The Larion Senators

by Rob Scott; Jay Gordon

  She listened. There was another back there, a man, breathing in slow, barely audible sniffs through his nose.

  Him she would take last.

  The rest would be easy.

  She would deploy a team of scouts below to locate hidden defences, weapons or magic she hadn’t sensed while she dispatched the woman at the helm and the rickety sentry in the bow. She pinched one of her fingernails, a barbed talon, and wrenched it off. The pain was immediate and excruciating, and the tan-bak whined, biting back a scream. She had been too loud. She froze in place, listening for the woman or the forward watch.

  At the helm, Sera cocked an ear towards the starboard rail and peered into the half-light. She waited, but heard nothing more. She made a mental note to warn Captain Ford that something might be coming loose somewhere below the scuppers.

  Oily black blood from the torn finger dripped into the water and a moment later, the first of her assistants pushed through the meaty flesh, and crawled, trailing a length of sticky afterbirth, onto the brig-sloop’s hull. Two more followed, then the tan-bak replaced her talon. The soft sucking sound as it reattached was lost in the wash of wind and water. The huntress gestured to her scouts and watched as three tiny spider-beetles, their exoskeletons black with demon blood, scuttled over the rail and crept across the main deck, searching for the cracks Captain Ford had meant to fill with tar just as soon as he and the Morning Star’s crew returned to Southport.

  Before the evening’s attack had ended, one of the tan-bak’s scouts was dead, crushed underfoot. Another found a berth and a folded blanket, where it waited. The third, the most fortunate, had dropped through a hatch onto someone’s shoulder, crawled under a forest of flaxen hair and, undetected, inserted itself into the twisting canal of a sleeping partisan’s ear. An irritated scratch and a shift of the pillows was all the resistance the creature encountered.

  Now the tan-bak, matching the ship’s colour and texture perfectly, rubbed a healthy talon over the grainy wood. She straddled the gunwale and leaped into the rigging like a fugitive shadow, looked around and chose her target, then sprouted a mouthful of fangs and dived into the night.

  Sera struggled to stay awake. Run downwind had been Captain Ford’s final order an aven earlier; that had been his only order for days now: push north for the archipelago. Tubbs was in the bow, also standing the middle watch. The fire in the watch brazier winked periodically; so she knew he was still moving about, still awake. When the old sailor caught a whiff of her Pragan tobacco – she had no use for fancy Falkan leaves – he would wander back, purloin a pinch and then retake his position between the catheads. The two had stood the middle watch together for more Twinmoons than Sera could recall.

  She was waiting for him to join her for a smoke when the tan-bak struck. The creature plunged a clawed fist wrist-deep into her chest and Sera, neither shouting nor releasing the wheel, looked down in amazement, as if witnessing a marvel of ancient magic. Her eyes, half-closed against the cold and wind, flew open as her jaw clamped shut, biting straight through the hand-carved pipe.

  A yellowed tooth distracted the tan-bak, who tapped at it with a claw, thinking it might be a piece of something Sera had been chewing, or perhaps even one of the insect scouts, far out of position. With her hand still buried inside the woman’s chest, the tan-bak plucked Sera’s fingers from the Morning Star’s wheel, leaped back to the starboard rail and dumped the yellow-toothed woman over the side.

  She heard the man approach before she saw him; his knees and ankles were so noisy, it was a wonder the old man could still get himself around the deck.

  When Tubbs reached the quarterdeck, he found the wheel abandoned and the little ship beginning to spin with the wind and the current. He turned a quick circle. He couldn’t call for Sera – Captain Ford had a special connection with the brig-sloop; like many captains, his sense of the Morning Star went beyond the merely tactile and he could sense the tug in a line, the draw on a sheet, the pressure against a plank in the hull, as if the ship was a living, breathing thing. If he called out, Tubbs knew Captain Ford would be dressed and on deck in two breaths. Instead, the old mariner took the helm, steadied it – changes in course were enough to keep Ford awake for a Moon – and continued his silent search for the ship’s navigator.

  *

  The tan-bak was thrilled with the acrobatics she was able to perform on the shifting vessel. She dived from the shrouds, touched down on the rail, leaped for the main spar and tumbled out of the darkness to tear Tubbs’s throat out with one vicious swipe. Before his body struck the deck she was on him, feeding. The blood was warm and salty, delicious, but the meat – ah, that was something inhabitants of the Fold dreamed about. And inside the Fold, there was ample time for dreaming.

  The captain stirred. It didn’t take much to wake him. He sat up and strained to hear anything out of the ordinary. A wave lifted the Morning Star … it wasn’t right. He had left orders for Sera to keep the old ship running before the wind and from the way his cabin rolled over that last swell, he could feel that they were at least a few points off their tailwind.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked the empty cabin. ‘Why is my boat running sideways through the water? Is that odd to anyone but me?’ He lit a candle in a hurricane glass and dressed quickly, then picked up the lantern and hurried into the companionway.

  Steven bumped his head against the bulkhead. He rolled over, fluffed up the blanket he had folded into a pillow and drifted back to sleep.

  When another wave rolled him into the wall, he sat up, careful not to knock himself senseless on the berth above. He yawned and tried to stand when a third swell rolled him back into his berth.

  ‘Christ, who’s driving this thing?’ he muttered, finally rolling free of his tangled blankets.

  ‘Ssh,’ a voice whispered.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Steven said, lighting the lantern beside the bed with a thought. ‘Gilmour? What’s wrong? It feels like we’re going over in these waves.’

  The Larion sorcerer was crouched near cabin door. In the lamplight, his face was pale. ‘I want you to stay here,’ he whispered.

  ‘Why? What is it?’

  ‘I’ll handle it,’ he said firmly.

  ‘No,’ Steven insisted, ‘we’ll do it together, like everything else. You can’t just leave me in the car like a first-grader. Is it Mark?’

  ‘Not Mark,’ Gilmour said. ‘I’m worried that the watch are already dead.’

  ‘What?’ Steven’s voice rose. ‘Jesus, Gilmour, let’s go – what are we waiting for?’ He pushed past, tugged the door open and stepped into the companionway.

  ‘Steven, please!’ Gilmour hissed, but Steven was already halfway to the deck when the magic roared to life with such force he nearly lost his balance.

  The phantom white shrouds, the black spider-web rigging and the masts scraping the night sky all melted into a watery curtain dangling from an overhead spar. He watched a rolling, tumbling cloud of red and black pass over his vision, and then everything was waxy, slippery and insubstantial.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Steven said, ‘what’s out here?’ He tensed for whatever might be haunting the foredeck. In the distance, near the helm, the blurry backdrop was broken by a flickering candle, protected somehow from the wind. He guessed the light represented whatever had Gilmour so frightened. Ducking low, he crept silently astern.

  The tan-bak didn’t wait for the newcomer to reach the quarterdeck. She was surprised that anyone had sensed her arrival and understood there would be no time for her scouts to report back. No matter; they knew what to do in the event that they were unable to rejoin their mistress. Peering down from a topgallant spar, she chewed on a lump of the old man with the noisy joints. She flattened her back teeth to grind sinew and fat into masticated mush, then gave herself a makeshift oesophagus, just for the sheer thrill of feeling the meat pass down her throat. She bored a ragged flap-covered nostril in the centre of her face and inhaled with each bite; it was tastier with a bit of sea air.
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  When the two men appeared, the tan-bak wrapped a footrope around what was left of her meal, storing it for afterwards, then, diving for the topsail, she used the billowy sheet as a springboard to catapult herself into the fight. One of the newcomers looked young. Curious about the difference in flavour, the tan-bak decided to eat him too.

  ‘Up there!’ Steven screamed, an instinctive response to a half-glimpsed dark patch, a quick-moving blur that was somehow out of place. He lashed out with whatever he found on his fingertips, a wild, roundhouse punch.

  The tan-bak had never been hit by anything before. The pain as the young man’s magic ripped into her chest was wonderful. Thrown backwards over the stern, she careened in ungainly tumbles, splashed down and started to drown. The huntress willed her lungs closed, recalled her gills and webbing and swam in powerful lunging strokes after the fleeing ship.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ Steven asked, shaking. ‘Jesus, it just came out of the night. I thought we were—’ He stopped; Gilmour was gone. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘where are you?’

  ‘I’m in here,’ Gilmour called from the companionway. Steven could hear Garec and the others inside. He wasn’t surprised when the bowman appeared, armed and ready.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Garec asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Steven said. ‘There was something, but it’s gone. Gilmour? What’re you doing? I thought you were— Yikes! What happened to you?’

  Gilmour’s nose was bleeding and he had a cut above his right eye. His left was closed and he was pressing against it with one hand.

  ‘Christ, are you all right?’ Steven helped him up. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You did.’ Gilmour spat a mouthful of blood and a tooth onto the deck. He retrieved the tooth and held it up to his good eye. ‘Ah, rutters. I need these teeth to last.’ He turned to Steven. ‘That was quite a shot you gave her.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Steven flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to clobber you too.’

  ‘No worries, no worries,’ Gilmour said. ‘I’m glad you did it. She would have killed us both in a heartbeat. Come, we need to check on the others.’

  Steven, Garec and Gilmour, now with Kellin and Brexan in tow, came nose to kneecaps with Captain Ford, who looked pale and frightened.

  ‘Sera’s missing,’ he said, ‘and I’ve found what’s left of Tubbs.’

  Gilmour sniffed at the air, then shouted, ‘Everyone, get below, quickly!’ He pushed Kellin, Brexan and Garec towards the corridor.

  Garec resisted, saying, ‘I can help. What is this?’

  ‘She’s nothing you’ll even be able to see,’ Gilmour said, trying to explain, ‘and we don’t have the time right now. Please, just get below and close that hatch. You too, Captain.’

  ‘I’ll give the orders on my ship,’ he said forcefully as Gilmour tried to push him away.

  ‘Captain Ford, I can promise you that you’ll be as dead as Tubbs and Sera if you don’t get below,’ Gilmour cried. ‘Just get back to your cabin and block the door – quickly!’

  Marrin and Kanthil appeared through a forward hatch, asking, ‘Captain? What can we do, sir?’

  Gilmour whirled on the two sailors. ‘Rutting gods, but is everyone on this damned tub awake?’

  ‘So it seems,’ the captain said wryly, trying to remain calm.

  ‘Captain Ford, there is a monster, a starving otherworldly killer, haunting your ship right this moment. Now get below!’ Gilmour ordered, ‘and you two as well.’ He waved a dismissive hand at Marrin and Kanthil, but neither moved; they didn’t take orders from passengers.

  Marrin said again, ‘Captain?’

  Ford sighed. ‘Get below, and secure that hatch. I’ll be at the helm. We’ll find Sera, and we’ll need to give Tubbs his rites. He’s a rutting mess, and I don’t want—’

  He was cut off by a hiss, sharp and unnerving, from somewhere in the rigging.

  ‘There!’ Garec shouted, already firing.

  ‘Do you see it?’ Marrin shouted.

  ‘No,’ Garec said, still shooting. ‘I heard it, out on the end of that crossbar, above the main sheet.’

  ‘I see it,’ Steven said, his voice toneless and flat. The magic was with him again. ‘Get below. Everyone. You too, Gilmour. I’ll do this by myself.’

  The tan-bak dived for the deck; Steven lunged for the place he guessed the monster might land, but he wasn’t quick enough: as the creature touched down, it lashed at him with a clawed finger, opening a bloody slit across his shoulder.

  ‘Motherless son-of-a-bitch!’ Steven shouted, rolling to the deck and blasting at the shadowy figure as it leaped from the starboard gunwale to the bowsprit to the topmain and then back to the deck. It was like a madman’s carnival shooting gallery where the ducks, pigs and chickens all moved as unpredictably as lightning – and fired back. ‘Get down!’ Steven cried. ‘Get your heads down, now!’

  Garec had an arrow trained into the rigging, but he didn’t fire – Gilmour had been right: it was too fast, too well-hidden. Running amidships, Steven cast a handful of fireballs into the night, illuminating the Morning Star as if it were midday.

  How do you catch a shadow? he thought. How can I kill a shadow? You can’t kill a shadow … No, we can’t kill it; we mustn’t!

  Garec was behind him. ‘There it is.’ His bowstring thunked twice; twin shafts arched into the night.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ Gilmour said, rearing back for a thunderous blast.

  Steven skidded to a stop and shouted, ‘No, Gilmour, don’t!’

  His arms raised, the magic ablaze on his fingertips, Gilmour stared at his young apprentice.

  ‘Don’t! We have to keep it alive!’ Steven cried. ‘It’s the only way to avoid him sending another, a frigging brigade of them. If you fire back, he’ll know, and then … look out!’

  The shadow dived. Gilmour ducked as the creature passed over his head and slashed open Kanthil’s throat, then punctured ragged clawmarks down Marrin’s chest.

  Steven sent a volley after it, catching the creature’s flank and sending it tumbling over the bowsprit into the sea. Ford rushed to his fallen men; a muffled curse confirmed that Kanthil lay dead.

  It flies, it leaps around and swims like a fish. But just now it didn’t have fins, gills or a tail. What can do that? How can it do all those things? Steven waited beneath the mainmast, ready to parry another attack; he hadn’t killed it.

  Gilmour said quietly, ‘We can’t capture it.’

  ‘True, but if we kill it, or if you start blasting away, Mark will know he sank the wrong ship this morning. There’s no way a navy crew could deal with that… whatever it is.’

  ‘He must know already,’ Gilmour said, keeping a wary eye out for their hunter. ‘Why else would he have sent her?’

  ‘Just to be sure,’ Steven said. ‘He showed us this morning how he would deal with our ship. The sea opened and swallowed them, right down to the frigging nuts. This thing … this is some kind of sick entertainment for him. If we kill it, he’ll send us to the bottom for sure.’

  Gilmour sighed. ‘So I’m convinced, but what are we going to do?’

  Steven ignored him, staring at a spot just starboard of the bowsprit, a plank in the weatherbeaten gunwale that had come into focus, separating itself from the blurry backdrop. It flies, swims and jumps around like Olga Korbut. What flies, swims and leaps around like that? An insect? What can do all that?

  ‘Steven,’ Gilmour asked again, ‘how do we capture it?’

  ‘We don’t,’ Steven said, standing in the bow, ignoring Marrin’s curses and Kanthil’s corpse. ‘I do.’

  With another piercing hiss, the tan-bak burst from the sea, dragging a frothy trail of salt water like a rogue comet. Landing nimbly on the gunwale, her feet, webbed for swimming, transmogrified into clawed toes. She took Steven by the throat, gripping his neck with a thickly webbed paw.

  ‘Perfect,’ Steven choked.

  The creature’s head changed. Gill flaps, opening and closing with the breeze, folded flu
sh and disappeared; a primitive nostril beneath a flap of slippery skin perforated the monster’s face. Steven cringed when he smelled its breath, the aroma of old death, rotting corpses and disease. Bulbous black eyes rolled back, irritated by the brilliant false dawn, and when they reappeared they were gimlet, still bulging, but with smaller, almost human pupils. Finally the hand around Steven’s throat began to morph. Talons grew as bones hardened and webbing dissolved.

  So that’s how you do it.

  The monster hissed directly into Steven’s face, taunting him for being stupid enough to come searching over the rail. Rows of needle-sharp spiny teeth flattened into molars, leaving it with an evolved mouthful of ripping and crushing jaws. It hissed again, its fist closing tighter around Steven’s throat.

  When the talons broke his skin, Steven struck with a fiery current. ‘No you don’t,’ he said, grabbing the demon’s wrist. ‘I just needed you to stand still for a second – and now you’re fucked.’

  Paralysed, the tan-bak gaped, unable to kill the annoying creature and unable to break free. It couldn’t change form, or breathe, nor could it summon the strength or the speed to retaliate. The tan-bak, one of the most dangerous and powerful creatures to haunt the Fold, was frozen in space and time – two of its favourite killing fields.

  Gilmour had been watching. ‘You all right?’ he asked, sounding strained.

  ‘Fine, you?’

  ‘I’m afraid we lost Kanthil.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Steven said. ‘It took me a bit of time to come up with this.’

  ‘How are you holding her still like that?’

  ‘Remember the almor, and how surprised I was that a demon would be made of actual, physical flesh? I was gambling that this thing would be the same. I figured that unless Mark dropped this sonofabitch right on the deck, it either flew here or swam here – but I don’t see any fins, feathers or gills on it now, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Gilmour said, peering more closely at the demon.

  ‘Exactly,’ Steven went on. ‘So judging from the way it was leaping about, and from how quickly it caught up with us after I kicked it off the ship, I guessed it must have some way of adjusting to its environment, and doing it in a hurry.’ The monster was limp in Steven’s hand. ‘By the way, why do you keep calling it her?’