by Mike Truk
My grip on the railing tightened. “That’s not good.”
“Not for us, no.” Netherys smiled. “But you never know.”
I watched the distant spot where we’d seen that huge fin until I could no longer be certain I was even gazing at the right location, and then reluctantly crossed the deck back to my original post. The crew settled, though I heard more than one man making a ragged prayer to Blind Fortuna or curse their Death Kraken.
It was deeply unnerving, to stand on that deck and think of the fathoms of dark water beneath us. Of that creature, whatever it had been, swimming either alongside us or having disappeared back into the depths. How did we look from below? How did the ocean’s surface look, for that matter? A great shimmering mirror of light? Would we stand out upon it like a blot, an inviting, intriguing anomaly?
I shivered, despite the heat of the sun, and rested my hand on the pommel of the frost blade. Cerys, I saw, was up with Havatier on the rear most deck - the poop deck - high above the rest of the ship, gloom bow in hand. She’d requisitioned a quiver of arrows from somewhere, and had one nocked but not drawn. Good.
Netherys and Tamara were close. Yashara had moved to the front of the ship and was up on the forecastle, drawn scimitar in hand. I couldn’t find Iris or Pogo, but Pony had risen to his feet, hammer across his shoulders, one hand resting lightly on the mast.
On we sailed, and to my immense relief Maestria finally gave the order to correct our course and turn south. Two hours remained as we sailed over the trench. Two hours of silence but for the rushing whisper of the waves sliding by the prow, the creak of planks and the straining of the canvas.
Whatever that finned creature had been, it clearly hadn’t been interested in us. The minutes passed, and eventually everyone relaxed once more. Men up on the spars kept a constant lookout, but that one threat, if threat it was, had passed.
Maestria ordered a ration of rum to be passed out to all hands on deck, and a rawboned youth came by with a small barrel, pouring out a dram for each eager sailor. I took my thimbleful and threw it back; the rum tasted of currants and rich molasses, was thick and bracingly powerful.
“Shadow beneath us!” came a cry from aloft. Everybody ran to the railings once more despite Jonas’ cries of anger, and dozens of sailors peered out at the waves that slid by. I did the same, fighting the urge to draw my blade. Was the water darker? Had it passed by already?
“What shadow?” roared Maestria. “Where did it go?”
The sailor who’d made the cry was balanced on a high spar, gripping the rigging with one hand and hanging out over the void. He scanned the waters below, other hand visoring his eyes. “Large, Captain! Bigger than the Bonegwayne! Came up portside, thought it was the shadow of a cloud, passed under, then disappeared! Must have gone below!”
Tamara looked sick. “Bigger than the Bonegwayne?”
“Unlikely,” I said, more because I thought that was what she wanted to hear. “Either way it’s gone -”
A scream tore through the air and I saw a sailor rise up with a great mottled snake wrapped around his waist, squeezing him so that blood gushed out of his mouth, choking off his cries as he flailed and hammered his fists down upon the coils. Up he went, everyone frozen, staring in horror, higher and higher, and only then did I see the tentacle that suspended him, rising up from behind the railing, from the ocean, from whatever swam below.
Shouts erupted from a dozen throats and then a purple and blue ensorcelled arrow thunked into the coil, causing the entirety of it to spasm and release the man, who collapsed to the deck where he lay convulsing and drumming his heels.
“Tentacles to port, tentacles to port!”
“Starboard! They’re coming in from starboard!”
The lookout’s cries rained down upon us as men drew cutlasses and backed away from the sides of the ship. The waves had grown confused, crashing against themselves all around us, no longer sweeping by in ragged rows, and the great winged gulls that had accompanied us let out screeches of alarm and peeled away, fighting for altitude as they abandoned us.
Tentacles began to arise from every side. They were massive, each as thick as a tree and utterly boneless, so fluid in their movements that they slid across the deck without any difficulty, as if able to blindly make out all obstacles in their path.
Shouts gave way to screams. Men were snatched up, some suspended upside down as their legs were snagged, others hacking desperately at the coils that tightened around their chests or abdomens and squeezed till organs ruptured and blood burst forth from orifices.
Tamara cried out and shied back as one such tentacle insinuated itself through the air toward us, its tip ringed like the end of an earthworm. At the last moment it struck, darting toward her as fast as a bolt of lightning, and I yelled and leaped to hack at it even as it pulled her off her feet and across the deck toward the railing.
The frost blade left a trail of mist in the air as I hacked through the tentacle, cutting through muscle and cartilage without difficulty, severing it entirely so that pink ichor gushed forth, and I caught a brief glimpse of radial muscles, arteries as thick as my fingers, the glistening white slabs of fat or bone or -
The ship listed, groaning terribly as it began to sink toward port, timbers protesting, men shouting in fear. More tentacles were rising up, but these were wrapping around the entirety of the Bonegwayne and not seeking to simply ensnare sailors.
“Cut them off!” Maestria’s cry rang out across the deck.
Yashara let out a roar of elation or fury as she rose up in the air, riding a tentacle which she’d gripped between her muscled thighs. With a huge swing she severed the part before her, spraying pink blood over the deck, and then was flung into the rigging as the tentacle thrashed in pain and cast her off.
Havatier appeared on the edge of the quarterdeck, and with a shout he cast down a scything blade of air which severed three tentacles that were lashed across the deck and pulling the ship down. The Bonegwayne sighed as she righted herself a fraction, the tentacles slithering back across her deck and into the water.
Arrow after ensorcelled arrow flew through the air to impale tentacles, causing them to release their prisoners. I dashed along the railing, frost blade held in both hands, and swung as hard as I could at each tentacle I passed, the blade blistering the pink flesh with jagged crystals of ice where it didn’t hew all the way through.
And then, as one, the tentacles retracted, carrying a half-dozen sailors with them, pulling back and abandoning the ship. Screams were silenced as men were jerked underwater, and the ship leveled off, creaking and groaning, men staggering as they fought for balance.
A moment of silence as everyone stared about themselves. I moved back to where Tamara was crouching by a crushed man. Silence. An eerie silence made all the worse by the groans of the wounded.
“That it?” asked someone. “We drive it off?”
Some four or five tentacle parts yet remained on the ship, still writhing and flipping about like leeches placed too close to a fire. Pony grunted, grasped one by the tip with both hands, then spun around and hurled it over the railing to arc over the waves and splash down into the sea.
“On your guard!” Maestria was at the quarterdeck railing, leaning on it with both arms. “We’re not done yet!”
I looked up to where Cerys stood alone on the high poop deck, bow held at the ready, arrow half drawn. I couldn’t help but admire her - she looked amazing, the wind plucking at her red hair, her bow blazing with gloom knight magic. She caught my eye, gave me the first real smile since I’d revealed my heritage - and then raised an eyebrow at my sudden change in expression.
Two gargantuan snakes were rising up behind the rear of the ship. Eels? Their milky white eyes were ghastly, their maws filled with translucent teeth as long as my arm and needle thin, their bodies a mottling of scabrous pink and algae-green. Each was large enough to swallow a man whole, and they rose, swaying like cobras, twenty, thirty yards up into the air,
utterly silent as water dripped and ran from their jaws and sheeted down their rough lengths to tower above Cerys.
“Watch out!” I was already running, slamming the frost blade home in its scabbard as I made for the ladder to the quarterdeck. I heard grown men scream like children. Heard at last the terrible hissing that came from those twin throats, saw Maestria turn and stagger at the sight. I took the rungs three at a time, near flew up them, and leaped onto the quarterdeck in time to see Cerys loose an arrow straight through the underjaw of one snake as the other dove down to bite her.
“Cerys!” The scream near tore my throat in half. I sprinted across the quarterdeck, to the far ladder, and there leaped, placing my foot six rungs up and leaping again to clutch the curved railings at the ladder’s top and haul myself onto that high, rear deck.
Cerys had thrown herself aside, causing the snake to smash into the poop deck and shatter timbers. The second was coming for her though, faster than I thought, and to my horror I saw Cerys turn her roll into a springing leap, turning to face the snake as she flew backward, notching an arrow which caught fire, sighting down its length for just a fraction of a second before releasing and disappearing from view over the railing as she fell to the waters far, far below.
A snake came lunging at me. By the Hanged God’s dusty tear ducts it was huge, like being charged by a carriage, all flashing teeth and milky eyes. I roared and threw myself into a dive, blade flashing out to score a deep cut along its cheek, freezing flesh and causing it to rear violently back.
Then somehow Yashara was there, flying up, knees drawn to her chest, arms flung out wide, literally sailing up from below, and I caught a glimpse of Pony completing a circle on the main deck, arms whipping around, having hurled her body up and over the quarterdeck.
She screamed, a wild and savage war cry, her mane of black hair streaming behind her, and brought her scimitar down on the second snake’s head as it swung out wide. Purple flame wreathed her sword - Netherys! - and it bit deep, slashing open a massive cut that near took its head off.
The snake heads reared back up, higher and higher, climbing into the sky above us, and I heard a vast rushing roar, as if the ocean itself were seized with furious indignation, and then -
I staggered back, heart in my throat, the bottom of my stomach dropping out as I took in the true scope of the monster.
The snakes were but appendages that grew out of the sides of the actual foe. As large as a mountain, it rose up from the depths, its green hide rippled with pink striations, eyeless, its maw large enough to take a bite out of the Bonegwayne herself, teeth as large as my whole body, huge arms extending to grip the back of the ship and causing it to founder, the prow rising up as the stern sank into the frothing waves, supporting its terrible bulk as timber splintered and shattered beneath its grasp.
Yashara lowered her blade, looking up, then higher up, into that world-spanning maw. For a second she simply stood there, overcome, and then she screamed and broke forward into a sprint, racing right at it.
“Yashara!” For a second I stood rooted to the spot, unable to comprehend what she was doing, and then she leaped, placed her foot on the rear railing, and hurled herself out into the void, scimitar clutched behind her head with both hands, her whole body curved into a glorious green arc of muscle and fury.
Only to be snapped up by a pink tentacle that wrapped around her waist mid-flight and dragged her away, up into the sky. More and more of them were emerging, slithering around the ship’s stern, pushing it farther down so the deck canted beneath my feet at an ever-steeper angle.
Havatier was there, lips pulled back from his bloodless gums, shouting and hurling blast of wind after blast of wind at the behemoth. My frost blade suddenly incandesced with purple flame, and in that moment I knew I had to act, had to move, had to do something before this nightmare snapped the ship in half and killed us all.
“Blind Fortuna!” was all I could scream as I ran down the deck, and like Yashara I placed my foot on the last of the railing and leaped, hurled myself out into the air, high above the thrashing waves that boiled around the monster’s base. A pink tentacle came whipping in toward me, but purple fire flashed and I saw it come, swung my blade, severed it mid-swing, but was knocked off course by the impact.
The world spun around me and I hit something slimy and huge - the back of one of the huge snake appendages. The frost blade sank down to the hilt and it shrieked, throwing its head back and nearly tossing me into madness. My weight caused the frost blade to cut a yard down the back of its neck so that pink ichor boiled forth, and then it thrashed from side to side and went still, dropping beneath me, falling faster than I could keep up with so that my legs rose up behind me as we fell toward the boiling water.
Screaming, I brought my boots down, planted them on the back of the snake’s head, and yanked the sword free, hurling myself upward as I did so. A tentacle took me, slammed into my side and wrapped around me, bearing me up, up, toward the main monster’s maw which yawned open like a chasm.
Yashara was off to the side, hacking at her own tentacle, but her scimitar, wicked as it was, lacked the magic that my sword did. I drew the edge of the frost blade across the coils that were crushing me to death, and they loosened, releasing me.
Momentum kept me going up; it was as if I were flung, flying toward the beast’s maw, that forest of milky white stalactites, a toad-like tongue the size of a lord’s bed extending to catch me on its bed of gluey madness.
I slashed wildly to no avail and smacked into the tongue. It was like hitting a giant wall of rice pudding. I sank into it, was immediately affixed. I screamed as it began to retract, and then a spear as thick as my leg flew past me into the monster’s mouth to shatter against its palette.
It coughed, jerked back, its own teeth slashing down into its tongue. The world blurred anew and I drew the frost blade across the tongue, severing the muscle deeply, causing more pink blood to well up. The damage was enough; like a suddenly hinged door the tip on which I’d stuck flapped down, tore. I fell, screaming, struggling with the gluey surface, and then smashed into the ocean water and went under.
All sounds grew muffled. The water was so suffused with bubbles that I couldn’t see. The gluey substance on the tongue, however, began to weaken immediately, and I was able to kick free, only to be buffeted by a tentacle as it cut through the water and sent spinning, air exploding from my lungs.
Desperate, fighting to figure out where the surface was, I saw a wall before me, black and churning - the monster’s side. A glimpse of what had to be a mile-long tail thrashing beneath it. Seized by a desperate idea I swam toward it, lungs crying for air, and then it did me the favor of surging in my direction. I stabbed the frost blade into its side, shoved it in as far as I could, right to the hilt, and then held on as I was wrested back up out of the water as the monster pulled itself up.
Gasping, holding on for dear life, I rose up into the air, the Bonegwayne to one side, the windows of Havatier’s cabin half under the surging waves. The monster had both hands on the stern, but reached down with one to grasp me and pluck me from its side, tearing the frost blade free.
Madness. I was delirious with shock, overwhelmed by the volume of its roar. It was like trying to fight a mountain. Its hand enveloped me completely, and had I not fitted into a crease that ran down its palm it would have crushed me to jelly.
Up I went, higher, and then it flung me into its maw. Darkness swept over me. I hit the back of its gullet, fleshy and red, fell, eyes stinging with its blood, and then the world convulsed around me and I was swallowed.
Darkness. Muscular walls around me flexed, rippled, forcing me down. That gluey substance from its tongue was everywhere, and when I opened my mouth to scream it nearly poured in, forcing me to gag and cough.
Some kind of sphincter closed around me, a great rippling ring of muscle that nearly severed me in half, and I screamed again, spraying the choking glue from my mouth, feeling my innards compressed, the co
mponent parts of my pelvis grate against each other.
In a frenzy of desperation I reversed the frost blade, still clutched in my hand, and slid it down, filling the little air around me with blood, down till its point met the sphincter and cut through it.
The whole world shook in protest around me, the sphincter opened, and I was sucked down, falling through a last passageway of undulating muscle to collapse into a rubbery sack filled with blood and salt water.
No, not salt water.
Acid.
I inhaled a shuddering breath, nearly paralyzed by the pain, and began hacking at the walls around me. Everywhere the frost blade landed it scored a deep laceration, but all I succeeded in doing was reducing the walls to ribbons. I was jostled, thrown about, and nearly lost my grip on my blade. The acid was eating away at my skin, burning my face. It was hell. I shrieked, terror engulfing me, and hewed as best I could.
The rubbery sack contracted, nearly breaking my bones, and then half of its contents were sucked down leaving me to flounder amongst ghastly rubbery shapes that could have been the remains of sharks or god knows what. I pulled my head up, sucked in a horrified lungful of humid, sickening air, and then the sphincter above me exploded and an avalanche of blue rock cascaded down upon me.
I was driven deep into the acid, thrust against the bottom of the muscular sack, felt my arm break with a clear, distinct snap that I heard over my own bubbling roar. Then a hand closed around my neck and yanked me up, and I rose to stare right into Pony’s burning piss-yellow eyes.
I couldn’t process what I was seeing. That he was in here with me. But then the walls contracted and we fell over, a tumble of stony limbs and half-dissolved objects and I screamed at him. “Pony! Take my sword! Take it!”
I don’t know if he heard me or simply felt the force of my will. His great hand closed over my own, and I relinquished my death grip on the frost sword’s hilt, falling back against the undulating wall.