THE TRYPHON ODYSSEY (The Voyage Book 1)

by S. D. Howarth

  "No idea. Until it blows out, or we clear it." He stared outward, unable to see anything beyond the rain. The eerie light lit up their faces as he hung white-knuckled onto the tiller. Looking at her, he regretted his pithy remark. She looked petrified. He clasped her cold, water-wrinkled hand in his bad one and whispered, "We'll do everything we can to get through this. We can endure it." The words sounded shit—even to him, but what else could he say?

  "I know." She said, near inaudible over the wind, making him strain to catch the words, and squeezed his hand. Carla looked at her father, huddled under a waterlogged woollen blanket with rain pattering in huge droplets. Dread danced across her face. "I fear he has little time left. He has never awakened and feels as cold as ice."

  Van Reiver heard her despair, but he stalled on what to say, failing to produce beyond nonsensical platitudes. Out here, what use would they be? Having failed at being a counsel for her, he gave a weak smile and squeezed her hand back. After a moment, the tiller jerked from his grip, forcing him to grapple with both hands. Agony flared as Robsin's stitches strained and tore. He closed his eyes, mouth popping open in a howl lost in a bell-like chime of thunder.

  In the flash following the thunderous boom, Grimm pointed at himself, then the tiller. Van Reiver shook his head, teeth chattering. He gambled and jabbed a finger at Grimm's foot. Grimm threw his arms up and waved to Brak to catch his attention and stabbed at the tiller. Van Reiver wrestled frantically with the tiller arm as though it was trying to kill him. He wanted to rebuke Grimm, but words fled as he clung on, fingers white. Grip slipping.

  Brak grinned and placed a tattooed hand behind Van Reiver's numbed fingers. He took the strain despite Van Reiver seeing the missing the tip of a little finger and cuts across the seaman's knuckles. Invigorated, the sea surged against the hull, testing their strength and pressing Dagmar's skill, teasing, testing, probing.

  Long minutes later, Van Reiver capitulated to Grimm's glare and shelved his folly. He patted Brak as sensation returned to chilled fingers. The navigator huddled, feet pressed against the boat's ribs, and wedged his good shoulder against the side planking. He sat in silent misery, jostled against Carla with the recrimination he could have doomed them all.

  The motion became worse, as the sky flared with more lightning and thunder to crash and roll overhead. Despite the conditions, Carla leaned back against Van Reiver, one chilly hand on his under her blanket and her other exposed to the elements around her father. Without knowing her status, he'd underestimated her determination and resolve. His respect grew at her stoicism and he hoped he could be as resolute.

  .*.*.

  The atrocious conditions surged and seethed. Terror bloomed when sliding across mountainous waves, towering and undulating in menace beside their tiny boats. The men developed a gut-churning routine between bailing and checking the thrumming stays and lashings. Then changing positions to alternate those exposed to sheets of chill spray. Others checked the injured were covered and secure, or when glancing aft to Van Reiver, spelling Brak on the tiller.

  Dagmar. was the man unmoving. He hunched over his crystal with hands clenched on the bronze controls as though praying. Rain and sleet barraged the glass over his head and made him thankful for the shelter. Most pattered into men too numb to care, yet every few swirls sent a savage gust through the opening to soak him. The heat from the crystal was just enough to contrast the iciness of his spine.

  Van Reiver didn't allow a lookout. It was too dangerous with the spray sheeting from all sides and the lethal corkscrewing of the boats. It was on him and Dagmar spent as much time throwing furtive glances through the canopy as he spent on the controls. He considered scrying again, to see how far they had to go, but he daren't risk it. It would be too easy to broach. Rolling them over was only half the danger. Dagmar hoped the flashing tendrils of energy would miss and their boat not act as a loadstone. A near miss would obliterate the canopy and kill everyone if the stored arcane energies detonated. At least it would be quick, he consoled himself as he shivered. He wiped the fogging from the gem-glass, as though being able to see would make a difference.

  25

  By dawn the following morning, the lightning and thunder had abated, but swirling winds, dense clouds and constant rain showers kept them company. Kept them miserable. Van Reiver spelled Brak on the tiller, to give the blunt-faced seamen a respite. Hunched like an old man, Brak napped, bundled in a charred blanket to fend off the drizzle. Van Reiver glanced over the bows, trying to judge the seas when they weren't pointing skywards at sullen grey porcine clouds. His belly rumbled and suggested thinking of food wasn't a suitable topic.

  Carla's father sprawled over her lap; her arms tight around the old man. She'd sunk against Van Reiver's side, giving him navigator backache. He shifted, as his stomach rumbled a second protest, and he attempted to rest his bad arm along the upper strake to ease the stabbing muscular throb.

  Looking opposite, Grimm and Merizus slumped together like two half-submerged rocks with the remaining off-cut of battle flag across their laps, unyielding against whatever nature hurled at them. They must be exhausted, Van Reiver thought, watching the slow, regular rise and fall of their chests. They'd shouldered the bulk of the work of managing the crew, or lending muscles, heedless of their injuries.

  Endurance, however, was not boundless. Limits had been exceeded in a storm to tax any human, strain anyone, leave the tired and injured despairing. They'd exceeded what was bearable long ago, their souls searched and anguish weathered. Both men weren't napping, Van Reiver mused. They produced thunderous snores that earned many a sour look, part jealousy, part annoyance. He was in the first camp, feeling too sore and exhausted to do much but let his head droop and jolt awake. That hurt his shoulder, annoyed his back and allowed his stomach to point out it was gagging for a meal. Suffering seemed never ending.

  The only other crewmen awake were Trevir, standing lookout when not dodging waves sloshing over them, and Harcux with one arm on the rudimentary mast, the other flinging water overboard with Merizus's helm. Despite prodigious efforts, four inches of vomit-stained water sloshed over the duckboards. It made Van Reiver ill looking at it, but glancing around at his men, he couldn't wake them while they snatched a few moments of precious rest.

  Harcux had no such compunction. He stretched out a huge sodden foot, calculated the pitching of their boat, then prodded Seaman Lang. The man opened his red-rimmed eyes with characteristic bad grace, but looked toward the big man's pointing finger.

  With a profound sigh, Lang reached for a large wooden breaker with the triple leather bands bobbing between his feet. The lower band of pale leather was peeling as the fish glue degraded. The sailor flipped open the oversized wooden lid and scooped. Stored aboard the boats, they were used to consume water, rather than discard it.

  The irony was not lost on the two men. Harcux gave him the thumbs up, before scooping the helm down, up and over, then back. Van Reiver glanced at the other boat where at one end Jenkans leaned on the small ballista as though asleep and nearby Cephill snored on the tiller bar.

  Van Reiver wasn't paying attention when he glanced across, but something drew his eye back and he saw Jenkans stiffen and stab out an arm.

  "Rogue wave!"

  Van Reiver glimpsed it when the boats lurched across one spectacular crest in a jarring jostle, then plunged down another huge roller.

  "Wake Dagmar now!" Van Reiver roared. He jabbed ahead with his bad arm and ignited a molten lance of pain through his chest. A frisson of terror stifled further speech, rendering him immobile.

  With a gulp visible from aft, Harcux snatched a glance and booted Dagmar unceremoniously in the side.

  Dagmar lolled against the mounting, the night having taken its toll. Lurching awake, the sunjammer slammed his head on the canopy then glared at Harcux, eyes blazing in a face white with fury. Harcux swayed on the shroud one handed and jabbed a thick wrinkled finger ahead.

  .*.*.

  Dagmar's mind f
lared, dragged back to consciousness by self-preservation hoisting him up by the balls. Terror slid icily down his back, gripping his insides in a crushing embrace, stifling action and thought. He stared frozen at the approaching blackness of the towering cliff of rising water, turning the orange sea an ominous sickly colour in its shadow.

  He saw immediately what the others missed. The dreaded storm front trailed the wave, poised to pounce. His mind almost tumbled into madness as his outlandish dream swam into focus. He grimaced at fate's macabre jest. The motherfucker of all jests. He'd asked for a nice pair of tits, not the doom of ancient Atlantis to embrace him.

  "May the seven gods save us!" Petrification fled when adrenaline surged through him, so strong it was choking. Dagmar fumbled up the brass cover he'd slept upon and hurled the residual power to raise their bows. He thrust the power down below his feet to force the stems outlandishly clear of the water. It occurred so, so slowly, as though he was using his back and not the mystic arts. In desperation, Dagmar thrust the sterns down and the boats forward, seeking to use their mass for his gain.

  Inch by tortured inch, the bows clawed skywards, scrabbling upwards, raining water rivulets over the plating as they slowed. Everything rattled as they slid towards the trough preceding the wave within a swirling, billowing canopy of water. It erupted over them as dark as inside a coffin. Dagmar could feel the crystal vibrate beneath his hand. Hot and stinging, as though alive and struggling to do as he bid.

  He knew it was not enough. Nothing would be and the slide backwards became faster, almost beyond control as the forrard half of the boats lost contact with the waster. He was losing it and shook from the strain of pressing down and forcing his will on the controls. Dagmar closed his eyes and scrabbled for greater power—fuck any consequences. However, with the sunjammer crystal, a controller's mana was irrelevant, in contrast to arcane skill and focus. It was how they were taught. Yet at this precise moment, he'd try any fucking thing! Unfortunately, his despairing clutch at mystic straws was futile.

  The bows slammed headlong into the side of the enormous wave. Spray exploded in a stinging shower of moisture, saturating anyone not already sodden. Dagmar only partially raised the bows, and even then, they buried themselves several feet into the wave. The crash jerked the masts and everyone to the extent of their restraints with a brutal crack. Icy sea surged in, an amber caress across stout ribs and chilled feet, before scouring away anything loose.

  Trevir tumbled backwards from the bows where a frantic hooked finger snagged a ringbolt, boots scrambling with shrill squeaks against the cupola inches from the sunjammer's face. The water crashed over the bows in a torrent and lifted everyone on a surging tide as they flooded.

  Through the crimson gem-glass Dagmar saw Trevir dragged to safety. He glanced back—now down—and saw Van Reiver searching for the source of the noise, eyes scouring each frame, strake, and cleat. Dagmar could feel it was serious as whatever occurred resulted in a worrying vibration from their stern and through the controls to his fingers. The sunjammer saw Cadet Onvice yell only for the tempestuous winds to eviscerate his words.

  Distracted by the roar of nature thrashing and billowing around them, Dagmar saw his friend turn to see the boy pointing down the steerboard boat. Dagmar and Van Reiver strained to see past the splayed oars and flapping sail, but as the boats steadied for all too brief a moment, they saw Onvice gesturing at the splintered upper strake by the empty sunjammer mounting.

  "Shit!" Dagmar cursed and ducked inside to ease the damaged side from the water. He couldn't do it, he could raise the bows, or the damaged side, but not both. Trapped as they were, sizable fractures formed as the swell crushed the lashed boats in a seething vice. Dagmar could feel what the others saw as the plating rigidity and his downward thrust waned. Then the other boat became a dead weight. He strained to look out and keep them balanced. Gritting his teeth, he scraped his head clear to see the exterior sunjammer plating glinting through the top planks and the interlinking cable he'd rigged between boats now swinging from in time with the motion of their other mounting. Shit, he'd lost half their charge!

  The uncontrolled headlong rush was a rude awakening for the crew who naturally screamed in surprise and shock at having thousands of pounds of water try to drown them. Howling its defiant scream over the deafening storm, the crystal cried out like a dragon in its final death throes. Both boats ripped out of the swell, strained and climbed. Up, up, up. Inky blackness from the storm sky warred with phosphorescence, as though the curtain of night fell. Slow, far too slowly, they crawled the endless distance to the wave crest.

  It hung avalanche-like, a pending judgement of celestial doom perched over them. The boats hammered and buffeted by the weather rattled under the energies emitted through the hull plating from the humming red crystal. Like his boat, Dagmar pulsated, his head juddering and shaking, almost slamming against the red gem-glass an inch over his head. The noise increased its strident tone, like the clarion call of doom.

  "Come on! Float along like a leaf. Skim up the bitch!" Dagmar snarled, feeling his face turn into a desperate rictus as his concentration blurred. He forced his thumbs tighter onto the faceted surface, kneading every ounce of his will into the gem, feeling his fingertips sizzle. "Come on!" he pleaded. Then sobbed, giving it everything in the gem, the mounting and even the wires.

  .*.*.

  Van Reiver looked on as events—and his stomach—spiralled beyond anything he could dream of controlling. The tiller bar rattled under his hand and felt useless as they weren't moving fast enough for it to be any use.

  "Don't just sit there, help him! Bail 'n' lighten us!" Harcux exploded, flinging a helm of water over the side. Instructions Van Reiver knew he should have ordered. "Bail, before that poxy gem blows!" The seaman's words were like a shot of adrenalin to a half-dead man crawling to safety on his last breath. People burst into motion as self-preservation forced a reaction. Cupped hands, bowls, helms and breakers, anything bobbing was snatched up and abused double time.

  "Hold on!" Cephill screamed from nearby, his eyes wide.

  "What the fuck do you think—" Nadam's snarl gurgled as water foamed. Van Reiver pawed spray from his face as Seaman Alroy, Tryphon's delicately named 'duck-fucker', hammered the Nadam's back with a fist. The next lurch was too much, and Alroy spewed green bile over Onvice's foot.

  Halfway up the wave, there was a splintering crash as the sunjammer cupola in Onvice's boat disintegrated. A heartbeat later the crystal mounting tore free of the knee frame and burst through the canopy. The ruby struck the cadet on the head and spun into the sea. Now free, Dagmar's bronze line snapped out like a wyvern's stinger. Vaska snatched his belt knife, sliced his safety line, and lurched across to hook the boy from the water. A gaping gash in the boy's head streamed blood through his fair hair.

  "Get him in here!" Van Reiver shouted.

  With a grunt, the sailor pulled the youngster close and roughly bundled him in Van Reiver's larboard boat in the space beside Dagmar. The boats bounced as they felt the disappearance of the second sunjammer crystal and the damaged boat sunk lower.

  "Dag, can you raise us?" Van Reiver bellowed. He was asking for a miracle.

  "I'm losing it," Dagmar yelled back. Three dreadful words flung like trash over his shoulder to Van Reiver. He felt like another arrow had punched into him and guessed the sunjammer sacrificed their dwindling power to avoid broaching. Desperate, he looked around to see if there was anything they could do. There wasn't.

  Van Reiver and Grimm exchanged a worried glance as they hung on their safety-lines opposite each other. They looked up and saw the glow around Dagmar fade as he shuddered as though having a seizure. They were powerless, the sea the inevitable victor.

  "Grab hold!" Grimm screamed and choked on a breath that was half water. Merizus dropped his helm and banged the cox'n's back, Grimm gurgled for air, foam and blood mixing on his chin. Van Reiver clamped the thwart in a death grip as the sea smashed over him and plunged astern. It be
came silent.

  .*.*.

  Grimm forced himself free. Only Dagmar and a dying gem kept them from complete disaster. An hourglass soon to empty. The fall of each grain of sand deafening in the silence. Everyone held their breath as the impasse lasted a minute. An eternal minute before Dagmar slumped, striking his chin on the crystal's surface. He left a bloody stain on the glinting jewel, then flopped to hang by the extents of his safety line.

  "This won't be good. My bad feelin's now really fuckin' bad!" Harcux uttered, unaware half the boat could hear. The seaman pulled Dagmar clear of the torrent draining down through the boat. They waited for the end. Grimm knew everyone felt the same and looked to the navigator, who was looking downwards. The cox'n followed his gaze and gaped over the transom with a bird's-eye view of the trough rushing to meet them. With increasing rapidity, they slid stern-first back down the wave. Grimm goggled.

  "Brace! Brace! Brace!" Van Reiver screamed, letting the tiller swing and grabbing Carla with his good hand and pulled her down. With a bone-jarring crunch, the boats ploughed stern-first into the ocean. The impact swung the tiller into his ribs and leaving the officer gasping. Grimm ignored him as the steerboard quarter of the damaged boat splintered apart at the transom. The aft lashing creaked and hummed, then squealed like a boar with its balls caught in a fence. Then the hemp parted, allowing the two boats to twist and rub. Grimm looked back and saw Van Reiver limp.

  Grimm felt his shoulders droop, knowing there was no control with Dagmar unconscious and the rudder useless. Using Merizus as a prop to stand, he drew one of his knives and slashed his safety line. He called to Vaska and Harcux, to get their attention over the banging of timber.