The Sword Falls

by A. J. Smith

  All at once, the crew moved. Their skill returned and each Sea Wolf rushed to their stations. Daniel disappeared below deck, heading for the starboard ballistae. The port side would have been ideal, but the engines on the near side were badly damaged from the flailing Sunken Men, and could not be used. Within seconds, rig-rats had flung themselves onto the rigging, tugging on ropes and trimming the mainsail.

  There were twenty depth barges between us and the remaining ships, but they’d not reacted to our presence. Either we were too far away, or they didn’t consider us a threat. As the wind was spilled from our sails and the Revenge began to turn, I thought the battle tactics of our enemy may finally work in our favour. Twenty depth barges didn’t see any danger in a lone Sea Wolf ship. We would show them how wrong they were.

  “Adeline, we’re coming about,” shouted Siggy, having to use wyrd to hold onto the helm, as the ship lurched violently to port.

  Beneath my feet, I could hear Daniel barking orders to the Sundered Wolves. By the time the ship had turned and settled on the ocean, six ballistae bolts were visible from the starboard railing of the ship, each with an attached cask of black dust.

  “When I give the order to fire, you will fire and you will not stop firing. You will reload as if your fucking lives depended on it and you will fire again. We. Will. Fuck. Them. Up.”

  “Once more for the Sea Wolves!” I couldn’t tell who’d started the chant, but it carried across the entire crew as angry, grief-stricken men and women emptied their lungs one last time.

  “Daniel, sight your targets well,” I commanded.

  “As if my life depended on it,” he replied, from the ballistae deck. “Longer fuses this time.”

  Halfdan’s Revenge now pointed west, back towards Hook Point. Her sails had been trimmed and she was moving only slowly. I heard the metallic crank of winches, raising the elevation of our artillery to reach the distant depth barges.

  “At your order, Mistress Brand,” shouted the Sundered Wolf.

  I paused for a second, staring first at what was left of the Sea Wolf fleet, then at the rippling line of depth barges. “Fire,” I said.

  “Fire!” roared Siggy.

  “Fire!” commanded Daniel.

  Six engines flexed and six huge wooden bolts were released. We were at the very edge of our effective range and the bolts arced into the sky, vibrating as they cut through the air, with each trailing a burning fuse. Striking the distant targets was a far more difficult broadside than our previous shot, and despite the Sundered Wolves’ evident skill with artillery, our first volley struck only two of the twenty depth barges. But what a strike it was. Even with four of the bolts landing harmlessly in the sea, the explosion was huge. As before, muddy black and grey smoke erupted instantly, but this time we could see the destruction. The two barges had been just below the surface and were now reduced to flying rubble, with two globes of broken corral and body parts erupting from the waterline. A dozen dead frogs, maybe more, and the complete destruction of two of their vessels. Before the wreckage had splashed back into the water, I could hear the ballistae crews reloading.

  “They seem to have noticed us,” observed Tomas, as the line of depth barges altered its course towards us, like a snake moving across sand.

  “Good,” I replied. “The closer they get, the easier they are to hit.” I looked ahead to Hook Point and the craggy coastlines either side. “Siggy, turn us down the coast. Shallow water, but keep us moving. It they want to board us, let’s make it difficult.” I turned back to the rippling line of depth barges. If we circled to the south, around the wreckage of the fleet and towards the surviving ships, we could keep our starboard ballistae pointed at the enemy. I ran to the closest downward steps and shouted for Daniel. “Keep it steady, we’re turning. I want three more volleys before they get to us.”

  “Just three?” he replied.

  “If you can manage more, shoot more.”

  Up on deck, as the Revenge turned into the coast, Tasha, Eva, and a handful of Sundered Wolves were hefting casks of black dust next to the starboard railing. This time we’d be ready if any fucking frogs managed to board us.

  Our broadside now faced the head of a line of barges, and Daniel adjusted his aim accordingly. The second volley had a tighter trajectory and was unleashed as soon as the ship levelled out on her new course. The targets were getting closer, but their single file formation was smashed as soon as the volley struck the head of the snake. Somewhere behind the dull explosions and grating destruction of the coral barges, I thought I could hear high-pitched screaming. Then, as the smoke cleared, and the Revenge glided onwards, a haphazard mob of depth barges was revealed. The water was too shallow for them to fully submerge, and their lines of travel, now chaotic and panicked, were obvious for all to see.

  “Hitch,” I shouted aloft, “how many did we get?”

  “Three, I think,” replied the rig-rat. “Maybe another one’s damaged. I think they’re scattering. Err, something else… the Never’s making sail. She’s seen us.”

  As our Sundered Wolf allies unleashed a third volley at the scattered depth barges, all eyes turned to the south. The High Captain’s ship had turned and dropped her mainsail, moving towards us along the coast. Behind her, two more surviving warships were making sail. I recognized the second ship as the Lucretia, the Kneeling Wolf vessel under Captain Charlie Vane, called the War Rat.

  “Another one or two with that volley,” shouted Hitch, from the crow’s nest. “I think they’re breaking.”

  “Daniel, keep firing,” I commanded.

  Huge balls of wispy cloud and smoke now rolled across the water, obscuring much of the wrecked fleet. It was hard to see the remaining depth barges, as they moved in and out of the smoke, but they were no longer headed towards us. The effects of the black dust went beyond its explosive properties. The Sunken Men were both afraid of it and repelled by it. A final volley flew from the ballistae deck and was enough to break the depth barges. Maybe eight or nine were still mobile and they turned away from the coast, travelling out to sea in haphazard lines.

  “Fuck you!” I bellowed, spitting over the starboard railing as the depth barges fled into the deeper water. “Fuck you and your god!” I had no time for eloquence or wit. All I felt was anger… and guilt. “No spirits, gods or men hold dominion over me!” When I finished shouting and turned to face the crew, my eyes were red and moist.

  “Adeline,” said Siggy, breathing heavily. “The enemy is defeated. We… we won.”

  “Not sure we have,” shouted Hitch.

  There was no celebration to interrupt, but the rig-rat’s words made everyone, Sea Wolf and Sundered Wolf, look aloft.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “I… I don’t know what I’m seeing,” replied Hitch, shielding his eyes as he craned out of the crow’s nest, looking south, towards the coast. “The High Captain didn’t move because he saw us… there’s something big coming over land.”

  We all looked south, beyond the drifting wreckage, to the low coastline. The Never and the Lucretia were dragging the beached ships away from the coast and the remaining fifty-three Sea Wolf vessels were limping towards Halfdan’s Revenge.

  “Hitch, I don’t see anything,” I shouted. “Just what’s left of the fleet. What do you see?”

  There was a moment of silence, during which Daniel, Eva and the Sundered Wolves came up on deck. They joined the rest of the crew, standing against the port railing. We all watched men and women, scurrying across the decks of fifty-three ships, desperately trying to make sail and leave the coast. They were fleeing from something.

  “What do you see?” I repeated, shouting aloft.

  “Something we can’t fight,” was the spluttered reply.

  I looked up from the wreckage and the slowly moving fleet, to the distant coastline. Black clouds and banks of heavy fog obscured much of the rugged landscape of Big Brother, revealing little but rocks and dense, dark green foliage. Even still, we could see fo
r many miles to the south, but nothing to suggest what Hitch had seen. I was about to shout back at the rig-rat, when my eyes were drawn higher. Distance was hard to judge, but there were strange, moving shapes at the extreme edge of my vision, twisting and distorting the heavy fog where it met the black clouds. The distortions slowly became three distinct shapes, still many miles away. The shapes towered over the land, the sea, and the remaining ships of the Sea Wolf fleet, as if three giants approached through the fog.

  “We need to go,” said Siggy, appearing next to me.

  “Yes,” I whispered, “we need to go.”

  “The fleet needs time,” murmured Tasha, staring at the distant shapes.

  In the foreground, with rumbling fog beginning to part in the distance, was a broken mob of fifty-three ships, desperately trying to make way. There was wind, but not enough for swift movement, and the High Captain was struggling to get the damaged and beached ships under way. Halfdan’s Revenge was too distant to help, and if we turned we’d lose the wind.

  “I see them,” shouted Hitch. “I see them.”

  The rig-rat was a minute or two ahead of us in what he could see, and he began to wail. His words jumbled together, becoming grunts, then howls, then screams, finally rising into manic laughter. Before anyone could shout up to him, the man flung himself from the crow’s nest, falling the full length of the mainmast. He howled the entire way to the deck, where his body broke against a barrel, sending a sudden spray of blood across the deck.

  “Calm!” announced Eva Rage Breaker, sending a blanket of wyrd across the crew.

  It was a strange sensation. Two hundred people looked at the dead body of the rig-rat, but the Sundered Wolf stopped even the slightest sense of panic. Sea Wolves, who would normally rage at the sudden suicide of a crew mate, were made to focus and tune out their anger.

  “It’s okay,” said Eva, speaking gently to anyone on deck. “You can look at them and keep your minds. But do not look for too long, for the remaining Sea Wolves need our help.”

  We all looked, wanting to see what had driven Hitch to kill himself. What we saw was almost too much to process. Three giant figures, marching through the distant fog, approaching the coast. Their size alone was incomprehensible, and they towered over the coastline, adding three huge shadows to the already dark skies. They were Whips of the Sunken God, but three or four times larger than the one we’d killed at the Bay of Bliss. The Ravenous Whip had been huge and difficult to kill, but I remembered it as merely a monstrous creature – terrifying, but comprehensible. These Whips were far more than that. One was an immense frog, pulsing and blubbery, walking on its hind legs and dripping slime that crushed trees and obscured rock formations. Another was more like a walking skeletal fish, with sharp barbs across every angle of its body, as long as the width of a warship. The third, walking between the other two, was the largest. It was coloured red and green, with sinewy limbs and a terrifying, curved snarl across its angular mouth. Three rows of overlapping teeth emerged, forming an expression of hatred and spite. Somewhere, deep within me, I knew that they were responsible for the destruction of Last Port.

  Everything slowed. Rage Breaker had softened the impact, stopping anyone else from going mad, but the entire crew still stood aghast, unable to react to the giants’ approach. Nothing we thought we understood about the world had prepared us for this. According to Dark Wing, the Ravenous Whip had been a million years old. These creatures were far, far older… and they were awake… and they were walking towards us. What the fuck were we supposed to do? Any one of them could crush Halfdan’s Revenge with a single footstep and not realize it had done it. Hitch’s reaction was entirely understandable.

  “Adeline.” Someone was talking to me.

  “Adeline.” Someone was now shouting at me.

  “The fleet’s moving north… We should join them.” The speaker was Daniel Doesn’t Die, the Sundered Wolf. The spectacle of eldritch immensity appeared not to affect him, and he was the only crew member with his back to the three giant Whips.

  “Look at them,” I whispered. “How do we fight that?”

  “We don’t,” he replied. “We run away. You needed to see it, Adeline. You needed to see how insignificant you are… how insignificant we all are.”

  I managed to pull my focus back to the Never, the Lucretia, and the fifty-three Sea Wolf ships. They were all moving, even the badly damaged transports, pulling themselves away from the coast as quickly as they were able. I couldn’t see if any of the remaining crews were going mad at the sight of the Whips, but they managed to reach open water.

  “Adeline, look at me!” barked Daniel, grabbing my face and turning me towards him. “They won’t set foot in the Inner Sea, but we need to get the fleet away from the coast.”

  “But they can just… why don’t they just… kill us? We can’t sail fast enough to get clear of them.”

  “I told you,” said the Sundered Wolf. “Those Whips won’t touch the Inner Sea. Why else would they come over land?”

  “What?” I replied. “Why not?” From where I stood there was no hope of victory or escape. The giant creatures needed only splash into the water to cause a tidal wave sufficient to wreck most of the fleet.

  “The Sea of Stars is their home,” replied Daniel. “The Inner Sea is the territory of something else. It’ll stop them… but not for long.”

  He was right. As the fog cleared, the three mountainous figures stopped lumbering forwards. The red-and-green one had the longest arms and reached down towards the coast, sweeping up a small cutter, still making way from the beach. The Whip grasped the vessel amidships and squeezed, flinging splinters and planking at the fleeing ships. All three of them now loomed over Hook Point, with the primal trees of Big Brother barely reaching their ankles, but they didn’t get too close to the waters of the Inner Sea.

  Thoughts of a Sea Wolf fight-back against the Sunken God left my mind, as did thoughts of an honourable last stand. We could kill the smallest Sunken Men, we could use black dust to defeat their depth barges, and fire to defeat their frogspawn, but the largest Whips were beyond our skill, our craft and our comprehension. All I could think about was running away. I wanted to run until my people and I were safe, as far from the monstrous Whips of the Sunken God as we could get.

  I stepped back from the port railing and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I was looking at the deck and the crew of Halfdan’s Revenge. If I kept my head bowed, the monsters in the distance were pushed to edges of my perception, allowing me to deal with the things in front of me. “Siggy Blackeye!” I shouted. “Point your fucking eyes at the deck and get everyone moving. We have to help the fleet and head north. Now!”

  Eva Rage Breaker was standing by the helm, her arms spread wide and a twitch of discomfort on her face, as if it took great effort and great expenditure of wyrd to calm the crew. With her help, I managed to get several dozen Wolves to turn away from the Whips and follow orders. Then Siggy found her voice and started shouting.

  No one wanted to look up, and everything was done in silence, but we trimmed sails and turned from the coast. The Never was closest. The High Captain’s ship was under full sail, dragging three smaller ships behind it, heading directly north. The Lucretia and a gang of Sea Wolf warships were pulling the last transport vessels from the coast, with huge nets cast between them, recovering as much of the wrecked fleet as possible. Fifty-two ships, and all that remained of the Sea Wolves, fled in fear from three Whips of the Sunken God.

  31

  Halfdan’s Revenge was at the centre of a perimeter, gathered around the more vulnerable ships, moving slowly into the Turtle Straits. The Never was to the east of us and the Lucretia to the west. A small delegation from the survivors had found their way to me, and Driftwood’s stateroom was full of battered sailors and angry Sea Wolves, each wanting some certainty to smash through the bleakness. Wilhelm Greenfire, the High Captain, was still alive, as were Charlie Vane and Oswald Leaf. Jonas Grief, my master-at-arms, wa
s dead, as were Ingrid Raider and most other duellists of the Severed Hand. No one, not even Wilhelm, wanted to give a detailed account of what had happened to the fleet, as if the three Whips eclipsed even the sight of many thousands of dead Sea Wolves.

  Tynian had refused to remain in the healer’s chamber and was reclined against the wide bay window at the rear of the stateroom, the stump of his leg elevated on a wooden stool. Kieran Greenfire was stubbornly clinging to life, but he had not regained consciousness, and was being tended to by Bjorn, with Daniel and Eva close by. The two Sundered Wolves had retreated to the spirit-master’s chamber as soon as the survivors had started coming aboard. I was still the only one who knew who Daniel was, and I sensed he wanted it kept that way. The other Sundered Wolves mingled easily, answering any questions directed at them, and asking more than their fair share.

  “Adeline,” said the High Captain, leaning back on his wooden chair, apparently unconcerned that Kieran, his son, was dying. “Thank you. I’m too tired to ask you any searching questions about your exploding ballistae bolts, or what happened at the Starry Sky with these Sundered Wolves.” He looked over the faces of people who had seen too much and slept too little. “All I need to know is where we’re headed… so we can put those things behind us.”

  “And get some fucking sleep,” added Charlie Vane, the War Rat. “I’ve been awake for three days… two of them watching everyone die. Then I saw four of my mates tear their own eyes out when those… giants appeared.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Wilhelm, strangely unconcerned that a lowly Kneeling Wolf had interrupted him. “Where can we go?”

  I sat at the head of the table and Tynian hadn’t complained. Siggy Blackeye was seated on one side of me, and Tomas Red Fang was on the other. I was finally comfortable as a leader, though I couldn’t predict how my answer would be received. “We’re going to Nowhere,” I stated. “The Wolves who sail, the Wolves who kneel and the Wolves who are sundered. We’re going to Nowhere and we’re going to join Marius Cyclone.”