Chapter 22 #2
collect themselves just in case...”
He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. This wasn’t the first time the two of us had faced down the likelihood of
an imminent death at sea; no mariner with as many years between them as we had avoided such experiences. We’d weathered cyclones
and rogue waves, doldrums and broken sails. Many a time, we chucked everything overboard, tied ourselves to the ship, and
prayed, expecting the watery grave that takes so many of us.
But I had a daughter to return to now. And we weren’t facing a storm that couldn’t be avoided, couldn’t be outwitted. “We
might still make it, God willing,” I said stubbornly, nodding at the thunderheads in the distance. “Night approaches and the
weather is turning fouler. We could lose the creature in the darkness.”
“We are more likely to lose ourselves in the darkness than any creature that lives in the sea. And if we are to have any hope of surviving a storm, we should be
bringing the sails in.”
I took a deep breath, considering my fleeting options. “We will go on a bit longer. We cannot know the mind of this creature,
nor the depths of the Frank’s control over it.”
Majed met my gaze. “You are the only one of us who met this man. What sort of control do you think he exercises? What sort of vengeance on the girl who betrayed him and the pirates who tried to blow him up?”
“Careful, Majed. You would not wish to risk your reputation for cynicism.” But my poor effort at a joke only made him flinch.
I spoke again, more intent. “If the creature catches up and we are forced to fight, you will flee in the dunij. Take the four
youngest sailors,” I added, begging forgiveness from Asif in my heart. I hated to leave Dunya out of such a calculation but
feared Raksh had likely spoken the truth. They would have a better chance of escaping without her.
Majed was already shaking his head. “I will not leave you.”
“I am the nakhudha; I was always going to be the last to leave. But you are a navigator, not a fighter, and those kids don’t
stand a chance of finding land without you. Please , brother,” I said more urgently when Majed’s expression turned mutinous. “Go to my family. Warn them. If Marjana—”
A strong gust ripped through the air. The Marawati jerked heavily to port, provoking a few startled cries. I gripped the edge of my bench, fighting for balance as the ship
rolled back, startled by how abruptly the storm had strengthened.
Because this is no storm, not truly . It was magic beyond my understanding. And I feared it was shortly to be beyond my ability to fight as well. “Take down the
sails!” I shouted.
From beyond the curtain of driving rain, a screeching roar rent the sky.
It was the same unnatural sound I had heard on the beach in Socotra, the cry so high-pitched it sounded like a rusted celestial-sized
blade on an unpolished, craggy whetstone. It made the thunder seem meek in comparison.
And it sounded way too close. But I was the nakhudha, and I didn’t get to panic. “Archers along the port side! The rest of you, keep rowing.”
I rose to my feet and turned to Majed. “Brother, go.”
“Not yet,” he pleaded.
A wave smashed into the Marawati , nearly sending us sideways. Water rushed across the decks with enough force to knock two men down and rip the oars from
another. Grasping for the rudder rope to steady myself, I quickly climbed back to my feet, searching the ranks to make sure
no one had gone overboard. The rain was coming down slanted and the wind was relentless, whipping any bit of exposed skin.
The creature roared again even louder, even closer, but still invisible in the fog.
“You bastard, no!” Tinbu cried from the other side of the ship, hidden behind the billowing sails. “Amina, it’s Raksh! He
stole the dunij!”
Cursing, I jumped down from the captain’s deck. But I hadn’t gone two steps when a blistering purple tentacle burst out of
the sea.
I screeched to a halt on the wet deck. The tentacle rose straight in the air as though searching for the sun, wiggling and
squirming, covered in razor-edged suckers the size of my face. It was thick as a tree trunk, long as a city street, and—in
the space of a heartbeat—was joined by two more massive appendages. The second tentacle slapped the Marawati , shaking the entire ship. The third slithered across the cargo hold, rushing up the mast and wrapping itself around the wooden
beam like a vine. Men were screaming, fleeing their posts and ducking flying debris.
I seized the railing, fighting not to be chucked off the wave-tossed Marawati . “Grab something sturdy!” I shouted. “Tie yourselves to the ship!”
The still mostly unseen creature shrieked. One of the tentacles swept out wide, nearly knocking a cowering Hamid overboard,
and at the sight of the creature attacking my crew, I abruptly discarded my own advice. Letting go of the railing, I drew
my sword and rushed the tentacle gripping the mast.
I slashed down with my blade. A spray of acidic silver blood splashed across my arms and face, stinging like salt upon a wound.
I hissed in pain but didn’t stop my attack, striking again and again and then again as the beast howled. The fourth hack finally severed the damn thing, and the tentacle crashed to the deck, unspooling like
a dropped spindle.
Breathing hard and barely able to see past the blinding rain and crashing waves, I stumbled back, searching for my next target.
But my success was short-lived.
A dozen tentacles exploded out of the raging sea. They surrounded us like the fingers of a vile, grasping hand, lunging for
the mast, twining around the stern and bow points, and winding through the railings. For a second, the Marawati went completely still, the waves unable to batter us in the marid’s firm grip.
Then the creature thrust the ship straight up into the air.
Sailors screamed, sobbing for their mothers and praying in every tongue as we flew skyward. I fell hard, still yelling for
my crew to grab something, anything, yet somehow managing to keep a grip on my sword and hooking my other arm through one
of the joints bolting the cistern to the railing. I shoved my sword in my belt, lunging to catch Firoz before he rolled off
the ship.
The boy buried his head in my neck. “I don’t want to look.”
I could do nothing but look as flashes of lightning revealed storm-churned waves far, far below, indicating a beast of impossible size and conception. The marid had an insect-like abdomen large enough to pass as
an island and a wicked stinger curving out of the water to drip bright blue poison. Dozens of squid-like tentacles shuddered
from its body, and six flat bloodred eyes stared up from an armored plate of a head. Perched like a crown on its skull was
a corona of broken timbers.
But the marid, a monstrous beast of whom a single glimpse might paralyze the bravest man with fear... even it paled in comparison with how high my ship was suspended.
“Oh, God,” I whispered, suddenly aware that to fall from this height would be instant death. Suddenly aware that my last adventure
was likely about to be abruptly ended.
The marid shook us.
It was a single firm shake, like one might give a disobeying child. Firoz screamed in my ear, clasping me tighter. We didn’t fall: my arm was too firmly hooked into the cistern’s joint, and though the motion nearly wrenched my shoulder out of its socket, we didn’t plummet to our deaths.
Which, judging from the fading shrieks of my men, was not a mercy granted to everyone. But I had not a second to grieve, to
rage or cry warning before the creature pulled us back down.
We fell heavily into the sea, the Marawati all but inundated by the resulting wave. I clutched the cistern and Firoz, holding my breath as black water rushed over our
heads. Debris surged around us, pounding my limbs. We were only underwater for a few moments before the ship bobbed back up.
I gasped, choking for air. Everything hurt. My ears were ringing, and I could taste blood in my mouth, more streaming from
lacerations all over my body.
But I was alive. Which I feared was far more than I could say for everyone who had been on the Marawati .
There was nothing but silence for a long, awful moment. The creature’s tentacles held fast, but it did not roar, did not attack
further. Maybe it was contemplating the best way to eat us. With a groan, I pulled my pummeled arm from the cistern joint
and untangled Firoz. “Stay here,” I ordered.
Rising to my feet, I tried to survey what I could. The sail had ripped free of its bindings, the massive cloth billowing up
as we fell and then catching on the yard and rigging so that it tented part of the Marawati . Between that and the fog, I could see almost nothing; what was visible of my wrecked ship and weeping, bloodied crew filled my heart with grief.
“Amina!”
Dalila . I staggered in the direction of my friend’s voice, climbing over wreckage and checking on the men I passed.
“Over here!” she cried. Dalila had left the galley and was crouched over the broken starboard rudder. The massive wooden beam
had snapped, one half lying heavily across the deck.
Pinned beneath was Tinbu.
I ran over. My first mate was unconscious, blood crusting his face. “Oh, God. Is he...”
“He’s alive,” Dalila said quickly. “He took a blow to the head and his leg is likely broken. It’s stuck under the beam, but
it’s too heavy for me to lift.”
“Let me help.” It was Tiny, the massive sailor from Sumatra, followed by Majed, bleeding badly but alive.
“Take this end,” I urged. “If we get a couple more men to lift—”
“Oh, nakhudha!” The voice that sang out from beyond the fog was horribly, immediately familiar—indeed, Falco sounded almost
cheerful as he continued. “I do believe you have something of mine.”
***
Over Tinbu’s body, my and my friend’s gazes caught.
I grabbed Dalila’s wrist when she reached for one of the poison tablets dangling from her ribbon cap.