“A grayken will blow once right before it plans on diving under water,” Stefan said, readying some arrows. “Once submerged, they can resurface anywhere, ofttimes straight under a boat, capsizing it. Baron Bruk better strike quickly, because that grayken is about to go under.”
The baron’s skiff hove to, right beside the beast. Baron Bruk launched his harpoon, a rope tied to its end. It flew short of the mark and the grayken moved away, sinking below the surface. The baron reeled his harpoon back aboard by its rope line.
“The real show starts once a grayken is struck, fins and tentacles thrashing, sharks swarming,” Stefan said. “Let’s pray no merfolk show up. They’re apt to help the grayken, cut the harpoon lines with sharpened fish bones. Tear at our ship. A huge bloody nuisance they are. But if they do”—he held up his bow—“I’ve got this for ’em.”
Jenko’s skiff peeled away from the other two, sneaking up on a different grayken from the rear, an even bigger beast than the first. The helmsman nimbly directed the boat until the prow was thudding right against the beast’s flank. Jenko had his rope line and harpoon ready, his left leg planted in the bottom of the boat, his right knee securely fixed against the sidewalls. Jenko’s harpoon rose up in his hand and his arm stretched back.
A tense moment passed, and for Nail there was never a more incredible sight. As if he were carved of marble, the baron’s son, with long harpoon held aloft, stood perilously poised there on the lip of the tiny bobbing boat like a glistening sculpture of Laijon himself, the sun shimmering off the tip of his harpoon’s clover-shaped blade.
Jenko struck with astonishing speed and power, the shaft sinking deep into the grayken’s thick side. Quickly, once the beast was struck, Jenko leaned his weight onto the harpoon, pushing it farther inward until the entire shaft was almost buried, only the thin rope sticking out from the dark flesh. The beast leaped halfway out of the water and slammed back home. A great wave almost swept Jenko overboard, nearly swamping his boat. The grayken disappeared into the ocean, tentacles thrashing, rope trailing. A huge cheer rose up from the men on the Lady Kindly.
“Lucky Jenko wasn’t sent straight to the underworld with all that thrashing,” Stefan said. “They’ll have to row away from the beast if they can.”
Jenko’s harpoon was not meant to kill the grayken. From Nail’s vantage point, it was clear: the harpoon was merely the easiest way for the helmsman and his crew to link their small boat to their now quarrelsome large quarry. The grayken lurched above the surface again. Quivering in its gray flesh was the harpoon line, trailing the beast like a darning needle and spool of thread. Rivers of bright blood from the harpoon raced along the grayken’s sleek surface. The beast blew air, and then plunged in an attempt to shake off its tiny tormentor. The rope snaked out of the barrel fastened in Jenko’s boat, uncoiling and whipping down into the boiling darkness of the sea, following the grayken into the bottomless depths. The helmsman now held a hatchet over the rope, ready to chop it in twain if the grayken were to dive too deep, dragging their boat down.
The two other skiffs sped toward Jenko’s boat. And for a span of time, there was no sign of the grayken—or any grayken. It seemed the entire school had beaten a hasty retreat into the far reaches of the sea. The rope ceased its whirring dance down into the blood-flecked ocean and went slack. There was silence but for Bishop Tolbret’s rhythmic, prayerful chant. Nail thought the grayken had snapped the line and freed itself, or perhaps down in the depths unseen merfolk had cut through the line as Stefan had warned. But the grayken came roaring upward. A sweeping surge of water nearly overturned all three boats as the monster flew high. Nail’s heart lodged in his throat as the full length of the beast’s massive body hung above the ocean’s surface, glistening red sheets of water streaking its flesh. He gawked in mute wonder as the beast twisted in midair, blowing out a fountain of red, then splashed back into the sea, great fins and tentacles lashing the water with bloody foam as it disappeared.
“Jenko stuck ’im good!” Stefan shouted. “And his line’s still attached!”
Rolling waves rocked the three skiffs. The helmsmen of Brutus Grove’s boat steered into position, the skiff bobbing in the dying waves. A throng of sharks circled the area now, weaving ominously just beneath the Lady Kindly. When the injured grayken surfaced again, it rose up in a swell of water nearest to Brutus’ boat. He struck the beast with his harpoon. It thrashed with less vigor now.
“Merfolk!” Stefan, alert now, nocked an arrow to his bow. Nail saw them too. Three spun up from the sea near the grayken, half-human and half-fish, two male and one female, launching themselves so high their full forms were briefly suspended above the water. From head to fin, all three were taller than a man, all wielding long, sharpened bones in their webbed, clawed hands. Nail was stunned by the pale beauty of their skin and sparkling brightness of their scales. Almost white was their human half; their fish half was like polished steel. The rippling muscles on the two males were magnificent. The full breasts on the female caught Nail’s eye while the shimmering scales of her lower half shone like gems of emerald, copper, and silver.
As the merfolk silently splashed back into the sea, Baron Bruk roared, “Bloody rotted merfolk! Be wary, Brutus!” And when the three merfolk spun up from the water again, screeching and shrill, they slashed at Brutus Grove’s rope with their fish-bone weapons. Just as quickly, they fell back into the sea, Brutus’ rope severed in twain.
One of the mermen came back up, head bobbing in the ocean, shrieking. Stefan loosed an arrow. Over a hundred feet it sailed true, then struck the merman in the face, and he dropped below the water. Nail had had no idea how deadly with a bow Stefan really was. The arrow shot afforded Brutus Grove the time to launch a second harpoon straight into the grayken’s side. Another cheer rose up from the Lady Kindly as the beast dove again, the rope uncoiling from Brutus’ skiff. The rowers scrambled and ducked to avoid being swept up in its twining path.
The ropes from both skiffs went taut, slack, taut, then slack. The grayken resurfaced quickly this time, blood bubbling from its blowhole. Several sharks lunged at it then, their toothy mouths carving chunks out of the grayken’s flesh. One shark even sailed forth and latched onto one of the grayken’s six tail-like tentacles, but the mighty monster flung the shark back into the cold ocean as if swatting at a flea.
The merfolk, a dozen of them now, slithered up from the sea, occasionally hacking at the ropes and harpoons attached to the grayken. Nail noticed that some of the merfolk were small, children—some so tiny they might be babies. All of them fought and tore at the ropes attached to the grayken, some with sharpened bones, some with naught but their webbed, clawed hands. The shrieks that accompanied their fight pierced Nail’s ears. The merfolk fought a losing battle as more harpoons from both Brutus’ and Jenko’s boats were launched into the grayken. And several more merfolk now floated in the water, dead, pierced by Stefan’s arrows.
This crazy, frothing battle between men and beasts sent a peculiar shiver through Nail. It was the most terrifying yet awe-inspiring experience of his life. The injured grayken drifted toward open sea. More harpoons slammed home. The leviathan slashed with its six powerful tentacles and shot another pillar of bright crimson water skyward. Four times it spouted, its dying lungs purging blood, choking, spouting, and spewing, flapping fins and coiling tentacles beginning to tire.
Baron Bruk clapped wildly at his harpooners’ efforts, and so did the men aboard the Lady Kindly. The screaming merfolk had disappeared altogether as the grayken fought on, biting at the air, bleeding copiously into the sea, sharks in a frenzy circling, gouging out bits of its flesh. The beast slowed and stopped moving altogether, the skiffs bobbing. Harpooners on all three boats started hitting the grayken with the killing lances until rushing rivers of bright blood poured from its many wounds. The beast slapped the water with its tentacles one last time. But it was a weak gesture, and just that quickly, the grayken rolled over and died, floating in a stew of its own oily bl
ood.
A sprinkling rain began to fall as the three skiffs towed the dead beast, tentacles first, toward the ship, a T-shaped wooden toggle attached to a hole in one long tentacle. Sharks circled, looming under the small boats, drinking in the trailing wake of blood. Below Nail, along the starboard side of the ship, a wood-plank platform was lowered into the sea by the same block-and-tackle system used to lower the three skiffs. Men lugged huge iron hooks across the deck, each sharp as an ax and half as large as a man. They hauled them to the starboard side, and thick ropes were attached to all.
Nail was alone in the rigging now. Stefan had climbed down and was scurrying around on the deck with Zane. The three skiffs were near enough to the ship that the harpooners had pulled their harpoons loose, raindrops peppering their faces. Soon the beast’s heavy body was thumping against the side of the Lady Kindly as waves swelled up around it. The water along the starboard side of the ship was a swirl of red. Occasionally, a shark would emerge ghostlike from the frothy pink and take a hunk of grayken flesh back down into the deep with it. There soon came a wooden tap, tap, tap from somewhere under the water, and Baron Bruk cried out, “The damn rotted mermen are tearing at the bottom of our ship! Let’s make haste, lads! The sooner we get this thing up and outa the water the sooner them ghastly fish men will leave us be!”
There was a flood of movement on the deck below, and Zane pulled a long knife from his belt, grabbed a rope, and swung over the railing, straight down the side of the ship and onto the massive back of the grayken. Stefan followed Zane’s plunge over the side, and soon both were running, balancing along the great leviathan’s barrel-like body, slicing deep gashes into the back of the grayken’s flesh with their knives. It was their job as grayken cutters to cut slits into the blubber where massive hooks could be inserted—their work accompanied by the wooden tap, tap, tap of the merfolk under the ship.
Soon other men were down upon the grayken with Stefan and Zane, and the iron hooks were lowered. The hooks swung wildly as the Lady Kindly jostled in the waves, the dead beast’s girth hammering against the side of the ship. The men began securing the grayken by inserting the hooks into the gashes Stefan and Zane were opening with their cutters. Two hooks were inserted just above the grayken’s fin in the deep slits the boys had previously made. More thick ropes, suspended from the lower masthead, were attached to each hook. Then the tremendous muscle of the windlass was put to the test, heeling the Lady Kindly onto her side using the weight of the great grayken as a counterbalance.
Nail was surprised as he slowly descended out in a great arc, the creaky wooden crosspiece he hugged was unsteady and difficult to grasp with his arms and legs. The sudden drop caused a swooning light-headedness, giving him a fright for several heartbeats. His perch high in the rigging was no longer a perch. As the Lady Kindly turned onto its side, he now feared being lowered almost to the level of the sea itself. The mast quaked with the strain. The ship trembled and creaked as more and more it leaned over toward the grayken. Nail clung to the crosspiece with a knuckle-white grip. He slipped and fell, catching himself in the rigging below as it swayed and twisted under him. Legs scrambling, he managed a quick reorientation, gripping the ropes fast, remaining securely suspended over the water. Only the strength in his own arms had saved him.
Zane, on the back of the beast, gave a hoot of surprise when he saw Nail, hanging in the rigging, pass overhead. Actually, Nail was passing over the flank of the grayken and sailing onward beyond it. The helmsman of Jenko’s skiff had to scramble to turn his small boat, and all aboard rowed vigorously, not wanting their vessel to become entangled in the wood and rope rigging of the bigger ship’s foremast and topsails. Nail was soon suspended a mere twenty feet or so above the ocean’s surface. He was ripe with fear at the thought of being dunked in with the sharks and merfolk. But the Lady Kindly heeled as far as she was going to heel, and Nail found himself staring straight down into water red and thick with blood. “Having fun?” the baron’s son said, standing in the bobbing skiff not fifteen paces away. Nail nodded with enthusiasm, and Jenko laughed.
There was a sudden shift in the wind, a brisk gust of rain, and a rolling of the ship upon the water. Men shouted. One of the great iron hooks tore loose with a snap and rending of grayken flesh and spun through the air, striking Zane Neville square in the chest and launching him from the security of the grayken’s great flank straight into the rain-pattered sea. With a huge splash, the bloody water engulfed Zane. His hefty body vanished among a tangle of the Lady Kindly’s foremast rigging and was immediately swallowed up by the frothing darkness of the water.
Nail stared in horror at the scarlet bubbles below, all that remained of Zane’s passing. He looked to the nearest skiff. Jenko Bruk was there, standing in the small boat not twenty feet from where Zane had disappeared. Their eyes locked. They stared at each other a moment, and the look in Jenko’s eyes was not one of concern for Zane, but a look of resigned callousness, knowing there was nothing to be done. The severity of the situation dawned on Nail. Many aboard the Lady Kindly had seen Zane fly from the body of the grayken and sink like a stone beneath the water’s surface. Even Bishop Tolbret’s face was impassive as he stood at the railing.
At that very moment, Nail realized no one was going to do anything about it. Any man goes overboard, he’s lost to the sea! Baron Bruk had said. It was clear. Zane would have to fend for himself. Nail’s eyes sought Stefan and found his friend still planted on the grayken’s back, horror etched in every line of his face. The hook man grabbed Stefan by the arm and forced him to help resecure the swinging hook under the grayken’s fin.
Nail’s gaze flew back to the spot in the red churning sea where Zane had vanished. The rope rigging jerked back and forth in the water, then went still. Nail waited. Staring. Hoping his friend would resurface. But as the moments passed, he realized Zane was truly lost, tangled down there somewhere amongst all that rigging.
Pale shapes hovered below the surface. The thought of a shark biting his friend in half like a salmon sent a shudder through Nail, and suddenly this grand grayken-hunting adventure wasn’t so fun. Seabirds shrieked in joy around him. The tangled rigging where Zane had disappeared thrashed about wildly, as if someone beneath was struggling within it. Nail thought he saw the metallic sparkle of one of the merfolk down there too. The rain picked up. Thick droplets splashed the water. Lightning flashed above. And with all the blood, it seemed as if fire danced along the surface of the sea.
Without thinking, Nail pulled the small dagger Stefan had given him from his own belt, gripped it firmly in hand, and dove from his perch. Twenty feet straight down he flew. Headfirst he knifed into the ocean.
Water spewed over him, and a deep-red darkness pressed inward. At the water’s bitter touch, the crosslike burn on the back of his right hand flared with pain. The bloody sea was icy and stole his breath, the water seeming to constrict inward, paralyzing his muscles. He spun and clawed to the surface, crimson bubbles churning. His head broke the skin of the ocean. He choked. The taste and smell of the grayken’s blood gagged him. Chunks of regurgitated grayken bile were floating everywhere in the rain-splattered sea. Water closed in around him as he bobbed below the surface a second time. When his head surfaced again, he could scarcely see through the film of red seawater blanketing his eyes. The men on Jenko’s skiff stared down at him. One man held an oar out to Nail. “Fool! He’ll pull you down with him!” Jenko yelled, and slapped the oar away. Nail sank below a third time, his vision awash in red oblivion. Panic set in. He kicked wildly, his foot striking something. Sharks! He resurfaced one more time and floated there. His limbs couldn’t move. The water was too cold.
Wind gusted. Stinging rain raked over Nail’s face. The cold hurt, dreadfully, like needles racing under his skin, like molten metal poured over his bones, driving bolts of pain from muscle to muscle. Agony encompassed him as he gazed pleadingly up at Jenko Bruk and the seven other men, who were slowly rowing away. Something brushed against his foot and
he spun, kicking slowly, legs numb, the sudden surge of adrenaline spinning him, all limbs flailing, useless. He now faced the grayken, not five feet away. Bloody water lapped lazily against its massive bulk. Rainwater washed down its side. Stefan was crawling down the slippery slope of the beast, a rope line tied around his waist, one hand reaching for Nail. Lightning ripped down from the sky, hitting the water between them. The blinding flash was followed by a thunderous clap that set the sea to buzzing and dancing with an eerie light.
Nail’s skin tingled so sharply that all other senses were drowned out and he couldn’t move. Every nerve in his body felt pinched and frozen in pain. Something caught him by the leg, and he was jerked beneath the sea. He swung out in defense, but his knife only sliced through water, slowly, ineffectively. It must be Zane clawing at him from below. His friend’s grabbing hands were a mad thrash, clawlike, pulling Nail farther down into the darkness. Soon Zane’s arms were beating wildly against him, and the small dagger was knocked from his hand. Zane’s limbs found purchase, clutching, squeezing the breath from Nail in one great hug, pinning both of his arms to his side. Zane’s clenching bulk was going to drown them both. Nail felt his lungs burning. Pain stabbed through his straining chest as he tried not to gasp for air.
Then he realized it wasn’t Zane who had hold of him.
His eyes flew open. And he saw her pale, ghostly visage—the mermaid who held him tight. Inches away, her face floated in the deep. She had a delicate chin, thin lips, thin nose, and eyes that were as wide and crystal blue as the summer sky. Her eyelids blinked ever so slowly. A serrated row of gills fluttered open and closed along her slender neck. He felt her breasts against his chest, her slithery scaled tail coiled around his legs. She tilted her head and opened her mouth, revealing long fangs that were shockingly sharp and grotesque in comparison to her overall glamour. Nail mustered what strength he had and wiggled one arm free of her. He attempted to push the fearsome mermaid away, but the pointed claws tipping her webbed hand raked across his right bicep, tearing shirt and flesh.
The Forgetting Moon Page 5