by SJB Gilmour
Sarah bolted towards the bow of the ship in anticipation while Mel and the others went to each side to peer into the darkening water.
‘Great,’ Sarah heard James mutter. ‘Why can’t the bastard have come after us in the daytime?’
Captain Thunder ran to the forecastle, followed by Whitey while Robert and Roberta bounded to follow Sarah. The ship shuddered and there was a horrible screeching and scratching noise as the thing began to take hold of the hull.
‘Necromancer!’ Thunder yelled at Angela. ‘Get that thing off my ship!’
‘I can’t!’ she replied, frustrated. ‘I need to see it!’
Sarah wasn’t thinking about her own safety now. She knew what needed to be done and since nobody else was doing it, she acted. She changed back to her human form and began climbing out onto the bowsprit. The long pole at the front of the ship was wet and slippery and not for the first time, she regretted being barefoot. Still, holding onto one of the rigging ropes, she climbed out as far as she could so she could see down past the figurehead on the bow.
The demon’s snake-headed tentacles were sinking their fangs into the ship’s hull and holding fast. The ship itself was groaning even more now as the wretched thing began to pull downwards. Several more tentacles were now writhing up out of the water to snap at the side rails of the ship.
‘Sarah! No!’ barked Benjamin. ‘You’ll fall!’
Sarah wasn’t listening to him. She couldn’t use her wolf form out there on the slippery post, but she could use her power. She concentrated, letting the power of Wolfenvald surge through her. Her eyes glowed with yellow fire and her skin tingled.
‘Strike at the beast with your power,’ advised the voices of Wolfenvald within her mind. ‘Strike now!’
Sarah gritted her teeth and willed the energy within her to take form into lightning. Hanging onto the rope with her left hand, she drew back and thrust her right hand out towards the creature in the water. A blast of fiery light shot from her hand, striking the water and the beast in it.
The ship lurched and several of the horrid tentacles writhed up out of the water, screaming in pain and fury. Sarah hurled another bolt at the nearest one, blasting the head off the tentacle, leaving a scored and green-gored stump.
‘Sarah! Look out!’ Melanie screamed. Two more tentacles lashed up out of the water at Sarah. One came from behind, one from her side. They struck at her simultaneously, but succeeded only in breaking their fangs on her glowing golden skin and knocking her sideways a little.
Furious now at the attack, Sarah lashed out again with another blast of pure energy. This time, she struck the beast square in its hideous face, if that’s what it could be described as. There was a huge eye, a round mouth of sorts with what looked like beaks of a thousand parrots instead of teeth, and green fire for a tongue. Sarah’s blast hit it on the mouth, scorching off dozens of the deadly-looking beaks. Again and again, more of the wretched demon’s tentacles snapped at her, each one doing more damage to itself in the process, but distracted as she was by the constant barrage of fanged appendages, Sarah couldn’t do much more now than wave them off with her free hand. Each time she connected with a tentacle or it’s fanged head, the force of her blow was enough to smash the offending limb into bloody pulp.
On the deck, Angela had armed herself with her Amazon blades, just as James had produced a huge set of pruning shears. The odd pair were snapping and slashing at the beast’s tentacles which were each at least as thick as a man’s thigh. Angela’s blades clanged as they bounced off the scales. James caught one of the tentacles just below the head and wrenched with all his might but instead of cutting through the beast’s body, succeed only in breaking his shears.
‘Why do I have to do all the real work with you people?’ Ronny yelled at them with a tight grin. The grey-skinned little gnome clamoured up the foremast to the fighting knot platform.
One of the crew screamed in pain as a tentacle snapped out and grabbed him at the waist. Huge fangs sank deep into his body as the thing’s jaws closed on him. He screamed once more as the tentacle whipped back off the deck and into the water, taking the poor sailor with it.
‘There be another one!’ one of the crew screamed, pointing out to the port side.
Clinging to the rigging, Sarah cast a look to the left to see another dark shape, much like the one attacking the hull. This one wasn’t attacking them. Instead, it seemed to be putting on some sort of display in the water. Blinking spray from her eyes, Sarah peered through the semi-darkness at the creature. Her skin tingled again. Something was off about this one, only she wasn’t sure what.
The ship gave an upwards lurch as the demon released its hold. It swam as fast as it could towards the new arrival.
Now he could see his ship was free of the monster, Thunder yelled at Sarah.
‘Get back here, girlie! I’m a taking us outta here!’ Then he waved at the rest of his crew. ‘Hoist ‘em all up!’ he yelled. ‘Every inch of canvas we’ve got! Get to it, you dogs!’
The crew reacted instantly and began setting new rigging and hoisting up sails at a furious pace. The ship responded by bucking and pitching more violently as each new piece of sail caught the wind and spurred it on faster and faster through the blackening sea.
Sarah found that while climbing out onto the long wet pole had been fairly simple while the ship was moving slowly, turning around and climbing back wasn’t quite so easy now it was moving more quickly. Her feet, which were now quite numb from the cold and wet, were slipping badly and the rope she was clinging to angled up and away from her to the foremast so that the closer she got back to the side of the ship, the higher she had to reach to hold on.
When she finally made it back onto the safety of the foredeck, she immediately changed back to her Golden Mane werewolf form. Her eyes glowed bright with the thrill of the hunt and had her coat not been soaking wet with seawater, it would have been glowing too.
The crew brought out huge, bright spotlights which seemed quite oddly out of place on the old-type ship. Some raced about the ship, peering over sides, checking for damage. Most of the others pointed their bright beams back out to the sea where the two tentacled monsters were about to meet. The ship was now a few hundred metres away from the two demons and Sarah was glad to be back in wolf form with sharper eyesight. However, even with her keen vision, she could no longer tell which monster was which.
The sea around one of the demons erupted in a huge explosion as one of the creatures leaped out of the water in fury. The other had completely disappeared.
‘My turn,’ Angela announced in a determined voice. She sheathed her weapons then clicked her fingers and was suddenly stark naked. She turned to Captain Thunder, who (like the rest of the crew, Sarah noticed) was doing a very good job of not noticing the beautiful woman was nude. ‘Bring your ship about, Captain,’ she ordered. ‘You can try to outrun that demon, but it’ll follow you forever. I need to exorcise it.’
Thunder nodded and waved at Fingers. The Bosun spun the wheel and the ship began to swing around in a wide arc.
‘Can you do it over water?’ James called out to her over the sound of the waves crashing against the side of the ship.
Angela nodded. ‘It just takes more power!’ She stood with her feet wide apart to keep herself steady and began chanting a necromantic rite.
Sarah had seen Angela perform quite a few rites now and was beginning to get used to it. This time, it was quite different. Not only was Angela’s voice louder and more powerful, her entire body was glowing with enchanted energy. Most of her skin simply gleamed with a soft golden light, except one mark the shape of a drawn bow on her right breast. That mark glowed so bright it hurt to look at.
Sarah was so captivated by this change in Angela and her display of sheer power she almost missed what Angela did next.
‘Confiniouso!’ she commanded, clapping her hands together. As she did this, a wave splashed over the side, dousing her thoroughly but she stayed completely
focussed.
An enormous containment orb surrounded the squid-like demon and rose up into the air above the water. Inside, the demon was now thrashing about wildly, its tentacles snapping at the shimmering spherical barrier containing it.
‘Captain,’ Angela called out crisply as the ship straightened and began to surge forward again, ‘this would be a lot easier if we weren’t moving quite so fast.’
Thunder responded by issuing more orders to the crew who rushed to stow the sails they had just hoisted. The ship slowed down, though still pitched and rolled in the dark swell.
Angela then pointed to a clear spot on the deck and drew a nonagram pattern with her finger. A small glowing nonagram appeared on the tarred wood, which made many of the crew gasp and shout alarms. They needn’t have worried, for then Angela pointed with her finger out to the sea near her containment orb and the nine-pointed burning star floated up off the deck and drifted out to where she was pointing. As it moved, it grew. By the time it reached the orb, it was easily twice the size of the shimmering sphere and so bright it illuminated everything around it in light as bright as daylight.
Gesturing to hold the nonagram in place with one hand, Angela then gestured to the orb with the other. The orb drifted through the portal she had created and then both disappeared. The glow stopped emanating from Angela’s skin, though the drawn-bow mark on her breast continued to glow softly. Sarah didn’t get any more time to see the mark however because Angela then immediately dressed herself. Sarah did however make a mental note to ask her all about it later.
Ronny then climbed down from the fighting knot up the foremast with a very self-satisfied smirk on his face. He beamed about at Angela and Sarah.
‘Well, that went fairly well!’
Angela gave the gnome a questioning look. ‘Oh? Tell me, Master Mason, what were you doing climbing the mast in the middle of the fight?’
Ronny’s grin turned positively smug. ‘You’re more than welcome!’
Sarah cocked her head to one side. While Angela’s expression changed to understanding and gratitude, Sarah herself didn’t understand what Ronny meant.
Ronny saw her confused expression and nodded.
‘That second demon was mine. It was going to be tricky holding it still in this water. That’s why I had to climb up the mast to get a better view.’
‘Whoa!’ Mel exclaimed. ‘That thing was an illusion? You did that?’
Ronny nodded. ‘Whoever sent it after us isn’t very bright. That was a cephoax demon. Sort of a cross between a giant squid and a lizard. Light on brains, heavy on instinct. As soon as it saw another cephoax near its prey, it had to fight.’
Benjamin was also smiling. ‘Yes, well done. We must be on the right track.’
Now Sarah understood. ‘Because someone’s trying to stop us?’
Benjamin beamed at her.
Angela was not smiling. She turned to Thunder.
‘Captain, I suggest you double your watch tonight. I doubt anything would normally share the same waters as a cephoax demon, but these waters are far from normal.’
Thunder nodded. ‘You all get below decks then,’ he replied curtly. ‘If something comes up, you’ll hear about it soon enough.’
Luckily the rest of the night was uneventful. When Sarah first climbed into her bunk, her heart was still racing from the thrill of the fight and she thought it would take her ages to fall asleep. The moment her head hit the pillow however, she was out like a light.
The next day, the group spent most of their time in Uncle Benjamin’s cabin, trying to make sense of what had happened so far.
‘So, we’ve got demonic infections, a Primary Affect and last night, a demon was sent after us.’ James looked to Angela and Benjamin. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Could be Herpethia,’ Benjamin suggested. ‘Definitely a snake link here. You were given The Serpentine after all.’
James shrugged and turned to Nathan.
Nathan nodded at the now fully un-cursed Serpentine. ‘Herpethia, I believe, is a herpes demon. They look a lot like very large cobras, except as well as their main body, they also have the upper torso of a human, including arms. They’re poisonous and very strong. They can also be deified to devil status if they live long enough and gather enough strength.’ He smiled at them all. ‘That doesn’t happen too often though,’ he told them smugly. Devils don’t think much of demons and if a demon gets elevated to devil status, they’re often picked off pretty smartly.’
James squinted at Benjamin. ‘Thought you said Herpethia didn’t have the power to cause a Primary Affect. If wriggly here is right, she might have that power now if she’s been elevated to devil status.’
Benjamin agreed with a nod. ‘But that would require an awful lot of worshippers. Probably more than there are people on this planet. Besides, if she had been deified, she’d have more at her disposal than a mere cephoax demon to send after us.’
‘I believe that was the goal of the original Herpethians,’ Nathan added. ‘The main problem with their cult was that it was recognised as such and so most rational people gave them a wide berth. They just couldn’t get their numbers up to deify her.’
‘That’s on this plane,’ Mel argued. ‘Maybe Ronny’s right. Maybe she’s just stupid. She could have already been made a devil if she’s somewhere else where she’s got more followers. What if she’s seen a prophecy, like we have, that has us in control of Conundrum Gate? If she can control one of us, then she could use Conundrum Gate to get out.’
Angela beamed at her niece. ‘You’ll make a wonderful necromancer one day.’
Mel flushed at the praise but continued. ‘The thing is, no matter how dumb she is, if the cephoax demon failed to get us, then the next thing she sends after us is gonna be bigger and badder than that.’
‘We’ll deal with that if and when the time comes,’ Uncle Benjamin reassured her. ‘We’re only a day or so from Cromwell’s island now.’
Sarah thought for a moment. ‘So this Herpethia thing wanted us to have that tome then? Is it really that much different from the copies you and James remember, Nathan? Maybe those differences will give us a better idea of what she wants?’ Her werewolf instincts made her very suspicious of the strange tome.
I’ve made some notes,’ Benjamin told her. ‘It doesn’t give any clear signs about places or dates.’
‘That’s helpful,’ James muttered.
‘Except that it mentions a period it calls “The Time of Learning,”’ Benjamin continued.
Nathan bobbed his head up and down in agreement. ‘That must be referring to sometime specific. Prophets love to declare this period or that “The Time of” this or “The Age” of that. Considering all this is actually happening now, maybe we’re in this The Time of Learning?’
Benjamin nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’ He looked down at his small notepad. ‘There’s one stanza I thought was particularly telling.’ He put down his notepad and took up the hissing dark green tome. He flicked through several pages. ‘Here we go,’ he said and tapped the tome to indicate that it should start to read.
When the final battle is won, the tower and its shadow shall fall. The First and The Last as One and their armies of Nine will be defeated and Her hordes shall come from where there can be no return. The world of men shall be Hers.
‘Can I see that?’ Angela asked. Benjamin handed her the tome and she began to read, following the elaborate green text with her finger. ‘There’s some strange capitalisation here. “The First”, “The Last”, “One”, “Nine” are written as proper nouns, same as “Her” is an honorific applied to a deity.’
Benjamin nodded. ‘I saw that too. I didn’t pay it much mind, considering it’s basically just Herpethian propaganda.’
‘That’s for Herpethia herself. What about the others? These names keep popping up.’
James got up and began writing on the wall of the cabin with a piece of chalk.
‘Okay, so we’ve got The Last,’ and he pointed t
o Mel. ‘That’s you. Then we’ve got The First.’
‘Probably Sarah,’ Benjamin told him. ‘A First is a leader in a werewolf pack and since she’s the most powerful werewolf we’ve got—’
James nodded and then gestured with his chalk at Sarah. ‘So that’s you. Next we’ve got this mysterious One and these armies of Nine. Any ideas?’
‘Not yet,’ Angela told him. ‘But, we’re making a good start. I’m sure we’ll be able to look for more than just the Babylonian Heresies in Oliver Cromwell’s library. We might find something.’
Not long later, tired from all the intense scrutiny they’d been paying to the annoying green tome, the two girls sought out their bunks in their cabin. Melanie fell asleep straight away, but unlike the previous night, Sarah couldn’t. Instead, she lay awake for hours, listening to the muffled white noise of the waves against the side of the ship. Eventually, sensing dawn was approaching, she crept out of the cabin and went up onto the deck.
Sarah stood at the rail and gazed out at the shining sea before her. The sea was calm and quiet. Only the light breeze and the water crashing against the side of the ship made any noise. Sarah stared out at the grey ocean, absorbed in the rhythm of the water and the ship until the horizon was glowing pink with dawn.
As was his custom, the pirate Captain Thunder arrived on deck as the first stab of sunlight appeared over the horizon.
‘There she is,’ he remarked to nobody in particular. Sarah wasn’t sure whether he was referring to her or the sunrise.
She turned to the bearded man. ‘It seems so calm out here,’ she said finally.
He nodded. ‘Does this morning,’ he agreed. Then he shrugged his scrawny shoulders. ‘Not all mornings are so peaceful.’ He waved at the Atlantic Ocean around them. ‘Out ‘ere, things can get messy. A ship can go down in a flash, no trace at all, if her skipper isn’t paying attention.’ He nodded again then took his customary place at the helm, peering out at the sea. His keen eyes scanned the water and horizon constantly, always on the lookout for more trouble.
