Van’s knuckles grew white from gripping the taffrail. The smell of hot metal filled the air.
Multiple booms from the pirate ship made her stomach churn.
Her eyes widened in terror as the cannonballs flew closer. She clenched and braced for more hits.
Blasts erupted from every direction—geysers of wood and debris.
The ship jerked, and Van’s body crashed against the bulwark as pieces of wreckage cut her face and hands, stabbing her like a million cuts of death.
Some crewman wailed, drenched in blood from their wounds. Some writhed on the deck, missing an arm or a leg. Another ran by shrieking as he held a blood-soaked hand over his eye.
What’s happening?
More distant booms.
A violent eruption blew Van from her feet. She skidded across the deck and slammed into the abandoned helm.
She heard a crack; her back twinged with pain.
The closest mast exploded and shattered.
The boat rocked again.
Pieces of wooden debris crashed down on Van like rain as she tumbled across the deck and crashed down the stairwell.
Out of nowhere, Brux appeared. He wrapped his arms around Van, using his body to protect her from the falling wreckage.
She peered from under Brux’s embrace and glimpsed the bow of the pirate ship. Then, its starboard side as it slid into place alongside The Obelus.
The scarfed head of the first pirate came into Van’s view. Followed by another, then another. They stood on the main deck of the pirate ship and flung multiple grappling hooks tied to ropes onto The Obelus’s deck. The pirate crew yanked the ropes and pulled the vessels closer together.
“Swords up!” Captain Widsith hollered.
Terrified, Van cowered under Brux’s protective body.
She scolded herself. She was a warrior, trained to fight demons, yet she became a jellyfish over a pirate invasion?
The pirates threw down several planks between the ships, making walkways, and advanced onto The Obelus wielding cutlasses and swords, screeching like bloodthirsty animals.
Some of the pirates were human, but others had green or blue skin, some had fangs and long faces, one looked part woman-part cat.
Brux nudged Van. “Get below deck,” he said, still covering her body with his.
“Are they demons?” She wriggled away from Brux’s protective grip and dashed up a few steps of the stairwell to get a better look.
“Danger, ho!” screamed the man in the crow’s nest.
The ship rocked.
Van lost her balance and crashed down the stairwell.
Brux collided with the bulwark.
Van’s body ached in a bunch of places, yet she scrambled to her feet. “Did they fire on us?” It made no sense since the pirates had already boarded the ship.
“They’re too close to hit us with cannon fire,” Brux said, looking baffled.
“Land!” the man in the crow’s nest cried out. “Rising all ‘round!” He sounded nervous.
“Forget the pirates,” Captain Widsith yelled. “We’re about to become fish food!”
“There’s no land here,” Ferox shouted over the commotion. “We’re in the middle of the ocean.”
“It’s not land,” the captain roared. “Batten down the hatches!”
The Obelus rose, as something from underneath lifted it, and then swiftly dropped.
Van stumbled and crashed to her knees. She regained her footing and staggered across the deck, to the side not obstructed by the pirate ship. She peered over the bulwark. Brux gripped her waist with one arm and grabbed the rail with his other hand, to prevent her from falling overboard.
Scattered lumps spanned the sea around the ships.
“Are we hitting those tiny islands?” Van pointed to the water.
“Those aren’t islands.” Brux gripped her tighter. “It’s a sea monster.”
Chapter 24
Eel-like heads with numerous cephalopod eyes and thick, tentacle-like bodies speckled with suckers rose from the sea. There must have been at least a dozen of them.
The word “laocoon” echo around the ship, coming from terrified crew members.
Van gripped the rail as the sea serpents jerked their pointy heads forward trying to snag seamen into their fang-filled mouths. Water crashed on the deck from the powerful movement of their massive tentacle-like bodies.
The pirates, nor the captain’s crew, trusted each other enough to stop fighting until one of the monsters lurched its ugly head and, in mid-fight, snatched a green pirate between its jaws.
The serpent bit down on the pirate headfirst and lifted him into the air. His legs flailed as they hung from the monster’s jaw. He screeched for a second still clutching his sword until green-colored blood spurted from his abdomen. In death, the pirate’s fingers released their grip, and his sword crashed onto the deck.
The crew and pirates stopped fighting with each other and turned toward the sea creatures, weapons raised.
Van steadied herself as the deck rocked from the movement of the monsters’ tentacle-like bodies underneath the ship.
Snapping jaws of the serpents darted down on the pirates and crew, like beaks of chickens pecking at grain. All hands swiped their swords, cutlasses, anything they could manage to battle the sea monsters.
Several men screamed as they each got snagged in the jaws of the creatures. Their blood oozed across the worn wood planks of the deck.
Everything happened so fast Van and Brux remained cowered by the bulwark on the level below, looking upward to see the action. Van saw Pernilla and Kopius dash across the deck, each picked up a discarded deadman’s sword and joined the fight.
“I need a weapon.” Brux released Van.
“Don’t,” Van shouted, over the ruckus. “I have a weapon.”
Seawater crashed over the bulwark, soaking them. They ducked as a slimy head swooped its pointy snout and smashed into the deck a few feet away, cracking the wood planks. Getting no morsels, it rose toward the sky and moved to find an easier target on the ship.
“No.” He clutched the railing as the ship rocked, again. “You’re not trained enough—there’s too many of them. Get below deck with Paley and Daisy.”
Brux darted up the stairwell.
Van rushed after him and paused at the top of the stairs, taking in the terrifying scene.
A bulky pirate raised his sword, exposing his belly to the monster he battled.
Van cringed, fearing for his life.
He stepped aside as the serpent dove down and used his massive arms to slash his sword in a wide arc, going straight through the tentacle, slicing the monster’s head clean off. It thudded to the deck.
Blue blood spurted from the headless appendage. It flailed wildly, then slowed as it slid over the bulwark and back into the sea.
Van saw Brux zip around fallen debris toward a sword lying in a pool of red and blue blood streaked with swirls of magenta. She cried out when he slipped and tumbled.
He lay face-up on the deck, vulnerable for a split second, long enough for one of the creatures to dip its snout toward him.
Van gasped. “Brux!”
He rolled away in time to leave the serpent snatching nothing but air. He jumped to his feet and sprinted toward the dead man’s sword.
Ferox slashed his blade at the eel-like head snapping at him, keeping the creature at bay.
Van noticed his awareness shift for an eyeblink, long enough for him to glimpse Brux rushing in his direction.
She feared Ferox thought Brux was coming for him.
Ferox swiveled, turning his back to the sea serpent. He faced Brux, sword raised. The monster lowered his head over Ferox and opened its jaw.
“Look out!” Van screamed.
Brux leaped onto Ferox, the force of his body knocked the prince out of the way.
Ferox fell backward. He smashed down onto the wood planks, his sword cascaded across the deck.
Brux crashed onto the deck
with him but rolled and hit the outer bulwark.
The serpent’s head dipped again, making another attempt to snatch Ferox.
The prince rolled aside as the monster’s jaw came chomping down. Its thick tentacle-like neck smashed the outer bulwark leaving a gaping hole.
Brux attempted to stand. The ship rocked, again, from the tentacles moving underneath. He lost his balance in the slick blood coating the wood planks and crashed face down on the deck.
The ship swayed.
He slid in the direction of the damaged bulwark. His hands flailed as his fingers tried in vain to grip onto an uneven plank.
“Brux!” Van ran from the stairwell toward him as he continued slipping closer to the gaping hole in the bulwark.
She dashed across the deck. Van hurled her body toward Brux and landed hard on her stomach, arms outstretched, reaching for him. The momentum caused her to slide across the soaked deck head first. Her body came to a stop with her fingers a hair’s reach from Brux’s.
He grasped for her, almost touching fingertips. The ship pitched causing his eyes to project terror.
More and more distance grew between them as his body slipped away, through the opening in the bulwark, and overboard.
Van scrambled to her feet. Struggling to maintain her balance, she rushed to bulwark and gripped the taffrail. She leaned sideways and peered through the blown hole into the sea below.
Brux splashed into the ocean, feet first, and vanished under the water.
“No!” Van screeched.
Not only was his life in danger, so was Paley’s. If Brux disappeared into the deep with his Twin Gemstone, Paley would also die.
Van released her grip on the taffrail and took a step to center herself in front of the opening, ready to leap in after him.
“Stop!” Ferox grabbed her by the arm, his eyes frenzied, his face and clothes spattered with streaks of red and blue blood. “He’s gone. Get below deck.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” She threw him a look to kill. “He’s not gone.”
He’d simply fallen over the side.
Into the sea.
Occupied by a dozen sea serpents.
“You can’t help him.”
Ferox yanked her hard toward the floor. They both ducked and rolled, hitting the bulwark, to avoid a serpent’s deadly jaw as it swooped across the deck.
With no other recourse, Van reached into her pocket and pulled out the tiny black pouch.
The sea monsters weren’t human. They were evil creatures trying to kill all of them. This was a correct use of the Coin.
Van had already come into some of her powers, and although Brux was her assigned protector, her newly gained skills helped even out their roles. They needed to look after each other. Now, it was Van’s turn to help him.
She stood, leaned her elbows against the taffrail for balance, and pulled out the shiny, gold object.
Ferox kept watch. He swiped his sword every time a serpent bobbed its snapping jaws near them and kept an eye on Van.
She held the Coin in her hand, and, as expected, it disappeared into her palm. Van closed her eyes and used her will to connect her Anchoress power to the Coin.
Unspoken information downloaded into her being from her magical ancestral line. Van raised her arms over her head.
She opened her eyes and kept steady as the ship continued to sway from the serpents’ attack and clapped her hands together.
Van felt the tingling in her eyes as they turned phosphorescent violet, and knew she had connected with her power.
Her hands separated. Radiating from each of her palms swirled a disk of yellow-orange light, like two mini-shields.
More and more pirates and crewmen screamed as they got snatched by the sea monsters, increasing Van’s worry about Brux.
With great determination, Van pushed one hand toward the eel-like head hovering directly above. A flash of light blasted from her palm, blowing it to pieces.
Bits of tissue, fangs, and blue-colored blood rained down onto the deck, drenching Van, Ferox, and a couple of nearby pirates.
She used her other hand and did the same.
Again and again. One hand after the other. Dashing across the deck, blasting one serpent’s head after another.
But, more and more serpents rose from the deep in a seemingly never-ending supply.
“We’re outnumbered,” Ferox stabbed the underside of a serpent’s jaw, its blood rained down on him. The serpent jerked away, injured but not dead. “Use your innate powers! Reach inside!”
The fleeting realization that Van had exposed herself as Anchoress to Ferox—and that he seemed to be well-schooled in her abilities—was something she’d deal with after the sea serpent attack—if they survived.
Van took Ferox’s advice to heart and refocused on her inner Self, not on the Coin. She visualized blasting every one of the heads at the same time.
Her body began to heat up. Her palms got uncomfortably hot as energy rose inside her, cumulating into a crescendo and then…releasing.
Lightning bolt-like flashes crackled from her palms and blasted the head of every sea serpent in her line of vision.
Fragmented pieces of tissue and blood deluged onto the deck.
The remaining crew and pirates cheered. So grateful, none bothered covering their heads to protect against the downpour.
The severed tentacles slipped back under the sea.
All seemed quiet.
The ship held steady, the water calmed. No one said a word.
Van rushed to the blasted out hole in the bulwark and peered over the side.
Brux floated amid the ship’s debris and remnants of sea serpent.
She smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Get me out of this mess.” He didn’t sound happy.
“I saved your life. Watch your tone,” Van said. There was no pleasing him.
Ferox appeared next to Van and looked over the side.
“Fish him out!” he yelled to the crew. “Now!”
Several of his men hurried to obey. They dragged a cargo net to the opening and hastily tossed it over the side.
Once Brux safely made his way up the rope netting, Van relaxed. If he was mad that she exposed herself as Anchoress to the Balish prince, then that was his problem. She had saved all of their lives, and that had to count for something.
She scanned the calm horizon, and her heart rate began to come down.
In the distance, she heard Captain Widsith bark orders. He was overexcited about something, but Van couldn’t make out his words, so she ignored him.
Ferox and his men dashed to pick up weapons discarded on the deck by the dead. He commanded the surviving pirates to reload any undamaged cannons.
Van didn’t understand the big rush. Until…
“What—what’s that?” She pointed with trepidation to ripples on the surface of the water near the ship.
“Oh, no,” Brux muttered.
Captain Widsith dashed over and grabbed the back of Van’s shirt. “It ain’t over yet, girl. Get those powers ready.”
A giant island came into view before her. Not an island—an enormous head—squid-like with a large, single eye staring directly at her.
“You pissed it off.” The captain gripped his sword.
As far as Van could tell, he and the crew braced for the fight of their lives.
Chapter 25
“Laocoon,” Captain Widsith snarled at the sea monster as if calling it out. He craned his neck as the enormous, squid-like head rose from the sea.
Van’s stomach dropped as she realized the serpents that had attacked their ship were connected to this singular sea monster, like an octopus’s tentacles. Its limbs, the ones with eel-like heads still attached, rose from the water and all of its eyes glared at Van.
In unison, they opened their jaws, including the main head whose beak-like mouth displayed multiple rows of sharp teeth.
The monster’s tentacles lurched forward all at once, ea
ch head snapping its jaws trying to grab one of the crew or pirates.
The laocoon’s main eye held its focus on Van. Its long, forked tongue shot straight forward.
“Duck,” Brux yelled.
Van hurled herself out of the way, and the tongue snapped back like an elastic. She landed on a splintered piece of the deck, slashing her right flank.
The laocoon jerked her glossy head forward, extending her jaw and taking a bite out of the stern close to Van and Brux.
The ship dipped and rocked with the laocoon’s bite, sending the crew and pirates sprawling.
Van rolled and crashed against the outer bulwark. She screamed in agony. Her blood seeped onto the wood planks mixing with seawater, other blood—green, blue, and red—and blasted chunks of the sea monster.
Van twisted to inspect her laceration causing her tremendous pain. Her skin was spliced below the ribs. She struggled to sit upright, encouraged that none of her internal organs had spilled onto the deck. Only a flesh wound.
Brux rushed over. “Are you all right?”
Van’s blood oozed, and Brux applied pressure using his hands to help stop the bleeding.
Across the deck, Kopius and Pernilla appeared by Ferox’s side, breathing heavily, and soaked with blood and sweat as he, along with the crew and pirates, regained their footing.
Van heard Pernilla tell Ferox, “We were fighting on the other side of the ship. Pirate ship’s gone—obliterated.”
“Plenty to do here,” Ferox said in a strained voice as he and Captain Widsith raised their swords in preparation for the incoming attack by more of the laocoon’s tentacles.
Pernilla and Kopius joined Ferox and the captain. They slashed and jabbed at the eel-like heads.
“We have to get the main head,” Kopius yelled, as he swiped his blade across a serpent’s snout.
“It’s too far out,” Ferox said. “We can’t reach it.”
“Van!” Pernilla shouted—a pleading cry.
With unsteady legs and holding her side, Van heaved herself onto her feet with the help of Brux. She felt light-headed and weak.
Several of the remaining crew members, along with Brux, circled Van, protecting her from the snapping snouts, so she could gather her powers, again.
Plague of Death Page 20
