Chapter 8
A FEW MORE DAYS go by without change.
And then the water starts churning.
Bubbles float to the surface. The water turns gray. I’d think it a whale feeding, except there are no whales to be found, and the tumultuous water follows the ship, rather than staying in one place. The state of the water doesn’t affect our pace. The wind carries us true as ever, but that water is concerning everyone on the ship.
“It’s a bad omen,” Enwen says.
“It’s air in the water,” I shoot back. “Even you should know what makes bubbles.”
I stand on the deck among the new night crew, our ship lit up like a tavern at night. Kearan’s at the helm. Enwen’s seated on the ground with his back to the exterior wall to my rooms.
“Maybe the sea is warning us to turn around,” Enwen says. “Air doesn’t follow ships, Captain. There’s no explaining that.”
He’s got me there.
“Until Alosa orders us back, we stay our course. We’re taking precautions, Enwen. No one else has gone missing. And need I remind you that you volunteered for this mission?”
“Of course I did. You think I’d miss out on witnessing this?” He does some weird motion with his hand, gesturing over his shoulder at Kearan and then to me.
I’m so glad he finds our arguments entertaining.
When I say nothing, not taking his bait, he continues. “You know, your epic romance?”
My whole being freezes up, but I shift my head toward him in an owllike way.
“Don’t look at me like that, Captain. You know something is happening there. But don’t think about it. Just let it naturally evolve.”
“I am not romancing anyone, Enwen.”
“Well, not on purpose.”
“Not on accident, either.”
“You can’t help it. Everything you say, everything you do—it just draws you nearer to him. There’s no stopping it.”
“I can stop anything with a well-aimed knife. Including your mouth, Enwen.”
“I’m shutting up now, Captain.”
Kearan steers us around larger and larger chunks of ice the farther we go. At one point, he threads two large icebergs, sailing between them with practiced ease.
And the churning water beneath the ship calms.
Until we reach the other side of the strait. Then the bubbles resume once more.
I climb the aftercastle, positioning myself next to Kearan.
“It’s a beastie of some sort,” I tell him.
“Aye,” he agrees.
“Too big to fit through that strait we sailed.”
“It had to go around, which means it’s sticking close to the water’s surface. Something that has to breathe regularly?”
“We’ve seen nothing crest the waves.”
“Perhaps it only does so at night, far out of our lanterns’ reach.”
“That means it’s enormous.”
“Yet it can sneak off with a single sailor in the night?”
I keep my voice pitched low as someone walks by in front of us. “Why wouldn’t it wreck the ship? Take us all out at once? It clearly knows there’s food aboard.”
“Maybe it has a small stomach. Wants to make its meals last.”
“Then how long before it’s hungry again?”
Kearan’s face grows solemn, for it’s a question neither of us knows the answer to. “Do we dare attempt to attack first?”
“We have cannons and a single ballista, and we don’t know what would happen if we make it angry.”
“So we wait?”
“We wait.”
I NORMALLY KEEP NIGHT hours as it is, but I can tell some of the crew have a hard time adjusting. Dimella occasionally has to wake up sailors who slump against the companionway or other hard surfaces of the ship. Too many are less alert, their internal monitors relaxing in the bitter evening air. Night is for sleeping. It’s hard to convince the body otherwise.
I can sympathize, but if I’m to keep everyone alive, I need the crew to try harder.
The reason I kept my theories about the beastie between myself and Kearan is because I thought that would keep everyone calm and levelheaded for the fight ahead, but it would seem they need a little more fear in them to stay alert.
That means I need to … make a speech.
As I survey the sluggish night crew from atop the aftercastle, I swallow back my distaste and push through my discomfort. “Listen up, you lot!” My sudden shout startles many, and Enwen nearly falls over from where he’s leaning against the railing. “There is some sort of sea creature following us. It’s already fed on one of our own. Look alive or you might be next.”
That does the trick.
Philoria, Bayla, and Visylla keep the cannons loaded at all times in the evenings. They’re cleaned and unloaded by the scanty day crew, then readied again at night. I have a sailor stationed at the ballista at all times, scouring the water in front of us.
Many hold their pistols in their hands for comfort. Some even get into the muskets from belowdecks. Visylla brings up her collection of hand bombs, and I welcome it. Better to be overprepared than under.
I have a brave crew full of good people. Only the best would volunteer for this mission in the first place. They prove their mettle in their commitment to stay course. Only Enwen’s superstitions get the better of him from time to time.
And then it happens finally.
A change.
The water stops churning, despite the fact there are no obstacles around.
“Lerick’s gone!” Rorun shouts, and my eyes find him across the ship. “He was standing right behind me a second ago.”
“There’s something in the water!” This from little Roslyn up top. “I can’t make it out.”
When the water begins churning again, I realize what it must mean. It’s feeding. It releases air while eating, and the churning water is from its efforts to keep apace with us. But we can’t let this go on. Not when it just snatched another of the crew without a soul noticing.
“Weapons out!” I shout. “Gunwomen to your posts. Backs to the deck, everyone. Eyes on the water. Stay vigilant.”
Dimella takes up the call, repeating it belowdecks and waking the rest of the crew. I run to the ballista at the other end of the ship. It’s already loaded, harpoon slung in place. My muscles strain as I turn the weapon, angling it straight down into the water. The trajectory isn’t perfect, but if this beastie’s as big as I think it is, the harpoon will hit.
“Ready yourselves!” I shout.
I fire.
A larger rush of bubbles flies to the water’s surface. Something like a clicking sound erupts from the midnight depths below.
“Reload,” I order.
Visylla uses two hands to put another harpoon in place. She helps me at the crank to pull back the spring. I change angles, this time aiming for the other side of the bowsprit. I shoot.
This time the noise is unmistakable: a keening moan akin to a whale yet sharper. The sea is frothing madly beneath us, and something finally makes an appearance above the surface of the water.
It’s a tentacle of some sort, but not like that of an octopus. It’s smooth, not puckered with suction cups. It looks like a thick whip, except at the very end, which doesn’t come to a point. No, it’s large and rounded. And when the tentacle finishes rising out of the water, my eyes widen.
An unblinking eyeball stares at us all.
Enwen shrieks, but I’ve already got my pistol out. I take aim, sighting that bulbous eye at the end, and pull the trigger.
Blood and flesh rip apart. Another moan sounds below the ship, and I hear the splashing of water as the wounded tentacle retreats.
Not for long.
More of those whiplike appendages breach the surface. They surround the ship, each with a large, grapefruit-sized eye on the end. One of them still holds Lerick’s body, the tentacle wrapped around his neck. It releases him onto the deck of the ship with a horrible crunch. We stare at our fallen crewman, who is missing the lower half of his body.
There’s a moment of silence where I wait for Alosa’s orders; then I remember Alosa’s not here. This is my ship. And the crew looks to me.
“Open fire!” I yell, and gunshots erupt into the night. More eyes explode, bits raining down into the sea. But a lot of the shots miss, skimming the arms of the beastie or flying wide.
The boat shakes, the creature moving us from beneath the waves. I don’t hear the cracking of wood, so I hope that means we’re all right. I see Radita take off belowdecks to check. Then those whiplike arms lurch forward.
“Swords!” I shout, but it’s too late to be a warning.
Tentacles wrap around the crew, trying to drag them into the sea. One catches Visylla around the neck, and I hack downward with my rapier. Rapiers are usually for stabbing, but I keep the edges of mine nice and sharp. The beastie must not have bones in its limbs, because my sword goes straight through, severing the tentacle. Visylla shrieks as she unwraps the eyeball-tipped limb from her person.
Looking toward the stern, I see sailors being pulled toward the edges of the ship, nails scraping along the deck, trying to find purchase. Kearan drops the helm and lets his cutlass slide free, rushing for the nearest caught sailor. I’m doing the same from this end.
I manage swings with my sword as I run, freeing sailors left and right. I stomp on tentacles, stunning them for a time, allowing other members of the crew to step in. Soon the deck is covered with sticky black blood. Explosions sound from behind me, and I know it means Visylla has begun making use of her bombs.
When I reach the mainmast, Kearan is already there, covered in black streaks of beastie blood, a path of destruction behind him. We’ve met in the middle, each of us panting and filthy. There’s a moment of quiet where we both survey each other. And then, without even communicating, we turn back-to-back, preparing for the next wave.
It is utterly bizarre how attuned to him I feel in this moment, but I don’t question it. A fight is happening, and instinct drives us both.
Someone screams as they’re pulled into the sea, and I don’t see who it is in time. The deck is a mess, pirates running for cover, reloading weapons, tripping over severed limbs.
“Reload the ballista,” I call to Visylla as I slice at a slimy limb that tries to grab me by the neck. I’m faster than it is, and I sever the tentacle right below the eyeball. It bounces twice before rolling across the deck.
Once Visylla has another harpoon ready for me, I resume my position at the ballista. More arms sprout from the water, unblinking eyeballs trained on individual members of the crew. We crank back the mechanism as shots blast through the air and shouts fill my ears. I take aim and fire again.
The creature grunts, but its limbs don’t falter. We’re not doing enough damage.
When an idea comes to me, I have the absurd thought to tell it to Alosa, only to once again remember that I call the shots now.
“Philoria!” I shout.
“Captain?” she says from somewhere within the bedlam.
I finally catch sight of her and race across the deck, slicing at more limbs as I go. She’s stationed against the outside wall to my quarters as she reloads her pistol. I cover her while she takes the time to add powder to her weapon.
“I need the cannons pointed into the sea. Can it be done?” I ask.
“Without shooting through our own ship?” She thinks for a moment. “Well … sort of.”
“Do it.”
“Aye-aye. I need five people to pull it off.”
“Take them. The rest of the crew will cover you.”
She pushes off from the wall, shouting as she approaches the first cannon on the main deck. “Bayla, Visylla, Kearan, Enwen, Taydyn—to me!”
I find Dimella from where she’s slicing through beastie appendages right and left. “We need to give the gunners cover!”
“Aye-aye. To the cannons everyone! Backs to the gunners. Protect them with your lives.”
Philoria disappears belowdecks and returns with ropes slung over her shoulders. She uses them to tie the first cannon to the mainmast with a few feet of slack.
She calls out to her helpers, “Shove the cannon over the water!”
“The railing’s in the way,” Taydyn calls back.
“Then you’d best push really hard! On my count.”
On three, the men shove with all their weight, smashing the cannon right through the railing until it hovers over the water, the ropes attached to the mast keeping it from tipping into the sea. The girls angle the first cannon straight down, before moving to the next one to repeat the process. Philoria tosses separate lines to Bayla and Visylla so they can tie off more cannons to the masts.
Another scream and another crewman disappears over the deck. This time I catch sight of Rorun before he goes into the water, arms flailing.
Dammit.
“Dimella, lower the anchor!” I shout. “We need to buy us some time.”
She widens her eyes, and I can see her desire to question the order, but she hasn’t failed me yet. She nods once, then races for the capstan.
“Brace yourselves!” I shout to the crew.
The ship jolts when the anchor is lowered, the weight slowing us down considerably. Because there’s no one at the helm, we start to spin. But a satisfying wail erupts from below. We hit it. Pierced it likely. Those eyeball limbs disappear back into the water, probably to attempt to dislodge the anchor from wherever it struck the beastie.
“Philoria, quick!” I shout.
Only four of the cannons are ready. Half. We’re going to need them all if this is going to work.
“Reload!” I say to the rest of the crew, most of whom are already preparing their pistols for the next round.
“The water’s churning again, Sorinda!” This little shout comes from way up in the crow’s nest.
Roslyn. Still doing her job, despite everything. Stars, but how could I forget about her?
“Roslyn, go shut yourself in my quarters! Now!”
I anticipate an argument, but none comes. Instead, I hear the slap of feet landing on the deck. Roslyn starts for my quarters, but a wayward tentacle comes out of nowhere. It grabs her by her left arm, pulls her straight up in the air, and I watch in horror as it drags her toward the edge of the ship. I’m running for her, but I know I can’t get there in time. My pistol isn’t loaded yet.
The light of a lantern glints on the knife Roslyn pulls from her waist. She jabs it into the eye attached to the arm that has her. She pulls it free and stabs again and again with increasing rapidity. Eventually, the tentacle releases her, and she hits the railing, teetering off the ship.
I barely manage to catch her arm before she falls into the water.
I hoist her back onto the ship and shove her into my quarters before anything else can happen. “Under the bed,” I tell her before closing the door. “Philoria!”
“Two more to go.”
The ship lurches again, a sure sign that the beastie has dislodged the anchor. The ship sails a little quicker, the water too deep for the anchor to hold us in place.
“Visylla, fire the ballista again!”
“Aye-aye.”
She does so, but the creature doesn’t even make a sound this time. I don’t know if the harpoon missed or if we’re doing about as much damage as a toothpick would to a person. Probably the latter.
“Ready for another wave!” I shout.
Kearan suddenly looks up from the cannon he’s maneuvering and races back for the aftercastle. I line my sight up with the bowsprit, realizing we’re on a collision course with an especially large block of ice. The ship jerks as our course is corrected, and Philoria and the boys stumble. I replace Kearan’s post, helping to position the cannon.
One left.
“They’re back!” Dimella calls out. “Fire!”
More shots. More screams. More glinting steel. The ballista fires again. I hear a splash, and I pray it’s one of the beastie’s limbs falling back into the sea and not another lost sailor.
The anchor catches on something under the water before tearing free, and the ship spins. Kearan struggles to right it. Radita appears above deck. “We’re taking on water! I need bailers while I make repairs.”
Dimella orders a few of the crew below, while the rest guard our gunners. I hear more screams and shouts, but I have my attention on the cannon. This has to work. This has to be the right call.
The last cannon finally breaks through the railing and hovers over the water.
“Light it up!” I scream.
Philoria and Bayla light their linstocks before touching them to the fuses on each cannon one by one.
“Brace!” Philoria shouts.
Each cannon goes off, one right after the other. The force of the blasts sends the cannons bolting upward before slamming back onto the ship. One cannon breaks free of its lines and falls into the sea. One splinters the deck of the ship and falls through to the next level. The others hold.
The water stops churning. One final cry sounds from below the depths. Then all those many limbs fall lifelessly to the sea.