of terrorists who could come and go under some cloak of invisibility, strike with fearful savagery – and unleashed by that awful devouring thing from the warehouse. I shivered. The terror they could spread – and more than terror; there would be hardly any limits …
‘And that’d be only the beginning,’ said Jyp quietly. ‘A bridgehead. For
a real invasion. We of the Ports, we keep an eye open most times for any
little tricks like this from Outside. The Wardens keep watch, and league
and guild and warehouse master their guards; there’s barriers raised,
barriers you never see, yet nothing can cross without alerting them.
There’s other precautions, too, things I don’t pretend to understand;
Stryge could tell you more, if he wanted to. We don’t like shadows at
our backs, and damn little slips past. But with a route working, they
might begin to – dark things, base and bad. Worse’n your
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘It does. Bigger than just saving Clare, that’s what
you’re trying to tell me, right? Okay, it may be. But she’s still the
centre of it! This rite they’re planning for her, it’s got to be
connected somehow. So it doesn’t change a damn thing for us, does it –
any of this? Except to make rescuing her more important than ever. If I
have to bloody well
‘Bravo!’ said Mall softly.
‘Didn’t say otherwise, did I?’ said Jyp quietly. ‘If all else fails. But let’s try for that refit first, huh?’
Pierce was already at the rail, speaking-trumpet to mouth, directing a volley of orders at the crew. ‘Up, puppies! What, d’you think – it’s make-and-mend day? So you’ll all sit around on your arses louse-picking, will you? What kind of order d’you call this? I’ve seen better on a Brazil bumboat! These decks’ll be the better for a swilling and a swabbing and a lick o’holystone, and us none the worse for it either, I’m thinking …’ They took the barracking with weary good humour, perhaps because Pierce was croaking as exhaustedly as anyone. I had to swallow my bitter disappointment, and accept it; there really was nothing else to be done, and everyone was quietly getting on with it. Raging wouldn’t get me anywhere.
‘Well,’ I sighed, turning back to Jyp. ‘Just show me how I can help, then, and I’ll do it –’ The long sword swung between my legs and tripped me flat on the deck with a crash, ruining my gesture but luckily not much else.
‘If you’d cleave to that thing, best you learn the right use of it,’ Mall admonished me severely as she hoisted me to my feet. ‘Else you run the risk of most grievous hurt!’
‘
She twitched the sword from my belt and slashed the air with graceful savagery. ‘Not Wolf work, this. A fine balance, but heavy – Bavarian, maybe, by the turn of the ornament. Not easy to handle – you wielded it better than I guessed.’
