King Tides Curse

by C J Timms

  The cage holding Gale shattered and Titus caught him. Titus helped him stand and lowered Yip from his shoulder to the ground.

  ‘No man should be caged, rule thirty-nine.’ Titus said. Titus fixed his eyes on Red and took off his flannie, tying it around his waist. He flexed his biceps. ‘We take her down together, and then it’s your shout at the pub.'

  'Gale, stand up and fight!' Swan yelled.

  'Runaway children.' Red cursed. 'You don't owe these people anything. They would have burnt you out, toy soldiers in their war. You paid them a fortune for them to break you. Now flee, or I will feed you to the reef.'

  The others looked to Gale. They all hesitated. They all felt it, felt the resentment against the system. They'd all been broken in their own way this year. They'd all walk away if Gale gave the call. He could make sure they were all safe, and all he had to do was look after himself first. He turned his back on Red to face his team.

  ‘Smash an avo!’

  Team Lighthouse surged forwards. Swan and Sterling cut at Red with their blades. Titus tackled her legs, bringing her down. Gale’s harpoon lashed out. It clanged off the red-shell armour which shifted to block the blow. Red screamed, and the force knocked them all back.

  They came at her again, the four of them drove Red backwards to the cliff. Red’s hand reached down to a black pouch at her belt.

  Before she could open it, a primeval roar cut through the siren’s song. Something titanic approached the reality fracture from the Deep realm. An enormous yellow eye leered through the crack. A mountain began to force its way through realities.

  Plates of hardened shell and grim rock slid over one. Contorting as something ancient jammed itself through realities. Rocky tentacles grasped the edges of the fracture and broke it further. The monster slid between dimensions. The tide surged, the ocean displaced by the massive beast which came forwards.

  The front of the monster was a cliff face. Whole ships lodged in the spaces between its rocky barnacle filled shell. Rocky tentacles whipped forward from it.

  Red smiled wickedly and lifted her arms to the air. ‘I didn’t break that reality fracture just for a few sirens. Meet the Vrachos Gorogona, the sailors bane.

  The Siren’s Rock.’

  Gale darted in and twisted the House Cup from her grasp.

  Red roared and knocked the others back with a blood-red blast of water. Blush chased after him with a curse. Gale leapt from the cliffs and fired up the hydro-planer. He surged across the waves towards Ionhome, pushing the Hydroplaner hard, even as it started to make unhealthy noises. Red dived, and the water bloomed crimson, it streaked after Gale.

  ‘What the hell’s he doing, he better have a plan.’ Swan yelled.

  ‘That’s Gale Knott, and you can bet he has a plan.’ Yip said from Titus’s shoulder, hacking and coughing. Then Yip dropped off Titus’s shoulder, some of his wounds slowly healing. ‘Swan, Sterling, take an airship and follow him. He needs backup if he’s going to beat her.’

  ‘Yip I’ve got to follow them.’ Titus said. ‘I must have my mates back.’

  Yip grinned, ‘Oh, don’t worry Titus.’ Yip pointed up at the Vrachos Gorgona. ‘We’re going to take care of that.’

  Titus cracked his knuckles. ‘Shotgun’.

  Sterling/Swan - Airships

  Sterling gripped the wheel tight. The flatbed airship they’d borrowed ploughed through thick plumes of smoke towards Ionhome. Beneath him, Gale surged across the water, dodging red spears. The water flickered with dark shapes, called to hunt.

  The Membranous Cathedral rose in front of him. Bordering the edge of Ionhome, the Cathedral’s sails cloaked the building in shadows, behind it the city burned. A ghostly ship fractured into the air above the Cathedral, an older model, wrecked in battle. The ships outline was translucent as though it was only half there.

  The wrecks of the Titans had sparked fires throughout the city. Pale figures with glowing red eyes ran through the streets, with jerking movements, swarming over citizens. Through smoke and flame, Sterling saw the pale figures swarming in one direction, towards the Cathedral. He spat to the side and glanced at Swan. Swan just nodded onward, one problem at a time.

  The airship flew down over the walls of the city, hovering above the Cathedral’s harbour. Freshwater and saltwater ponds interlocked beneath Sterling, like honeycombs in a hive. Gale and Red erupted from the water, weapons clanging in mid-air and then skidded along the surface of the harbour. Something red flashed out from Blush, diving into the water and the water bloomed crimson. Sterling tasted salt and blood even this high up.

  A pack of skyfish shot from the water, corkscrewing through the air towards their airship. The skyfish splatted onto the hull like flies on a windscreen. Then Sterling felt the ship sag downwards, the weight of the skyfish too much. The airship fell, and Swan leapt from the side. Sterling abandoned ship and leapt out to grab one of the Cathedral’s billowing polymer sails. He jammed his dagger into it and skated down the side. Another sail flared in the wind, this one horizontal, and he leapt for safety. This sail was sturdy and able to bear his weight. He pumped script through his feet and ran across the sail at a near-vertical angle. Skyfish swarmed him, their paralysing barbs whipping out.

  He cut through the sail beneath him and dropped down. He caught himself on the edge and swung towards another. He tumbled down towards the desalination harbour. He pushed script from his legs, aiming for creaking metal columns that loomed from the water like jagged teeth.

  He flumped onto a metal column, leaving an imprint of himself on the Cathedral. Finally, he was making his mark on the world.

  A clawed hand grabbed onto the column. A jaw filled with razor teeth and cold, dead eyes followed it. A pack of longfins emerged from the water. Sharkmen, they had the legs and arms of a man but the head of a shark.

  ‘Oh come on…’ Sterling leapt to standing, all those burpees hadn’t been for nothing. He swung wildly, and his soot-stained blade took a slice out of a longfin. The longfin’s jaws snapped at him, its breath rank. He kicked the beast back into the water, his strike cracked cartilage. Sterling turned to another and punched it in the nose. It staggered back.

  ‘Huh didn’t think that would work,’ Sterling said. ‘I guess I owe Titus twenty bucks.’

  His back erupted in burning pain, then a soothing numbness. He reached behind him and ripped a vampiric squid from his shoulder. The tuberous leech-like creature had burrowed right through his light armour. Sterling pushed a surge of raw script into it, igniting the bastard. The squid shrivelled up, Sterling's stolen blood spurting out of it. Little frakker would have bled him dry.

  Sterling’s lungs were on fire and his muscles heavy. They’d been exhausted at the end of the match, and his reserves were tapped. The soot-stained sword now became a terrible weight in his hand. A rush of yeti-crabs swarmed the platform, drawn to his wounds. Their claws were extended to the sky, like worshippers, demanding his blood sacrifice. Clacking claws made a horrible symphony through the acoustics of the Cathedral.

  ‘Come on you fuckers, It's a good day for California rolls,’ Sterling roared. He swung his blade in a wide circle with as much script roaring along his arms as he could. The yeti-crabs were knocked backwards around him in a ring.

  He took ragged gasps as the last of the sunlight slipped below the horizon, a faint corona outlining him like a flame. He became a beacon in the darkness, and the deep surrounded him, he was a rock in the ocean refusing to be worn down by the tide. The soot on his blade had faded as the blood of his foes washed it clean. Something shone through in one patch…silver?

  He hoped Swan was doing better than him.

  Swan hoped Sterling was doing better than she was. The viscous jelly of the skyfish coated the slagblade. Red welts and lacerations had erupted across her arms. Their numbing effect was breaking through even her Locomotyr enhanced constitution. The skyfish kept coming, their corkscrewing limbs taking the wind and creating a horrible wailing. Her arms were exposed
as her activewear was shredded.

  Had activewear failed her?

  No, that was ridiculous.

  She’d abandoned ship with Sterling and fallen with grace onto this pedestal, using locomotive force to slow her fall. The pedestal, normally used for speeches, got her today. She’d seen Sterling’s acrobatic and that was really for pretty boys. Direct and to the point was the way to go. That was how she’d landed and cracked the surface of this five-metre radius pedestal.

  The skyfish just kept coming, and she sent a locomotive blast at a pack that got too close. Frak, she was running low. She would not burn out. Her father would never let her hear the end of it. Family Christmas would be unbearable.

  Sterling leapt from another pedestal like a reef-damned gymnast and tumbled onto hers. Had he had lessons in parkour? He came to a battle stance beside her, his perfectly maintained hair fixed in place with industrial quantities of hair gel. He looked good in combat. She was not jealous.

  Sterling put his back to Swan’s, the Skyfish swarming around them. Their sheer number was making them look like a school of tropical fish, impossible to pick out one target.

  ‘Good driving dickhead,’ Swan said, nodding to the crashed but possibly functional airship.

  Sterling grinned ‘One crash each, I’d call that even.’

  The pack of skyfish pulsed, like a heartbeat. They scattered, called elsewhere. Swan cocked an eyebrow.

  A glowing red hand grabbed the edge of the platform ahead of them. Something dragged itself onto the stage, a hulking red monstrosity, a longfin, ten-feet tall. Its mouth opened wide, filled with triangular rows of teeth and stared Swan down.

  Crabs the size of Swan’s torso scuttled up behind him, their arms wreathed in fur down to two wicked-looking claws. They had no visible eyes, but their hair stood on end out as though seeking a target. Swan caught a flash of white light from the corner of her eye. A squid, the size of her head, leapt from the water. She cut it down, noting wicked, vampiric looking needles on its tentacles. Phosphorescent bulbs dotted its length.

  ‘Longfins, yeti-crabs and vampire squids. This, this, is why I never hang out with my roommates girlfriends.’ Sterling cursed.

  Sterling speared a squid with his soot-stained sword. Swan swept outwards with a wave of locomotive force, blasting the crabs backward. She put her middle finger up at the red longfin. Frak that guy. The longfin snorted then charged across the pillar footsteps shaking the ground as it came.

  Red spectral blades erupted from its forearms. It sliced down at Sterling who pulled his blades up to block. The blow knocked him sideways, tumbling across the pedestal.

  Swan brought the Slagblade up, and two red blades clanged off it. She was pushed back, but kept her feet. She snorted and heaved, blasting locomotive force through her blade.

  The longfin didn’t budge.

  The longfin grinned, and its head snapped forward to bite her. A mass of teeth opened wide, ready to swallow her.

  Sterling rolled along the ground catching himself on the edge of the pedestal. He hung from the edge, staring down at the feeding frenzy below. More yeti-crabs and vampire squids started to climb the pillar. That way was death.

  A mighty crack came from the theater, and a statue of Canute toppled. Frak, was that Gale. They needed all of them together to fight this, to kill the queen. They had to get rid of Red and here he was fighting a bunch of crabs like a schmuck

  Sterling looked back at the water, and the path was clear. The skyfish had swarmed towards the arena, towards Gale and Blush. They’d swarmed towards the fight that would change the course of history, towards the battle that would save, or cause, a Worldflood.

  Swan was being pressed backwards by the longfin. They had no hope of beating it, this monster from the abyss. They couldn’t win here. They’d die cold and alone as history was written elsewhere. This fight was lost…but maybe he could still help Gale. Yet he couldn’t abandon Swan. The longfin opened its jaws to bite Swan’s face off.

  Time slowed down.

  He turned from Swan, fallen, to the amphitheatre lighting up. He looked down to his hands where a strip of flannelette still bandaged his wound. Gritting his teeth, he made the hard choice.

  He turned to face his destiny.

  The longfin's jaws opened wide and bit down.

  Clang.

  Sterling stood above Swan, holding back the weight of the longfin. Sterling grinned through his muscles, shook. ‘Go and help Gale. This is my page in history. Don’t be a glory hog.’

  Swan stared back, Sterling, his face deep in concentration, hurled the longfin backwards. His designer clothing cut to shreds, smoke and ash had coloured everything a dull grey. A stoic grey. A grey unyielding.

  ‘This look is good on you.’ Swan said.

  Sterling winked at her. ‘I abandoned you before, if I pull this off, let's call it even. Now RUN!’

  Swan nodded and charged across the pedestal leaping for the next one. She looked towards the amphitheatre where light danced, and weapons crashed. It was time to put some fear in to Red.

  She was no dainty Swan.

  Sterling swept out with his blade clearing a path for Swan. She leapt across the pedestals, clear of the swarm and he let his grin sag. His sword slip downwards, heavy in his hands. He was not the thinker of the group.

  The huge longfin, close to twice his size faced him. A blood-red light seeped outward from a torso armoured with scale. The longfins blades were curved on one side and straight down the other, like a sharks tooth. It eyed him off, and the other creatures of the Deep retreated.

  ‘You fight well, shore-hatched but you will not stop the hunt. I will honour you by eating you myself.’

  ‘What are you?’ Stirling rasped out in between ragged breaths.

  ‘I am the focus of Blush’s power. I am her Tempest. The blood that falls in the ocean after a naval battle, the churned waters of a feeding frenzy, the red foam that washes the shore to mark the death of man. You short man can call me Makos.’

  ‘Makos…shorter is better.’ Sterling said.

  The beast cocked his head, sniffing the air. Keep the creature talking, Sterling thought, frak he was out of shape. Maybe he should cut out carbs. Or add more in. Fasted cardio was hot at the moment. Frak, he was delirious. Come on Sterlo, finish the witty line you came up with.

  ‘Shorter is better because I’m not putting all that on your tombstone.’

  Sterling rushed Makos and swung his soot-stained blade up in his right hand. Makos batted aside the underhanded swing. Sterling’s left hand darted forward with all the script he could muster and thrust along his arm. He struck Makos in the chest. Makos struck him back with one hand, and Sterling went tumbling across the platform. Knocked almost to the ring of yeti-crabs who snapped at his heels.

  He pushed himself to his knees. In the dark, he saw Swan caught in a swarm of vampire squids. The water below them churned with an unending pack of Deep beasts. He grimaced. This was pointless if one of them didn’t get through to help Gale.

  Wait, since when had he been able to see this well in the dark? No matter, he knew what he had to do.

  Sterling drew his blade across the palm and made a fist. He held up the weeping fist to the sky. Makos, the yeti-crabs, the squids. Everything turned to watch the blood flow down his arm.

  ‘Time to make history, not just record it.’

  Sterling leapt from the pedestal, diving into the water.

  Gale - Cathedral

  Gale charged through the Cathedral. He skidded to a halt in front of two massive doors framed by ancient statues of King Canute. Come on, Gale thought, it was right here during the entrance exam. What, had they decided to do reno's? Had he turned the wrong way?

  Red launched herself from overhead and brought her trident down. He turned it with his harpoon. They collided, burst through the massive double doors and tumbled into the open amphitheatre, the internal desalination harbour in front of them. A long walkway extended out onto a pulpit built o
n a rising stone rock formation. Statues of past kings and nobles backed the crescent of the amphitheatre facing the harbour. Their famous proverbs carved beneath them and reflected in stained glass windows behind them. A half-dome roof stretched over the desalination harbour like a half-opened oyster. Ocean water pumped through a filter that sparked with energy.

  ‘I tire of this.’ Red said and snapped her fingers. Reality cracked in the air above the harbour.

  Like a broken mirror, images smashed into one another above the harbour. The air above the Cathedral. A crashing ocean with a ghostly airship. An island of Volkstorm with the back half of a ship. There was someone on the ship. Tied to the ship's mast, over a pile of broken timbers, guarded by fathomless, was a figure.

  Knocked out, pale and drained of energy. She hung limp from the mast, hands outstretched. He would still recognise her anywhere.

  It was Ash.

  Ash who’d always had his back. Ash who’d only been trying to seal the fractures under the Frisbee match. Ash who he’d accused of being the Blood Knight

  Frak, he’d been a muppet.

  ‘How?’ Gale asked. How had Red created a multi fracture like a growth plate? Multiple realms cracked along the same seam? Red shuddered, and a drop of blood ran from her nose to her lip. She licked it off with her tongue, slowly, savoured the taste.

  ‘The Arghost…it all comes back to this Gale. The sins of the father.’

  Gale levelled his harpoon. ‘What do you know about my father.’

  Blush stretched out her hands above her head, reaching for the fracture, basking in its aura.

  ‘Everything.’

  Red strode towards him. ‘Your father took everything from me, from my family. So now I’m going to take it all from him.’

  Red clicked her fingers again. A flame sprung up on the Arghost, a pyre lit beneath Ash. Ash coughed from the smoke. She was still there, and he could still save her. This he could do, this was so much more important than the rest of this bullshit. Frak his family, frak this conspiracy, frak passing his degree.