Stemming the Tide

by Rosie Scott

  “How did you manage to flee the most overbearingly controlling country there is?” Hassan asked.

  Hilly raised her eyebrows and snorted. “Funny story, that. Chairel tasked their dwarven engineers to build these massive vessels called battleships. Large as a fortress, equipped with all sorts'a cannons and siege weapons. It's the first time they got steam technology to work after decades of testin'. Well, the thing's so large ya could get lost, and for the sake of convenience we had to keep a few dozen rowboats on board at all times. One night, I bought a fellow soldier's silence for a few minutes of my time, went out and sat in a rowboat, and he starts'a crankin'. Once I was in the water, I just started rowin'.” Hilly wrinkled her nose. “Didn't think just how terrible of an idea it was at the time. I'm prone to split-second decisions.”

  Amusement flooded over Koby's features. “How far did you get in a rowboat?”

  “Oh, I stuck to the coast and just kept rowin' south. Started gettin' real loopy after half a year of eating nothin' but fish and drinkin' my own piss. By the time pirates captured me near Caspi in Nahara, I practically begged 'em to take me. I was thin. Can ya imagine that?” Her eyes widened and she motioned to her stocky frame. “I looked so funny. Had muscular arms from all the rowin', but everythin' else was thin and pathetic. 'Cept my girls.” She squeezed her arms against her sides, calling attention to her ample bosom.

  “You are insane,” I murmured like a compliment.

  Hilly grinned. “Thank ya, Captain Handsome.”

  Koby passed the prepared contract over to her. “Read over this before we all go crazy. We split all profits after voyage expenses. If you need something more, talk to us and we'll figure it out. We take care of our crew.”

  “In more ways than one,” Hilly jested, grinning as she read over the details.

  “Goodbye, Hilly,” Hassan joked behind her, lifting his arbalest.

  “No! I'm almost done, I swear!” Hilly chortled as she signed the contract with a quill. Afterwards, she threw both on the desk and lifted her hands in surrender. “I'm a willin' hostage who needs to be taught a lesson!”

  Hassan, Koby, and I all burst into laughter despite the tension in the room. Koby stood from the desk, grinned at me, and said, “You always get to go first, Cal.”

  I waved my hand toward the door. “Have fun.”

  Hassan shook his head at our antics as Koby and Hilly left the room together. As they walked to a far corner of the lower deck, we heard Hilly exclaim, “Grab some rope!”

  “This is the most inept crew I've ever sailed with,” Hassan commented, though he still grinned.

  “Inept as in incompetent, or inept as in inappropriate and absurd?” I questioned.

  Hassan laughed. “Both.”

  “You don't seem to be complaining.”

  He shrugged light-heartedly. “Because it's been one hell of an adventure so far.”

  Five

  78th of High Star, 358

  Mere days before our scheduled return to the wildlands, I awoke with a start.

  The forecastle's interior walls flickered with chaotic firelight. Oil lamps hanging from hooks trembled and swayed in the aftermath of great turmoil. Hilly slept with her head on my chest, her small stature allowing her to share my bunk after lovemaking the night before. Kali's egregious snores rattled off hardwood with an echo. When her next loud inhale reached its fullest extent before her exhale, the beautiful notes of a woman's song floated through the cabin from outside the open doorway where stars twinkled in the deep night skies.

  Lightheadedness and disorientation overcame me. Where were we going? Why did the deep abyss suddenly beckon? As the ship vibrated violently like its keel scraped over a shore of blades, I reached over to the woman who slept on me and pulled back her copper hair. I didn't recognize her. Across the forecastle, a lavender-skinned man stirred from his rest. Once standing, he stared blankly toward the quarterdeck, ambling through the doorway as a string of glimmering drool escaped the corner of his lips.

  Another rumbling snore echoed through the cabin, overriding the foreign singing and clearing my thoughts. Drums pounded the inside of my skull as my heart raced with the insistence that something wasn't right. As Hilly pulled herself out of bed with a vacant gaze and walked toward the quarterdeck, I called after her, “Where are you going, love?”

  Hilly did not respond, exiting the forecastle at the same time a splash sounded from outside. The roaring of invading water was muted below deck.

  I shot up out of bed, panic seizing my heart. Connecting the singing outside to the catatonic state of my sailors, I summoned an anti-magic shield. It bubbled around me with a glow. I didn't know if the singing was a type of magic, but there was only one way to find out.

  As Kali's snores ceased once again, the eerily calm music floated through the doorway, louder than before as we sailed closer to the threat. Kali awoke with a gasp. She sat up in her bunk, blinking a few times with confusion before her gaze went blank.

  “Kali. Wait,” I called, stumbling over to her. She didn't listen to me, hopping off the top bunk and shambling past me like I didn't exist. I protected her with another anti-magic shield. Once it manifested, she stopped her pace, looked up at me, and wiped at her tired eyes.

  “Boss? What's happening?” Her voice was hoarse with fatigue.

  “I don't know. There's singing outside. Everyone's leaving their beds. I think we've hit something that broke open the hull. I can hear water in the lower deck.”

  “Shit!” Kali exclaimed with realization, abruptly rushing to a chest in the corner to grab her equipment. “Sirens, boss. Their singing is their magic. It lures sailors. Wrecks ships and gets their crews to drown themselves before they feast on the remains.” She turned to me with panic in her normally joyous eyes. “I'd recommend transforming because you're gonna need to start fetching bodies.”

  I said nothing. I only dropped to my hands and knees, the transformation spell already uttered like a plea. Like always, fear for Koby was at the forefront of my mind. Because it was nighttime, he was the one guiding the ship. Considering the rushing water sounding out from the lower deck, the lure of the sirens had already affected him. It was possible he was already dead—

  Crack! The snapping of my spine accompanied a tremendous sharp pain that sliced through my lower back and jolted my pelvis. Temporarily paralyzed, I fell to the hardwood, my eyes facing the quarterdeck. Everything had the whitish-blue glow from the moon and its posse of stars. Kali skidded to a stop beside Hilly just long enough to give her a reject magic shield, and the dwarf stopped walking toward the edge of the deck. Hilly asked Kali questions I couldn't hear over the crackling of my skeletal system, but Kali didn't reply. She rushed after Hassan, who climbed up on the taffrail bordering the bow.

  “Hassan!” Kali screamed, so rough and desperate it broke through my heaving breaths and gasps of pain. Hassan paid no attention to her, stepping off into the air and tumbling to the seas below.

  “What...happening?” Hilly yelled in total panic, glancing from Kali and back to where I convulsed in a state halfway between man and reptile.

  “They're drowning!” Kali shouted, running up to the railing and preparing to jump overboard. “They're all drowning! We have to get them to shore!”

  Hilly watched Kali jump out of sight with an expression of total perplexity. “Who the hell's singin'?” she called out. With no one around to answer her question, Hilly hoisted herself up onto the railing. After taking a deep breath and holding her nose, she wiggled off it to follow Kali into the seas.

  The caravel shook violently and lurched upward as it ran up on shore. Tools and equipment slid and rolled down its inclining deck, collecting against back walls. Somewhere in the seas, panicked muffled groans echoed over the singing as someone took in water instead of air.

  My transformation completed while I was alone on the ship in a growing puddle of my own blood. The realization that we overcame so many obstacles in Killick just to lose it all again fu
eled a rage that boiled so intensely in my chest fever seized my head. I rushed out of the forecastle and across the deck to the railing, searching for Koby. At the front of the ship, the creamy off-white sands of a deserted island twinkled in the starlight. The caravel's breached hull took in so much water the vessel slowly sunk down the island's incline, tilting back toward the depths one inch at a time.

  The deceptive melody continued from the shoreline where a handful of slender creatures perched on soaked sands, pearlescent teal scales shimmering in the moonlight. Lithe bodies appeared vaguely feminine with curvaceous hips leading to a broad caudal fin. From the waist up, the sirens were eerily humanoid, covered in scales rather than flesh. Long arms led to webbed hands and sharp claws. Their eyes were pure black, tilted slightly toward a flattened nose that served no practical purpose, for it had no nostrils. A set of gills lined their throats just under either side of a perfect jawline. Plump lips stretched around a mouth full of fangs as their song spewed into the night. As they belted out their tune, they swayed seductively from side to side like a mockery.

  I'll deal with you in a minute, I promised. Finally, I found Koby. In the surprisingly calm waters behind our sinking caravel, I spotted his armor and head of black hair. My heart dropped into the acid of my gut when I realized he floated face down.

  I launched myself over the railing without giving my brain the directive. In my peripheral vision, I noticed Hassan swimming on his own with the aid of an alteration shield Kali must have given him. The lucid sailors screamed orders at one another as they frantically tried to pull the others to shore.

  All sound dulled as the ocean accepted me into its embrace. With my gaze unyielding on the shadows of Koby's floating limbs, I swam to him so fast the water whirled like a song to compete with that of the sirens.

  Weak groaning rumbled out into the water as Koby's lungs slowly gave up their fight. In my panicked state, I thought to do so many things to help him that I nearly settled on none. I forced my mind clear and spun him around in the water so he faced the surface. Still under the control of the siren's song, he fought me. Holding him still, I gave him an anti-magic shield. Koby stopped struggling, but he still gurgled and choked. Next, I gave him water-breathing. Horror overcame me as I realized it didn't help. Fluids already overwhelmed Koby's lungs.

  Time was of the essence. Rather than pull Koby to shore with my hand and risk swimming speed, I bit his calf and spun, pinning my arms to my sides and undulating through the water. In mere seconds, the sands of the island came into view. I tugged Koby up onto the beach. The color drained from his face, leaving his normally periwinkle skin a muted gray. He didn't struggle to breathe because he no longer breathed at all.

  Years ago in Patrick's crew, Hassan taught Koby and me how to resuscitate drowning victims. I knew how, but it terrified me. Not only had I never had the chance to try my skill at it, my immense strength in blood-kin form risked hurting Koby rather than helping him.

  Quickly, I turned Koby's head to the side. Streams of seawater drained from his nostrils and the corner of his lips. When it ceased, I moved his face back to the center. With shaking fingers, I carefully pinched his nose, taking care not to exert enough strength to break it. I inhaled deeply, filling my already enlarged lungs to the fullest capacity. Bringing my scaled mouth to his, I blew forcefully.

  Koby's armor creaked as his chest rose rapidly. Immediately, water spurted up between his lips and he fell into a violent coughing fit. I backed away as he rolled over on his side, vomiting bouts of water between desperate gasps of air. Clearly, I'd underestimated the effectiveness of resuscitation while in this form. Koby's anti-magic shield held strong, so I stood and turned.

  Kali, Hassan, Hilly, Jaecar, and Sage all worked together to revive as many sailors as they could. Kali and Jaecar kept everyone shielded from magic. While Hilly tugged floating bodies to shore, everyone else resuscitated victims. Sage currently blew air into Neliah, but given the desperation on his face, he wasn't having luck reviving her. Neliah's bronze skin dulled and gained a tint of blue.

  I headed there first. When I fell to my knees across from Sage, he backed away to let me try. Repeating the steps of resuscitation, I forced a giant breath of air into Neliah's lungs. Her chest abruptly rose just before she violently coughed up water.

  For now, I felt no relief after saving Koby and Neliah, only anger that they came so close to death at all. The predatory curious glares of the sirens bored into me as they continued their singing, oblivious to the efficacy of our anti-magic defenses. I bounded over the sands toward the closest creature with an enraged vengeance, ravenous for blood.

  The closest siren swayed to its own melody even as I leapt toward it, bringing my legs beneath me just as we collided. Its song caught in its throat as we fell together; my webbed feet stamped into its gut on our landing, pulverizing the organs at its center until its stomach bloated with internal hemorrhaging. The creature shrieked with sudden alarm. Its hands grasped at my chest, claws screeching off my scales. The other sirens on the beach stopped their song and communicated in bursts of baffled cries as they watched me stand up above their injured companion. The wounded siren squirmed with unrest as I lifted my right leg and stomped my foot down over its swollen gut.

  Its stomach burst open, erupting in a thick mist of blood and acid. The siren arched its back, releasing a series of pained cries as the others panicked. I repeated the move, stamping down until I broke through its organs and felt the resistance of a bumpy spine under the arch of my foot. Holding its backbone to the sands, I reached down and jerked the siren's torso toward me with a snap, severing the body in two. I left its bottom half on the beach and turned to throw the top half into the seas. The torso left a trail of matter over the sands, jerking with nerve damage before going still once it landed with a splash in placid waters.

  The sirens scattered in absolute pandemonium. I bounded after the next, catching its tail-fin between my webbed hands as it tried wiggling off to escape in the seas. The creature writhed and cried, pawing at the sands while I clawed my way up its fin to its gut. In an enraged frenzy, I thrashed my talons across the thinner scales of its stomach until they broke, offering a selection of glistening intestines. Grabbing a handful, I stood and dragged the siren along with me by its entrails as I searched for my next victim. I only walked a few feet before the organ snapped, releasing the heavy stench of undigested fish.

  The other sirens caught a whiff of the food, and their hunger overrode their camaraderie. From land and sea, they returned to the site to swarm their wounded peer. As they feasted on the bellowing creature, I exerted every ounce of my rage by mauling them one at a time. By the time all went silent, the beach was a mess of organs and blood. I hyperventilated as I looked over the gruesome scene. The underside of my talons were full of flesh and chunks of broken teal scales, proving that I'd mutilated the sirens until their viscera appeared like a collective stew from hell.

  But I had no recollection of it.

  I turned to the right. My crew watched me in stunned silence. Two sailors were dead from drowning. Hassan sat near their cold bodies, looking distraught and overwhelmed. Perhaps he tried saving them and couldn't.

  The Shaft Raft continued its slow descent down the shoreline as its broken hull convinced ocean water to fill its vacancies. The caravel was physical proof that Koby and I had persevered despite Cale's violent intervention, but within hours, even that would be underwater. And it would take all the supplies we'd worked so hard to bring back with us to Vallen with it. On top of it all, our ferris reserves ran out a fortnight ago. My pain was agonizing, my psychosis was the worst it had been since overdosing on rempka in Silvi, and I could do nothing to help either.

  Overwhelmed with negativity, I focused on only one thing. I walked over to Koby, ignoring the hesitant looks some crew members gave me as I passed them. I collapsed on the sands mere feet away from my best friend, making sure we had enough room between us as I transformed so I didn't hurt him. A
fter changing back to my normal form, I swiped loose talons and fangs out of the way and sprawled out on the sands, lying nude in a warm pool of my own blood.

  I could feel Koby and our crew watching me for reactions or words, but I was too exhausted to give either. I fell asleep on the sands, Koby's hoarse breaths echoing in my subconscious like the only comfort in a series of misfortunes.

  *

  “Which island?” Koby's voice woke me from my rest. Without opening my eyes, I could tell it was daytime. The sun's overhead glare harassed my eyelids, making everything look red. I remembered falling asleep naked, but the weight of a lightweight blanket covered me now.

  “This one,” Kali replied from nearby.

  “How do you know?” Koby asked. His voice was still hoarse, likely from gulping down bitter seawater. At least he was safe.

  “Because this—” a finger tapped on parchment “—is a lagoon, and I saw it. This is the only island in the Western Isles with its own body of water.”

  “Tenesea is almost directly west, then,” Jaecar spoke up. “If I leave now, I can deliver the news to Vallen in a couple of days at most. You guys focus on recovering everything you can here, and I guarantee Vallen will insist on bringing a rescue party. We'll probably be able to meet halfway near the rivers, where they'll help us transport these goods to Tenesea.” He hesitated. “Bring the rowboats just in case. They're handy to have in the marshes.”

  Koby protested, “I hate having to ask Vallen for help yet again. He'll think we're incompetent idiots.”

  “Trust me,” Jaecar began, “I know Vallen. He's elated you even promised to help. He'll be happier knowing you followed through despite all the shit we've dealt with. These kind of hang-ups happen to voyages all the time, even before the pirates grew out of hand in the east.”