Rearing up to his full remaining height, though that strained his voice to shrillness, he brandished his beloved spyglass for all to see.
“If we don’t come back with something better for us all, then you may cast lots for who’s to have this!”
Uncertain at the prospect of a battle, for the Wego had never been collectively a fighting folk, Shrewdesign said, “We shan’t try to retake the city by force?”
“It would be dreamness to attempt it! But what’s of use to us, that the invaders would simply smash because they’re starved insane—we must take that!”
Unheeded while the debate was raging, the sun had slanted towards the horizon. Suddenly the tropic night closed down, and there were moans from passengers who had not yet adjusted to the speed of its arrival.
During their last day’s travel the fleet had broached a latitude further south than any on their course, and it was now for the first time they saw, at the western rim of the world just above the thin red clouds of evening, a great green curving light, edged like a shuddermaker’s rasp.
Silence fell as they turned to gaze at it, bar the slop of water against the briqs’ sides and the crying of frightened children. The redness faded; the green grew even brighter.
“What is it?” Skilluck whispered to Wellearn.
“I heard of such things before, and never saw one,” was the fault answer. “There are tales about the Blade of Heaven which comes to cut off the lives of the unrighteous—”
“Tales!” Skilluck broke in. “We can do better without those! How about some facts?”
“It’s said at Hearthome that when a star flares up—”
“Oh, forget it! Leave it to me!” And Skilluck marched towards Tempestamer’s prow, where he could be heard on all the prow-together briqs.
“Chaplains! Stand forth! Tell me if that’s not the Blade of Heaven!”
A ragged chorus told him, yes it was.
“Tell me further! Is it poised to cut off the lives of the unrighteous? And is it not unrighteous to leave those who offered to ally with us to suffer at the claws of crazy folk?”
The instant he heard any hint of an answer, he roared, “Well, there’s our sign, then! Captains, prepare to moor your briqs! Against that cape there’s a shelf of slanting rock where one may bring in even so large a briq as Tempestamer and not make her beach herself! And it’s exactly below the observatory we’re making for!”
IX
Among the many stories Wellearn had been told when he was a young’un, then taught to disbelieve as he grew up, was a description of what went on in the moon when the righteous and unrighteous were separating. Gradually dividing themselves according to whether they found dark or light more alluring, folk were said to yowl and yammer in imaginary speech; those following star-blessed visions pursued a straight path towards the light, those who doubted kept changing their minds, while only those who had arrived at righteousness by reason were able not to collide with others and be beaten or tripped up and so delayed on their way to the glory of full moon. It was a child’s impression of the adult world, perhaps, not stressing what the wicked must have done to deserve the dark.
Skilluck would have been deemed wicked by all the chaplains Wellearn had known, including Blestar, inasmuch as he often mocked and occasionally defied them.
But he was glad to be beside the captain when they went ashore, for what they found was like an actualization of that terrifying childhood story.
No concerted attempt was made to drive off the Wegans who landed; there was neither rationality nor shared insanity to generate resistance. Wild-eyed, stinking, often with their mantles leaking, a horde of starvation-maddened victims ran hither and thither, some sufficiently aware to try and alarm their fellows, many more so distraught that they reacted only to the scent of oozing ichor and under the impression “here’s food” began to clap their mandibles excitedly before attacking those who meant to warn them.
It might have been different had the newcomers been exuding combat-stink, but none of them was. They were serious, determined, and—most of all—afraid.