by Jon Skovron
“In these well-traveled waters, we’re more in danger of crashing into a merchant vessel in the dark than getting attacked by pirates,” he said.
Merivale had to admit he had a point. The stretch between Stonepeak and New Laven, which they would spend a large portion of their trip sailing, was the most heavily trafficked sector in the empire. No sane pirate captain would even attempt it.
But it was the damned ocean and she should have known it wouldn’t let them through unscathed. Because while pirates might not dare a raid in this sector, they were not the only dangerous things drawn to bright lights in the dark.
Merivale stared out at the black water, her elbows on the port gunwale. She dreaded the queasy, fitful sleep ahead of her, so she hadn’t gone to her bunk yet. She wished there was at least some starlight to pretty the view up a little, but a bank of purple clouds hid them from sight, and only the faintest outline of the moon shone through.
There was a dull thud against the port side of the hull that made the yacht shudder.
“What was that?” she demanded of the first mate, Tybel, who manned the helm during the night shift.
Tybel was not much older than Merivale, and didn’t seem nearly as knowledgeable as Beverman. “I… I’m not sure, my lady. There’s not a reef for leagues, according to the charts, so I don’t know what we might have hit.” He nodded to one of the sailors. “Mavic, go check it out. Make sure there’s no damage to the hull or something clinging to it.” He turned back to Merivale. “Perhaps we’ve just bumped into some flotsam in the water.”
Mavic leaned over the port side, his eyes squinting in the dark.
“What in all hells is going on?” demanded the captain as he climbed onto the deck, his coat and hat pulled on over his nightshirt.
“Something bumped into us, Captain. Mavic is checking for damage.” Tybel pointed to Mavic, who was still leaning over the side.
Then a goblin shark burst from the water, purple-gray skin gleaming in the lantern light. Its needle jaws stretched past the tip of its nose, opened wide, and twisted Mavic’s head off in one bite before plunging back into the dark water.
They all stared in shock for a moment as the headless body gave a twitch, then began to pitch forward.
“Don’t let it hit the water!” yelled the captain as he dashed toward it. But everyone else only stared in mute horror as the corpse dropped with a heavy splash into the sea.
“That much blood’ll bring the whole pack down on us!” said the captain.
“I’m not sure I see much danger, Captain,” said Merivale. “As long as we don’t lean over the side, they can’t reach us.”
“Depends on how much bigger they get,” he said grimly.
“They get bigger?” Merivale’s eyes widened. That goblin shark had easily been over ten feet long. “How much bigger?”
The captain looked from bow to stern, then to Merivale. “Bigger than this ship.” He raised his hands to his mouth and shouted, “All hands! Rouse the whole crew! We need to put as much distance between ourselves and this area as we can. Give me full sail and raise the jib. Anything we don’t need goes overboard!”
The ship suddenly teemed with activity. Both shifts of crew were out at the same time, making twice as many hands, but also making it hard for them not to trip over one another. Merivale knew now was the time for her to get out of the way and let the sailors do their work, but the only place not packed with men was below deck.
Even as she made her way down, she had to press up against the side of walls or doorways to let sailors by carrying cooking utensils or dishes to be thrown overboard.
She intended to go to her own cabin, but at the last moment, changed her mind and headed for Rixidenteron’s cabin. A moment before she opened the door, she remembered it wouldn’t be Rixidenteron in there right now. It was the Shadow Demon.
“Something is amiss,” he observed calmly as he lay chained to his bunk.
Merivale listened to the panicked shouts and stumbling footsteps on the deck above them. “Really? What gave you that impression?”
The Shadow Demon seemed immune to humor, however. “The crew has become frantic and disorganized, and you stink of fear.”
“Of course you can smell fear,” she said acidly. She had no problem with fear. It was a useful emotion that promoted survival. But she felt more exposed knowing her fear was showing than if her bosom was showing. Her breasts, after all, were quite attractive. Fear, on the other hand, was never pretty.
There was another dull thud against the hull. It sounded louder this time, although Merivale thought that might be because the cabin was near the waterline. Either way, the floor lurched beneath her feet so she had to steady herself. She peered out the tiny portal, but couldn’t see much in the darkness except spray from the ship’s wake glittering in the lantern light.
Then the portal went dark. Merivale jerked her head back instinctively as the jaws of a goblin shark scraped against the glass.
“You should keep away from there,” the Shadow Demon said mildly. “Or you’ll draw more of them and they will eventually break through.”
“Through the portal?”
The demon only shrugged awkwardly beneath his chains.
“I need to know what’s going on. How can I do that if I can’t even look out the window?” she said.
“You want to know what’s going on?” He shimmied beneath his chains so that he could press his ear against the wall of the ship. He closed his eyes and listened for a long time. “Several large shapes in the water. I can’t tell exactly how many because they’re moving so fast. But I would guess at least five now.”
Merivale wasn’t sure if this was an act intended to increase her fear, or if he truly could hear the vibrations of movement at that level of detail.
“There is one that is slower and bigger than the rest on the way. The pack leader, I would imagine.”
As fear squeezed up her throat, she reminded herself that this could all be a trick designed to panic her.
“It’s coming,” he said.
But there was also a chance he wasn’t faking it. “I need to warn the captain.”
She took a step toward the cabin door but then he said, “Too late.”
Something slammed into the ship so hard it sent Merivale sprawling across the room. Her knees banged against the edge of the bunk and she fell on top of the demon’s chained body. She lay there for a moment and stared into the demon’s eyes. She wouldn’t have believed something so red could look so cold.
Outside the cabin she heard one—no, two sailors screaming. They had been knocked overboard by the impact and now were getting torn apart by the smaller goblin sharks.
“It’s going away,” said the demon, his ear still against the wall.
“It’s leaving?” she asked as she climbed back to her feet.
“No, it’s making room for the final charge.”
“Final?”
“Judging by the impact, the pack leader is large enough to grip the waist of this yacht in its mouth and use the goblin shark’s unusual jaw rotation to slam it back and forth against the surface until the ship breaks apart.”
Calm finally descended on her. The worst had arrived, which at least took the mystery out of the equation. Now she just had to discover all the factors and make her final calculation.
She opened the door of the cabin. Two soldiers were in the passageway. One was bleeding from a head wound. He had probably slammed it into something during the impact. The other sailor was trying to bandage him, but his hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t tie it off. Merivale elbowed him aside and quickly finished the knot before heading up to the deck.
It was true chaos up top. A few sailors were running around trying to secure things, but others seemed frozen by the shock and only stared at the distant hulking form that cut sheets of water to either side as it made a slow arc back toward them. The captain was screaming at his crew to brace for impact, but they didn’t move. Along th
e sides, the regular-sized goblin sharks continued to launch themselves into the air, straining to reach crew members. And off in the distance, she saw the dark purple fin of the pack leader complete its turn and head back toward them.
“How bad is it, Captain?” she shouted to him.
Beverman’s eyes were so wide, they looked ready to pop out of his skull. “How bad is it?” he shrieked. “How bad? We’re all pissing dead! That’s how bad!”
Merivale had been looking for a status report on the damage done to the ship, but clearly they were well past that point. The captain, and by extension most of the crew, were now useless. That left precious few options and only one with any great chance of success.
She hurried back down below deck to the Shadow Demon, who still lay in chains, his expression still calm, but also a little smug, as if he’d known it would come to this.
“Can you kill it?” she asked.
“I can kill anything,” he said.
“If I let you out, will you swear on your honor as a servant of the emperor that you won’t kill me or any other people aboard this ship?”
“I swear on my honor that I will only kill goblin sharks this night if you set me free.”
She didn’t know if she believed him, but she also couldn’t think of another plan anywhere near as likely to succeed. She clenched the whistle between her teeth and unchained the Shadow Demon.
He shook himself free of the chains and stood up slowly, luxuriously. They stared at each other for a moment. In a strangely detached way, Merivale wondered if she could even get in the breath to blow the whistle before he killed her.
But then he said, “I will need whatever weapons are available. Guns, knives, spears. Whatever you have.”
Merivale kept the whistle clenched in her teeth as she gestured for him to move into the passageway. Once they were out of his cabin, she pointed to her own cabin a few doors down. When he opened the door, he didn’t smile exactly, but his eyes crinkled with pleasure as he saw his own travel trunk. He opened it and pulled out a revolver and several of his throwing blades. Then he turned to her.
“A spear or pike for the big one?”
She pointed up to the deck. She was certain she’d seen one up there.
He nodded and the two of them moved back into the passageway. She made him go first up the ladder to the deck. She wondered what the captain’s reaction would be to seeing him, but once she reached the deck herself, she saw he’d hardly noticed.
She took the whistle from her mouth and shouted to the captain. “We need a pike!”
He stared back at her uncomprehendingly.
“I found one,” said the Shadow Demon, holding up the long metal pole with a point on the end.
“Here it comes again!” screamed one of the sailors. “Brace!”
While everyone else, including Merivale, scrambled for something to hold on to or threw themselves to the deck, the Shadow Demon quickly climbed the mast until he perched precariously at the top.
Moments before impact, the giant shark opened its mouth and latched on to the side of the boat. Even braced, people were thrown overboard as the shark carried the boat sideways with its momentum. There was a thunderous crunch as the shark bit down even further on the hull. Then it began rotating its mouth just as the Shadow Demon had described. It slammed the bow hard against the surface of the water, then the stern, like a seesaw back and forth. The hull of the ship groaned under the strain, and more people were flung overboard to the smaller sharks.
Merivale looked up and saw that the Shadow Demon still clung somehow to the top of the mast, carefully watching the giant shark below him. The shark paused for a moment to rest, and that’s when he jumped straight down on it, plunging the pike into its head.
He planted his feet on the shark’s back, using the embedded pike to keep him from falling off the slippery, purple surface. The giant shark shuddered, then released the boat and began to sink.
As the water rose above his ankles, several smaller sharks leapt for him. But they dropped away when he threw his blades down their throats.
The ship had begun to drift away from the sinking giant shark. The Shadow Demon took a few steps back, then ran forward, used the pike as leverage, and vaulted across the gap before the dead giant sank completely out of sight. He caught the ship’s gunwale in one hand, while firing a bullet into the face of another of the smaller sharks. He shot one more as it leapt for him, then pulled himself onto the deck.
There was a moment of silence as the surviving crew wondered who this man was, while also realizing he had just saved their lives. They looked at each other, smiles of relief on their faces, and began to cheer.
The cheer was cut short by the sound of gunfire as the demon emptied the remaining four chambers of his revolver, killing the captain and three other crew members in the time it took Merivale to bring the whistle to her lips.
“I am death,” he told her, tossing his empty gun on the deck. “And death has no honor.”
Then she blew the whistle and he dropped to the ground.
25
Bleak Hope, called Dire Bane by many, gazed out at the great blue sky and sparkling green sea that stretched endlessly before her. Loose tendrils of blond hair whipped against her neck beneath her hat, and her red captain’s coat snapped in the wind. The air had a biting chill, but the sun shone down on her with a warmth and generosity rarely seen at this latitude.
“It’s a good day to be at sea, Captain,” said Missing Finn at the helm of the Kraken Hunter.
“It is, Mr. Finn.” She turned and looked back at the three ships following in their wake.
She had given the Glorybound, a two-masted brig even bigger in size and firepower than the Kraken Hunter, to Vaderton. Old Yammy had remained behind on New Laven, but Hope felt she could trust Vaderton by now. She still wasn’t sure their political and social values aligned, but she knew him to be a man who needed to be part of something bigger and more important than himself, and that was something she understood well. Saving innocents from the grip of necromancy was sufficient reason for him to sail under her command.
The Rolling Lightning was a smaller, one-masted schooner built for speed, and most likely smuggling, but it had a few swivel cannons for close fighting. She was captained by Gavish Gray. It had been the Black Rose’s only condition on giving them the ships, that Gray retain command of the Rolling Lightning. Hope had spoken with Gray and he seemed like a solid, dependable wag. A pirate, but a thoroughly professional one. He’d been sailing most of his life and clearly knew his way around a ship, so Hope wasn’t worried about his competence. She just hoped his loyalty would hold. If not to the cause or her leadership, at least to what the Black Rose was paying him.
The third ship was a nasty little sloop called the Devil’s Your Own that had clearly been fitted for hit-and-run piracy. The hull had been patched up so many times, Hope wondered if any of the original wood remained. But it bristled with a surprising number of swivel guns for such a small ship, and instead of a figurehead, there was a vicious-looking two-pronged battering ram fixed to the prow. Hope had wanted Missing Finn to captain it, but he begged off, saying he wasn’t cut out for giving orders. She had to admit that his quiet, contemplative demeanor didn’t make for the most commanding presence. After some thought, she gave it to Sadie. That pleased Finn and delighted Sadie. And the more Hope thought about it, the more she realized that the Devil’s Your Own was a perfect ship for the old woman.
“Surveying your fleet, Captain Bane?” asked Brigga Lin as she stepped onto the quarterdeck in her customary white hooded dress.
“Technically speaking, wouldn’t you be Admiral Bane now?” asked Alash, following in Brigga Lin’s wake.
“I’m not sure four ships constitute a fleet.” Hope turned to Brigga Lin. “I’m sorry Old Yammy chose not to come with us.”
“So am I. But she’s not much interested in violence, and she said there was something she needed to do that would ultimately help u
s more than her presence at this battle would.”
“Naturally she was terribly sly and cryptic about it.”
Brigga Lin smiled. “Of course she was. I don’t think it was even necessary. She just enjoys doing it.”
“Should I expect you to become that perverse in the future?”
Brigga Lin arched an eyebrow. “Oh, I think I’m probably already perverse enough.”
Jilly emerged from the lower deck, her mop of hair even more unkempt than usual. There were dark circles under her eyes and she walked over to them with heavy limbs.
“Did you finish that chapter?” Brigga Lin asked her.
“Yes, master,” she said sleepily.
“You look ready to fall over,” observed Hope.
“I feel like it, teacher,” she said.
“I know what will wake you up,” Hope said brightly. “Up and down the mainmast ten times. I’ll time you.”
Jilly looked crestfallen, but nodded. “Yes, teacher.”
As Jilly began climbing the mast, Brigga Lin turned to Hope. “Speaking of perverse…”
“She can handle it,” said Hope.
They watched her climb to the top, then drop quickly down from one yard to the next, using the ropes only occasionally to steady herself.
“Someday, she will be incredible,” Hope said quietly.
“Yes,” said Brigga Lin. “Let’s make sure she doesn’t die before then.”
“You have something in particular in mind?”
“I do. Something that will help us in the battle and keep her out of the worst of it at the same time.”
“I’m listening,” said Hope.
