14 Hunting Shark
Hunting Shark
Captured! Along the beach those shouts reveal
The fisherman exultant victor! Hark!
The Karcharos, from out his crystalline, dark
Blue lair by rud of flesh and lurking steel
Bewrayed, hath ravined down with his last meal
Death as a gobbet. On the hot sand, stark,
He gasps and shudders agonizing. Mark!
With horrible grin those bloody jaws appeal
Unto his gloating murderers.—No more
Those serried ranks sextuple of fanged white
Shall scare the shallows and appall the shore,
Never again wreak havoc and affright,
Ranging the Gulf Stream, weltering in gore;—
Poor Shark! Man-eater! learn of Man, to fight.
― The Shark, William Henry Venable
SILVERFIN'S DELIGHT at managing to keep the Portuguese gold out of the hands of his former kin was short-lived.
Phallandia was as disgusting as he had remembered.
They might as well have been marooned on an island with no inhabitable land in sight.
To the south, miles of sheer cliff-face boxed them in.
To the north, a beach full of Portuguese that were rapidly dying from some kind of hell fever that needed to stay Portuguese.
And even if they had gotten beyond, hundreds of miles and tribes of very angry Natives still sat between them and any kind of civilization - civilization that would, in any case, have them hanged for piracy.
The single cask of fresh water he'd managed to recover untainted from the wreck was dwindling quickly, barely augmented by the tiny stream of fresh water Hank had discovered in the cliffs. Certainly not enough for over three dozen men who were trying to repair a ship.
On top of that, Silverfin had the distinct impression that Hawk was slipping him extra rations. He couldn't tell the captain that when he was swimming his gills could filter all the moisture he needed from the sea.
The food situation was even more dire, with their supplies ruined by the sea. One of the Orca's longboats had survived the wreck, but even the most competent fisherman on the crew seemed incapable of pulling anything substantial. Probably those asshole sharks, Silverfin thought.
As for Silverfin, well, he was, for all intents and purposes, under beach arrest.
"Just let me go out," he said to Hawk again. "I'll bring back loads of fish. I'm actually quite good at it."
Hawk frowned. The furrow between his brows deepened. Silverfin tried his best hopeful smile despite being quietly disappointed that Hawk still thought him clearly incompetent in this regard.
"Am I really good for much else?" he finally tried, and Hawk sighed.
"Fine. But I'm coming with you."
There was both an art and a sport to hunting the dumb fish.
Silverfin settled in the bow of the boat with spear in hand, eagerly scanning the clear blue waters underneath.
It would be far easier if he had his tail, of course.
Or even if he could be in the water, luring his prey with the Siren's song.
But he was certain he would still find success.
"I don't think they're going to just come to you," Hawk remarked, squinting down at the water in the bright sunlight.
"It's all about patience," Silverfin murmured, frowning. The shallows should have been teeming with life, and yet he could see no sign of it.
When a large, dark shadow passed under the boat, he understood why all the previous men had failed. "Assholes!"
“Even so,” Hawk’s hand was suddenly hot against Silverfin’s lower back, where his shirt had ridden up exposing his flesh exactly where his tan faded into the pale skin of his newly acquired ass cheeks.
“Perhaps you and I can use this time apart from the men for something more... relaxing than slowly dying of starvation.”
“Are you... actually making a pass at me right now?” Silverfin squinted at his lover.
“You know, for someone who is in control of so many men’s lives, you’re awfully unaware of your surroundings.
I’m frankly amazed you made it out there, on the open water, for as long as you have.
I will attribute this to your uncontrollable lust for me, of course, and I’ll assume you have not felt this way for a very long time... ”
“You talk too much,” Hawk grunted. His hand slid down to cup and squeeze Silverfin's ass.
Only the dark and looming shadow passing under their boat again was enough to keep Silverfin from grinding back into his touch. "There is something," he said pointedly, "in the water below this boat that wishes to eat us."
Hawk smirked. "Like the mysterious things that took Pane's trousers? I could give them a run for their money."
"Like the asshole that took my leg!"
That, at least, sobered his lover. Hawk leaned out to look down into the water, frowning. "Well. I suppose that would explain the trouble with the fish."
"You think?"
"Well..." Hawk eyed the other spear. Then, he started securing the end of its rope to the bow of the boat. "Nothing's saying we can't eat that."
Silverfin opened his mouth, before closing it again in shock. Eat a shark? Disgusting!
Then again... "There would be a certain satisfaction in eating the thing that ate part of me."
Hawk let out a low and throaty laugh. "Exactly. Now, when it makes the next pass..."
But before Hawk could finish, there was a mighty splash. Yards away the shark's dorsal fin broke the surface, glinting black against the sea-bright waves. Silverfin's hand gripped the spear tighter, but he forced himself to hold back. Even his best throw couldn't reach that distance.
What are you waiting for, so-called Prince of the Sea? The shark's taunt made Silverfin's blood boil. He tried to follow its shape as it disappeared beneath the waves.
Pretty little MerSir all afright
Grabbed a spear ready to fight
You won’t save your biped love
From below or from above
Can’t escape my mighty bite!
"Fucking asshole," Silverfin snarled, wishing he dared yell back but acutely aware that Hawk couldn't hear what shrimp-for-brains was saying. And yet... “Your poetry sucks, too!”
“What did you say?”
Crap. “I said this spear sucks, too.”
"Well, we're going to have to make do."
"I'll do more than make do."
Hearing the shark break the surface behind them, Silverfin whirled - and none too soon.
With a mighty jump the shark rushed towards them, jaws gaping.
But Silverfin hadn't spent his childhood mastering the great triton hunts to miss his mark now.
He drove the spear forward, into the shark's open mouth and up into its skull, its powerful jaws of daggers snapping closed just shy of Silverfin's hand, splintering the shaft of the spear into pieces.
For a second, elation overwhelmed him, but he remembered that they were supposed to be eating the damn thing.
Fortunately, Hawk was at his side before the thrashing shark could sink beneath the waves again, driving his spear deep into the back of the would-be-assassin’s neck.
Finally, as the churning water calmed, they carefully drew it back up to the surface and hauled its slippery carcass into the boat with them.
Before Hawk could start for shore, however, Silverfin drew his belt knife.
Grabbing hold of the scarred black dorsal fin, he drove his blade deep into the cartilage, sawing until the fin broke free.
Then, he sliced the blade across the surface of the fin, deftly carving the glyph that formed his name.
"What on earth are you doing? You can make soup out of that, you know."
"I'm sending a message," Silverfin shot back. "Some things are more important than soup." Shoving his knife in his belt, he drew back his arm and threw the fin out as far into the waves as he could.
Next to him, Hawk shook his head. “Thank God you’re pretty.”
The sun was setting over the water, when Silverfin caught Hank Thompson approaching him out of the corner of his eye. He gave the towering giant a cautious look and was greeted with a sheepish one of Hank’s own, as he lowered himself upon the sand.
“So,” the man spoke.
“So?” Silverfin fidgeted where he sat, wishing his hair was suddenly longer so that he could use it to obscure his eyes better.
“It appears I owe you an apology.”
Now, Silverfin may not have been living among pirates for that long, but he had watched them from afar long enough to know that they didn’t throw these “apologies” around like so many grains of sand.
“I thought you were pretty useless,” Hank continued and Silverfin opened his mouth to point out that he was pretty sure that wasn’t how apologies were supposed to go.
“I thought you’d just beguiled the captain with your pert little arse and uncanny set of teeth.
” Silverfin closed his mouth, silently bemoaning the lack of advances in biped dentistry.
“But you’re more than meets the eye, Silver, I’ll give you that.
And I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a great debt of gratitude. ”
“Um...” Silverfin supposed this was the time he was expected to accept this bizarre apology. “So, you thought I beguiled the captain?” he asked weakly, instead.
Hank laughed and shrugged his wide shoulders. “Evidently. He’s pretty gone on you.”
“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me since the ship wreck?
” Silverfin ventured, releasing an inward sigh of relief that all that talk of “beguiling” did not lead immediately to “Siren’s call.
” An idea occurred to him that somehow had not occurred to him before.
“Did you hope to ensnare the captain yourself?”
“Look, I’m trying to say that you’re all right, Silver! Don’t make me regret it or change my mind!” Hank flushed and rose from the sand, towering over the bewildered MerSir once more.
“It’s just that...” Silverfin paused, eyeing Hank uncertainly.
“Well, I know that every man on this beach has a pretty vested interest in that gold over there, and I’m the reason we even got as far as to find it.
So, you’d have no reason to believe me when I say, your captain is worth more to me than all that Portuguese gold.
” He flushed and averted his eyes as he spoke.