Chapter Seven
Superstitious or not, they doubled the watch that night so that none of them would be alone on the deck, and they armed themselves.
Lorath had no idea what they armed themselves against, but Tyrael insisted, so he held his polearm, listening and peering into the fog that continued to envelop the ship.
He stood the middle watch with Keldon, who sat nearby with a seaman’s axe across his lap.
As the hours passed, Lorath had to blink and rub his eyes or else they would start to see things, as if his tired mind could not abide the soft gray void and sought to fill it with imagined forms and movement.
Keldon looked up at the sky more often than he did the sea to either side of the Arabel.
Though Lorath had gradually learned to trust the man’s command of his ship, the two had not become friends. But the night was long, and the quiet of Atanos unnerved him more than the prospect of awkward conversation. “You mentioned the fiddle belonged to someone else,” he said. “Whose was it?”
Keldon took so long to answer that Lorath had almost forgotten his question.
“It…it belonged to my wife,” the sailor finally said.
“Eshella.” For a few moments, he seemed becalmed like his ship, adrift in memory.
But then he roused himself suddenly and dragged his palm down his mouth and beard.
“She’s been gone several years now. And she ain’t coming back. ”
Lorath didn’t think he would get any more from the sailor, and truthfully, he didn’t want to. Keldon irritated him for a reason he could not quite explain, not rationally.
The sailor scraped his thumb across the blade of his axe as if testing its sharpness, and the metal offered a quiet chime against the stillness of the night. “What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
“You’re old enough to have married. Has there ever been a woman in your life?”
Lorath shifted his footing. “A soldier’s life isn’t friendly toward marriage.”
“Aye, that’s true. Nor is the life of a mariner.
” He looked away into the mist. “And yet, how many spouses go on keeping their sleepless vigils, waiting for their sailors to return from sea? They endure their own kind of storm, I think. Yet they marry us, all the same.” A moment passed.
“You ain’t a soldier anymore, though, are you? ”
“Not for the crown,” Lorath said. “But I am Horadrim now.”
“What, do your lot swear off love or something?”
Lorath chuckled. “No. But it means I have a duty that must come before all else.”
Keldon stood, gripping the axe in his right hand while he stretched his back. “Look, lad. This world is harsh. There ain’t nothing hopeful nor certain about it. I’d caution you against denying yourself one of its few remaining joys. Though I don’t expect my advice will hold much weight with you.”
It did not, but Lorath knew he meant well and saw no reason to be disrespectful. “I thank you for your concern.”
Keldon gave him a sidelong smirk. “Fine, don’t believe me, then. But before you know it, you’ll be a lonely old man wondering where your life went.”
Lorath returned his smile. “Aren’t you a lonely old man?”
“Aye,” Keldon said. “I am, indeed. But I know where my life went. It’s true I’ve many regrets, but marrying Esh ain’t one of—”
“Shh.” Lorath held up his hand, thinking he had heard something while the sailor was talking, but he couldn’t be sure. Nothing moved in the fog that he could see, but it sounded as if something had disturbed the water on the port side of the ship. A splash, or a gurgled whisper.
“I don’t hear anything,” Keldon said. Then his eyes bulged, and he raised his axe. “Look out!”
Lorath spun around as a monstrous pale figure scrambled over the gunwale onto the deck with a slapping sound, dripping water.
He barely had time to raise his polearm before the thing leapt at him, but Keldon reacted more quickly, burying his axe in the creature’s head before it reached him, smashing it to the deck.
“Drowned,” the sailor breathed. “There’ll be more.” He rushed to the ship’s bell and rang it to awaken the others.
The thing at Lorath’s feet resembled a waterlogged corpse, with black and blue veins winding through sallow flesh, but it appeared the sea had infected it.
Encrustations of barnacles and wriggling worms covered its skin, and bony growths of coral sprouted from its corrupted bones.
Its clothes hung in tatters and shreds, tangled with seaweed.
Lorath had heard of the Drowned but had never seen one.
They were said to be the cursed casualties of shipwrecks, but there were also stories of attacks on coastal settlements, with victims dragged down into the water to join with others like the monstrosity before him.
“Lorath!” Donan shouted, staring at the slain creature. “Are you injured?” He and Tyrael had reached the deck, both wielding their weapons.
“I’m fine,” Lorath said. “Thanks to Keldon.”
“Prepare yourselves,” Tyrael said. “I fear this battle will not go easy.”
The four of them took up positions amidships, with their backs together, facing the Arabel ’s four quarters.
Lorath watched the prow. He could hear thrashing in the water now, and distant shrieks.
Shapes moved in the fog that he knew to be real, not figments.
From somewhere in the distance a bell rang, its tone deep and haunted, a chilling summons.
“It seems the stories of Atanos are true, after all,” Donan said from the port side of the ship. “Do not let them get too close.”
“Why not?” Lorath asked.
“I’ve read there is risk of…infection.”
“Infection?” Lorath swung his polearm a few times to loosen his muscles. “That’s just brilliant.”
A moment later, the first wave of Drowned came over the gunwale.
They attacked as one, clambering over all sides of the ship.
Seawater poured from their open mouths, tongues and teeth ravaged by rot, gurgling out groans and wails.
They reached with grasping fingers and wielded weapons tainted by the sea.
A moving mass of death. Lorath could focus only on the enemy before him, trusting his comrades to handle their fronts.
He swung his polearm, using it to block as much as slash and cleave.
The enemy went down fairly easily, seemingly possessed by a mindless tenacity but with little cunning.
His comrades also appeared to be holding their own against the first wave, but the enemy had the advantage of numbers.
It seemed that for every Drowned that Lorath felled, there were two undead fighters ready to take its place.
“What is the strategy here?” he asked.
The slain had begun to pile up, and the ichor that oozed from their torn flesh mixed with the seawater they trailed aboard, turning the deck slick and treacherous.
“Give no ground!” Tyrael shouted, hewing the Drowned in half with mighty swings of El’druin. “We must outlast them!”
That seemed less likely with each passing minute. The Drowned appeared to come from the bottom of the shallow sea, where an entire army could be lurking for all Lorath knew, waiting for ships like theirs to enter the waters of Atanos.
“Is there no end to these infernal things?” Keldon shouted.
Donan cried out suddenly as he stumbled and dropped to the deck. Lorath lunged toward him, swinging his polearm almost from the end of its shaft, carving as wide an arc as he could to cover both fronts.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I think so!” said Donan, climbing to his feet.
Lorath knew it was only a matter of time until one of them fell, unable to rise.
Perhaps it would be him. The corpses had stacked up high enough that the attacking Drowned had to struggle over them, but that did not appear to slow them down enough to turn the tide of the battle.
The Arabel needed to escape, but they couldn’t without wind in her sails.
“I’m sorry,” Keldon said, out of breath.
Lorath looked to his right. “What are you sorry for?”
“I’m the captain,” he said. “I brought us here. To this end.”
“It was a storm that brought us here!” shouted Tyrael. “And this is not the end! Now, fight!”
Lorath planned to keep fighting, though he had little hope for a victory.
Only a slow defeat. The foul and twisted faces of the Drowned pressed in with their milky, swollen eyes, choking him with the stench of rotten fish.
He felt his strength fading. He wondered if he and the others would become Drowned after their deaths, waiting beneath the cold waves to attack the surface world.
Then a horn sounded in the fog, full and deep.
The enemy seemed to recognize the noise and turned toward it as the glow of approaching torches cut through the fog.
Then came the sound of oars churning the water, the beat of a drum, and a woman’s voice calling the rhythm.
The silhouette of a ship emerged from the mist, broad with a tall prow, its deck bristling with silent figures armed with spears and javelins.
A moment later, flaming arrows came whistling through the air, striking the Drowned as they tried to surmount the Arabel ’s gunwale.
Their bodies hit the water as they fell.
“Who is that?” asked Donan.
Tyrael answered, “Amazons.”