Chapter 33
Zanta sputtered as a massive wave crested over the side of the Monsoon.
Salt water flooded her nose and mouth and stung the myriad of little cuts on her cheeks.
The force of it pushed her back a few steps, and she had barely regained her footing when another wave slapped her.
The lifeline tugging at her waist kept her from being swept overboard.
As soon as the Monsoon had plunged into the storm, Zanta knew they were fucked.
There was no end to it. A slate gray ceiling of clouds hung low over the water as far as she could see, as if the whole world had been consumed.
Lightning flickered constantly between the dark roiling folds, and forked down toward tumultuous waves.
They’d battled for hours, losing sight of the Lonesome and Marigold as night darkened their world.
There was no navigation. All her crew could do was hunker down and try to keep the ship from capsizing.
They had no sense of direction, no ability to steer beyond making sure the mountainous waves didn’t catch them broadside.
Zanta struggled to keep her footing, leaning heavily against the mast for support, and surveyed the crew in flashes of lightning.
Exhaustion hung from the limbs of every last one like dragging seaweed, but they fought valiantly on against the forces of nature.
In all Zanta’s years at sea, she’d never seen a storm like this.
It raged like it had a personal vendetta against them, tossing the ship from wave to wave like a cat with a bug.
How long had they been in it? It had to be past midnight already. Would Zanta live long enough to see a clear morning? Would there even be a clear morning to see?
The Monsoon crested another wave and plunged down the other side. For one weightless moment, they were floating. The roar of the waves was like a beast trying to swallow them whole. The next wave loomed ahead, craggy with white foam that shone like a predator’s teeth in the dark.
A crack cut through the storm, one rung of the mainsail finally losing its battle with the driving wind and snapping free.
The weight of the wooden beam popped lower rungs free and dragged a web of rope and torn yellow sail with it.
All Zanta could do was watch in horror as it trailed broken ropes like death ribbons.
Shouts rang through the night, and the rest seemed like it happened so slowly, in between flickers of lightning, that time almost stood still.
Sabriye lunged toward the falling beams. The tangle of wood and sail hit the deck with a deafening crash, splintering the boards. Ropes whipped down after, catching Colm from his place at the wheel, and knocking him to the ground.
“Fuck!” Zanta bolted as the wheel spun out of control, and the Monsoon heeled sharply, abandoned to the whims of the storm. Sabriye got there first, leaping over the fallen yard and lunging for the out of control wheel.
The wheel spokes cracked across Sabriye’s hand and her face twisted in a rictus of pain as the wave bore down on them. But she reached again anyway, desperately trying to get the ship back under control.
It was too late. The next wave pounced on them, and the Monsoon met it sideways instead of head-on.
“Sab—” The deck pitched, as the swell of the wave lifted it.
Zanta grabbed for the first solid thing she could find, the capstan with its winding anchor chain.
Around her, the crew’s shouts echoed. Some managed to grab the mast, ropes, rails, anything solid.
The deck tilted to a steep angle, seawater rushing over the starboard rail to consume them all.
A man slid past her toward the yawning maw of the sea and Zanta reached for him, missed, and watched the sea swallow him, the snapped safety line trailing him like the rope of a noose.
Another body slid down the deck and crashed into her, knocking the breath from her lungs and almost making her release the links of the anchor chain.
It was Laurent. Blessedly still clinging to life.
He said nothing, just clutched onto her with wild eyes as the ship rolled and plunged them into the water with a great groan of timbers.
The frigid water almost snatched her last breath from her as silence enveloped them, the underwater world almost peaceful.
The storm didn’t exist here, but neither did breath or light or warmth.
A scream built up behind Zanta’s sealed lips.
But if she let it out, she knew seawater would invade her lungs, and it would all be over.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Not that it made much of a difference to the utter darkness.
All that existed was the hard metal of the chain against her palm, and Laurent’s arms and legs squeezing her.
She hadn’t gotten a good breath before, and her lungs were already screaming, heaving against the spars of her ribs. Old breath desperate to escape and be replaced with the crushing pressure of water.
Should she let go? Take Laurent and try to swim for the surface? She wasn’t sure she could. The cold locked her muscles in place, and she didn’t know which way was up, not with the entire ship tumbling through the wave. All she could do was hold on.
Sound crashed back into her world. The pounding of waves, the persistent beating of rain. She dragged in a deep, ragged breath before she even opened her eyes. Air, not seawater, filled her lungs.
She opened her eyes, half expecting another impact, but none came. The Monsoon sat upright at the bottom of a valley between waves. The wave that had rolled them retreating, the next closing in, blocking out the flickering sky.
Move, move. Do something. Her freezing fingers unlocked from the chain, mind lit up with a thousand details at once.
The main mast was gone, snapped off with the impact of the water.
Her crew, those who’d held on, whose lifelines remained intact, scrambled to their feet.
Up on the quarterdeck, the wheel whipped violently with no one there to hold it.
No one there.
No Colm. No Sabriye.
“Fuck!” Zanta dragged Laurent to his feet.
“Pull the lines.” The storm almost swallowed her voice, but those who heard, obeyed.
Hand over hand, they dragged in the waterlogged ropes that were pulled taut over the side, dragging their macabre burdens behind the ship.
Zanta caught the out of control wheel, fought to steer them into the next wave so they wouldn’t roll again.
She did not see the crew pull their comrades from the water.
But she heard them. Retching up seawater when their knees hit the deck.
And she heard the silence too. The silence of the drowned.
“Colm!” Laurent tugged the taut lifeline secured to the base of the wheel, but he couldn’t manage it, not by himself. Zanta wrestled the wheel to port trying to get the Monsoon back on track before the next wave.
“Captain! Help me!” Laurent had one foot braced on the shattered rail, desperately hauling at the rope.
“Kinda busy,” Zanta gritted out. Every muscle ached, blisters forming where she gripped the wheel spokes.
“Captain!” Desperation cracked Laurent’s voice, and she knew Colm was drowning or already dead on the other end of the line. One of her beloved crew members, under her care and protection. But she couldn’t go to them.
“He’ll die!” Laurent sobbed.
“We’ll all die if we roll again!” Zanta snapped, guilt twisting her guts. Someone else would come soon, wouldn’t they? Someone else would help him when she couldn’t.
Wind whipped stinging rain into her face as she finally wrestled the ship to face the wave head-on, just as it began to roll beneath the bow.
She locked her gaze dead ahead, clutching onto this one bit of control that remained to her, and blocking out everything else.
Laurent’s cries of frustration and fear as he tried to save his friend.
Drowned corpses scattered across the deck.
Sabriye missing. Worry over Nia below deck.
One mast gone, and the other split. She would deal with it all later.
After she sailed them out of this storm.