Callis & Toll: The Silver Shard

by Nick Horth

  ‘Looks valuable. Maybe I should take care of it for you,’ she said. ‘How would you feel about that?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Shev, leaning forward and meeting the captain’s eye. ‘It was my mother’s jewel. I’d like it back.’

  The captain’s hand shot out, so fast that Shev barely saw it move. It stopped an inch before Shev’s eyes, the jewel once again clutched between the captain’s fingers.

  ‘I can appreciate a clever liar, but I don’t like being taken for a fool,’ Zenthe whispered. ‘Think carefully about your place on this ship, girl. You have few enough allies as it is.’

  She opened her hand and let the shadeglass gem fall into Shev’s lap. Rummaging around in her desk, she brought out a silver chain with an empty locket. She flicked it with her knife, and Shev caught it. The locket was just large enough to house the crystal.

  ‘If that’s such a treasured heirloom of yours, it seems a good idea to keep it safe and in plain sight, no? Consider this a gift.’

  There was a frantic knocking on the door, and the first mate, Oscus, bounded through. He wore a devilish grin.

  ‘Fin on the horizon,’ he said. ‘Thirty-pointer, at least.’

  Zenthe practically jumped over the desk.

  ‘Beat to quarters,’ she shouted. ‘Ready the arbalests. I don’t care if it takes us off course, I’m not letting a beast that size escape us.’

  She turned to Shev, fire in her eyes, all the tension that had filled the room dispersed in a moment.

  ‘Want to see the Thrice Lucky in action?’

  Oh yes indeed, said an excited Occlesius.

  Shev shrugged, not sharing his enthusiasm.

  Chapter Twelve

  The deck was a maelstrom of activity. Corsairs rushed to and fro, dragging great barrels marked with blood-red runes to areas on the foredeck, and lashing them in place with thick chains. The sails were at full mast, billowing forwards with the wind behind them. Shev blinked and winced at the blazing sunlight, unprepared for its intensity after several days locked up in near-darkness. They were out on the open ocean now, a churning expanse of green-tinged waters below, a cirrus-streaked desert of azure above. The seas were calm, by the standards of the Taloncoast. The Thrice Lucky rose and yawed beneath them, carving through rushing wave-walls with ease, sending up a shower of bracing mist. Shev took a deep gulp of fresh air. It certainly felt good to be outside again. She rushed alongside the captain to the fore rail. Scanning the line where sea met sky, she could see nothing. Zenthe had a golden eyeglass raised, ornately crafted to resemble the questing tentacles of some deep-sea creature.

  ‘Sight me,’ she bellowed.

  ‘Two leagues off the starboard bow, captain,’ shouted a lookout nestled in the rigging over their heads. ‘We’re closing. Blood of Khaine, it’s a big beast.’

  ‘I see it,’ hissed Zenthe. ‘A ghyreshark. It’s our lucky day. Oscus, I have the wheel.’

  She tossed the eyeglass to Shev and darted over to the prow, and the great wheel. It was carved from the same black wood as the vessel, but wrapped in leathery hide. An aelf abandoned the device as the captain approached, handing her control of the Thrice Lucky.

  Shev raised the eyeglass and gazed over in the direction that Zenthe had indicated. At first the violent motion of the ship made it almost impossible for her to sight in, but after a few moments she steadied herself, and managed to scan the horizon. Nothing. She moved along, searching for something. There. She frowned. That was no fin. It was a mast, sticking out of the water, almost as tall as the Thrice Lucky itself. She looked again, and her heart froze in her chest. It was a creature, all right. She could see the black immensity of it just below the waves. The fin was immense, barbed and serrated like a saw blade. It was hard to gauge exact distances from here, but it looked like it could easily fill the deck of the Thrice Lucky.

  That is indeed a ghyreshark. A species well-known for its vicious hunting patterns. It kills far more than it can consume. Many scholars contend that it possesses a daemonic taint, which would account for its legendary ferocity.

  ‘We are going to die,’ she whispered. Oscus heard her, and gave a malicious bark of laughter.

  ‘Maybe we will,’ he said, and flashed her a grin. ‘Or maybe we’ll earn enough from the kill to make this entire voyage worthwhile.’

  Hanniver Toll emerged on deck, his companion, Callis, in tow. The ex-soldier looked ever so slightly green. He was clearly not a nautical man, then.

  ‘Are we under attack?’ shouted the witch hunter, rushing to the rail and peering off at the horizon.

  ‘Not yet,’ laughed Zenthe, pulling the wheel far to starboard, angling the Thrice Lucky in towards the looming monstrosity. ‘But I’d recommend holding onto your hat, witch hunter. This may get a little rough.’

  Toll turned, and saw Shev. She backed off a little, raising her hands. He strode over to her, and for a moment she thought he was going to grab her and drag her back down to the brig. Instead, he held a hand out for the eyeglass. She handed it over. The witch hunter raised it to his eye.

  ‘Sigmar’s blood,’ he cursed.

  He handed the eyeglass back and marched over to Zenthe.

  ‘This was not the deal, Arika,’ he growled. ‘You were handsomely paid for this journey, and I bled myself dry getting you what you wanted. Our target is Vermyre. We are not here to go… fishing.’

  ‘We’re six months past the deadline you gave me, witch hunter,’ Zenthe replied, not even turning to meet the man’s gaze. ‘Six months. And have I complained? Have I threatened to abandon you here and return to Excelsis?’

  ‘Yes. Every day. In fact, you threatened that exact thing this morning, not four hours ago.’

  Zenthe laughed. ‘Perhaps you’re right about that.’

  She turned, and slapped Toll affectionately on the shoulder.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Hanniver,’ she said in a cheerful voice. ‘This will be a morning’s work, at that. The beast’s close, and there’s nothing on these seas that can outrun the Thrice Lucky when her blood is up. We’ll have the thing gutted and skinned before you can blink.’

  ‘Or it will eat this ship whole, and we’ll all die out here for nothing.’

  ‘Or that might happen, yes. But there’s no use complaining, as you so rightfully pointed out to me. Just make yourself useful and do as I say, and we’ll be back on the trail of your traitorous friend in no time.’

  Shev held the glass out for Callis, who stood at her side looking very far from comfortable.

  ‘You want to look?’ she asked.

  ‘No thanks. I think I’ll save the soul-rending terror until the sea monster’s a bit closer, if it’s all the same to you.’

  Shev laughed.

  ‘The captain knows what she’s about,’ she said. ‘This is what they do for a living, after all. I’m sure we’ll be fine.’

  That unearned confidence faded, flickered and died over the following minutes, as the Thrice Lucky drew closer to their quarry, and the true scale of the ghyreshark became clear.

  Shev clambered midway up the mainmast for a better view, grasping a firm hold of the sinew ropes that bound the Thrice Lucky’s sails in place. She looked ahead, and could see the great fin sending streams of water surging in its wake. The creature was vast. One could see the shimmering silhouette of it a few feet beneath the waves, enormous and streamlined, carving through the water like a bullet. Its great tail flicked from side to side, large enough to crush a dozen warriors with a single swipe. How could they even begin to hurt such a monster? Its angular head was large enough to engulf the prow of their ship. As she watched, the creature rose, letting its snout break the surface. One enormous eye gazed sidelong at them, a huge, pitch-black orb nestled above a maw crammed with fangs the size of greatswords.

  That is… rather larger than I had been led to believe. Mhyroone’s S
courges of the Beast-sea contends that the ghyreshark can grow no larger than two-hundred spans, but that seems markedly larger.

  ‘Maybe they’ve grown up a bit while you’ve been trapped in that amulet,’ she said.

  It would appear so.

  There was something primal and terrifying about the sleek, blunt ferocity of that body, colossal even in such a vast expanse of open water. All she could think of was how easy it would be to tumble overboard into that bottomless abyss, and how helpless you would feel splashing around and choking on water while that enormous shadow circled closer and closer. She gripped the guide-rope so hard it hurt.

  They should not be standing open on the deck, said Occlesius. Shev glanced below, and saw the aelves rushing to and fro with barbed harpoons in hand. She could see Callis, struggling to maintain his footing on the yawing deck.

  ‘Why?’ she said.

  Those great jaws are not a ghyreshark’s only weapon.

  Callis had long ago decided that the open sea was not for him. The jungles of the Taloncoast might be filled with slavering monsters, flesh-eating insect swarms and all manner of other horrors, but at least there you could run. Or stand and fight. Or hide. Out here, you were so awfully exposed, with only a few-score lengths of solid wood between you and the great, bottomless nothing of the ocean. Which was filled with creatures like the one currently eyeing them like they were a floating dinner table piled high with its favourite treats. He wanted to throw up, and only refrained from hurling his meagre breakfast over the side of the ship because he didn’t want to give Zenthe’s crew another reason to despise him.

  ‘Arika Zenthe,’ muttered Toll, striding over and shaking his head. ‘She’ll be the death of me, I swear it.’

  He glanced at Callis and winced.

  ‘Throne of Azyr,’ he said, ‘you look awful.’

  ‘If it matters, I feel even worse,’ he snapped. ‘Look at the size of that thing. How are we going to do anything but scratch its hide with these glorified crossbows? You need cannon to take something that size down. Lots of them.’

  The witch hunter squinted out towards the great shadow of the beast. It was close now, within the range of an arbalest volley. As they watched, it sank out of sight, its great fin dipping below the waves. Zenthe hauled on the ship’s wheel, and the Thrice Lucky turned sharply to port, leaning so hard that the two men had to shuffle and stagger to regain their balance.

  ‘She’s circling for a strike,’ yelled the captain. ‘Give her a volley as soon as she breaches.’

  Toll grabbed Callis by the shoulders.

  ‘Trust me, the Thrice Lucky is built for this work,’ he shouted, over the groaning of timbers and the roar of the flapping sails above them. ‘Do as they say, and for Sigmar’s sake don’t fall over the side.’

  Comforting. And with that he was gone, racing down towards the access hatch that led to the gunnery deck.

  ‘You,’ shouted Oscus, sprinting over to Callis with an armful of vicious-looking barbed spears. ‘You know how to hurl a javelin?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then grab one of these, and wait for my signal.’

  Toll cursed as he bounded down the stairs into the gloom of the gunnery deck. This was a pointless, foolish endeavour. If it had been anyone but Zenthe ordering it, he would have simply put a gun to their head and ordered them not to be so godsdamned stupid. Pulling that trick on the Thrice Lucky, however, would be a sure way to him and Callis being thrown overboard. He would have to simply hope they scraped through this intact, and remonstrate with the stubborn aelf afterwards.

  The aelven corsairs were hunched in teams behind their wicked arbalests. One sat at the firing level, squinting through the porthole across the raging sea. Another two would hand-crank the arms of the weapon back once a round had been loosed, and a third stood by a rack of black-iron shafts, cruelly barbed with razor-sharp hooks that would ensure that once the missile had sunk into flesh, there would be no tearing it out. A great barrel had been lashed beneath each ammunition rack, all marked with an angular rune in blood-red paint. Or possibly just blood.

  ‘Ready yourselves,’ bellowed the gunnery chief, a tall, broad-shouldered aelf missing the lower half of his right arm and one of his ears. He gave Toll a gap-toothed grin and nodded to the rearmost port-side arbalest.

  ‘Crewman down over there,’ he said. ‘Got himself killed by an orruk, to our shame as much as his. You think you can handle this?’

  ‘I should imagine so,’ muttered Toll. He rushed over to the arbalest, kneeled in place beside the great, recurved limb. Close up, it smelled of oil and dried blood, and a deeper, acrider stench he couldn’t identify.

  ‘Here she comes,’ shouted the aelf manning the firing lever.

  Toll gazed out of the sighting aperture, a wide, circular porthole that looked out across the open ocean. There was a tidal wave rushing towards them. A great maw rose from the water, a broad, heavy snout some fifty yards across, its surface scarred and lined with jagged quills that rose above two pitiless orbs of obsidian. It was moving at a fierce speed, aiming amidships. It was, it seemed to Toll, set on him in particular. Displaced water arced over the behemoth’s head, and it opened its maw wide to reveal a thick forest of curving yellow teeth, descending away into the blackness of its gullet. Toll had never seen such an immense beast, in all his years on the Taloncoast. It looked as though it could capsize the Thrice Lucky by simply crashing its angular tail against the hull.

  ‘Take aim,’ roared the chief. ‘Eyes and throat. Even you sorry fools should be able to hit a target that size. Let’s kill this creature and earn ourselves a fine bounty.’

  Toll’s gunner raised the arc of the ballista a few inches, muttering over and over to himself in aelfish, one eye closed and beads of sweat pouring from his brow.

  The ghyreshark was only fifty paces away.

  ‘Loose!’ came the roar.

  Twenty harpoons soared out over the water, streaks of black lightning that riddled the monster’s head, some sticking deep into its barbed hide, other skipping off and splashing into the waves. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

  At the very last moment the beast submerged again, swerving to the side and striking the Thrice Lucky with the force of a thousand battering rams as it dipped beneath the waves. The deck beneath them rose, it seemed almost vertically, and Toll was sent flying back, head over heels, by a wall of water that struck him in the face with stinging force. The vessel groaned in protest, swaying and rolling, and Toll’s head struck a beam, knocking him face down in the swirling flood, lights exploding behind his eyes. He gasped reflexively, and swallowed a mouthful of acrid water. Someone grabbed him under the arms, hauled him free.

  ‘Get back on that ballista, or I’ll gut you myself and hurl your worthless corpse overboard,’ screamed his saviour, before shoving Toll towards the crew who were already struggling to load a new harpoon.

  The witch hunter made a mental note to track down the owner of that voice after this was done.

  Someone was screaming. He glanced to the side and saw an aelf lying in a foaming pool of blood, his leg crushed underneath one of the arbalests. The artillery piece had been torn off its moorings with the force of the impact. He almost tripped over another body, sightless eyes staring at the ceiling of the gunnery deck, a splinter of wood the size of a dagger embedded in his neck. A great rent had been torn in the ship’s hull, lengthwise across the chamber, and water gushed in every time the Thrice Lucky rose on a cresting wave.

  Toll splashed over to the limb of the arbalest, and began furiously winding the hand-crank, readying for another volley. Their loader grabbed another bolt, opened the lid of the blood-marked barrel and sank the missile’s tip into a bubbling, hissing pool of bile-green liquid. There was an acrid stench that sank to the back of Toll’s throat, causing him to cough and retch. The aelves, he noticed, had donned silk masks that covered thei
r mouths and noses. He had no such luxury.

  ‘Let’s see how she likes a taste of althasca venom,’ shouted the chief.

  Callis picked himself up off the deck, his head spinning, spitting water.

  ‘Ready yourselves,’ shouted Oscus, who was somehow on his feet, holding another javelin. ‘She’s coming around.’

  Callis staggered over to a rack full of the black-iron missiles, and grasped one. The cold metal was reassuring in his hand. The corsairs were dipping their projectiles in a steaming barrel of bubbling liquid. He followed suit. The vicious barbs at the tip of the weapon began to hiss and smoke, and where the substance – whatever the hells it was – dripped onto the soaking deck, it left wisps of steam and pockmarks of blackened wood.

  Captain Zenthe was wrenching the Thrice Lucky around, and the deck swayed beneath Callis, almost sending him tumbling. He had no idea what the substance on the end of his javelin was, but he was fairly certain that accidentally sticking himself with it would not be wise. A score of aelves lined the rail, each hefting a missile. At least three had been swept overboard, and he could see them writhing and splashing in the foaming spray, screaming for help that he knew they could not provide.

  A living missile exploded from the depths. The full weight of the ghyreshark’s barbed upper body broke clear of the waves, and two of the stranded aelves were swept into its gaping jaws. They hurled their missiles. Callis bent his body, added all his weight to the throw. Even so, his was the shortest throw by far. The aelves’ missiles clattered into the creature’s head, while his sank into the grey-white flesh above its gills and stuck firm. He saw a gout of blood spurt free, and the surf turned foamy reddish-brown. As the beast crashed back into the waves, it sent up an enormous geyser of bloody water, covering them all. It sank below the Thrice Lucky, blessedly not striking the ship this time. Callis and the crew grabbed more javelins, and raced to the far side. Nothing. There was a long, horrible silence, broken only by the clatter of waves against the ship’s hull.

  ‘Do you see it?’ shouted Zenthe, holding the vessel in a straight line.