by Heath Pfaff
The craft drew nearer, and there was little we could do but watch it coming in. As it grew close enough for us to discern the appearance of the vessel, more and more crew members began to become agitated. It was a massive seafaring structure, no less than twice as large as our own ship, and it was of a craftsmanship no one seemed to recognize. The entire ship seemed to glow blue with the light from the undulating balls of fire pushing the sails. What was the most distressing was that it had certainly seen us by that point, and it was still coming directly for us.
The Old Boy's captain had come to the railing, holding a magical device that would allow him to magnify his voice in one hand so that he might hail the other ship as soon as possible, but he looked troubled. I could tell by his posture that he didn't hold high hopes for any sort of negotiation with the strange, blue fire driven ship approaching us. Brutal and Silent obviously agreed with that sentiment, as they were both standing with their sword hands on the hilt of their weapons. I noticed them, and then I noticed that I too stood at the ready, my right fist wrapped about the hilt of my sword.
There was a flash of red light from near the bow of the approaching ship, and a split second later a huge explosion of wood and splinters erupted from the top of the deck, not ten feet from where I stood, followed by a concussive explosion emanating from the distant ship. Screams filled the air instantly and people were running in a hundred different directions.
"Cannon fire!" The crewmen yelled as they set about trying to find cover on deck, though what cover from a cannon ball they might expect to find, I couldn't know. There was another flash of red from the fast approaching ship, and another concussive impact threatened to knock me from my legs. I didn't know where the second projectile hit, but our entire craft shifted in the water with the force of the blow. Our ship was not a war ship, merely a merchant vessel, and we had only four cannons per side. The ship approaching us was much larger and had at least two front mounted cannons, not a common armament on any ship. If it were to turn its side to us, I didn't want to speculate on how many cannons it could bring to bear. The accuracy with which they were firing was another alarming factor. They had not fired a sighting round, merely opened fire with deadly accuracy immediately. Our tiny ship didn't stand a chance against a ship and crew of the caliber we were facing.
Brutal stood at my left, his sword held firmly in one hand, apparently drawn after one of the cannon strikes, a look of frustration on his face. To my right Silent stood, his sword still in its scabbard, but the same look of frustration mirrored there. I could feel it as well. We could do nothing so long as the ships remained separate, but wait and hope we had a chance to fight before we died. The other ship was still coming though, its ethereal flames driving it with terrible speed against the wind. As it drew nearer I could make out armored figures, huge and imposing, marching across the deck. They looked human in only the vaguest way imaginable. They were sickly yellow and pale where their skin showed beneath their armor and their eyes burned like brilliant red fire, actually emitting light through their helms.
"What foul pit did those things come from?" I heard Brutal exclaim. I had been wondering the exact same thing myself. They were like nothing I had ever heard of before, and their boat was just as alien as those riding upon it. It seemed constructed of the skeleton of some monstrous dead beast, made seaworthy by stretching the fallen creature's impossibly thick hide over the disgusting framework of its bones. We had little time to gawk at it, however, as the fore-cannons flashed again and again, balls of weighted death ripping through the wood of our ship with ease, and the massive craft still drawing nearer.
"They're ramming!" Someone yelled about the same time I realized that was indeed their intention. Brutal, Silent and I left the railing at the port side in a rush. Brutal grabbed hold of the mainmast, his powerful hands ripping into the wood there, and I followed his example and found something firm to grip - an anchor mount. I didn't have time to look for Silent as it was only a moment after I tore my claws into the anchor mount on the deck that the flame-sailed ship struck us with explosive force. Crew members not securely fastened down flew from the boat and were launched hundreds of feet out to sea. Even holding on as tightly as I was, I felt the jarring force through my entire body and was launched into the air, kept aboard ship only by the strength of my new body. As soon as the boat settled from the impact with the enemy ship I was to my feet, my sword forgotten in favor of my claws which I willed to razor sharpness. The enemy ship had torn halfway through ours before finally coming to a stop, and it's terrible, sickly colored warriors were pouring over the side of their craft and onto our decks. Anywhere they encountered a crew member they dispatched the helpless man with their strange, jagged-edged curved blades, often taking a moment to hack at the bodies repeatedly before moving on. Most of the crew was now dead, unconscious, or thrown from the ship.
I didn't have to think about what I was going to do, for my body acted on my behalf. I charged forward, a roar of primal rage erupting from within me. At the corner of my vision I saw Brutal joining my charge, his sword in one hand, and his cutting claws ready on the other. I sprung at the nearest group of enemies, letting my body's senses speed up until the enemy seemed to be barely moving across the deck. Slowed down as they seemed, I was able to fully appreciate just how horrible the creatures attacking us were. Their armor had much in common with their ship. It looked like it had been something alive at one point, with a framework of bones held together by a surprisingly strong flesh, stretched taunt. They stood on average around seven feet tall, straight, and wound with tight muscles. Their eyes burned like red pits and were set in a featureless face broken only by impossibly large mouths that opened into rows of teeth. I couldn't tell beneath their armor, but they looked to be entirely hairless. They did, however, have varying spikes protruding from their flesh, which I had at first taken to be parts of their armor. Some had large horns coming from their heads, while others had a row of foot-long spikes running down their spine. The bony, deadly looking protuberances seemed to be the primary difference between the members of their race. The blue fire of their ships sails went out, and all that was left was a field of burning red eyes. All this I witnessed before reaching my first target, but once I had, everything around me faded but the battle itself.
My powerfully clawed hands tore through their armor and bodies with such alarming ease that I wasn't even certain I was killing them at first. They moved slowly, the fastest of them not offering the slightest challenge as I shredded through them. I let myself return to normal speed briefly between attacks, knowing that I would expend my reserves entirely if I pushed myself to my fullest for too long. I remembered what Weaver had first told me about this ability - it was like running as hard and as fast as you could every time you used it, and as the enemies fell before me, I began to realize just how true that statement was. There were so many of the creatures about me that I began to wonder if I would ever see the end of them. I fell back, lapsing into normal speed, and found myself gasping for breath. Brutal was off to my left, still flashing from enemy to enemy, apparently doing much better than I was. I would catch sight of him one moment only to lose him the next and see him reappear a breath later, his blade trailing the strange blackness the creatures bled when cut. I looked up to the deck of the enemy ship and saw that one of the beasts was standing up there, looking down at the battle below. That one was different than the others. It had eyes that burned a fiery blue, much like the light that had been in the sails. I watched as it raised its arm above its head in a slow arc, and brought it down quickly. A streak of blue fire erupted from the tip of its finger and splashed, like molten liquid, down toward the deck where Brutal was still fighting. I switched on the speed immediately, forcing myself as fast I had ever gone before. The world seemed to almost completely stop around me, and I found that it was difficult to move. I forced motion, dragging myself forward even as that terrible blue fire fell toward where I could now see Brutal fighting. He hadn't loo
ked up yet, couldn't know that death was streaking toward him.
My body ached as I pushed faster, thrashing out with my claws at anything that stood in my way. Starting the movement was hard, but my muscles obeyed me and at the speeds I was traveling my hits disintegrated the opponents in my path, blowing them apart in violent explosions of black ichor. I reached Brutal just in time, grabbing him and pulling him down with all the force I could muster. He spun backwards, rolling across the deck, and I fell in behind him. The blue liquid fire hit the deck where we had been only moments before, vaporizing several of the strange ship's own crew and melting a gaping hole through the deck. I came to my feet as the world lurched back into normal speed, and Brutal came to my side. If he was angry at me for throwing him, his anger fled as he looked at the burning hole in the deck that had been the place he'd been standing a moment before.
Seeing us still alive, the blue-eyed demon on the deck screeched something into the air, and the monsters on board our ship began to retreat, climbing back up the side of their carapace like vessel. Those fierce blue eyes, burning with the promise of death stared down at Brutal and me until the last of its crew was back aboard ship, and then the creature simply turned and walked away. The blue fire in the sails lit again, on the opposite side of the sail, and the strange ship tore away from our own, taking massive pieces of our craft with it. Neither Brutal nor I attempted to pursue the ship, knowing that we could not fight the rest of the monsters aboard their own vessel and survive. The enemy ship maneuvered out and away from us, and began heading in the direction it had originally been traveling, towards land. It fired one more volley from cannons located in its aft as it departed, the shots ripping through our quickly sinking wreckage, and then was too far away to attack us anymore.
Our ship was sinking alarmingly fast, the cold ocean waters swallowing the wreckage of the shattered craft into the vast darkness below. The deck churned and twisted beneath our feet, wood splintering as the framework gave in to the stresses caused by the extensive damage to the hull. Brutal sprinted across the wood planking, flashing to full speed to reach the side of the ship where the lifeboats should have been, but I was still searching, vainly, for any sign of Silent. He was not on the deck that I could see, in fact, there was no one else left alive on the deck except Brutal and myself.
The black-eyed warrior called out from his place near the lifeboats, "The boats are all destroyed. I think that last blast took out any that were remaining." A loud crack split the air, emanating from somewhere within the failing structure, and the deck beneath us began to tilt upward at a sharp angle, the bow of our transport leaving the water entirely. My clawed feet dug into the wood planking to gain traction and keep me from rolling backwards into the waiting sea.
"We'll have to find a large piece of debris, and use it to float ourselves to shore!" Brutal called over the screams of wood caving in to the stress of broken supports. The craft shifted again in the water, this time the bow shot straight up into the air, and both Brutal and I were forced to snag the wooden deck with our clawed hands to resist being thrown. "Drop into the water and find yourself a piece of wood to hold onto. Get away from the ship as quickly as possible and start swimming for shore." My companion yelled, then, having delivered his message, he let go of the ship's deck and dropped into the water below. It took me a moment to gather the nerve to do the same. The ocean looked fierce and cold beneath me, but I knew that staying with the sinking ship was folly. I pulled my hand from the ship, willing the claws to dull so that I didn't cut myself when I hit the water, and let my body fall the twenty feet or so to the icy waters below.
When I hit the surface of the water, I broke through easily and plunged several feet into the ocean murk before I could begin to force my way upward again. I'd had little experience with swimming in my life, and none of it was with full clothes, a sword, a vest of a chain mail, and a pack of supplies all weighing me down. My powerful limbs managed to get me to the surface, but it was a struggle to keep my head above water with all the additional ballast I was carrying. I struggled to breathe, gasping at the air, and realized that I would have to get rid of something if I was to survive. I pulled off my pack, and found that it floated without my aid, so I let it drift for a moment while I attempted to undo my cloak. The struggle with my cloak took enough effort that I had to stop paddling and so began to sink into the cold water. I made the attempt multiple times, working a few seconds and then swimming back to the surface, before taking a lung full of air and allowing myself to sink while I battled the stubborn garment. I finally willed my claws sharp and severed the ties on my cloak, letting it drift up and away from me. I felt less encumbered, though I knew it wasn't enough yet. I was still sinking. I grabbed at my chain mail vest, sinking deeper and deeper as I fought with it, the pressure of the ocean pushing in on me in an unsettling way. I almost panicked, but finally I managed to pull the metal woven vest over my head and drop it into the abyss. As soon as it was gone from me, I found that I was able to swim to the surface of the water again with ease. I dug at the water fiercely, breaking the surface with such velocity that most of my body cleared the surface for a moment. I breathed deeply, sucking in the frigid air with relief. It was then that I realized just how cold the actually was. My heart was hammering in my chest, my body attempting to adjust itself to the new hostile environment it was thrust into, but even with my blood burning like a furnace and my metabolism sky rocketing, my extremities felt worryingly cold.
A board struck me in the back of the head and I spun about in the water, fearing that the ship was collapsing in upon me, and indeed it was sinking in my direction, but the board that had struck me was a large chunk of deck being propelled by Brutal who was on the other side of it. "Grab your pack and help me," he growled angrily, and I noted that he too had shed his chain vest and black cloak. I looked around, only remembering that I had let go of my pack now that he had reminded me. It hadn't gone far and I retrieved it quickly before swimming around to his side of the floating piece of deck to help him push it. The piece was large enough that we were both able to get the upper halves of our body out of the water and onto the wood. From there we were able to use our legs to propel ourselves forward. We swam, for a time, in complete silence, just trying to get away from the wreckage of the ship. Other than the churn of the ocean tide, the world was deathly silent around us. There were no screams for aid, or voices of other survivors. It was just the two of us adrift on that wide, empty expanse of water.
I shivered, freezing in the chill air, my wet clothes turning to ice against my skin. Now that half of me was out of the water, my body - my gift from Kye - was finally able to keep the worst of the chill from sinking in, but the cold was still enough that it threatened to stiffen my limbs and make me want to simply lay down and give up. I forced myself to speak instead, eager to break the silence, and in need of something keep my mind working.
"Did you see Silent after the enemy ship rammed us?" I asked Brutal, and I found I didn't need to feign concern for the missing Broken Sword. Whatever else Silent was, or whatever else he had been involved in, he was always a friend to me.
Brutal shook his head in reply, "I was barely able to keep a hold of the mainsail when that hit came. I looked for him after things settled, in the scant few seconds before we were joined in battle, but I did not see him. I think he was thrown from the ship in the impact."
I wondered if he could survive such a violent impact, and if he would be able to make it to shore. We were so distant from shore, that land wasn't even visible, and if it hadn't been for Brutal and the large piece of decking he'd found, I don't believe I would have made it as far as I had. For the second time since I'd known Silent I was left wondering whether he were alive or dead. This time, I decided to have more faith in him. He was a Broken Sword, and our ilk were not so easily dispatched. I didn't know how he would do it, but I believed that he would make it back to shore. My mind turned to the creatures that had rammed us, and their strange ship a
nd armor.
"What were they?" I asked, forgetting to be more specific in my question, but apparently Brutal had been thinking of them as well.
"I can't say," Brutal answered, "I've never seen their like before, and I've seen a lot in my three hundred years, believe me. Lucidil might know, but I doubt it. Whatever those things had been, they were not beasts of our land. What has my mind in knots though, is that they attacked without provocation, and did so with the intent of leaving no survivors. That is troublesome."
"They are obviously hostile, but why are you worried by the fact that they tried to kill us all?" I asked, not quite understanding why he would find that fact more alarming than the more obvious aspects of the terror we had just faced.
"A hostile force always sends scouts out first, and only forward scouts go through the trouble of making sure they've not been seen by anyone. Do you ken?" he asked, and sudden understanding flickered in my mind.
"You mean they're just the scouts for a larger force?" The chill surrounding me suddenly seemed much more profound, as though it were seeping into my heart.
"I can only guess what their motivation might be, but why else would they go through the trouble of blasting our ship to pieces, and then boarding it? If they were trying to simply board us for supplies, they would not have so damaged our ship before boarding, for fear of destroying our cargo. However, the fact that they boarded our ship after severely damaging it and started killing off crew members as soon as they touched deck bodes ill for us. It seems to me that they were trying to insure that we did not get back to land where we might tell someone what had happened." He smiled grimly, and I noted that his lips had turned blue from the cold, "I don't think they anticipated the resistance we offered. They retreated after taking losses they hadn't expected, assuming that we wouldn't be able to make it back to shore alive anyway, especially not with our lifeboats destroyed. They assumed wrong."