Chapter 35 #2
They all nodded solemnly and went about their tasks, limbs heavy, picking carefully across the deck like any stray movement would send them all plummeting to their deaths. Rowan stood still for a few breaths. Until he felt a warm presence at his side.
“This is gonna make for one hell of a ‘glad we’re alive’ party later,” Fox quipped when Rowan looked at him. Dark bags clung under his eyes. He was as exhausted as the rest of them, but his chip-toothed smile still brightened the darkness.
Rowan felt himself smiling back, even as he said, “Well, the night is still young.”
Fox shrugged, rain dripping down his sharp chin. “Don’t speak that into existence, Captain. We’ll live to get fucked another day.” He winked, and Rowan rolled his eye.
“Go check the damage on the sides and report back.”
“Aye, Captain.” Fox sauntered off, as if he wasn’t going to check just how fucked they were.
The Siren scraping down the jagged rocks under its own weight had sounded bad.
But was it bad enough to compromise the hull?
If a rogue wave didn’t dislodge them sometime before the storm’s end, they’d have a hell of a time unsticking the Siren from its current perch without having to worry about holes.
He told himself there was no use worrying about it until Fox came back with answers.
So he forced the thoughts and plans to the back of his mind to join his worries over the fate of the Kraken and her immortal captain.
He managed to drag himself back up to the quarterdeck, where Logan was attempting to hold the wheel steady as the rudder whipped around at the mercy of the wind and waves still battering them.
Rowan’s body moved automatically, grabbing a coil of rope and helping Logan lash the wheel so the rudder sat as flush with the back of the ship as they could get it.
When they were done, Logan sank heavily on the deck, rubbing the stump of his wrist.
“You okay?” Rowan asked.
Logan looked up at him, hazel eyes dark and shadowed by his sodden golden curls. “Just sore,” he replied nonchalantly, but winced.
“Let me see.” Rowan knelt and gently took Logan’s arm.
“Has your hand been hurting?” He knew Logan still got ghostly pains in his missing hand, like Rowan did with his eye.
Sometimes it helped if Logan could watch someone else rub the false hand, as if it tricked his mind into easing the soreness of muscle and tendon that was no longer there.
“No, it’s…” Rowan pushed Logan’s sodden sleeve up his arm to see his wrist red and raw beneath the leather straps that secured the hook’s base to his wrist. Logan sighed.
“The padding on the straps fell off a while ago.” The wet leather had been chafing his skin for who knew how long.
And the skin beneath was raw to the point of bleeding.
“Go below and get some ointment and bandages from Robin. Then go rest.”
Logan looked almost ashamed. “No, it’s okay. You need me here.”
“I do. Gods know I do, but you’re hurt, and I don’t want it to get infected. Go rest. I’ll wake you up in a few hours. I can handle everything else for now.”
Logan opened his mouth to protest again, then seemed to think better of it. His lips thinned to a line, and he nodded. Rowan helped him up and sent him on his way below to the infirmary.
The rain lessened slightly, a small reprieve even as the wind still snapped at the lines and waves still battered the hull. Fox emerged from below, cast around looking for him, then made his way up to the quarterdeck. His usual boundless energy was nowhere to be found.
“How bad?” Rowan asked when Fox mounted the top step.
“It’s—” Fox flinched as a crack of thunder interrupted him, then started fidgeting with the braided leather bracelet he always wore these days.
“It’s not great but not as bad as it could be.
I couldn’t find any holes in the hull but some of the gun hatches and port holes got scraped clean off.
” He tugged gently at the bracelet. “Not gonna lie, Captain, I think a few of the boards are only an inch or two away from breaking.” As if to illustrate his point, the ship groaned.
The entire crew froze in their tracks, waiting to see if the sides would give way and plunge them into the sea below.
But she held fast, faithful as always. Rowan pressed a palm to the wheel column, silently thanking his ship for seeing him through this far.
He didn’t even want to think about what might happen if they couldn’t get her unstuck.
His gaze swept over the ship. They’d taken on water, lost cargo, and supplies, and the bowsprit was cracked from the repeated impact with the waves, but the masts were intact and so was the hull, for now.
The sails were all furled, but his winged flag still snapped in the wind at the top of the main mast, and he didn’t want to risk sending someone up to retrieve it.
Rowan couldn’t decide if their situation was dire, or safe for now.
“What’s the plan, Captain?” Fox seemed to be past the point of exhaustion now and on to the stage of manic fidgeting, his fingers tripping over the salt-worn bumps of the bracelet as if they were piano keys.
Rowan sighed. “The plan is to rest until either the storm stops, or we’re forced to think of a plan.” His exhausted mind could only run in circles at this point. “Go to bed. You look about ready to drop dead.”
Fox’s eyes narrowed. “Are you coming with?”
Rowan shook his head. “I’m staying up to finish the work.”
“And will you be resting after that?” Fox chided, sounding like a mix between Logan and a mother.
Rowan shrugged. “Someone has to stay up and keep an eye on things.”
“And that someone has to be you?” It was a testament to Fox’s exhaustion that he didn’t come back with some sort of “with only one eye?” quip.
“It’s my ship, Fox. You’re all under my care.”
“Oh.” Fox blinked innocently, rain droplets clinging to his long brown lashes. “And here I thought we were a team.”
Rowan sighed and clamped his hands on Fox’s shoulders, steering him toward the stairs. “I already promised Logan I’d wake him up in a few hours to take my place. Happy?”
Fox scrunched up his face skeptically, but turned to go. He’d been sneaking into Rowan’s room less and less these days, getting used to sleeping alone, but…
“Ah, wait.” Rowan pulled him back, realizing Fox was shivering. “Your room must be right under the damage. Take mine.”
The chipped-tooth smile replaced Fox’s weariness. “Make sure you dry off before you get into bed. I don’t want your cold-ass feet waking me up.”
“Yes, dear,” Rowan soothed. Fox threw him a sly look, then trudged down the stairs.
The truth was, Rowan had no intention of sleeping while the storm still raged.
He had a duty to watch over his ship and crew, and on top of that, worry over Yves and the Kraken gnawed at the pit of his stomach. Or maybe that was the hunger.
He trudged down the steps after Fox and went to help the crew with their tasks, seeking to keep his mind away from bleak thoughts.
One by one, Rowan sent the crew to their beds as the storm raged on, until he realized he was the only one left on deck.
It had to be getting on toward morning now, but the storm showed no sign of letting up.
Nor did the sky lighten. He hunkered down in the lee of the quarterdeck, out of the worst of the wind, and listened to it howl around the airborne sides of the Siren, almost sounding melodic to his exhausted mind.
His Siren, singing him a tragic lullaby.
After a while, it lulled him into something like a trance.
He tucked his fingers into his armpits for warmth, teeth on the verge of chattering.
Where was the sun? Where was the end to this storm? Or were they going to be trapped like this forever? The whole world was made of darkness now. How much longer could they withstand it?
A new sound threaded through the cacophony of the squall. At first, he thought it was the wind whistling through the rigging, but it cut off, then continued in two long notes. Rowan sat bolt upright, frigid muscles protesting the sudden movement, and listened.
There. Again. So faint he almost thought he was imagining it. A bosun’s whistle. The high, sweet sound of humanity among this terrifying symphony of nature.
Rowan clambered up the stairs to the quarterdeck, wind buffeting him as he went, the sodden tails of his coat slapping at his legs.
He squinted through the gloom, searching for any sign of another ship on the open sea.
What if it was one of the mercenaries? It almost didn’t matter.
He just needed something, anything, to show that they hadn’t sailed straight into the underworld and would be trapped here forever.
He did not let himself hope it was the Kraken. Not yet.
Nothing but darkness met his searching gaze, rain driving into his face. He clutched the rail, heart hammering as a wave slapped the stern. Then, cresting a massive wave much too close for comfort, a single blue pinprick split the darkness.
The Kraken’s bow light.
Rowan’s elation quickly dashed upon the rocks as he realized just how close the Kraken was.
A bolt of lightning struck the lightning rod on the Kraken’s main mast and visibly crackled down the conducting chain into the roiling water, throwing the ship into stark relief.
Including the single, unmovable figure standing at the bow.
Lightning flashed again, casting the writhing shadows of the demon’s tentacles onto the sails.
The Kraken hurtled down the other side of the wave, heading straight for the rocks where the Siren was trapped.