Whom the Gods Hate (Of Gods & Mortals Book 2)

by M. M. Perry

  A puzzled look crossed Cass’ face.

  “Who… or what is diverting Oshia?”

  Oshia screamed up at the mountain tops. Issa was proving to be far more of a nuisance than he had expected and she was seriously peeving him off. A tinkling laugh bounced around the mountains mocking Oshia’s ineffectiveness.

  “Issa! I will not be lenient when I find you. I will turn you into a mudfish. A mudfish so ugly even the other mudfish won’t have you!”

  More laughter echoed back at Oshia. The god picked up a boulder and tossed it across the mountains. It skipped lightly across several peaks setting off dozens of avalanches of snow all along the way before it settled.

  “Your jealousy was charming once. But now it is insufferable. What I do with the human is no concern of yours. Now release the oracles from their compulsion so I can find out what they said to that foolish man!”

  A glint of amber from far off caught Oshia’s eyes. More laughter followed. A light lilting voice filled the air.

  “Is this what you seek, Oshia? I remember this well. I took me years of cajoling to get mother to let me hold it. When she finally gave it to me, I knew you’d be so happy. I’d done everything you asked of me. Everything. Only to be turned away for a human. Did you ever love me, Oshia?”

  Oshia clenched his fists. He wondered briefly how Issa had retrieved the sun stone. Then he let his body relax. Of course, he thought. Issa wanted him back. He knew she probably wanted him to beg. He could kill her later. For now he needed to convince her. He called out sweetly.

  “I’ve always loved you, Issa. Let me prove it to you,” he said in his most seductive voice.

  “Okay,” Issa’s voice rang over the mountains, “but you should have to catch me first. Lovers need to be chased. Don’t give up now, lover.”

  Oshia rolled his lavender eyes.

  Of course the wench wanted to be chased, he thought. She wants to humble me as much as she can. I shall play her game. And when she tires of it and finally lets me catch her, I’ll pluck her eyes out with my teeth.

  “I’ve no idea,” said Suman, “The oracles just said he would be distracted.”

  “Well, what do we need to do while he’s distracted?” Cass asked.

  “All the oracles would tell me is that we needed to travel to Gull’s Port. Apparently something will happen there. I don’t know what, they couldn’t tell me any more. Some god was actively keeping them from speaking too much on the matter,” Suman said.

  “Well, let’s hope Gull’s Port is the end of the line for this adventure. I’m ready to know who I am.”

  Chapter 8

  Gunnarr stood at the railing listening carefully to the song of the gigas. Sam stood next to him chewing on some salted fish. The others were down below, resting quietly in the late evening. The waters had calmed considerably once they were outside the influence of Xenor. For two days they had sailed without incident, making good time. They had a little over a day and a half before they would arrive in Gull’s Port. Despite the brisk evening wind, Gunnarr took the sails to half for the next stretch of water.

  “Won’t do any good. If it’s down there, won’t matter if we’re full sail, half sail or no sail,” Sam said around the salty plug he was still working.

  “I know a man who says he sailed over one without any problems,” Gunnarr said quietly.

  “I’ll bet anything you’re gonna tell me it’s the one that travels through the Sullen Sea, and in fact that’s where your friend floated over it,” Sam said.

  Gunnarr turned to Sam and crossed his arms, “My friend doesn’t lie.”

  “No. I don’t doubt him. You see, the Sullen Sea at that time of year is breeding time for the gigas. There are a lot of young about. That’s why it goes there. One of them gigas calves would feed it for at least a week or two. I’ve heard others say you can pass that one as well. But even it ain’t safe. It just doesn’t find a ship full of men as filling as a baby gigas,” Sam said.

  “Maybe this one will have fed recently,” Gunnarr said hopefully.

  “We’ll see. We got six hours before we’re clear of its territory. You should get some rest in case it does decide to pop up. You’re the only one likely to keep us alive. And when we need you, we’ll need you well rested, not tired from keeping watch. I’ll wake ya if they stop singing,” Sam said.

  Gunnarr plopped down on the deck. He managed to lean against the railing gripping his sword. He knew he should get some rest, but it would be difficult knowing that at any moment, terror could rip through their boat.

  Gunnarr woke with a start. Sam had not roused him, but some deep instinct brought him into consciousness. The song of the gigas had stopped.

  “Thought you were asleep there,” Sam whispered tersely.

  “Get the others.”

  Gunnarr moved as fast as possible to unfurl the sails. Sam was right; the kraken would hear them no matter the speed they were moving. Their best hope was to outrun the beast. The ship picked up speed just as Gunnarr heard the others coming on deck. He turned to see even Manfred had roused from sleep. He briefly wondered if Manfred would save them if the creature attacked.

  “Is it that thing?” Viola asked wrapping herself in a cloak.

  “Yes. The gigas only stop singing to avoid leviathan and kraken. Leviathan do not swim these waters,” Gunnarr said.

  “Unfortunate for us,” Sam said as he tightened the ropes holding down the sails. “The kraken would love a meal the size of a leviathan.”

  “Yes,” Manfred piped up unexpectedly. “They used to roam these waters in packs. Why do you think this kraken is so big, eh?”

  Viola shot Manfred a dirty look for sending a shiver of fear down her spine.

  Nat gripped his sword. Gunnarr had told him what to do if the kraken attacked, but he knew in these situations even being prepared wouldn’t help you much. The most it might do, Nat thought, was help you understand how you were going to die before it happened. It wasn’t much of a comfort for him to know. He eyed the two barrels Gunnarr had pointed out to him earlier in the day and hoped they wouldn’t need them. Maybe the gods were watching and would guide them safely through the water. It was a fruitless hope, Nat knew, but he was willing to grasp onto anything to help keep him calm.

  “How will we know,” Nat was asking when a huge swell of water began forming on the right side of the ship. In the moonlight Nat could make out nothing. To him it only looked like a strange natural phenomenon, if twenty foot swells appearing out of nowhere were natural phenomenon.

  Viola’s mouth opened wide in horror. She could not see the beast, but her imagination would not let go of her thoughts. She felt a hand grip her wrist.

  “Go below deck and shut the hatch. Seal it girl. No reason for you to be up here. You aren’t a fighter and we don’t need to go rescuing you from the sea if you get washed over,” Manfred said.

  Viola didn’t have time to protest the demeaning words. And she saw the sense in them. Without the aid of her magic she would not be any help here. She ran to the hatch and ducked inside before sealing it. The wooden ship was lined with a very special kind of metal; enchanted by the most powerful magic and formed by the best metal smiths money could find. With the door sealed, the ship would float no matter how torn up the masts and main deck got. It was like a cork in water. But that would not save the men on deck. Viola was well aware that if they didn’t discourage the kraken, it would shake the boat violently in frustration, likely turning her into a lovely jam in the process.

  Viola looked around for anything she might be able to use to help her friends. She had read very little on krakens. She had never expected to encounter one. They were rare creatures. They had fought each other over territory until only the strongest and biggest three were left. Their migration patterns didn’t overlap, unfortunately for humans.

  Krakens attacked indiscriminately, tearing boats to pieces and scooping out anything edible, using their long sticky tentacles to snatch men from wherever the
y might be hiding. Gunnarr had explained that ever since sea charts started including the migratory patterns of the three krakens, attacks had been rare.

  Viola knew Gunnarr thought they could outwit the kraken, that they could somehow discourage it from taking them down, but she was doubtful. She knew Gunnarr was blinded by his desperation to finally find Cass. And she also had a sneaking suspicion the Braldashad was counting on the Djinn to save them should the situation become dire. She had no such illusions. She was sure the Djinn would simply snap his way back to Xenor and wait for another opportunity to complete whatever task he was on.

  She looked around at the various pieces of cargo. Gunnarr always travelled with a variety of goods for trading. He said one never knew when something like coal or barley would be the most needed item by a particular settlement. Viola knew what she could do if she still had her magic. Most of the things she used to carry in her pouches were common items that she could harness the inherent magical properties from. Her knowledge of simple chemistry, she knew, might help her if only she could think fast enough. As the ship lurched to the left two bales of hay tumbled over Viola and knocked her backwards. She was trying to steady herself when she saw exactly what she needed.

  Manfred had just sent Viola down below decks. Gunnarr motioned for Nat to tie himself to the mast. The creature would strike fast, and when it did, you did not want to be pulled overboard. There would be no surviving if they ended up in the water, Gunnarr knew that for sure. He tied his own knot and saw that Sam was secured as well. They would have to be careful not to tangle each other up, but being tangled was far better than the alternative.

  Manfred just stood there watching. He seemed quite unconcerned about the whole ordeal.

  “You should secure yourself,” Nat shouted at Manfred.

  Manfred just looked at Nat like he had spoken a foreign language. After a moment, he begrudgingly tied himself up.

  Then the beast rose out of the water.

  In the moonlight details were hard to make out. What Nat did see was a massive body easily ten times the length of the ship. Nat had read a great deal about krakens when he was young. An old man in the city used to talk about the time he saw a half-eaten one wash up on shore. No one believed him because everyone knew there were three great krakens left in the sea. Each had its own name, given to it by the fishermen long ago.

  Nat believed the old man when he was a child. The man might have been lying, but Nat liked to think the world still had mysteries in it. He figured one couldn’t know entirely what was on the ocean floor, and that perhaps smaller kraken could indeed still be down there, avoiding their older brothers and sister.

  All these thoughts rushed through Nat’s head when he looked out at the towering beast as it loomed over the ship. Its dinghy sized eye seemed to stare right down at him. It was a cold, empty stare. He wondered if that was how Morte would look at him when they finally met. The yellow eye hardly need move to take in the entire ship in its gaze.

  The huge body was covered in a massive carapace. Nat knew this armor was thicker than several planks of wood. No one knew of any sword that could pierce it. It was covered in patches of dense barnacles from its long life. Moss and seaweed clung to its crevices. Those crevices harbored other life as well; fish, crustaceans and octopi, all too small for the kraken to take any notice of. In his influx of thoughts, Nat imagined that to these sea creatures the kraken would be as their god, providing a home for them, and safety from larger predators. And, from time to time, food as the scraps of its meals inevitably would be found by the inhabitants of its craggy skin.

  Nat speculated how it managed to get so high out of the water before he noticed the tentacles. It didn’t seem to have a standard number. It had far more than the eight its distant cousin the octopus had. Instead it had dozens of tentacles of varying lengths and widths. All looked deadly to Nat. The thick, meaty suction cups that covered them could easily tear a man apart. Gunnarr had solved that problem early before they had gone to sleep by covering them all in a fowl smelling balm. He said the suction cups were like a thousand small mouths. This particular balm would paralyze the suction cups for a short time, rendering them useless.

  But that did not mean the tentacles weren’t dangerous at all. They could still wrap around you and pull you off the boat, washing away the balm and making it easier for the kraken to pull you into pieces. Nat hoped his sword would be more useful against the tentacles than the body of the creature.

  All of Nat’s thoughts were interrupted by a jarring shift of the boat. The kraken had latched on. Nat braced himself. He was ready.

  The kraken began by tearing at the boat, wrenching whatever it could and tossing it out to sea if its suction cups deemed it inedible. The masts went first. When the creature tossed them they flew so far away Gunnarr did not see the splash of them hitting the water. Gunnarr glanced at the barrels. So far they had not been damaged.

  The kraken made a noise so loud Gunnarr was sure the people in the coastal towns of Centria could hear it. It was like the scream of wood when it was ground together. It proceeded to tear off most of the railing. It seemed frustrated that it could not break into the hull of the ship, thrashing its tentacles against the boat.

  A tentacle reached up and gripped Gunnarr tightly around the waist. He could feel the suction cups begin to tear at him before they went limp. The balm was working, but it only caused the kraken to wrap more coils of tentacle around Gunnarr. Gunnarr was lifted into the air and he could feel his breath being squeezed from his body. He hammered at the tentacle with his sword. Heavy blows fell upon the tentacle with each swing. The sword cut deeply into the tentacle, but the rubbery flesh did not yield. It took Gunnarr eleven swings of his blade to hew into the tentacle enough to force it to let him go.

  Gunnarr fell to the deck with a grunt. He looked at his companions. Sam was stabbing a smaller tentacle that had wrapped around his leg. Nat had just slashed a tentacle lengthwise causing the injured limb to slide of the deck in retreat. Manfred was nowhere to be seen, though his rope was taught and still tied to the mast. Gunnarr was about to follow the rope with his eyes to make sure the little blue man could handle himself when the kraken pulled the ship closer to its mouth. Gunnarr turned just in time to see a huge circular maw ringed with thousands of jagged teeth. As the ship was drawn into the kraken’s embrace, Gunnarr shouted over to Nat.

  “Now!”

  Gunnarr and Nat simultaneously tossed their barrels into the creature’s mouth. The barrels broke and the liquid inside spilled all over its gullet. The liquid was thick and oily. It coated any tentacles that it touched. The kraken seemed unfazed at first, but suddenly it let go of the boat and retreated into the water. Gunnarr smiled. His plan worked.

  “What was in those barrels?” Sam asked gripping the steering wheel.

  “It’s a trade item for the Cartan. It’s elf poison. It’s very strong stuff. Two barrels will last years,” Gunnarr said.

  He looked around at the ship. Not as much damage had been done as he thought. He turned to find the Djinn, suddenly reappeared, scowling at him.

  “Don’t untie your rope just yet, snow man,” the Djinn said with a snarl.

  As if on cue, the boat lurched violently again, sending the men sprawling. Even Manfred was tossed unceremoniously backward by the sudden shift.

  The kraken tore at the ship violently, wrapping its tentacles around the huge boat and twisting it mercilessly. Metal and wood screamed as the force of the kraken’s embrace deformed the steel lining of the boat, permanently changing the shape of the ship. Gunnarr could still hear the wood groaning as he steadied himself. His rope still held, and he could see Sam, Manfred and Nat gasping for air just a little way off. The kraken pulled the boat down sharply and the sea spilled over the edge of the deck washing them all under for a few terrifying seconds, but then the boat bobbed back up to the surface. The seals had held. Gunnarr had paid a fortune for the enchantments and he thought it still wasn’t enough. In t
he brief respite he hoped he would soon see, he planned to go back and give them ten more sacks of gold and an order to make the boat kraken proof.

  The kraken was not through with them. If it could not sink the boat so that it might pluck its prey out of the sea, it would shake the small meaty bits loose. The kraken began a jarring onslaught that even Manfred could not ignore. His small feet lost their balance as he tumbled end over end toward the edge of the deck where the kraken’s toothy mouth awaited. His rope was just a tad too long now that there was no railing on that side of the ship. He closed his eyes so as not to see his imminent death. Manfred felt a strong grip clamp over his ankle. He looked up to see Gunnarr holding him tightly.

  “He’s gonna destroy the ship,” Sam shouted angrily at Gunnarr. “I told you this was a foolish plan!”

  Gunnarr looked down into the Djinn’s eyes.

  “Help us,” he said firmly.

  Manfred slowly shook his head.

  “I cannot, snow man. I have one shot. If I waste it here, we might as well have never left Xenor. I can take us all back, I suppose. But I can guarantee you if I do that, you will never see your friend again. Oshia will recapture her. When he realizes there is no way he’ll retrieve what he wants from her, he’ll keep her for all eternity. Worse yet, he’ll keep her alive. He won’t even let her die in peace,” Manfred shouted back.

  Gunnarr’s bones tried to break free of his body with every violent jerk the kraken put the ship through. He stared at Manfred, trying to see deceit in the blue man’s eyes. However, he didn’t. All he saw was bitter disappointment. Gunnarr felt that he had never been in a darker place. His plan had not worked. He would go down into the kraken’s stomach like all sailors who had been foolish enough to tempt those waters before him. Gunnarr closed his eyes and prayed to Timta. He prayed that she would find Cass and protect her. He knew Timta was an old god, but Timta was also a mother, in whatever way a god could be a mother. Perhaps she would still feel something maternal enough to make the effort to protect her child.