Ramsey lumbered up to the helm, the Magpie’s Wing still rocking fiercely beneath him as the kraken churned up the water and sent heavy waves crashing toward the dock. Once they’d weighed anchor, Ramsey tugged hard at the wheel, bringing the ship into a defensive position that cut a path between the outpost and the first approaching tentacles. If he could get the kraken’s attention, he hoped, he might be able to lure it out into the deeper water.
Another ship cut across their bow, moving at speed, and Ramsey recognized the distinctive bearlike figurehead of Slate’s ship, the Morningstar. Her deck was busy, thronged with not just the crew but also several of the outpost’s regulars, including the shipwright who’d tangled with the cursed chest. They were ferrying supplies and hefting cannonballs, eager to help defend their livelihoods in any way they could. The two captains locked gazes for just a moment, and Ramsey found himself grinning. He hadn’t expected aid in this fight, but he was grateful indeed to receive it.
The kraken was closer now, more details visible in the gloom. It looked old, Ramsey realized, and littered with ancient scars, bite marks, and deep cuts from long-forgotten battles; its coloring was blotchy, and only one of its saucerlike eyes seemed to have any sight to it. The other was scabbed and healed over, or perhaps even missing entirely beneath the wound.
Just because it was old, Ramsey knew, was no reason to take the beast lightly. Age just meant experience, after all, and since he doubted any pirate on the Sea of Thieves had fought a kraken before, the creature would have no trouble dealing with them. Given all that, there was no reason not to strike first.
“Fire!” he roared, and the starboard cannons sang as they unleashed four shots directly at the looming behemoth. Almost reflexively, two of its huge tentacles lashed out, absorbing three of the blows with their thick and scaly suckers. The fourth cannonball struck home against the mountain of flesh, but the impact seemed to do little. The Morningstar had better luck, cutting in at a steep angle and managing to score two hits of its own against the creature’s side.
The kraken’s rubbery limbs slammed down against the water in retaliation, perilously close to the prow of the Magpie’s Wing. The ship was tossed backward, landing heavily in the waves with a blow that staggered everyone aboard and made her rock violently. For a moment, Ramsey feared that the flailing appendage might crash down again and cleave his ship neatly in two, but the leviathan’s attention was diverted by another volley from the Morningstar’s guns.
“All we’re doing is making it angrier,” Mercia screamed. “We can’t keep this up forever!” Already, one of the mighty tentacles was snaking beneath the surface of the waves, gliding with a terrible grace to curl up and behind the hull of Slate’s ship.
The great limb erupted from the water, soaking everyone aboard, and suckers the size of barrels latched onto the deck while the very tip of the tentacle began to wrap around the main mast. Even at this distance, there was an audible creak as the kraken began to squeeze.
Scrambling to reload while the Morningstar’s crew and passengers began to hack frantically at the tentacle that had snared them, Shan and Mercia concentrated their fire on the same outstretched limb, hoping to cause the kraken to withdraw. The more their shots struck home, however, the more the kraken seemed determined to crush the life out of the little ship.
This isn’t working, Ramsey realized. But it has to have a vulnerable point somewhere; everything does. His hand went to his spyglass, wishing he could get a clearer look at the fate of the Morningstar through the spray and the darkness, and that was when he realized. Its eyes. Something’s already claimed one, he thought. If we can finish the job, it’ll be blind.
“Shan!” he called, hoping his voice would carry through the chaos. “I’ve got an idea, but I’ll need some time to pull it all together! Can you keep the beast busy for me?”
Shan nodded. “I’ve got a little snack in mind that should keep it occupied for a while.” Ramsey gave a grim smile of satisfaction before thundering down the stairs and disappearing from sight below decks.
As Rathbone reluctantly seized control of the helm, Shan likewise left his post with a plan of his own. He delved into the captain’s cabin and emerged a moment later, a small silver box clutched tightly in both hands. He muttered a few of the words Mercia had taught him and closed the lid before calling out to Rathbone. “Take us in closer! I’m only going to get one shot at this!”
“A shot at what? Isn’t that a treasure chest?” Rathbone snapped, irritably. “What are you going to do, bribe the kraken to death?”
“It’s cursed,” Shan called back, already halfway up the ladder that led to the crow’s nest. “It’s one that cries! I’m going to toss it right into the belly of the beast, give it a stomachache it won’t forget in a hurry.” He leapt onto the ship’s rigging with the chest in hand, balancing precariously as the Magpie’s Wing tipped this way and that.
The others looked decidedly unconvinced by the plan, but Rathbone reluctantly steered the ship toward the hulking mass of the kraken’s body, weaving to port and starboard at random in a bid to evade the thrashing tentacles. It was a risky maneuver, made even more dangerous by the thudding of yet more cannon fire, for the kraken had moved within range of Golden Sands Outpost, and those on land were doing everything they could to keep it at bay.
In the distance, there was a terrible splintering sound as the power of its tentacle finally proved more than the Morningstar could bear. Her great masts snapped first, sending a colossal mess of sails and rigging down into the sea, and then the hull began to splinter and buckle under the pressure, caving in beam after beam, crushing the wood inward, and finally splitting the entire ship in two.
Those aboard her were forced to hurl themselves overboard to avoid being dragged down along with their luckless vessel. They paddled amid the wreckage, helpless and terrified, for they were too far out to swim for safety, but the kraken ignored them for now. It had brought its attention to bear on the Magpie’s Wing, the impetuous little ship whose actions had disturbed Old Mother’s remains and that now bobbed tantalizingly before it like a mouse that had strolled into a lion’s waiting jaws.
The huge arms engulfed the vessel in a stench of rotten meat so strong Mercia had to fight down the impulse to be sick, and the kraken let out a shrill, deafening screech quite unlike anything they’d heard before.
Shan, trusting his instincts, chose that moment to hurl the chest at the looming creature from his vantage point, a motion that sent him tumbling back to the deck with a loud thud and a grunt of discomfort. Had it been packed with treasure, the little box would surely have fallen pointlessly overboard, but Shan’s aim was true and his arms were strong—they sent the cursed container directly into one of the gaping maws at the end of the creature’s tentacle. Shan let out a triumphant shout, but it died half-formed, for he’d been a second too slow.
Rather than the chest sailing effortlessly down the creature’s gullet and into its stomach as he’d hoped, the box had stuck and caught awkwardly in the kraken’s tentacle maw and temporarily wedged in place. Confused, the kraken began to shake the tentacle this way and that, flaying the surface of the sea. It was certainly preoccupied, but its powerful tentacles would only take a moment to crunch down upon the little box and reduce it to nothing more than splinters.
Mercia turned to Shan to console him for his near miss, and found him cramming his elderly frame into one of the ship’s cannons. “What are you doing, you idiot!” she gasped, moving forward and intending to yank him forcefully out of the barrel.
“Finishing what I started,” Shan said stubbornly, glowering up at the stricken kraken. “We haven’t got long, Mercia. Launch me. Please.”
Realizing that every second they spent arguing made the idea more dangerous, Mercia reluctantly lit the cannon’s fuse and hauled the heavy barrel upward until she was sure Shan wouldn’t simply hurtle helplessly into the sea. This is insane, she thought, I’m firing my friend straight into the clutches of a thing that wants
to eat him. Still, there was something about Shan’s quiet confidence that told her this wasn’t their final moment together.
The blast sent Shan hurtling through the air, his arms and legs splaying as he landed just below the beast’s struggling maw. He’d already drawn his sword, and now he plunged it deep into the ruddy flesh so he had something to cling onto as he pounded at the stubborn box. The kraken paused momentarily, confused and irritated. It wasn’t used to its food volunteering to be eaten, and certainly not to finding it fighting back.
The Chest of Sorrow bawled with even greater intensity, and suddenly, the repeated impacts dislodged the gushing chest, and it disappeared down the kraken’s maw, unleashing a great burp of putrid air. If anything, this only seemed to enrage the creature further.
Shan had already let go of his blade and was somersaulting backward through the air; even so, the snapping tentacles missed him by mere inches as the kraken lunged toward the infuriating little morsel that dangled before it. He landed hard, the wind knocked out of him as he struck the water, and Mercia could do nothing to intervene as the monster bore down upon him with a flurry of enraged tentacles.
As Mercia opened her mouth to scream Shan’s name, she realized she could hear another sound—a song that had gone almost unnoticed beneath the beast’s thrashing but was now getting steadily louder. Much to her relief, she could make out silvery shapes darting nimbly just underneath the waves, easily dodging the clumsy tentacles as they made their way toward the vulnerable man in the water.
She couldn’t help but cheer as Shan was taken in strong, scaly hands, spirited away from the kraken, and carried safely back toward land at a speed not even the Magpie’s Wing could match. In the distance, she spotted yet more merfolk coming to the aid of those who still floundered amid the wreckage of the Morningstar. That left . . .
Just us, she realized. “Rathbone, we need to get out of here, now!” As if to underscore her point, the kraken’s tentacles were closing in on them from all directions, for they were now the only thing standing between it and Golden Sands. Skilled though Rathbone was at the ship’s wheel, they were being besieged on every side by curling, grasping limbs, and every strike seemed to be coming closer. “Ramsey,” she howled at the silent stairwell, “We are running out of time!”
Their salvation came not from their captain, who was still working feverishly below decks, but from a hail of harpoons that soared over the Wing’s prow. They struck a thrashing tentacle that lay directly in their path, causing it to retreat below the waves and clearing a way for the ship to escape the creature’s clutches.
Twisting around to stare behind her, Mercia spotted Briggsy almost at once. She would have been hard to miss. The young pirate was whooping and howling, standing on the prow of the Homeward Dove and calling the kraken every rude word Mercia had ever heard, along with quite a few she hadn’t. Briggsy seemed to be sailing solo aboard the little sloop, allowing the wind to carry her freely while she focused on skewering her foe.
Rathbone wasted no time in using this new distraction to their advantage, finally freeing the Magpie’s Wing from the tangle of tentacles and pulling up alongside the sloop. “I could use a little help at the helm,” Briggsy called up when they were within range. “I feel like I’m going in circles right now.”
Mercia shot a questioning look over her shoulder at Rathbone, unwilling to leave him steering the ship alone. “Go!” he shouted. “It’s not like our cannons are hurting it anyway!” Nodding silently, Mercia dropped over the railings and landed on the upper deck of the Homeward Dove.
The sloop was small and swift; together, she and Briggsy darted here and there to make their marks, Mercia deftly steering them away through the danger while Briggsy stuck spike after spike into the kraken’s hide. The beast itself seemed to be suffering now, both from the stings they’d inflicted and from the effects of the cursed chest in its belly. Its movements were becoming more erratic, as it had lost all interest in the outpost and was now fixated on the Magpie’s Wing, which it seemed to consider the cause of its discomfort.
Rathbone was fleeing into open water now, leaving Mercia and the outpost far behind as the Wing became the kraken’s sole target once more. Even with the ship at full tilt, the huge creature was gaining. The largest of its tentacles was once again drawing level with the stern when Ramsey finally reappeared on deck. In his arms, he cradled a large cask of the sort used to store supplies, its lid nailed shut and its contents a mystery.
“Sure I used to have more of a crew than this,” he grumbled. “Get us in closer, Rathbone! I need to stare that thing right in its eye.” Without waiting for a response, he moved to the cannon and began to load the barrel inside.
Rathbone’s lip curled in a sneer. “You’re going to hit it with a wooden barrel? It’ll shatter in a second!”
Ramsey had finally had enough of Rathbone’s attitude. “Obey my orders for once in your wretched life!” he thundered. “Get us in closer, I said!”
Rathbone’s lips pursed into a thin line, and his shaking hands gripped the wheel so tightly he half expected to snap it in two, but he spun the wheel nonetheless. The Magpie’s Wing turned as sharply as it could manage in the gusting winds, moving closer and closer toward the sopping beak as tentacles bore down upon them from every angle. Ramsey stood with his hands braced upon the cannon he’d primed, glaring at the beast as if they were lifelong foes.
The kraken roared, and Ramsey stood firm as the great creature advanced on him. He waited until they were close enough that he could see himself reflected in the creature’s hate-filled eye, and only then did he fire the cannon.
The force of the blast reduced the barrel and its contents to an expanding cloud of hot shrapnel, which was precisely what Ramsey had been hoping for. He’d packed the cask with all the gunpowder they had left, then thrown in shards of broken bottles, old nails—even salt and pepper from the tiny kitchen. Everything aboard that could sting, burn, or blind was striking the monster’s unprotected eye with the speed of a cannon’s fury, and the response was as violent as it was impressive.
The kraken screamed, each of its tentacles going rigid at once, and then it began to thrash wildly, for it could no longer see beyond a searing fog of crimson pain. Deprived of its vision, with its belly swollen fit to burst with water and a hundred aches and pains from where the cannons were striking home, it had finally had enough.
The leviathan lowered its huge body into the sea, sinking back into the safety of the waters where fire couldn’t burn its eyes and little boxes couldn’t choke it, out of reach of the stinging ships. It released great clouds of murky ink, clouding the waters so that its great bulk was obscured and no more harm could come to it, for today’s battle had nearly been its last.
Beaten as it was, however, the wounded creature did not retreat quietly. Its tentacles were still looming over the Magpie’s Wing, bobbing her this way and that as they were dragged back below the surface. The flailing limbs smashed down toward the little ship that had proved impossible to devour, and their final, sightless blow struck home.
Hundreds of pounds of blubbery flesh smashed into the deck, crashing directly onto the cannons where Ramsey was standing in triumph. He attempted to leap out of the way, but the ship tipped wildly under his feet. He stumbled and fell, and the tentacle’s great weight came down upon his left leg.
Now it was Ramsey’s turn to roar in pain, and to scrabble at the deck as the departing tentacle ripped away the railings. One by one, the cannons tumbled overboard, and Ramsey followed them. Had the ship not righted itself at the last minute, he would have been lost. As it was, he was left clinging to the shattered woodwork with one white-knuckled hand. He dangled and swore, his leg hanging uselessly below him, unable to find purchase for his free hand. His grip on the slimy wood was slipping inch by inch, and his boots kicked out at empty air.
With a yelp, Ramsey fell—and there was Rathbone, grabbing Ramsey’s wrist tightly and lying spread-eagled on the deck. They
stared at each other, eyes locked, but Rathbone made no move to pull the larger man back aboard. After a moment of staring into Rathbone’s pitiless eyes, the helpless Ramsey realized that his crewmember had no intention of doing so.
“See what your grand alliance has brought you, Ramsey?” he hissed. “A broken ship, a missing crew, and an empty hold! Haven’t got a magic chest to get you out of this one, have you?”
Ramsey’s eyes burned like black coals, but his voice was calm. “I don’t need a lecture from the likes of you, Rathbone. If you’re going to drop me, be quick about it.”
“Oh no, ‘Captain.’ ” Rathbone leaned farther forward so that their faces were barely a foot apart. Down below them, foamy water rushed past, for the wounded ship was still speeding along unguided. “You’re finally going to listen to me, just like you should have been doing for the past two years instead of letting the others fill your head with nonsense.”
The Magpie’s Wing tilted and Rathbone grunted, readjusting his grip so that Ramsey’s weight didn’t send them both sliding overboard. “Mercia and her mermaids!” he continued. “Shan and his crackpot inventions! Your very own pirate paradise! It’s a delusion, all of it, because nothing matters but the gold! And when the gold runs out, it’s time to move on.”
“Gold can’t watch your back,” Ramsey growled. “You think you can make it out here alone?”
Rathbone laughed loud and long at this. “I’m not alone, you old fool!” he chortled. “I’ve never been alone, not since I gave my friends their map to the Sea of Thieves. Oh, they struggled out here at first, but they were able to set themselves up quite nicely once I told them how to find Thieves’ Haven. I made sure they took my belongings along with everyone else’s, of course, so that you didn’t get suspicious. We’ve been doing quite well for ourselves these last few months, though of course you were so busy with your magic boxes you didn’t even realize I was gone for days at a time!”
Rathbone’s tone was bitter now. “But why should I have expected anything else? You’ve kept secrets from me ever since we found this place. Me, a member of your crew! Luring me out here with promises of incredible wealth and then demanding I kick my heels in a filthy hideout because you fancy yourself some trumped up Pirate Lord! Well, that claptrap about an alliance was the last straw. You want to rule the Sea of Thieves, Ramsey? You don’t deserve her! Not one coin.”
Sea of Thieves Page 20
