SeaJourney (Arken Freeth and the Adventure of the Neanderthals Book 1)

by Alex Paul

  “Listen.” Arken paused. They heard footsteps and shouting from the deck above, and then it turned quiet. “They’re leaving without us!”

  “Well, I’m ready.” Asher glanced around the small cabin. “Let’s go.” They made their way through the water as its level continued to rise, and then climbed up the ladder, only to find the deck empty.

  “Where’s Talya?” Arken asked. Then he spied a longboat rowing around the stern of the Sea Nymph. It carried the treasure chest and was headed to shore. The weight of the chest and crew made the longboat ride dangerously low in the water. Captain Rallat sat next to Captain Dunn at the stern, and there in the boat was Talya next to Calna and the other Trackers.

  “Talya!” Arken screamed.

  “Arken!” She had been looking back for him and now waved. Her long, brown-blonde hair, unbound since falling in the sea, waved with her movement. “They made me board! I tried to wait! Lancon Koman’s in a boat on the other side of the ship. He’s waiting for you!”

  “We’ll meet on shore!” Arken yelled. “Let’s go, Asher.” They walked uphill to the opposite railing where the longboat had been mounted.

  The longboat had already been lowered by the crew, for there, as Talya promised, was Lancon Koman’s longboat waiting for them. It was twenty feet long, and the wood had turned black from years of tarring to fix small leaks. Supplies, extra swords, and spears were stacked anywhere there was space between rowers, with six men to each side, and a few cadets kneeling in the narrow walkway between rowers. Arken couldn’t believe that only two of the longboats now held all the survivors from the ship. They’d lost so many.

  “Jump down!” Lancon Koman looked up.

  Suddenly, a Tookan archer, his face and neck burned a shiny red from the heat of the fire, stood up from a hiding place behind the railing of the Tookan ship that had rammed them. Arken thought that the man must have been left for dead due to the severe burns and had come awake to find himself alone.

  The pirate raised his bow and drew back an arrow while aiming down at Lancon Koman as he stood in the stern of the longboat where it rode in the narrow space between the two ships.

  “Watch out!” Arken warned. The pirate swiveled toward the sound and pointed his bow at Arken, who ducked, dragging Asher down with him. An arrow whistled through the space occupied a second earlier by Arken’s heart.

  They heard a scream and rose to see the pirate plunging into the sea, a spear through his chest. Yon, the sailor who had given him the red bandanna, raised a muscular arm in triumph, for he had thrown the spear.

  “Climb down!” the lancon yelled as the small swell bumped the longboat’s bow into the Sea Nymph’s hull. Both the Sea Nymph and the pirate ship groaned and cracked as waves ran under the ships and pushed them higher on the sandbar.

  The ship’s hull was tilted, but it was too steep and slippery to climb down.

  “We’ll get a rope!” Arken said.

  Asher cut a length of rope from the lines strewn around the deck while Arken tossed down his bow and their packs. They fastened the rope to the railing and clambered down the ship’s side, their feet slipping on the wet wood.

  “I couldn’t leave my lucky candle boy!” Lancon Koman grinned as his rowers pushed against the hull with their oars to get clear of the Sea Nymph.

  “Thank you, sir,” Arken said.

  Koman took up a small drum, and soon the rowers were matching his pace.

  “Nice spear throw, Yon! You saved my life.” Arken waved his thanks.

  Yon was busy pulling on an oar, but he managed to flash a smile of white teeth in a darkly tanned, olive-skinned face framed by his black beard and curly, black hair.

  Arken looked around for seats. He spied Gart and Narval near the bow. There were no seats open anywhere, so Arken and Asher knelt down in the aisle between the rowing benches. Their longboat cleared the stern of their ship and they could see the beach ahead, but between them and shore was a scene of frantic misery. Tookan sailors floated in the water, clinging to wreckage and paddling for shore. Some tried to drag themselves aboard the longboat as it passed, but the Lantish sailors thrust at them with their short swords.

  “That’s right, fight them off or they’ll swamp us.” Lancon Koman increased the pace on his drum. “Arken, keep your bow ready. Kill any pirates that get close.”

  “Yes, sir.” Arken freed his bow and notched an arrow.

  The longboat surged ahead as the Tookans now swam away from the longboat to avoid Arken’s bow. They passed into open water where the wind danced over the surface and the swell rocked them gently as they chased after Talya’s longboat.

  The last surviving Tookan cutter had hauled up its sail and returned to rowing. It made its way slowly toward the burning cutter that had rammed the Sea Nymph to rescue any remaining crew. A sailor stood at the bow, throwing out a weighted line and calling the depth. Arken watched the line dip deep into the water, and he was confused until he realized the sandbar offshore must have been formed by currents, because now, closer to shore, the water was deep once more.

  A longboat had been launched from the Tookan cutter, and it was now rowing on a course to intercept the longboat piloted by Captain Dunn.

  “It’s hopeless,” cried a young sailor next to Arken. “They’re going to get ahead of us.”

  “Don’t give up! We can make it,” Arken encouraged.

  “Yes, sir.” The sailor grunted from the effort of rowing hard. Arken was amazed that even during all this stress, the sailor observed the formal custom of addressing the young cadets as “sir.”

  A shout arose from the Tookan longboat on course to intercept Captain Dunn’s longboat. The Tookan crew was pointing at something in the water closer to shore.

  Arken’s eyes followed their pointing arms until his gaze rested on a giant fin rising from the water. It rose to a height of five or six feet above the sea. This monster was larger than the one they’d seen while fishing off the stern platform! Arken knew this one’s mouth would be more than wide enough to swallow their longboat whole.

  The terrible fin rushed toward Talya’s longboat. As the smoker’s fin drew closer, Captain Dunn pushed the tiller over, and the huge fin missed the black wooden oar tips by inches. The smoker’s fin didn’t hesitate in its progress through the blue-green sea as it now headed straight at Arken’s longboat.

  Lancon Koman turned their longboat away, barely avoiding the smoker. Sunshine caught the water mist flying off its fin and made a rainbow, or as sailors sometimes called it, colored smoke.

  Though Arken was standing in the longboat, the white fin’s top rose several feet above his head as it surged past. It reminded him of the sail on a twelve-foot sailboat his father had taught him to sail in when he was young.

  “He’s as big as the one that attacked Han!” Asher exclaimed in a high-pitched voice.

  The smoker turned and headed for easier prey in the water: three pirates clinging to a large piece of wooden wreckage and kicking furiously to reach the Tookan ship headed for them. The pirates screamed and kicked harder as the fin approached, but their struggles gave no visible increase in their speed.

  “Pull on the oars for your lives!” Koman pounded the pace drum. The boat surged forward with every stroke.

  The crew of the longboat rowed facing backward, so all eyes could see the giant fin disappear beneath the surface as it neared the three Tookans on the raft. All the pirates tried to climb up on the wooden raft, but one fell back into the water as the fin disappeared. Then his body rose out of the water as if by magic, until the smoker’s mouth was revealed, and all could see the man’s legs were in the mouth. The sailor shot backward so quickly that his body made a wake in the water.

  He let out a high-pitched scream as the sharrk’s jaws opened and shut again to pull him in deeper. When the smoker bit again, only the man’s head and shoulders were visible as they projected from the mouth. The pressure from the smoker’s jaws on his chest stopped his scream, the air crushed from h
is lungs. Arken shuddered.

  The smoker kept its head up while turning in a circle that brought it past their longboat. The pirate in the smoker’s mouth was still alive, now with only his head above the water. His eyes locked with Arken’s and Arken could not look away. The sharrk’s behavior reminded him of the way a dog holds a bone while prancing around a room and showing off its prize possession. Arken raised his longbow. As the smoker came by, he launched his arrow from just three legs away, burying it up to the feathers just behind the smoker’s gills.

  The smoker did not react to his arrow as it swam by. Arken notched another arrow, but before he could release it, the smoker dove. The tail swept toward them and shoved the longboat sideways. Arken collapsed to the side, on top of the young sailor next to him, barely avoiding pushing the arrow tip into the sailor’s side. The boat’s pace faltered, its oars out of rhythm, until Arken untangled himself from the crew.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” Koman’s head swiveled from side to side, looking for danger. “Keep trying to kill it. He’ll be after us before long.”

  The Tookan longboat that had been pursuing Captain Dunn’s longboat changed course and turned to rescue the two Tookans still on the raft. The longboat drew close to the raft and threw a rope. The two remaining Tookans grabbed it, releasing their hold on the wreckage so their shipmates could pull them aboard.

  Without warning, the smoker surfaced and plucked both men from the rope, and then it submerged again with them. Arken shuddered and gasped at how quickly the smoker had appeared from nowhere and then departed. The men on the Tookan longboat lost all interest in staying in the water with the smoker, so they rowed frantically for their ship and safety.

  “Not far to shore now, men!” Koman eyed the breakers ahead, less than eighty legs away.

  The giant fin rose out of the water from behind and proceeded toward them. Arken was ready, and loosed an obsidian-tipped arrow, the sharpest he had, into the sharrk’s head. He didn’t know if the smoker even felt his arrow, but it changed course slightly and shot past them, headed toward Captain Dunn’s longboat, which was now only fifty legs from shore. The smoker did not slow. Its speed made the fin spray a cooling mist over Arken and their longboat crew as it passed Arken’s boat to reach Captain Dunn’s.

  Talya stood at the bow of Captain Dunn’s longboat looking back at the approaching monster. She screamed, and her eyes locked with Arken’s. The smoker lifted its head just a few feet from the longboat and then swam forward, its jaws wide open above the sea like a giant scoop. The gigantic mouth was just wide enough to engulf the stern of the longboat.

  “Talya!” Arken yelled as she disappeared from view behind the enormous head.

  Sailors jumped from the longboat, but Captain Rallat moved too slowly. The smoker opened its mouth wide and tried to slide more of the longboat in. The result was that the row of white teeth pinned Rallat’s legs to the longboat’s port side as he tried to jump. Rallat’s upper body draped over the water as the smoker swam forward, the bow of the longboat now tipped high in the air.

  Captain Rallat screamed at a pitch impossibly high for an old man. It was a shriek born of desperate suffering. The smoker pushed the longboat onto the sand, beaching itself with the longboat still in its mouth. The jaws opened and closed as it struggled to free itself. Screams and the sound of cracking wood filled the air.

  The smoker worked the longboat out of its mouth and dumped it on the sand. Arken screamed, “Talya!” Yet she was nowhere to be seen, either among the sailors splashing in the water ahead or in the wooden wreckage on the beach.

  “Hush, lad, you’ll draw the smoker,” the sailor at oars next to him cautioned.

  “Don’t worry, Arken. We’ll pick up anyone still in the water,” Koman said, though his promise was premature, because the smoker wriggled off the beach and turned to the task of pulling the Lantish and Tolarian sailors underwater while they swam for shore. By the time Arken’s longboat reached the floating debris from the first longboat, no one was swimming in the water.

  “Pull... pull these oars if you want to live!” Lancon Koman hissed. He counted out the cadence in a whisper, fearful of drawing the smoker with the pace drum. They desperately tried to close the fifty-leg gap of sea now remaining between themselves and shore.

  The huge fin popped to the surface close to shore and turned toward their longboat. When it was twenty legs from their bow, it disappeared below the surface.

  “Arken, hit it again if you see it!” Koman yelled.

  Arken readied himself with his bow and scanned the water. He blinked hard to keep tears from interfering with his vision. Talya was dead. Arken wanted revenge. He was ready, but the smoker was nowhere in sight.

  “We’re going to make it, men!” Lancon Koman shouted.

  Arken turned to nod at him and, to his horror, he saw the enormous mouth of the smoker rising from the water at the boat’s stern. The monster had run under them and turned back to attack. Water dripped from the upper teeth, each one bigger than Arken’s hand. Bloody water rushed from the sides of the smoker’s mouth, blood from earlier victims, probably even from Talya.

  Arken raised his bow and aimed beyond Lancon Koman, whose look of triumph turned into a look of puzzlement.

  It was impossible for Arken to miss a huge target like the smoker’s mouth, for it was as wide and tall as two men his father’s height laid end to end. But would it even slow the smoker down? The arrow flashed past Lancon Koman, who understood what Arken was doing, as he rose to jump from the boat.

  “Jump!” Arken grabbed Asher and pulled him overboard.

  EPILOGUE

  The Antipolax Scroll from the

  Brotherhood of the Knowledge Keepers of Lanth

  This scroll was written 9,000 years before I wrote my scroll and buried these urns. We estimate that Arken Freeth lived 2,000 years earlier than Antipolax, or 11,000 years earlier than my time. May Kal preserve these scrolls for man’s future benefit.

  —Arduel

  I am Antipolax, the last surviving Knowledge Keeper who observed Earth’s near destruction by Marduk the Destroyer. Marduk was a giant asteroid that did not hit our planet, for it would have ended all life. Marduk simply flew close enough to Earth to cause the Great Flood.

  We first noticed Marduk when it flew by Uranus. Using our powerful glass telescopes, we were stunned when we saw Uranus flip over so that it began to rotate backward! This was the first indication of Marduk’s density. Venus used to be the only planet in our solar system to rotate backward, but now Uranus has reversed itself and does the same! We realized then that Marduk’s powerful gravity must result from it being extremely dense. Some even theorized that it was a remnant of an exploding supernova from a distant solar system.

  Our early calculations showed us that Marduk might come close enough to Earth to cause us harm, so we began preparations to save the people of Lanth. We built shelters inside caves in the high mountains behind Lanth and filled them with supplies. We covered the exits with heavy doors, and moved our observatory to this mountain shelter. Moonths before Marduk threated Earth, I went there with other scientists in order to record the subsequent events.

  Marduk traveled in the plane of the solar system and soon flew past the planet Tipol, which used to orbit between Sater and Jup. Marduk flew so close to Tipol that its gravity pulled Tipol apart, leaving only rubble and rocks in its place.

  Marduk then flew close to Mars. Marduk did not pull Mars apart, but we watched in horror as most of the oceans of Mars were pulled from the surface and frozen into ice that trailed behind Marduk as it drew closer to Earth.

  Then Marduk headed toward our planet. We tried to calculate its path of travel, but we were not sure how close it would come to us. Each day it grew in the sky until it was as bright as a day-lit moon and even larger in size.

  We observed Marduk’s flight for as long as possible before retreating to our shelter. All of us felt safe because we determined that Mardu
k would not strike our planet. Our large cave with sturdy doors and ample supplies should have protected us. Our confidence soon disappeared, for after our first day in hiding, a strange groaning noise filled our cave.

  Then the Earth began to shake. Dirt and rocks fell from our cave ceiling and, for a time, we thought we were doomed as some of our people were buried alive and most lanterns extinguished. Our cave exit was buried by a rock fall outside the entrance. Then, as the shaking increased in

  intensity, we heard a wind blowing outside, a wind more powerful than anyone had ever heard even through the layers of rock around us.

  The shaking grew more intense. At one point we found ourselves feeling lighter, our bodies able to float through the air unless we clutched onto the rocks. At first people were terrified, but we grew accustomed to our condition. Young boys began doing flips and jumps, though their parents were worried at the vision of their children floating across the shadowy darkness of our cave shelter.

  The shaking stopped, and we began to feel heavier and pulled toward the southwest corner of the giant cave. In minutes, everyone grew heavy and children stopped bounding upward.

  Then the floodwaters surged, even in our high mountain refuge. A roaring sound like a million waterfalls began. It grew louder until we covered our ears with our hands to keep the deafening noise at bay. Our cave refuge continued to shake. Then we discovered that water had filled in the deeper areas of the cave and was continuing to rise. There were many screams from those unfortunate enough to be poor swimmers.

  Many drowned as some of us managed to keep a few lanterns lit and move everyone to the highest place in the cave. But the water level kept rising until all those who had made it to safety—there were now only about one hundred of us—were perched on a narrow ledge. The water continued to rise until we were sure we were going to die, because the water had reached our knees and the rock ceiling was only a few feet above our heads. Parents held their children high to prevent drowning.