by Nick Horth
‘Let them follow us, if they dare. If we die, they die with us.’
‘You’re out of your damned mind,’ whispered Callis.
Zenthe’s laughter was harsh and bitter.
‘It’s taken you this long to notice?’
Shev could see far from her perch, and she did not like the look of the waters ahead one bit.
They were sailing to their deaths.
My gods, whispered Occlesius, and she shared his awe. A spear of lightning arced down from the heavens, illuminating perhaps a dozen whirling tempests that whipped the seas to a frothing maw of white foam. Enormous funnels of water formed, dragged up from the ocean by the unthinkable power of the storm. At the base of each, the water was churned into a swirling vortex. She could see dark shapes flittering in and out of the raging waterspouts, beasts of the sea torn from their lairs, helpless in the face of this unnatural calamity. For a moment, she thought she saw a bestial face form in the clouds above; a body of striated clouds, eyes of crackling lightning. Then the Thrice Lucky dipped to crest the bow of a wave, and she had to lean out to grab hold of the rigging, her stomach lurching at the sudden change of momentum.
I had forgotten, so long have I slept. There is truly no limit to the wonders of the Eight Realms. Have you ever seen a more majestic example of the ferocity of nature?
‘We’re going to die here,’ she muttered.
Perhaps. But if that is so, you have to admit it’s a spectacular last image to take with us to the Realm of Endings. Who knows, I may simply sink like a stone to the bottom of the ocean, where no mortal being has ever strayed before. What beings slumber down there, I wonder? What ancient gods dwell at the foot of the abyss?
‘There are some mysteries I have no interest in solving.’
Below, the deck was littered with corpses, both reaver and aelf. More of the daemon-headed ships were slicing through the waves towards them, sensing the kill. If they were aware of the nightmare they were about to enter, they showed no sign of it. Their angular prows carved through the waves with ease, a sure sign that while the raiders might appear like little more than savage killers, they knew their seamanship well. The Thrice Lucky – scourge of the seas – was being outmanoeuvred by another predator. The reaver longships sailed high in the water, and their rows of oars afforded them formidable agility and speed even in the midst of the thrashing waves.
They are too swift, said Occlesius. We’ll not outrun them in these waters.
Staring out at the hunting ships, Shev didn’t doubt the man’s words. If the storm didn’t consume them, the killers in those vessels soon would.
Chapter Nineteen
Toll could see the scale of the calamity they were headed towards, and his jaw locked firm as he understood the inevitability of their fate. It was one thing to face impossible odds with your feet planted and a blade in your hand, but it was quite another to plummet into the heart of a disaster, your life and your mission entirely in the hands of another.
It was an unpleasant sensation, and one that Toll had not experienced in some time. Zenthe was perhaps the finest shipmaster in these seas, but surely this task was beyond even her skills.
‘Can you get us through that?’ he shouted, staring at the mountain-sized column of water that was rapidly approaching, and the gaping hole in the ocean beneath.
Zenthe gritted her teeth as she hauled the Thrice Lucky around in a tight turn, taking them over the crest of a wave and angling them out past the monstrous tempest. ‘That is a foolish damned question. Just keep those blood-hungry dogs off my deck and leave the sailing to me.’
It was impossible, Toll knew. No one could sail through that maze of death in one piece. They were already doomed, and it was too late to choose another path now. The thought that he would perish without passing justice upon the traitor Vermyre was too sickening to bear. How many lives would be lost because of his failure, he wondered? How many cities would burn?
And worst of all, Toll’s greatest error, his failure to recognise the evil brewing within his old friend, would never be redeemed.
Callis approached, black hair slicked to his skull, his cheek marked by a nasty cut that ran from his brow to the edge of his jaw. He had stowed his pistol. Guns were temperamental at best in such torrential downpours, even master-crafted duardin firing pieces.
‘They’re still coming,’ he shouted over the crashing of the waves. ‘They’re following us right on into that insanity.’
‘Trust Arika,’ said Toll. His fingers closed tight around the hilt of his sword. The freezing rain was chafing his hand raw. ‘She will take us through.’
He didn’t believe it, of course, but what else could they do?
Zollech stared at the wrath of the Blood Kraken, the storm that his vengeful god had loosed upon them. Ever was the dweller in the deeps a mercurial master, bestowing great gifts and terrible punishments on his faithful, often in the span of only a few moments. He had thought that his blood offering in the circle had been enough to gain the war-like deity’s favour, but that had been a foolish hope. Such meagre death could never appease the Great Hungerer. It required a far greater tribute.
Their failure to stop the aelven wave-cutter had been their doom. Now they would die along with their intended prey, dragged down by the storm into the depths of the many-limbed god’s lightless realm. So be it.
‘We are bound for the bottomless deep, our souls claimed by the Blood Kraken,’ he roared, turning to the ranks of oarsmen still drawing them through the waves with fearsome speed. ‘But before we die, let us claim one more tribute for his lightless halls!’
They shouted their assent as one, and redoubled their efforts. Zollech had never seen the Skull Taker carve its way through the waves with such speed and purpose. Around him, angling in on the fleeing corsair vessel, were a dozen remaining war galleys. The foe’s steersmen knew their trade well. By all rights they should have overrun the ship and taken the deck already. Each time they drew close the aelf wave-cutter arced away, riding the waves with astonishing grace for its size. If this was to be their last hunt, then it would be a worthy kill indeed.
Armand Callis had never lived through anything like it. As a child growing up in Excelsis he had watched the storms rage off the coast, out beyond the sea wall around the forest of swaying masts that was the city docks. He had watched the skies alive with light and noise, and stared, open-mouthed at the spectacle. His mother had threatened him with all manner of punishments one night when he had loosed the latch on his window and climbed upon the roof of their house to watch one such tempest, the fiercest he had ever seen. He remembered the smell of lightning on the wind, the arcing crescents that reached out like fingers of fire across the bay. He remembered, vividly, the dreams that had followed that night. In them he was lost out amidst that raging, elemental chaos, adrift and terrified. Helpless against the unimaginable power of nature.
That potent terror came rushing back now, though this time it would not vanish with the dawn. The Thrice Lucky tossed, yawed and spun, seemingly out of control, its masts and sails protesting with creaking roars as the winds whipped them to and fro. It was almost impossible to keep one’s footing, like trying to balance upright on a galloping steed. The aelves moved with impossible grace across the deck, while he staggered, then fell. The wind and rain were torrential, so thick and violent that he could barely see ten paces in front of himself. He teetered as the bow of the ship rose high into the air and struck against the ship’s rail. He gasped in terror as the churning ocean rose to slam into his face, toppled backwards and sprawled on the deck.
He felt hands around his shoulders, helping him upright. He turned, and stared into the face of Shev Arclis. She was yelling something, but he could not make it out in the thunderous noise of the storm. She leaned in, bellowed in his ear.
‘We have to get below!’
Arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, they s
tumbled across the deck, skidding on the sheets of water that gushed across the surface. Bodies slid and rolled, splashed overboard or struck the rail with bone-crunching force. Callis looked around for Toll, but the witch hunter was nowhere to be seen. There was the hatch to the lower decks, shut tight and barred with heavy pull-locks. Callis knelt, yanked at the metal latch and tugged one free.
There was a burst of lightning and an almighty crack, the sound of a hundred cannons discharged at once. Splinters rained down, and a shadow loomed over them. Callis blinked through the rain, and saw the rear mast toppling towards him, trailing smoke and flame.
Shev battered into him from the side, and they rolled clear. The heavy timber slammed onto the deck, crushing an unfortunate crewman beneath it. It had fallen on the deck hatch, barring access below. Ropes whipped across the deck, and one hooked Callis by the ankle. He was dragged on his front across the splintered wood, yelling and flailing, entirely helpless. He caught hold of something, the leg of an arbalest, smashed apart by falling beams. Splinters of wood dug into his fingers, but he dared not let go of his lifeline. He kicked frantically at the loop of thick rope around his boot. It was attached to a flap of sail, which was fluttering and whipping back and forth over the edge of the ship. Slowly, inexorably, he was being dragged into the ocean. His foot was agony, twisted badly in the fall. He had no idea where his blade was. He scrabbled at his belt and grabbed a thin-bladed dirk, tried to hack his foot free.
The ship yawed again, and his bloody fingers slipped and lost purchase on the arbalest. He skidded across the hardwood, smashed his head against something hard, then tumbled into empty air.
Chapter Twenty
Toll stood hunched by Arika Zenthe’s side, grasping hold of the forecastle and staring at a sight he knew he would never forget. They circled the edge of an abyss. The Thrice Lucky leaned agonisingly, a scant few hundred paces away from tumbling into that gaping void of swirling water a dozen boat-lengths across. Captain Zenthe’s teeth were gritted, her eyes narrowed and veins bulged from her thin neck.
He could have sworn she was smiling.
The vortex of water rose up into the clouds in the centre of the maelstrom, a spiralling column large enough to devour a fleet whole, one end vanishing down into the depths. And still the reaver ships came on. They were close now, gaining ground with the loss of the rear mast. Their own sails were filled with the howling wind, stitched with the same bloody image of the kraken. As Toll watched them bearing down, one vessel strayed too close to the whirlpool’s edge. Rather than tumbling down into nothing, it was dragged into the air by the cyclonic winds that whipped about the vortex. Tiny figures, screaming men and women, were plucked from the deck and sent spinning through the air, sucked into the enormous waterspout. The mast and its sails were torn from the spinning vessel, and then the entire hull came apart in a shower of splinters. The shattered fragments of the ship circled the tempest like a swarm of insects, before disappearing into the jet-black clouds above.
Something struck the Thrice Lucky hard on the port side. The ship groaned beneath them, and they drifted closer to the abyss, Zenthe screaming in rage as she hauled the wheel in the opposite direction.
‘Get them off our flank,’ she yelled. ‘Or they’ll drive us over the edge.’
Oscus ran with Toll, making for the far side of the ship, where a group of corsairs were raining down javelins on to a reaver galley which was angled into the prow of the Thrice Lucky. The oarsmen were not abandoning their posts to leap aboard their quarry. They were no longer trying to take the Thrice Lucky alive. They were out for the kill, and they were willing to throw away their lives to ensure their prey’s destruction.
Toll grabbed Oscus’ arm.
‘How do we drive them back?’ he shouted. ‘The arbalests are shattered, and there’s no route to the lower decks.’
‘Follow,’ the aelf shouted back, and hauled himself over the side of the rail.
Toll cursed, and rushed forward. Oscus was clambering down the hull, agile as a spider, missiles slamming into the wood around him. With one hand he reached down and prised open one of the gunnery deck portholes, and with serpent-like grace he slipped his body through the gap, disappearing into the hull.
Toll sheathed his blade and lowered himself over the edge of the rail, following the first mate. Below, he could see the oars of the reaver galley, and the storm-lashed ranks of barbarian raiders, still bellowing their battle-hymns as they drove their vessel against the Thrice Lucky with suicidal determination. One of the figures gestured up at him, and axes and spears began to clatter and bounce off the hull around him. He lacked Oscus’ dextrous grace, and it was all he could do to stop himself from falling. Whether he hit the ocean or struck the deck of the reaver ship, that would be the end of him. He strained for the open porthole with one hand, gritting his teeth and clinging to a tear in the hull with the other. It was too far. A flash of silver rushed past his eye as another missile clattered from the wood, mere inches from his face. Sooner or later a lucky throw would strike him.
He let himself fall, scrabbling across the slick wood, desperately reaching for the lip of the porthole. He grasped it, and his feet skidded across the wood as he hung there. Strong hands grabbed him and hauled him through the portal, and he splashed into ankle-high water.
He spat out a mouthful of the rancid liquid and looked around. The gunnery deck was a charnel pit, littered with dead aelves and the bodies of human raiders who had tried to enter the same way as Oscus and Toll had just done. Only a couple of the arbalests were still in shooting position. The others had been torn from their moorings, and now lay in a shattered heap at the far end of the chamber.
‘Come on,’ snarled Oscus, gesturing him further into the depths of the ship. They ran as fast as they could, splashing through filthy brown water and scattered debris.
Even Toll, no man of the seas, could tell that the Thrice Lucky was dying. She was a tough ship, no doubt, but she was taking on water now from a hundred different wounds.
‘How long do we have?’ he said. Oscus turned, and fixed him with a sad look. It was the first time he had seen any emotion from the taciturn first mate.
‘She could go at any moment,’ the aelf said, running one hand along a great crack in the hull. ‘She is made from strong, solid oak, but even she cannot take this punishment. Even if the maelstrom does not take us, it will be a miracle if we make port.’
‘Then let’s make sure we take as many of those savages with us as we can,’ Toll snarled.
Oscus nodded, and ducked through into a low chamber, behind the stairs to the lower deck. This was the armoury. It was dank and lightless, for no flames could be risked so close to their black powder supplies. After a moment his eyes adjusted to the light, and he saw rows of dully gleaming repeater bows, swords and boarding axes set around the walls of the chamber. At the rear were piled crates, and Oscus was levering one such container open. Toll grabbed a sword from the rack and used its blade to help pry the lid. It snapped open, and dropped to splash in the water pooling around their boots.
‘Careful with these,’ hissed the first mate, gently removing a large, glass container filled with an opaque liquid. Toll frowned, unsure of exactly what he was dealing with. ‘You spill one in here, and we’re dead in moments.’
‘What am I holding?’ asked Toll.
‘One of the captain’s rarer finds,’ said Oscus. ‘One that cost many lives to obtain. We will only need the one, trust me on this.’
Something within the jar snapped against the glass with surprising force, and Toll almost dropped the entire case. He peered closer, but could see nothing through the milky liquid.
With both of them steadying the jar, Oscus led the way back to the secondary deck.
‘Help me with this,’ he said, hefting the heavy container up and leaning it against the edge of the porthole. ‘When it breaks, it must not be in contact with
the Thrice Lucky. We must make sure it lands right on their deck. Ready?’
Toll nodded. On the first mate’s mark, he thrust the container out into the empty air, and watched it sail through the rain and crash onto the deck of the reaver vessel, amongst the crew. At first, nothing seemed to happen.
‘Wait,’ said Oscus, watching the ship intently, a sinister smile on his sharp features.
Something began to swell amidst the rain-splashed deck of the enemy ship. At first it was formless, bulging, like an amniotic sac. With every passing moment it grew, forming pseudopods of transparent matter, which whipped and searched about like questing tendrils. One wrapped around the flesh of an oarsman, and the man arched his back and screamed, steam rising from a burning lash where the strange creature had touched him. Another pseudopod wrapped around his throat, and the man’s cries became little more than a choking gurgle. Even through the lashing rain Toll could smell the scent of burning flesh. The formless shape grew larger and larger, and more reavers began to thrash as the searing tentacles lashed and grabbed at them, burning through hide wraps and metal armour with shocking ease, sending up wisps of smoke whenever they met exposed flesh. The reavers had abandoned their oars now, and were hacking at the amorphous blob with axes and blades, but to their horror even their weapons smoked and crumbled as they contacted the bizarre creature.
The war galley lagged and scraped against the side of the Thrice Lucky, its momentum lost as more and more reavers scrambled to take up weapons against the thing growing from the deck of their ship. As Toll watched, he could see the thing begin to smoke and burn at the very deck beneath it, the wood crumbling away under its gelid bulk. Something resembling a head was forming amidst the mass, with malformed, primitive eyes like pale yolks. The thing was large now, filling the entire centre of the ship and growing with every second. He could see bodies writhing within its translucent form, dissolving and burning even as they struggled to break free. With a chorus of screams, the ship broke free of the Thrice Lucky, disappearing into the gloom. The last thing Toll saw was several translucent limbs reaching around to envelop the dying ship, contracting with enough strength to tear the timbers of the galley apart.
