Chapter XIV. This Whole World a Grave #2
“And so we did. Through that corpse-thick mouth and into the waters of the Béni beyond. The was no talk now aboard Dawnseeker; each man gripped with the sights they’d just seen, wondering what awaited upriver.
The wind was cold as death, and that struck us strange; for though grim summer reigned in Elidaen now, the frosts along the Béni’s shoreline were unmelted, dead trees adorned with chandeliers of ice.
Heavy thumping rang out as we sliced upriver—the song of ice, now crashing against our hull.
There was no scent of rot in the air. No stink of corpses unearthed or moldering fungus snarls.
Just the faint reek of sulfur, rising now with the scent of …
“‘Smoke,’ Phoebe growled.
“The wind was become a monster, howling and wild, the Unbound turning bewildered eyes to the heavens.
Snow began falling then; snow, as if summer had been only a dream.
We skimmed past watchtowers and guardposts, gutted and fallen.
Fishertowns razed to the ground. A desolation, the ice floes growing thicker, snows heavier.
“‘D-Dior…’
“The Grail turned as we spoke, struck by the pain in our voice. Her eyes grew wide as we raised one shaking hand, thin wisps of smoke rising from our skin.
“‘Shit,’ she breathed. ‘The water?’
“Maryn nodded, glancing over the gunwale. ‘It grows fresh, holy child.’
“‘Go. We’ll make landfall soon as we can.’
“We did as she bid, making our way down to the maindeck, past wide-eyed Unbound. Our coffins had been brought up from below, Maryn’s marble angel laid out beside the heavy pinewood box I’d kept in the hold; we’d no wish to be trapped belowdecks if Dawnseeker was sunk.
The pain was growing; fire in our skin and fear in our bones, and such was the river’s power, we could not even leave our moth behind to watch in our stead.
Maryn nodded to me as she climbed inside her sarcophagus, and skin blistering, eyes bleeding, I sank into ours.
With shaking hands we dragged the lid closed, cold earth beneath us and rough timber all around, whispering thanks to God as the pain began to ease.
“But the fear remained.
“We were not totally senseless, able still to smell, to hear; the oncoming scent of scorched timber and burning flesh, the faint song of steel and storm and screams. Thickening ice crashing on the hull, onward through that red perfume we came, the wind howling fury, and above that soulless wail we heard a shout from the aftcastle.
“‘Augustin!’ Joaquin roared. ‘Augustin! ’
“A cry of joy rang out in answer, after so long at sea to have finally reached her.
But soon came cries of dismay, whispered curses and prayers.
The battlesong grew louder, the stench of butchery rising, and we clenched our fists, helpless inside our little wooden box, no idea what we approached, or what approached us.
“Cannon rang out, timbers shattering, Dawnseeker shaking. We heard Dior roar, screams of pain, cries of ‘Sails starboard! ’, Seeker’s guns howling and bigger dogs barking in reply.
Timbers smashed, rigging split, men cried out in agony, and we moaned along with them.
All I had done, all I had given, and there I was, useless and worthless.
Those moments were the hardest of my whole war, I think.
Those muted minutes that seemed like years.
Trapped in that box like a worm, blind, powerless, reminded once more of what I truly was.
“Not blessed, but damned.
“The crash, the cries, the hymn of singing steel grew louder.
And beneath it all, we could smell it; such a flood of blood it must have been a river.
Higher, deeper, sharper but no less vast, rose the stench of a charnel house, the stink of death so thick and ripe it seemed to swallow us whole. And I knew what it was we smelled then.
“Wretched.
“Wretched in such numbers they might make this whole world a grave.
“Cannon barked again, wood split and canvas tore. ‘Prepare to repel! ’ came the roar, and I prayed God for strength to see this through. Above the din, the clamor, the riot, we heard Dior cry out, our skin tingling at the sound.
“‘Courage now! God stand with u—’
“And then came a crash, thunderous and sharp. The crack of a hundred timber ribs, the boom of a breaking spine. Something struck Seeker’s starboard, and I felt our coffin wrenched sideways, suddenly weightless.
I had the presence of mind to dig our claws into the lid to stop it flying loose, and then I myself was flying; me and my little pine box, tumbling through the air like a child’s toy.
We screamed then, knowing where we were headed—the river, oh holy God, the RIVER—helpless now but to pray.
And then we struck the water, the world turned end over end.
The voices within me cried out, all of them in terror, Wulfric loudest of all; to have given so much, to have come so far, only to fall here at the last.
“Water rushed into our coffin, swift and shockingly cold.
“With our last breath, we cried out to God above.
“And down, down into the dark we sank.”