by Kevin Hearne
Swimming closer to the nearest ship on a tightly channeled current, I called out to them: “Who are you? I am the tidal mariner of Pelemyn and require an answer.”
Someone replied in a strange language, and that was when I found out they had a few spears, too: three of them plunked into the water around my head, and I do not think I could have been more shocked if they had actually hit me. They were most definitely hostiles, and they had just triggered the war protocols. I was authorized—required, in fact—to use the powers of my kenning to apply coercive and lethal force against an invading fleet.
And I admit that it took me a few moments to process that. I had to look toward the docks again, take in the enormity of the dark shapes in the moonlight, realize what they intended, and say the words out loud to make myself believe it was happening: “This is an invading fleet. Invading us. Right now.”
Up to that point, I had never used my kenning for anything but peaceful purposes. Scout the spawning grounds up and down the coasts, map the crab beds for the fisher clave, make sure the currents kept the coral reefs well fed—that had been my duty. But right then I needed to kill as many strangers as possible to protect my city. It is a disorienting transition to make—I mean from peace to all-out war in the space of a minute—but somehow classifying it as my “duty” every bit as much as my peaceful occupations helped. It didn’t make it easy: it just made it possible. If you drape the word duty over murder, well—you can hardly tell it’s murder anymore. Add the words in wartime, and the word murder simply disappears.
How, then, should I do my duty? Summoning large waves to wash men overboard would be inefficient and tax my system so much that I would age quickly and become useless. Better to use funneled, targeted currents similar to what I used to propel myself quickly through the water.
My first effort to capsize the nearest boat gave the occupants a scare but didn’t succeed. A bit stronger, then: triple the force I would use for myself, applied to the right side of the keel, amidships. Over it went, bodies thrashing in the cold water, and I felt a small ache bloom between my eyes. It was not entirely without cost, then, to focus that kind of pressure, but it was a small cost. Propelling myself to the site, I drew out a black volcanic knife chipped from the flows of the Glass Desert, ideal for water work, and opened some long gashes along the limbs of these unnaturally tall invaders, passing through them to get to the other side, where another boat awaited my attention. Blood in the water would bring the bladefins along to finish the job I had started. Probability of a feeding frenzy was high.
As I repeated the process on the next boat, tumbling tall bodies into the deep, the true size of the force seeped into my consciousness, chilling me far more than the water did. It was no mere raiding party but an army of many thousands, capable of sacking the city. Had I been sleeping at home rather than on duty in the water, most if not all of them would have already landed before I could do anything. I could only hope that the mariners on night patrol would be able to handle those who slipped past me while I did everything I could to prevent any more from landing.
After the second boat, I zipped through the waves back to Pelemyn’s docks to take out the leading ships—the fewer that landed, the better. From there I worked my way back out, always taking out the nearest boat first. Even if some of the invaders managed to swim for shore, they would be cold and weary and demoralized when they tried to attack the walls and would be attacking singly or in very small groups rather than large waves.
Once near the docks, I saw that three ships had landed and a small horde of skeletal giants were disembarking, swords held high, removing all doubt about the nature of this fleet. I wanted to go ashore and help or raise the alarm but knew that my priority had to be preventing the rest from landing.
The ache between my eyes grew incrementally with every ship I scuttled, and I was breathing heavily after three. After the fifth the bladefins and other predators had homed in on the blood and were finishing what I had started. More blood meant more predators on the way; they could chew through the army for me if I could just get them into the water.
I had to dodge several bladefins myself, but they never came back for a second pass when there were so many other easy targets thrashing about, practically begging to be eaten.
And they were eaten. The invaders screamed underwater, but still I heard them, garbled bubbles of terror popping in my ears as jaws sank into them, their severed limbs and intestines floating past me in clouds of blood, each drop a siren call to frenzy for everything in the ocean possessed of more teeth than brains. Seeing and hearing that hurt me, for even then I doubted I was doing the right thing. Had we spoken the same language, I wondered, could we have avoided it all?
They did not look as if they had come to talk, and that was what my duty told me. But even if my duty stood tall and proud like the cliffs of Setyrön, waves of guilt kept crashing against them, determined to wear them down as I dumped ship after ship into the ocean and men flailed and gasped and died. And every effort I made to force water to do my will drew days of my life away, unseen like the undertow of tides yet felt and feared as all forces of nature should be. Aging quickly was the price I had to pay for my blessing, and I swore to myself when I first swam out of Bryn’s Lung that I would never regret using it in my country’s defense—still: ninety-seven ships and pain like a nail in my head. There had probably been a hundred men or more on each boat. Whoever these tall foreigners were, they had sent ten thousand men against us without warning or, so far as I knew, any provocation from us. They would have completely overwhelmed us had I not been on duty.
When the last ship capsized and the pale figures cried out, knowing what awaited them in the deep since they saw what had happened to all the others, I took a moment to simply tread water with my own muscles, bereft of my kenning, weary beyond anything I had ever known. The firebowls of Pelemyn were not even visible where I was, which told me I was far out to sea. Returning to the docks meant I would have to weave through the feeding frenzy, but it was necessary: better to dodge bladefins than krakens. I was in deep enough waters that I would have to worry about true monsters, and a disturbance in the currents beneath me hinted that one was approaching, attracted by all the blood.
That prompted me to wonder: How did such a fleet cross the ocean without falling prey to krakens? If I had felt the fleet’s passage on the surface, then surely the krakens would have.
I skimmed the floor of the ocean on the way back, opting to swim underneath the ongoing frenzy but unable to avoid seeing some of the aftermath. I saw a crab scuttling across the ocean floor with a pale chewed hand clutched in its claws. That was a hand that had belonged to a man who had used it to greet his friends once, or hug his mother, or offer a gift of love or perhaps an apology. Now it was food for a crawling thing in the ocean, and I had made that happen.
Ninety-seven hundred deaths on my head if my estimates were correct. And it was all duty. Not murder.
Per protocol, I had to report directly to the pelenaut after using lethal force, so I would use the Lung’s underwater locks to get to the city Wellspring from the harbor. I did surface briefly to see what was happening at the docks and immediately saw the bodies of a few mariners and citizens lying sprawled on the boards. The firebowls illuminated a battle for the walls in progress—the invaders had actually reached the top without benefit of towers or ladders. The ghoulish giants swarmed on top of one another, making ladders out of their own bodies, quick and lithe and horrifying like snow spiders—if spiders could wield swords! Once I saw them confronting our mariners at the top, I worried that we might lose the city to these mere three hundred, because one of them, dressed in no more than bones and rags, hacked down a mariner by first splitting his shield and then carrying the blow through to cave in his skull through the helmet.
I had never seen the like; that took incredible force. Their weapons were swords in the sense that they were blades attached to a hilt but were nothing like any sword I had seen
before. Only one side had been sharpened, and the blade angled up to a ridge, then back down again. Viewed from the side, the sword looked like a child’s drawing of a mountain, albeit a gently sloped one. Their long reach and that design, coupled with good steel, clearly gave them a deadly advantage. There were only a few of them up top as yet, though more were ascending, and they were mowing through mariners like cutting summer wheat. I almost decided to climb out of the water to give what help I could, but someone had raised the alarm with the garrison, and a squadron of archers arrived on the south side as I watched. They let loose a flight, and the giants went down, their scant armor doing little to stop the arrows. Another flight aimed at the base of the human ladder buckled it, and the pile of them collapsed to the ground. They wouldn’t make it back up the wall again. Confident that the garrison now had matters in hand, I ducked down beneath the waves and cycled through the Lung’s locks.
I emerged in the Wellspring behind the coral throne, in the pelenaut’s pool but around a little-used corner. None but one of Bryn’s blessed could navigate the locks without drowning, but the egress was guarded by a mariner anyway—one who had a spear pointed at me until she recognized my face. She raised it and apologized once I gave her a tired grin in greeting. “We’re feeling some pressure here, Gerstad,” she said, addressing me by my military rank rather than my kenning.
“As you should be,” I said, dripping on the floor a moment before wicking away the moisture with a thought, dropping it back into the pool. “I have a report for either the pelenaut or the Lung. May I see one or both?”
“Certainly. I can’t leave my post now but please proceed.”
“Thank you. Before I go—how old am I?”
“Your pardon?”
“How old do I look?”
The mariner shrugged, uncertain. “Midthirties?”
That was a relief because I’d appeared to be in my midthirties before the watch began. Well, maybe my younger thirties, but midthirties wasn’t bad. I felt older and slower and wanted nothing so much as a cup of tea and a day or three of sleep, but that would have to wait. I trod down the short hall with the pool’s feeder channel on my right and rounded the corner to find the pelenaut pacing in front of his throne and his wall of water. The Lung was there, too, along with several military personages of higher rank than mine—even the Könstad was there—and some others I did not recognize. Before I could say anything or salute, the pelenaut spied me and interrupted the Lung. “Ah! Gerstad Tallynd du Böll! So glad you’re here! Please come, report.”
I recounted what I had done and the reasoning behind it and watched for signs of disapproval. I couldn’t tell if I had done the right thing: they all wore masks of grim stone, and I was giving my report without knowing the full situation outside. Had any of the invaders made it into the city? When I finished, Pelenaut Röllend said, “Thank you, Gerstad. Könstad du Lallend.”
“Yes?”
“Please fetch me an update on our casualties and dispatch the rapids while I talk to the Gerstad for a moment.”
He motioned me to follow him and led me around the corner to his pool behind the throne, the same way I had entered. He dismissed the mariner on guard there and waited until we were alone, and then, much to my surprise, he hugged me.
“There is no doubt you have saved Pelemyn tonight,” he said. “Thank you. I was asleep until moments ago and would not have been able to stop them as you did.”
“Normally I would have been asleep, too.”
“We were fortunate for sure. I know you must be tired, but I can’t spare you now. There’s more to do.”
My headache flared at the mere thought of more water work, but I tried to smooth away the wince on my face and keep the pain out of my voice. “Of course, Pelenaut Röllend. What can I do?”
“I’m worried that we weren’t the only target. I need to know as soon as possible if other cities were attacked. If they haven’t been, then we need to warn them that an attack may be coming.”
“Down to Gönerled, then?”
“No, I’m sending a couple of rapids there. I need you to go up to Festwyf with all possible speed.” I had to swallow my fear at those words, and he saw it. “I know that’s asking a lot.” He was asking me to move so quickly through the water that I essentially became it and in the process stripped away years of my life. I had told my boys often that this day might come, but now that it was here, I doubted that they truly understood; already I had lost some time, and who knew how much older I would be when I came home?
“It’s your prerogative to ask,” I said, and once I got past my visceral reaction, I agreed it was necessary. Advance warning might be the difference between saving the city and losing it. “May I beg a small favor in return?”
“Of course.”
“Look after my boys while I’m gone. I was supposed to be home in time to take them to school, and if I’m not there—” They had already gone to sleep one night and woken up without a father the next morning; I didn’t want them to lose another parent the same way. They would be worried regardless, but maybe someone could reassure them.
“Done,” he said.
“Thank you. And …” My question died in my throat. “Never mind. Time’s wasting.”
“No, go ahead and ask. You’ve certainly earned an extra question. A promotion, too, once we have the luxury of ceremony again.”
“Do you know who these people are? Or why they attacked us?”
The pelenaut shook his head. “I’ve never heard of them. Haven’t managed to even see them yet, but I’m told they’re definitely not Hathrim.”
“No. These are not like any giants we’ve seen before.”
A helpless shrug from the pelenaut. “I had no idea they existed. Which makes me wonder where they came from and how they knew we existed.”
“I’ll seal my questions in a jar, then, and open it later. Currents keep you safe, Pelenaut Röllend.”
“And you, Gerstad du Böll.”
I was back in the ocean minutes later, headed north, pushing water in front and pulling it down the length of my body, sleeving myself through the deep, but this time I pushed and pushed until the resistance faded and the water welcomed me as part of it, my uniform slipped away and foundered in my wake, and I became the tide rolling in to Festwyf, where the fresh sluice of the Gravewater River fed the Peles Ocean. I lost time traveling that way—so much time—and more prosaic things, like my glass knife. I didn’t pull out of the tide trance until I hit the freshwater. There I slowed down, felt the sharp ache of a year’s strain on my organs and bones—quite possibly more—and surfaced.
Festwyf was quiet, and for a moment I harbored a hope that all was well. The firebowls still burned on the walls and the docks as they should. But upon closer inspection, there were bodies slumped over the walls near those fires. There was blood in the river and corpses bobbed near the docks. And at those docks, stretching back into the ocean, was an anchored fleet of the giants’ ships.
But there were no screams or sounds of fighting, nor were there sounds of a victory celebration. In fact, there were no sounds of a city at all, even those which a city at night might be expected to make. There was only the sound of water, and this was the first time in my life when I did not find it comforting.
I swam closer to the docks and pulled myself out of the ocean, concluding that there was no reason to be worried about my modesty when everyone was dead. I saw that there were both Brynt and giant bodies littering the area, but far more Brynts. The giants had surprised Festwyf as they had surprised Pelemyn, except that Festwyf had had no tidal mariner here to keep them from landing. The other two tidal mariners, aside from Pelenaut Röllend himself, were to the south in Setyrön and Hillegöm; one could only hope they were in a position to do as I had done.
When I came to the first dead invader, who had three arrows through his chest, I crouched down to examine him a bit closer, since I’d had no chance previously. They were pasty men, seven to nine fe
et each, possessed of stringy muscles and little else. They had no armor whatsoever on their legs—no pants either, which I thought vaguely obscene—and only rudimentary fibrous material strapped to the soles of their feet. They wore bands of cloth wrapped around their loins and then a basic undershirt belted to it. On top of this they had tied a sheet of flat rib bones to the front and back of their torsos. Said bones were too large and wide to be human as I originally feared. They had also tied smaller sets of these to rest on top of their shoulders and to protect their upper arms. No helmets, but not for lack of steel. Their swords were well made. Except for the handles; those were wrapped in poor cloth rather than leather. With a start, I realized they had no leather at all. Even their belts were made of woven fibers.
I mentally added to the giants’ list of contradictions: Though their boats were crude, they had enough sophistication at sea to coordinate an attack at multiple sites on the same evening. But none of them remained on their ships—they were all silent, anchored hulks. So where were the invaders now?
I took the giant’s sword—a bit heavy for me, but it might prove useful later—and padded barefoot across the planks of the docks to the city walls. No one challenged me. The gates were open, and piles of the dead stared up at the sky or lay sprawled in positions they would never adopt in life, and each one of them said to me that I would find nothing different beyond. They were right.
Inside the city there was no sign of survivors apart from lit buildings. I investigated a few of them to see if anyone remained inside, but in each case they turned out to be untended candles or fires burning low, illuminating a massacre of the inhabitants. The Wellspring was littered with the bodies of the city’s leaders. And I discovered that many people had been slain in their beds, efficiently murdered in their sleep.
Bryn preserve us, they had killed the children, too.
So these giants were not fond of war cries and waking up the populace. In fact, much of Pelemyn might still be unaware the city had been attacked if they were living far from the ocean walls. I thought about what I’d seen so far at both Pelemyn and Festwyf: Any person the giants saw was a target. Beyond that they had no clear military goals. They weren’t loading their ships with material goods, so it wasn’t our wealth they wanted, nor did they want to conquer and rule. They certainly gave us no diplomatic warning. They simply came to wipe us out. No threats or bluster or even an overture of diplomacy. Just blades parting skin and sawing flesh.