Sand and Scrap

by Chris R. Sendrowski

  Ocane smiled. “Tis a foul thing, but necessary for the voyage.”

  “And what of us?” Lyotane spat. “I don’t plan on sitting in puke for the entire voyage.”

  “Calm yourself,” Ocane said. “We ride in her throat, not in her bowels.”

  As if that is supposed to ease our nerves, Gorbin thought as the beast let out a belch. “We sail within the call then,” he proclaimed. “This weather gnaws at my nerves.”

  “And such unnatural weather it is,” Ocane purred. “My people believe a freeze such as this to be a bad omen.”

  Gorbin glanced at the sky. The comet was still visible, even with the sun at its zenith. There are many such omens these days, he thought. Too many. But for now there were more important things to worry about.

  “Your cargo will weigh heavy in her belly,” Ocane said as the laxore slowly consumed the chamber. “Normally she dips thirty footfalls to the locker. Today she will plunge twice that, if my guess is correct.” Mircala groaned lazily as if in agreement.

  “Will she make safe passage?” Minwar asked.

  “She’ll be all right,” Ocane replied. “As long as we don’t encounter whalers, that is.” He then turned and gestured to the beast. “Come. The tides move out. I want to be far from here come sunset.”

  The thought of leaving spiked excitement in Gorbin’s heart. For the sake of the gods, may I never see this place again, he thought.

  His breath held, Gorbin approached the beast and slowly stepped into its gapping maw. Strands of saliva dripped from the roof of her brown mouth and acid vapors lingered in the air like spectral snakes. His mask quickly fogged as the beast’s warm breath washed over the glass.

  Lyotane and Minwar entered behind him, stepping across the beast’s massive tongue as it writhed like a giant worm. “What happens if she decides to feed during the voyage?” Minwar asked as he ducked beneath a chipped tooth.

  Ocane lit a lantern and raised it above his head. “Why, my Mircala will get the royalist of meals then. Eh, gob prince?”

  Karak chuckled beside him, his prodding staff still pressed to the roof of the beast’s mouth. When they were all in, he pulled it free and sat down beside the beast’s black gums.

  “Take it in, gentlemen,” Ocane said as Mircala began closing her jaws. “For we may never see such light again. . . save for the twilights of hell.”

  Gorbin stood silent, watching as Ix’s acid-washed sun shrunk between the beast’s chipped fangs. Father, he thought as the darkness swallowed him whole. I’m coming for you.

  30

  Kraken Roe stared at the brothel’s cracked, mud-brick wall, his blind eyes distant and distracted. He’d been in port for almost two months now, fattening himself on sour wine and song. No whaling, no hunt, nothing.

  He leaned back against the hard, warm wall, his long, sweaty hair clinging to his face and shoulders. It’s time to return home, he thought as the sound of surf rumbled outside.

  The whore shifted ever so slightly against his chest, her plump lips sucking on his nipple. Roe ignored her. In the distance he could hear a school of laptane sharks thrashing about the docks. An odd thing, he thought. For the beasts normally kept to deeper water.

  The girl began moving down his chest, her sweaty hair entangling with his own.

  Disgusted, Roe pushed her back.

  “Do I not please you?” she said, her voice harsh from too many turns working the docks.

  “The water sings a better song to me than those lips of yours,” Kraken grumbled.

  The whore frowned. “You mean to leave then?” Her fingers slowly curled about his necklace, where a single metal nail hung between two rows of baby laxore teeth. “And with such a pretty gift still about your neck?”

  He grabbed her wrist and twisted it hard. “Best keep your fingers to my cock!”

  A woman began laughing on the opposite side of the room.

  “Pay them to please and still they beg.”

  Kraken smiled. He had sensed her enter some time ago, and the sound of her voice now aroused him.

  Tria leaned forward, a ray of light revealing a tangle of oily black hair hanging limp over her pallid, emaciated face. “Perhaps it is my turn to please.” She slowly rose and approached the bed.

  “Forgive me!” the whore stammered. “I never meant to take it!”

  Tria halted at the end of the bed and lifted the sheets to her nose. “You carry a foul odor,” she said. “A Culver whore indeed.”

  The girl glanced about the room nervously. The main door was barred shut and it was a fifty foot drop from the balcony to the streets below.

  Tria lay down beside her and brushed her lips against the girl’s ear. “Will you please me the same as my Kraken?”

  The girl tried to pull back, but Tria grabbed her arm.

  Kraken laughed, stroking the young girl’s hair. “Tria chides you, my dear. You would do best to take her words with a grain of sea salt.”

  Tria reached down and thrust her hand between the girl’s legs. “Ask him, whore,” she demanded as the girl winced. “Ask him what it is that you would so carelessly touch.”

  The girl moaned as Tria’s fingers slipped deeper inside her. “W—what?”

  Kraken sighed. “Leave her be, Tria.”

  Tria continued probing. “Ask again,” she whispered.

  “W—what is it?” the whore breathed.

  Kraken reached up and took hold of the nail. “It’s all that remains of my father,” he said, thumbing the warm metal. “His life’s love: the Baleard.”

  Tria spread her fingers wider, driving another moan from the girl.

  “P—please. . . “

  “Enough already, Tria,” Kraken said.

  Tria glanced at him and smiled. “You know what has to be done.”

  Kraken tensed. “No! No more.”

  “But she wishes it,” Tria whispered. “Your seed was not enough for her.”

  Kraken balled his fists. How many more would die for her black appetites? How many would it take until her gods were satisfied? It’s her own hunger she serves now, he thought. Not her gods.

  But her gods have served you well, the little voice in his head said.

  And it was true. For almost ten turns he and his crew had been blessed with powerful winds and bountiful catches. But the price has become too high, he thought. It was murder. Murder for power.

  My power.

  Kraken recoiled at the sound of Tria’s labored breathing. She had become emaciated and frail, a living wraith consumed by black magic. It’s the meridium, he thought. Ten turns of addiction were slowly rotting her at the core.

  As the girl stroked Kraken’s cock, Tria withdrew her hand and smiled. She had been a whore herself ten turns ago, keen to empty his purse like all the others. But she never treated him like a cripple. She respected and feared him, and for this Kraken loved her.

  You were my savior, he thought. From his anger, his guilt. She gave him purpose again, focus. “Hunt the bitch,” she had pleaded one night aboard the Bastard. “Hunt her to the depths of hell and I will dedicate my life to loving you.” After that, they never parted. No price was ever mentioned, no deal struck. She was his now: her body, her love. Her life.

  Kraken sighed. He still remembered the first time he had touched her face; it had been so smooth back then, cunning. A visage to launch armies, he thought. But no longer. Now her flesh was flaked and wrinkled. Lifeless.

  The whore gasped as Tria thrust something between her legs.

  “Leave her!” Kraken shouted. “She knows no better!”

  Tria kissed the whore’s ear, nibbling at the lobe as rivulets of blood coiled down her thighs. “I am barren, you know,” she whispered. “Barren as the Acid. But you. . . “ She twisted her hand and the girl screamed. “I can taste your pain.”

  Disgusted, Kraken grabbed Tria’s arm and pulled the knife free. “Enough woman!!! I have no more stomach for this!”

  “You grow a soul so late in the game!�
� Tria shouted. “How many men have died under your command? How many tossed overboard to satiate your lust for the hunt?”

  Kraken rose, his hands trembling as the whore clawed at his leg.

  Tria laughed. “You’ve lost more than your sight, my love. Perhaps you should look under the sheets for your balls.”

  “ENOUGH!!!” Kraken screamed. He lunged forward and grabbed Tria’s throat.

  Tria smiled, her eyes rolling back in ecstasy. “Harder!” she hissed. “Do me harder, my Kraken!”

  Kraken tossed her down beside the whore. “Damn you, witch!” he hissed. “This is over! I was not bred for this. . . this murder.”

  Tria’s eyes narrowed. “You were bred for nothing but, my Kraken! The bite of a harpoon, the slice of a blade. . . it’s all the same now, is it not?” She rose from the bed and curled up against his chest.

  “Whether a whore or shark, my love, it makes no difference.”

  Kraken felt his stomach turn. “I can’t do this. . . not anymore, Tria. Vengeance is one thing. But this. . . this is murder.”

  Tria curled her arms around his scarred chest. “You are a murderer, my Kraken. The finest in all the Acid. But without this. . . “ She raised the blood soaked knife before him. “You would ride the waves limp as that cock of your—”

  Kraken yanked her head back and struck her across the face.

  Tria smiled, her teeth stained crimson.

  “I’ve killed men for lesser insults,” he said.

  Tria licked her bloody lips. “You’re forgetting your place, my love. Too much time stagnating on the docks. To the sea we should return. To Mircala. Now! Tonight!”

  He clenched his fists. He wanted to drive her into the wall, smash her murdering skull into a bloody pulp. But she’s right, he thought. Damn me to hell, if she’s not right.

  Exhausted, he dropped down into the room’s sole, moldering chair. Twenty turns had passed since the whale bitch destroyed his father’s vessel. His birthright. Yet he could still hear the crew screaming as they plunged mask-less into the Acid. And there was me, he thought. Hiding in that skiff like a coward. Watching as his father and crew vanished beneath the tides.

  I am vengeance now, he reminded himself. Nothing more, nothing less. Murder, lies… it was all a means to an end. I will have her. I will see her blood. . . no matter the cost.

  Tria knelt down before him. “The summer currents will be strong, my love. The laptane will have already migrated to the feeding grounds.”

  He grabbed her hand, squeezing until her knuckles cracked. “Leave me bitch. I will call the men in tonight when I am ready.”

  Tria frowned. “Not tonight. Now!”

  He shook his head.

  “My love, the men grow complacent, too much drink and sex fueling apathy towards the sea. There’s even whispering that you no longer broker for the hunt.”

  Kraken sighed. They were right in that. Their last few hauls had been pitiful at best. None of his regular buyers would meet with him and other, more profitable vessels now crowded the Ixian docks.

  And I don’t even care, he thought. There was only one whale he sought now: Mircala. And she would be close this far into the season, closer than she had been since Baleard’s demise.

  He reached out to touch Tria’s hand. But the girl was gone.

  “Tria?”

  The whore screamed, followed by a slow, gurgling choke.

  “What are you doing!” Kraken cried.

  “For you, mother sea,” Tria chanted, a cup raised to the girl’s slit throat. “Ripple and splash, salt and pain. Bless us on our crossing so that we may slay the beast. Bless us as we give due to your mighty breath.”

  Kraken lifted the chair and hurled it across the room. “Your gods ask for too much!!!” he cried.

  Tria approached him, her face smeared with gore. “They ask only what I would give them freely.”

  “Do not speak to me, woman! Not a word, or I swear I will snap your neck.”

  Indifferent, Tria cuddled against him. “Storms brew on the horizon. Crossed ribbons of red and orange banding the northern sky.” She handed him the cup. “It will be good for sailing on the morrow. But you must drink to their blessing.”

  Kraken shivered. “I hate you woman. For what you’ve become. . . and what you’ve made me.” He tilted the cup back and drank the still-warm blood. Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance. The gods will curse me someday, he thought. When this is done, when Mircala rests at the bottom of the sea, they will have their vengeance upon me.

  For a time after, he sat silent, listening as the thunder grew louder. Of late the weather had become unpredictable, unnatural. Even now, at mid-summer, a layer of morning frost clung to the room’s lone windowsill. “You will sail me directly to hell. You know that, right, Tria?”

  “Then let us go there together.”

  Exhausted, he took a deep, trembling breath. How many more will fall, so that I might draw closer to you, Mircala? Names echoed through his mind, family and friends long since departed: Jark, Mildew, Urik, Ganon. All had sailed alongside his father, only to take up sail with him when he was of age. But they, too, were dead now, dissolved beneath the sea. And for what? he wondered. Vengeance? Satisfaction? The bitch Mircala knew nothing of these things. She was a lump of living flesh without thought or memory. So why do I lust for her blood? he asked himself.

  Because I am vengeance.

  “Do you still love me?” Tria whispered, her arms embracing him tighter.

  Kraken tensed. “I love. . . who you were.”

  A tear slowly rolled down Tria’s cheek and dripped onto his scarred back. “That girl is still here,” she whispered. “Buried at times, but she is with you.”

  Kraken shook his head. “I don’t have the strength anymore, Tria. You’re conjuring. . . it has twisted our path.”

  “It’s opened our eyes,” she said. “You have but to see the Bast—”

  “To hell with the Bastard!”

  Tria stepped back, shocked.

  Kraken spat over the railing. “To hell with us all.” And with that, he turned and stared blankly out the window. “Leave me, woman. If for just one call, give me peace.”

  Tria wiped blood and tears from her cheeks. “You will thank me one day. When you slay her, when your father knows vengeance, you will know my place in your life.” And with that said, she rose and left the room.

  Kraken slumped forward, his head between his hands. The voyage will be hard if we leave on the morrow, he thought. The Bastard still needed refitting and sails. Such a task would take at least a day if they were lucky enough to find more laptane fiber. And that didn’t factor in time to replenish their food stores and water holds. Even so, he thought, I yearn for the tilt of deck beneath my boots. That much she is right in.

  Outside, traders and merchants shuffled beneath his window, their endless prattle merging into a single tangle of unending, white noise. Kraken tuned it out, losing himself to his eternal darkness. The storm fronts will have set laptane prices through the roof, he thought. It will make it easier to convince the crew to depart.

  A distant sound echoed across the city.

  Kraken froze. A tangle of excited voices now traveled on the breeze. His adrenaline pumping, he rose and pressed his head out the window.

  “What’s going on?” he shouted when he heard footfalls passing below.

  The footfalls ground to a halt. “Something just in from the sea,” a man’s voice replied.

  “A boat?”

  “No boat.”

  A guttural moan echoed up from the harbor.

  Kraken gripped the windowsill, his teeth locked together.

  “Laxore!” the man shouted. “And a big bastard at that.”

  The beast breached in the harbor, its tons of flesh and muscle slamming back into the sea with a thunderous roar.

  By the gods! Kraken thought. Not since the Still Sea had he heard that mass of black fat and muscle taunt the acid.

  Mircala
!

  The door to his bedchamber burst open. “She’s come!” Tria cried.

  Kraken approached the bed and felt around for his shirt. “Take me to the docks. I want to be no more than a call behind her.”

  Tria smiled, her teeth still stained red from his blow. She had won this time.

  But this will be the last, Kraken thought.

  Outside, a great mob choked the sand-covered streets.

  Tria lead them through the chaos, pushing aside whores and pickpockets working the distracted crowds.

  “Pri and Ottum are already here,” she whispered as two men approached.

  The whalers’ eyes were milky white, their heads bald and tan, and both had branded laptane sharks crossed by two barbed spears on their chests.

  “My Lord,” the tallest man said, bowing.

  “Pri,” Kraken replied, nodding. The man was his most talented spiker, and one of the few sailors he trusted with the Bastard. If not me, you’ll be the one to finish this, Pri.

  “Have you seen it?” Kraken asked. “Have you spied the harpoon?”

  Pri smiled, revealing a set of blackened teeth. “Indeed, my Lord. Your father’s spear still juts from her spine like a crimson thorn.”

  Kraken grabbed his necklace and rubbed the nail. We will meet today, my friend. Steel and flesh adrift in the mire. Smiling, he plucked the two baby laxore teeth from the string and tossed them to Pri. “Sell them to that trader near Braner’s Tavern and buy the sharpest harpoons you can find.”

  Pri’s heart raced as he stared down at the priceless totems. Just one baby laxore tooth could buy a modest skiff with both crew and tackle. “Very well, my lord.”

  Kraken closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. You will rest soon enough, father. By day’s end, you shall know peace.

  31

  A storm cloud hung heavy above the desert, its growling black belly hinting of the misery to come.

  Michael rubbed his hands together, shivering as icy wind splashed across his back. “Do you think it’s still here?” he asked, his teeth chattering.

  Lasasha turned toward the city and sniffed the icy air. “Perhaps.”