Chapter Six #2
Lorath waved his arm in the general direction of Westmarch. “The fight is back there, where people are suffering, even in this very moment, while we sail away. This feels like a retreat.”
“Caldesann wrote that real warriors are proudest of their retreats.”
“I cannot understand that,” Lorath said. “You put too much faith in the writings of the Horadrim. Just because they’re old and dead does not make them right.”
Donan closed his book. “Caldesann knew war as intimately as you do. I think he simply meant that a retreat is not always an act of cowardice to be ashamed of. There can be wisdom in retreat. Sometimes, a retreat is the only way to avoid needless bloodshed. Sometimes, a retreat is strategic and necessary to strengthen one’s position for a future battle. ”
“Caldesann became a pacifist,” Lorath said. “I have no such desire.”
“Nor do I,” said Donan. “But I also don’t go looking for fights.” He stood to go below. “Do you want the candle?”
“No.”
Donan blew it out, but before he had left the deck, Lorath heard something that raised his hair on end.
It was the moaning of some creature, deep and resonant through the Arabel ’s timbers, so loud and vast he could not say where it came from.
It seemed to be under and all around the ship at once, a bellow in the depths from a mouth he could not even imagine.
The tumult roused Tyrael and Keldon from their sleep, and they rushed up wide-eyed onto the deck.
“What is that?” asked Donan.
“Could it be the ocean currents? A distant storm?” asked Lorath, seeking even improbable answers over the one that he feared.
“Water has many voices,” said Keldon. “That is not one of them. That is a sea-beast, but not like any I’ve heard before.”
“Nor I,” said Tyrael.
They could do nothing but hold fast and hope the creature took no notice of them, wherever it lurked.
Lorath strained to listen for any splashing or changes in the waves around the Arabel or any fluctuation in the moaning to determine its position.
At one point, he found he was holding his breath and needed to inhale deeply, at which time he smelled something unfamiliar, a faint odor like that of a newly opened tomb, if that tomb were at the bottom of the sea.
“There are legends,” said Tyrael. “I’ve heard a peasant tale about a beast named Kethos, Mother of Deepstriders. But such stories are—”
“Look!”
Donan pointed at the horizon, where a single wave had risen like a mountain, visible even in the darkness, lifted by something immense moving beneath the surface.
Lorath watched it in a state of silent, terrified awe as it rolled across his view.
Were it not for the fact that the others also saw it, he would have wondered if his imagination had conjured it.
“I think it is moving away from us,” said Keldon.
He was right. The moaning sound had diminished, and the mountainous wave soon collapsed out of sight.
Not long after that, the wake of the sea-beast set the Arabel rocking.
Not sufficient to capsize her, but with enough strength that Lorath and the others scrambled for something to hang on to until it had passed.
None of them slept for the rest of that night.
None of them took their eyes from the horizon, fearing the return of the beast. When dawn arrived, it brought with it a new storm out of the north, the strongest they had yet weathered, and for the first time, Keldon agreed it would be prudent to hunker down and wait it out.
The ferocious wind howled around them, and the blinding lightning flashed near enough that Lorath worried it could strike their mast. The gale pounded them with so much rain, the bailing of it required almost constant effort.
The storm lasted most of that day, pushing them to the point of exhaustion, and when it finally ended, they were left battered and adrift in a dense fog, the air around them listless and warm.
Without wind, their sails hung from the rigging, slack and useless.
Lorath had heard sailors speak about dead seas, when the breezes ceased and it seemed that time itself had forgotten about them, but he had never been on a ship so becalmed in the rough waters off Westmarch. “Where are we?” he asked.
“Far off course.” Keldon checked his compass. “Can’t take proper bearings until the sky clears, but I’d guess west of Athulua.”
“What is west of Athulua?” Donan asked.
“Atanos.” Tyrael gripped the gunwale, peering into the mist. “A region with an evil reputation.”
“I doubt the storm pushed us that far south,” Keldon said.
“Let us hope not,” said Tyrael.
They could do nothing but wait. The muggy heat caused Lorath to sweat, while the fog painted everything on the ship with a wet sheen, and all the while the specter of the sea-beast hung over his mind.
Perhaps it was the languid pallor of their circumstances, but the memory of their encounter with the creature, whatever it was, began to feel like a dream, almost as if it could not have possibly happened as he remembered it.
There must have been some trick of the moonlight on the sea, allowing something as ordinary as a whale to take on monstrous proportions.
“Why is Atanos considered evil?” Donan asked.
Tyrael turned from the gunwale and rubbed his palm over his bald head, wiping away droplets of condensation.
“The legend takes us back almost to the foundation of Sanctuary, and I myself am unsure how much of it is true. Atanos is a shattered land. According to the myth, it was the place where the angel Inarius and the demon Lilith created humanity. But their union was not to last, as we know all too well. After the conflict that saw Lilith banished from Sanctuary, Inarius destroyed Atanos, sinking parts of it beneath the waves. For as long as the Askari have dwelt in Skovos, the land between Athulua and Celestia has been a cursed place, full of dark tales.”
“What kind of dark tales?” asked Donan.
Keldon scoffed. “The kind that smugglers and pirates spread to keep others away from their havens. The kind that superstitious sailors will believe.”
Lorath had a different question. “Why did Inarius destroy the island?”
“Anger,” Tyrael said. “Shame. They are two sides of the same coin.” He faced the gunwale again, resuming his vigil. “As I said, it is an ancient story.”
Keldon went to work repairing what needed seeing to after the storm.
Donan helped him use scraps of old canvas soaked in pitch to patch a few holes that had opened in the hull, then worked to sew up the sails where they had torn free of their rigging.
After that was all done, the four of them could only sit and wait.
Keldon eventually went below and came back with an old, scuffed fiddle.
“Fair warning,” he said. “The instrument belonged to someone else. I have little musical ability.”
He proceeded to play despite that, scratching out a few melodies that caused some wincing and laughter but helped to pass the time.
No wind stirred for the remainder of that day, but toward evening, the fog began to drop away a little, though it still clung to the water and obscured the sky.
Keldon climbed the mast to get above it and used the stars to find their bearing.
When he dropped back down to the deck, he appeared uneasy.
“I was wrong,” he said, now keeping his voice low. “The storm pushed us farther south than I realized.”
“Meaning?” Lorath asked.
“We are very close to Atanos.” The sailor looked to either side of the vessel. “Too close.”