by Simon Archer
I chuckled. At the moment, I was only the captain because the dwarf and I had an arrangement. This was to be his ship, and he was determined to remind me of that.
It was fine by me. I much preferred my Hullbreaker even to this marvel.
33
Ligeia
The sounds of the ironclad were distinctive over the distances involved. Sound carried far further underwater than the surface dwellers truly understood. I think that my Bardak did, though, as I’d explained more than a few times how I could find his ship in the open sea.
Both Tiny and King were far better at tracking and hearing down here than even I was. We were about a mile off the coast of Avion, staying low but for occasional forays to the surface for both of them to take their needed breaths.
Further out to sea, I heard the creaking and stirring of the distant ships that guarded The Pale Horse, but there was something wrong. A faint scent in the water reached me, putrid and vile like the aftermath of a red tide, where everything for miles floated dead in the water devoid of anything that could support life.
If anything, this was worse, and both of my friends were intelligent enough to be concerned. The young lascu that trailed along with us, though, were of a different breed. At this age, they were near mindless and easy enough to control. Like frenzied sharks, they devoured anything in their paths. I meant to set them on the merfolk guarding the ships out there, but a kind of warning sense held me back.
Suddenly, they were upon us, and I had barely sensed them. Merfolk surged up from the lower depths and charged me. Tiny twisted and blocked most of them, but a few darted around his vast shell and continued their focused drive, spears grasped in their taloned hands as shark-toothed mouths gaped.
They were fast, but I was as nimble underwater as they were, and perhaps more so. I also had more friends.
The school of lascu, sensing a meal, jetted in. They were as large as the merfolk and much, much fiercer. As my protectors, they swarmed over the attacking seafolk before the enemy could get near enough to use their spears. It was over in moments, blood and gobbets of flesh filled the water around us, along with a sweet, heady smell of blood.
It made me hungry. I had forgone my appetite for certain delicacies to prove to myself that I was worthy of the people that I loved. While I knew they would accept me, I still had no desire for them to witness me when I fed.
This was too much, though. I kicked off Tiny’s back and joined the fight as more merfolk swam to deal with us. I met one square on, dodged around her spear, and caught her, tearing out her throat with my teeth as I opened her belly with my claws. Her flesh was so sweet after I had denied myself for so long. For a moment, I lost myself in bliss, and that nearly cost me my life.
Fortunately, one of my lascu children intercepted the angry merman bearing down on my, wrapped him in its tentacles, and snapped off his head. The sudden thrashing broke me from my reverie, and I released the body to dart off and fight and kill and feed.
Tiny and King thrashed and snapped at the tiny attackers, but they were hampered by the relative shallows, especially the narwhal. I sang to him when I could, sending him to deeper waters to seek and aid my Captain in his thumping ship. Once again, the strange smell and unusual sound of the distant ships struck me.
A low, rhythmic thumping echoed through the depths like the beating of a gigantic heart, and I knew immediately what had happened. Admiral Layne had awoken his ship, and it waited, at peace, for us.
I wanted to streak off to intercept the metal ship and warn my love, but he depended on me to take the fort and keep the other ships from aiding those further out to sea. Hardening my heart, I dove on the merfolk to unleash my frustrations. At least we had expected this possibility.
As we tore through the defenders, the merfolk broke at last, and I abandoned stealth to coax Tiny into a surge of speed. He broke the surface close to shore and the waiting forest of ships. They were starting to move as a small group of our own ships bore down upon them. This was my cue.
The Dragon Turtle opened his maw and let out a bellowing hiss, steam pouring from his throat to quickly overtake the ships and roll ashore into the town. I mounted up onto his back, stood at the peak of the great ridgeback that ran the length of his shell, and sang as I had never sung before.
Not even my vocal duel with the banshee scream of the undead witch, Rhianne Corvis, matched my performance now. I poured out my heart into the wordless tune that rose and fell and wove magic. My voice rose over the island, swam amongst the ships, and I felt it take hold.
Around me, people began to drift away into slumber. This was what Bardak had asked of me, and it was what I did. Tiny, also knowing his part, swam towards the ships and carefully snapped off their rudders, one by one. He broke a few hulls with his passage, capsized one vessel, and I continued singing.
Edison Sloan’s ship The Fearless loomed out of the fog, the men aboard working in silence with their ears plugged with wax. He had four other ships under his command, and they all sailed by, waving to me as the Dragon Turtle and I went about our work.
Off in the distance, the booming of cannons heralded the start of the greater battle. I closed my eyes for a moment and offered a silent prayer to the powers for the safety of my family, then guided Tiny to carry me to shore before continuing his destructive work. Without me, he wouldn’t be as gentle, but I truly did not care.
We passed the ships as they dropped their longboats, sending the expeditionary crew ashore. Sloan and the one-handed man named Potts were among them, along with many men whom I did not know. Their eyes roamed over my naked form as I joined them, stalking ahead while I continued to sing.
From the beach, we crossed the sand and reached the edge of the shipyard, with its great scaffolds and docks. We passed it by and hurried uphill to the fort. Bardak had hoped that we would take them by surprise with enough time to reach the fort before the gate was closed.
We had no such luck, but the two commanders had prepared their men for this possibility. A couple of them drew out grappling hooks and lobbed them up to the top of the wall. They took a few tries, but it wasn’t long before the pirates swarmed up the ropes and over the wall, and only a little longer before the gates swung open. Once all the men were inside, they closed and barred the gate, then went through the keep quickly and quietly, breaking down doors and overwhelming surprised and groggy soldiers before trussing them up and leaving them.
I wondered if there would be trouble if I drug one off for a meal. The fight with the merfolk had definitely stirred me up, and I was growing tired of singing. Unfortunately, once I ceased, the magic would begin to fade, and people would awaken. So, I went to perch on top of the wall and kept up the song while I dreamed of fresh, hot meat and blood.
The distant cannonfire continued. I hoped that Bardak was successful, but since the fight continued, there had to be at least some left alive, right? It was an effort to remain where I was and do nothing but sing. I only did it because I had promised my Bardak.
“Ligeia!” someone yelled from the courtyard behind me.
I turned and looked down at the man Sloan. He waved up to me and called out loudly, likely due to his blocked ears, “You can stop now! The fort is ours!”
That was all I was waiting for. I let the song fade and closed my eyes for a moment. The captain plucked the wax from his ears and grinned up at me. “They told me you were amazing, and now I’ve witnessed it firsthand. I mean to send some crews to round up the civilians, but I don’t think we’ll need your special talents if you want to head out with your friends and join the fray.”
“I would like that very much,” I told him. “Thank you.”
“Farewell, siren, and good hunting!” he called after me as I hopped down on the outside of the wall and took off for the beach at a flat run.
The buildings of the town flashed by, barely noticed as I moved with the preternatural speed of my kind. Soon I was at the shipyard, where sleeping folk began to stir, blinking
in confusion. Shouts of surprise followed in my wake, then I left the path and plunged on over the sandy beach to where Tiny waited in the water for me.
I didn’t wait, I kept going until I was back at home in my throne behind his head. “Go!” I told him.
The great creature needed no further urging. He clawed and flopped his way out to deeper water, then stroked his powerful flipper-claws and set off towards the raging fight, leaving broken ships and a captured fort behind us.
Ahead, the ships had engaged the guardians of The Pale Horse, but the city-ship didn’t seem to have moved. Occasionally, cannons boomed from traps that opened and closed in its vast hull. Smoke filled the air and obscured much of the action from my view.
“Fuck,” I swore, using an expletive I’d heard used by both the sailors and my loves. Tiny, sensing my anxiety, accelerated, putting his all into the charge. There were still miles to go, and even the Dragon Turtle could only go so fast. At least we’d make it minutes, rather than an hour or so.
When we reached a mile from the battle, the air soured, and the sea grew oily and contaminated with the bloated corpses of thousands of dead fish. Everything from minnows to sharks floated, belly up and foul-smelling as if they had been dead for days.
Perhaps they had. I could feel the residue of foul and powerful magic. A benefit of being something of an arcane creature, I supposed. The lascu hadn’t passed into the region of death, but I suspected I could force them. Tiny, however, didn’t care, nor did the King Narwhal. They were apex creatures, predators and hunters of the sea. In many ways, the two were comparable to the full-grown lascu we’d encountered, or perhaps a kraken. The only thing truly above them was the rarely seen leviathan.
Of course, the lascu had been able to throw Tiny, so perhaps he was rather small for his species? My mind wandered for a moment, then I snapped back to the present, and the scent of death almost made me retch.
It was akin to something I’d sensed before.
Oh, no.
My eyes focused on the ships that fought with Bardak’s fleet, and I realized that they sailed on mist and smoke, green flames burning in their hearts. These were death ships, what the sailors incorrectly called ghost ships. Manned by the drowned and soulless dead, they were much like The Indomitable had been, although less powerful.
I couldn’t imagine what could have done this unless it was somehow connected to the great white ship that loomed over everything. Cannons boomed again, and I was thrown sideways as a collection of burning cannonballs embedded themselves in Tiny’s thick shell. Blood sprayed, and he let out a bellow of pain before diving. All I could do was cling on.
Under the water was worse. Undead merfolk swam around aimlessly, clutching at me as the Dragon Turtle carried me through. I pressed close to him. He wasn’t badly hurt at all, I could tell, but the impact and pain startled him and sent him for the safety of the depths out of reflex.
Much as I didn’t really want to, I really had no other recourse. The dead could fight, but they weren’t nearly so fearsome in pieces. I opened my mouth and sang, pitching my voice to be heard over a great distance. The lascu would come, and that would even the odds at least a bit.
34
Scaffolding still enfolded the white wooden flanks of The Pale Horse as we gazed out at her. I notched back the throttle on The Echo and scanned the horizon below the looming form of Layne’s flagship. Ligeia had been right; a small fleet rode at anchor surrounding the monstrous vessel, but the bulk of it sat a goodly couple of miles away, arrayed to defend the fort and shipyard.
“Signal the fleet to fan out an’ come at ‘em from all directions,” I said to Bord. We’d taken to using mirror signals and hand signs since the ironclad lacked a flagpole of any kind.
He nodded and stomped out, muttering to himself.
“What about us?” Mary asked. She hadn’t left my side during the whole journey here, nor had Tabitha for that matter. Rhianne drifted in after dark, stared silently out through the open shutters, then returned to the darker spaces as the sun rose behind the clouds.
Ember, though, stayed below with the furnace, speaking with the dwarves and setting Bord’s mind to whirling with possibilities suggested by the fire witch.
“Ye know,” Tabitha mused. “I just may be in the market for a new witch, after this.”
“She does seem enamored of this ship,” Mary said.
“Do ye think she’d leave ye an’ The Black Cat?” I asked. We were still miles away, outside the range of any cannon, but it would be perhaps half an hour before we’d become targets, less if any of the fleet decided to close with us. For now, though, it looked like Layne was holding his defenses tight.
“Any o’ my crew be free to come an’ go as they will,” the Ailur woman said with a shrug. “I don’t mean to change that. Thing is, once this be done, I mean to claim a stake on yon island.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because ye won’t, Cap’n,” Tabitha told me. “Ye’d be happy to squat at Insmere an’ ignore the goings-on a couple of days south o’ ye.” A wry smile stole over her face, and she met my eyes with hers. “Figure someone ought to represent the interests o’ yer little family, an’ I’m the only one with a ship an’ crew, aye.”
I grunted noncommittally. She was right. I wanted no part in Bill’s idea for a pirate kingdom, although I suspected he wanted me involved with it. That was time wasted in the logistics of running a land-bound town, and I wasn’t ready to retire like Sturmgar had. Kargad, Shrike, or even Edison Sloan might have an interest in the thing, but they weren’t as close to me as my wives.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Mary mused, echoing my own thoughts. “Who knows what sort of trouble might happen if these bastards all band together with a fort and a shipyard.”
“Like to be nothing good,” I said.
Bord pushed in, interrupting any further discussion as he reported, “Signal sent, Cap’n. Everyone stands ready, here, an’ looks to be somethin’ startin’ up shoreward.”
“A fog?”
“Aye. An’ a fracas. The expeditionary force just rounded the point an’ came into view o’ the Insmere fleet,” he continued.
Good. Ligeia’s song should disable the ships and the town, and with Potts and Sloan in charge of the raid, I suspected there’d be little unnecessary bloodshed. Von Kolter had argued for his crew to take part, but I’d remained adamant in that regard. The Hellmaw was second only in firepower to The Witch’s Promise, and I wanted big ships like that as part of the sea battle. He’d finally backed down, but it had been another annoyance in a long stream of them.
I already longed for the days of running just my own ship, despite being glad to work with any of those folk who’d become part of my extended clan. Maybe if I delegated the tasks, I could ease the burden some.
A shake of my head brought me back to the present, and I stared out at the fleet riding at anchor surrounding The Pale Horse something was odd about it, a feeling I couldn’t quite put my finger on. They’d seen us, though, and some of the ships began to raise anchor and move to intercept.
But they didn’t have any sails on their yards.
“All o’ ye take a look at this,” I said, motioning to the three in the wheelhouse with me.
As they crowded around to peer out at the enemy ships, a darkness began to spread from the tallest mainmast of The Pale Horse herself, and then she moved, drifting a bit to one side and shedding the scaffolding.
This didn’t exactly come as a surprise, but it was still awe-inspiring to watch as the immense bulk of Layne’s flagship began a ponderous turn. I risked a glimpse into the spirit world just as Mary let out a gasp.
“Ghost ships,” she whispered.
Between The Pale Horse and us lay a field of death. Spirits of all sorts and sizes floated free of their mortal shells, drifted, and cried for succor as we passed by. The gathered Admiralty fleet all blazed in a sickly, green flame, corpses reanimated by the will of whatever drove the great, i
mpossible ship that they protected.
We had kept the Admiral from the Black Mirror, and from Mary Night, but he had still found some way to bring his ship to life.
“Bloody hell,” Tabitha swore. “An’ we’re short o’ witches.”
“Not really,” a voice whispered from behind us. Rhianne stood in the shadows by the door. “The Lambeth Hex can weaken them enough that mortal weapons can harm them with difficulty, but there are too many for it to just send them back.
“Can ye do it?” I asked. “Would ye?”
“I would,” she answered. The green flames burned brighter in her empty eye socket as she gazed out at the enemy fleet. Many of them had turned to broadside us as we approached. Once we were in range, they’d open fire.
Somewhere out there, I felt the swell of energy as Adra called upon the great elementals. She reached out to something vaster than the Gale, and I grinned fiercely.
“Do it,” I told her. “If we don’t even the odds, we’re fucked.”
“Yes, Captain,” Rhianne answered. Mary started to rise, but the undead witch waved her back. “This is for me to do, Mary Night,” she said, then turned to Bord, “Show me out, cannonmaster?”
The old dwarf glanced at me, and I nodded. “Give her what she needs, Bord.”
“Aye.” He turned and escorted Rhianne back into the ship.
“Ye good with this?” I asked Mary after glancing ahead at the field of broadsides we were about to face.
To give the witch a bit more time, I notched our speed back another spot, and some of the sailing ships flanking us came into view. It wouldn’t be much longer before I’d need to close the armored shutters, aim the prow at the massive bulk of The Pale Horse, and throttle up to ramming speed. For now, though, Rhianne Corvis got to earn her keep.