by Travis Bughi
“Why is it just lying there?” Emily asked.
“The barbs tear more when it moves, love,” Lonzo explained to Emily’s dismay. “Remember how I said they’re more about quick bursts of speed? These big guys tire easy, and with a wound like that, they tire even faster. It’s taking a breather before it tries to thrash the barbs loose again, so if they want to get in another round of spears, this is their chance.”
“This is . . . brutal,” Emily responded, finding it difficult to put words to the sickness in her stomach. “There has to be an easier way to kill them, right?”
“None that I’ve ever heard,” Lonzo shook his head. “If it’s getting to you, you can always go below until it’s over.”
“No, no,” Emily shook her head. “I wanted to see the world, and this is a part of it.”
“Aye, if you insist. Though, truth be told, lass, I wouldn’t suggest having that attitude about everything. Some things in this world are probably best left unseen.”
Emily didn’t reply. She just continued to watch the launch creep back toward the leviathan. It was breathing again, short but slow, as if taking in air hurt and it was avoiding the action for as long as possible.
The launch was close again, within spear range, and Emily gasped. The pirates didn’t attack, though, because the leviathan wasn’t turned away. They needed to get right up next to it in order to pierce it under the scales. It was a dangerous moment, and Emily couldn’t help but grip the railing tightly.
Suddenly, the pirates shouted and lunged out, their spears once again going for the weak and vulnerable parts, and this time they were almost all successful. Sharp and jagged tips slammed into the leviathan, and the pirates put their weight into the effort to drive the metal home. No sooner had they attacked than the leviathan roared out again, and the oarsmen quickly pulled the launch away.
The leviathan thrashed, this time more wildly. The launch was far too slow to get away, and waves of boiling water crashed against the side of the tiny boat. The pirates cried out and dove over each other, trying to take cover, and even the oarsmen released their holds in their efforts to dive out of the way. Emily saw dark red blood mixing with the ocean blue that washed over the launch, and another gasp escaped her throat.
The leviathan thrashed like a vampire exposed to sunlight, cried out in anguish, as if calling out to its kin, and then bolted straight ahead with a monstrous burst of speed. In its wake, a dark stain of boiling blood left a trail.
Emily quickly looked to the launch. The pirates there were groaning, moaning and moving slowly, but otherwise appeared alive. She heard the crew aboard The Greedy Barnacle breathe a collective sigh of relief.
“Oy!” Mosley called out. “Get that launch back aboard! We’ve got to follow the beast!”
The pirates cheered and set about to accomplish the task. Emily turned to Lonzo.
“What now?” she asked.
“Now we follow it until it bleeds out,” Lonzo explained.
“How long will that take?”
“We’ll catch it soon, but there’s no telling how long it’ll take before it dies. Couple hours at least, though it could take up to a day.”
Emily felt her heart sink at those words. She turned back to where the leviathan had been and saw a pool of boiling blood still hissing there. Steam was rising off the top, and little bubbles were forming and popping all over. Occasionally, they’d combine, and a large bubble of heat would form, rise up, and then belch a cloud of red-tinged steam when it exploded. Emily looked away again.
She didn’t much care for this leviathan hunting.
Chapter 8
When the launch was pulled back onboard, Emily was relieved to find only one pirate had been seriously injured. His skin was peeling away all along his back, and it looked beyond painful. He’d been the last to leap onto the pile of those trying to avoid the boiling waves, resulting in him both taking the brunt of it and unintentionally shielding his allies. Emily knew it was unintentional, because as the pirate was carried below, he cursed his fellow mates in between cries of agony. The other pirates just grimaced and looked away.
Mosley helped distract them by continuing to shout out orders. The sails were put back into place, and The Greedy Barnacle set about the hunt, following the thick, red line of boiling blood through the sea until it led them to the leviathan.
It was resting in the water, still oozing blood, breathing shallow breaths while trying not to move. The Greedy Barnacle was brought to a halt, and Mosley shouted more commands. The pirates adjusted the sails once more, and then prepared themselves for many hours of waiting.
Those were long hours.
The leviathan had swum quite a distance in its flight of pain. It had tired itself out thoroughly, and although it rested now, it would never recover enough strength to move again. Its wounds were too severe, and for that, Emily was thankful. For the three long hours it took for the leviathan to die, Emily found it nearly impossible to move away. She continued to watch it, feeling sad but having no idea what to do. She tried to walk away once but felt immediately guilty and came back. She didn’t want the leviathan, so beautiful in its colors of red and blue patches over bright white, to die alone.
Her feelings seemed so strange to her. She couldn’t remember taking death so seriously before. Death was a part of life, and growing up on the Great Plains meant death was never too far away. She’d seen dead behemoths, even dead neighbors, before, and that had not bothered her. They had not suffered, she thought, realizing the difference between then and now, and looked at the leviathan and wished for its pain to be over with.
Emily briefly considered getting her bow and trying to end its misery sooner, but she realized her puny arrows would do nothing to this massive creature except increase its agony. So instead, she sighed and continued to wait. She waited and watched until the flowing blood no longer sizzled, steamed, or bubbled in the churning ocean water.
It was a sad sight to see it go, but even Emily had to admit The Greedy Barnacle would eat well that night.
The rest of the day was spent cutting, salting, and storing the leviathan meat. Emily went below for this part and was grateful for the solitude she found there. The rest of the crew was up above, working hard and long to put the newfound food away, and none seemed disturbed by her absence. She wondered if Lonzo might have said something to them, or perhaps all the pirates understood what she felt. Either way, no one said anything to her about not helping out, and when she emerged again, The Greedy Barnacle had set sail once more, only this time with a stockpile of tasty leviathan meat and a nearly euphoric crew.
The evening was characterized by heavy drinking—more so than normal—many songs, and hot food. Emily hesitated to eat the leviathan meat at first but relented soon enough. It didn’t take long for her to reconnect with the necessities of life. She was only human, and she had to eat. As she bit into her share of the night’s meal, she nodded to those who had given it to her and admitted that it tasted good.
All the while, The Greedy Barnacle traveled onwards.
They were back on their original path to Savara for which Emily was thankful. She wasn’t necessarily tired of the sea, but despite its faster means of travel, she longed to have solid ground under her feet once more. And unless she found a ship leaving from Savara to Juatwa, she’d have much of that soon enough. Savara was rumored to be as large as the Great Plains.
Also, from what she was told, The Greedy Barnacle was close to their destination, and so she only had a few more days with which to entertain herself. She decided to spend that time learning what she could of where she was going from the crew. Pirates weren’t exactly known for their extensive knowledge, but they were superb connoisseurs of folklore and stories. Among the many stories that she heard, often embellished with a level of exaggeration only rum could provide, Emily was able to piece together a history that revealed a land fallen from glory.
Savara had many nicknames: The Great Desert, The Land of Ancie
nt Kings, The Land of Temples, and Marauders’ Paradise. There were others, apparently, but these were by far the most common. Each one described a land once lush and civilized. Great human cities had existed and thrived there, held in the iron grip of lords with royal bloodlines. These lords often ruled several cities at once, and they did so with their loyal soldiers, the Kshatriyas, who were like the Knights of Lucifan or the Samurai of Juatwa: military elites skilled in all manner of warfare and bathed from head to toe in honor and esteem.
These ancient kings, with such great power, set about constructing grand temples made of solid rock. These temples were designed to outlast time itself, and the ancient kings filled them with their riches. In time, the temples began to change from places of worship to places of protection. They were fortified, hidden, entrapped, and made bigger, larger, grander than the last. When the ancient kings began to die, the temple-fortresses became their tombs. They were buried there, along with their vast riches, intending to lie in solitude for all eternity.
At this point, Emily found, the historical details got a bit fuzzy. Somewhere along the line, these grand civilizations took a turn for the worse. Despite their once great power, they could not protect themselves from the corruption within their own ideologies, and a steady decline began. Emily heard stories of ancient slave revolts, attacks from hordes of bandits, and deadly plagues, which all played a hand in bringing down a world that had once thought it could rule over time itself. The end was extravagantly played out by a war waged against beastly creatures called rakshasas that could change their appearance to look like men—Emily thought the stories a bit wild but enjoyable—and at long last, the ancient lords perished, the honor of the Kshatriya faded, and the buried wealth was plundered. Savara’s once lush fields and glorious history were lost to the sands, leaving only dust and legends.
These days, any thug with a handful of armed men could call himself a king. They would enter a village, declare themselves rulers, and demand a tithe for their ‘protection.’ Some thugs had grown quite a consistent network of armed men and had tiny armies, which they used to rule over more than one city. None had managed anything as grand as Lucifan, of course, but they used what power they had to do two things: to draw wealth from the people on their land and to fight off competing marauders who wanted a share of that measly wealth.
In all, it was a land most unfriendly to travelers and residents alike. Emily considered herself warned.
She sought information through direct conversation. This, combined with their recent victory over the leviathan, made some of the pirates a bit too friendly at times. She was young and, if their rum-oiled lips were to be believed, pretty. Often, this led to long conversations that Emily didn’t have much patience for. Rarely, she was compelled to leave. However, none of these conversations compared to an unexpected encounter she had with Damian below decks on the third day after the leviathan hunt.
Damian was one of the last pirates Emily spoke with. He was young, just behind Emily in age, and she believed that of the entire crew—besides Carlito whom she was still avoiding like a hydra—the information he held would be of the least use to her. However, every little bit helped, and so she sought him out. He was pleased to see her, as was expected, and told her what he knew of Savara, which ended up being just a regurgitation of what she’d heard from others. She thanked him for his time and turned to leave.
And that’s when the trouble started.
“Hey!” he called to her back.
“Yes?” she stopped, still facing away.
“So, eh, did you see me out there?” he asked. “On that launch? I stabbed that leviathan good.”
Emily smirked and then turned around. When she said nothing, Damian took that as a sign to continue.
“Yep,” he sighed and stretched his wiry arms, “I gotta tell you; even the oldies said I did real well out there. I think I’m the youngest pirate ever to slay one of them beasts. I dealt the killing blow, you know.”
“Really, Damian? We’re still not past this? Six months later, a few days until I’m gone, and you’re still trying to court me?” she asked.
Damian’s smug look faltered, but didn’t fail. He bounced his eyebrows at her, reveling in the fact that his persistence had been noted. Emily saw that his special level of stubbornness needed another jab.
“Why don’t you just bring me a shell necklace like all the other times?” she asked. “I was just beginning to like those.”
“Really?!” he gawked.
“No.”
He caught himself, slamming his mouth shut against the tide of excitement he’d released. He wasn’t hurt, though. Over the long voyage, Emily had learned that very little got to these pirates. She’d put them down gently the first few months, but that had only encouraged them to try harder. It took her awhile, but she understood now that the only ‘no’ a pirate could hear was a firm one. It was like their heads were permanently filled with saltwater. They were lucky if she included the word ‘please’ in her requests these days.
“Ah, well, that’s okay,” Damian smiled. “I think I finally have you figured out anyway, love.”
“Really?” Emily blinked several, exaggerated times.
“Oh yeah,” he nodded, grinning wider. “See, you ain’t like other lasses. They like pretty things and the sort. A bit of drink, a bit of coin, a nice gem, and they can’t keep away from the charm that is Damian. But you? Ah, I misread you at first, I’ll admit it. I should have known, but you know, old wooing habits can be hard to break. The way I see it, you’re a warrior woman, and that means you want a strong man.”
Emily sighed heavily and put a hand to her forehead. She really didn’t have patience for this.
“Hey now! Don’t you worry!” he said, filling his lungs to push out his chest. “You ain’t gotta sail across the ocean anymore! There ain’t no strong men in Savara. You can stay right here, because I’m that strong man you’ve been wanting.”
As he finished that statement, he drew out his sword: a slightly-curved, one-handed blade called a cutlass. Emily’s inner chuckles instantly went silent. Without hesitation, she bent her knees and drew her own knife, holding it up defensively.
“Damian?” Emily asked nervously. “What are you doing?”
Damian tossed the cutlass from one hand to the other, catching it with slow and clumsy movements. Emily noticed the mark of drink at that moment and swore in her head. It was difficult to know when a pirate was sober, but easy to tell when they’d had too much.
“I just told you, love,” Damian smiled and winked. “I’m going to show you what kind of man I am. Prepare to be WOOED!”
“Damian,” Emily pleaded, “don’t do this.”
Her words fell on deaf ears as Damian cried out and charged. He swung his blade at her, and she jumped back, letting the sharpened metal whip by her to slam into a nearby beam.
“Ha!” he smiled. “I knew you could dodge that! I’ve seen you spar with some of the others. You’re a good fighter, love, and I know you’ll find me worthy!”
“Damian, listen to me,” Emily talked slowly. “One of us is—”
Damian gave a joyful cry and leapt toward Emily. Being on one pirate ship or another his whole life, he’d learned quite well how to defend himself, and he thought himself talented for his age—and perhaps he was. Emily had never fought a young pirate besides Damian, but she had had actual, combative training. She’d been taught amazon techniques, always with a knife or a bow, and had had a brutal teacher who was just as relentless as any pirate.
She found the drunken form of Damian to be hopelessly, and blessedly, outmatched.
Emily parried the cutlass with her thick knife and lashed out with her foot to kick Damian in the stomach. Her blow was solid, sending Damian stumbling back as he clutched his gut.
“Damian,” Emily began.
“Ah ha!” he yelled once more and charged her.
He swung his cutlass in broad arcs meant to use the full strength his mu
scles could bring. Emily dodged those she could and parried those that came too close. She ducked and weaved without hesitation, used to fighting opponents who thought hand-to-hand combat was nothing more than a slugging match. Her eyes rarely blinked, and she kept her attention on her surroundings. As her back came close to another beam, she waited for Damian to take another big swing.
He did, crying out at the same time, and Emily made her move, stepping to the side as Damian swung downwards and letting the blade pass harmlessly by. Then, before he could recover, she grabbed ahold of him and used his forward momentum to slam him up against the wooden column. His head crashed into the wood, and Emily twisted his left arm up behind his back, pinning him with one elbow between his shoulder blades to hold him against the column. With her other hand, she twisted Damian’s arm until he cried out in pain.
“Drop it,” she growled.
The cutlass clattered to the floor.
Just then, she heard the hatch from above bang open and a clatter of footsteps followed. Several pirates, led by Mosley himself, came down and filled the space around them. Mosley had his pistol drawn while the others had an array of more practical weapons. They surrounded Emily and Damian, who both went motionless.
“By the sea, what is going on down here?” Mosley demanded.
“We were just—” Damian started.
“Damian here,” Emily cut him off with a jerk on his arm, “thought he would impress me with swordplay, with naked blades, in the hull, while drunk, without my consent.”
As one, the group of pirates sighed and relaxed. Mosley put his pistol away, and the other pirates sheathed their blades. They shared disgusted and frustrated looks as they began to mosey on back to whatever activity they’d left. The Capitan, though, put his hands on his hips and looked at Damian like a disgruntled parent.