Caught between Van Reiver's men, and the aft ankhbowmen shooting down at point blank range, they compressed the remaining boarders into a shoving mass of humanity entangled by their weapons and unfamiliar burning fittings. To be butchered like the animals they were. The navigator saw Cephill reach through the doorway and pull one frenzied sailor off a body while he pounded the skull with a splintered section of handrail. "Die! Fucking Die! Die! Die!" the adolescent man shrieked, each blow spraying blood, then brains.
"He's dead for fuckin' fuck's sake!" Thian barked, forcing his wild face into the seaman's in a risky move given the frenzy.
Van Reiver saw the last trapped attacker trying to flee over fallen companions, and with a squeak of terror and clatter of discarded weapons, the man leapt past Cephill into the opening. The rapid flight lasted a solitary bound as Vaska stepped out and belted him in the stomach.
The hook made a slurping noise as it slid home, the man folding over the elderly seadog's forearm before being rammed against a bulkhead. Frog eyes bulged, sending grotesque expressions to a body that didn't know it was dead. Hatch rolled onto his side, making the spear within him rattle against the deck. It ripped his wound wider as he kicked the man's legs from under him. Vaska's hook tore free, spewing guts and a pail of blood over Hatch's boots. With a whimper, the panicked man flopped lifeless over Vaska's feet.
"Shit! Balls! Fuck! Son-of-a-bitch! I'm gonna fuckin' die. Motherfucker!" Hatch grimaced, feeling at streams of hot blood soaking his pants. He glanced at his crimson-coated hand, then his eyes rolled until only the white showed, stark and vivid against the inky blackness of the corridor. Vaska blinked at Van Reiver, unaware his hook dripped a sausage length chunk of greyish guts onto Hatch's boots. Snatching a sweat rag from his forearm, Vaska padded Hatch's wound as Van Reiver pointed to Cephill to drag the wounded into darkness as he rested his head on charred planking by the door.
.*.*.
"Get below," ordered Bullsen, stepping through the smoke, leaving it rippling like a theatre curtain behind him. There was a creak, then a gut-churning crack from above that they felt through their feet as much as their ears. "Come on now, everyone inside!" He urged as the noise from overhead became a peculiar rapid humming sound.
Looking up, heart hammering with a fresh surge of adrenaline, Van Reiver saw the lowest spar on the mainmast sag, then snap to a halt when the rigging and blocks snagged on an upper fitting. Massive wood and metal blocks spun like maddened pendulums. Everyone ducked, covering their heads in vain, knowing the weight about to crash down. Van Reiver shoved his men inside and had to resist goggling upwards as the fittings speared down. He heard the spar tear free and smash to the deck several feet behind them, shattering the ship's rails.
The main course flapped with languid grace in the air, then the canvas caught the heat from the wrecked sunjammer canopy and with a blast of super-heated air flared yellow. It cut off the forrard part of the ship with a wall of fire and gave an eldritch roar as though alive. Dozens screamed and ran, seared into rubbery chunks within seconds of boarding. It was shockingly beautiful; he felt a decade younger and managed a breath free from dread's embrace. He shouldn't feel that way, but he only had two men left and wasted the others for no gain. Fuck! Almost everyone he had met since leaving the quarterdeck was dead or missing.
"Fortunate." Van Reiver choked, allowing the shield fragments in the cramping claw his fingers formed to clatter between his feet. When had his appropriated shield been shredded? He hadn't even noticed. Rubbing his bruised fingers, he forced feeling into the pinched, whitened flesh as his hand trembled. He gulped in air, ignoring the acrid taint of smoke and heat. They had failed, bar surviving.
"Timely indeed, Edouard," Bullsen agreed. "I'm glad you made it." The captain clasped Van Reiver's shoulder in a manner the navigator had never experienced. Van Reiver nodded—it was all he could do on wobbly legs. It was more than surreal: he was alive. One of the lucky few, he reasoned with a shamed look back over his shoulder into the inferno. He felt the shakes begin as his knees sagged, leaden with unbearable suffocating guilt.
"The others?" Van Reiver croaked, struggling to articulate functional sounds.
"Very few." Bullsen bit his lip. "Cephill brought back a dozen wounded before clearing out the companionway for you. We've taken the wounded below and barricaded off the aft castle on the other side. The fire here will suffice. We're fortunate; they are still boarding at the waist and not surrounding us. Tryphon's size had this one advantage."
"Gods, what an evening!"
"That, I cannot dispute, and my fine ship wasted!"
"Your orders, sir?" Van Reiver asked with a flicker of déjà vu. He was too tired to think, thoughts slow and treacle-filled. Fighting for his life had left him drained to his core, and he decided everyone who lived had aged badly this day. Old beyond his years, Bullsen turned to him in defeat.
"Get the men off. Fall back through Merizus to our boats and go. Get word of what has transpired here to our Duke." He looked to Van Reiver with an expression brooking no dissent. Van Reiver was sensible enough not to argue as the captain turned his gaze to Cadet Onvice. "Go to the chartroom, take my charts, sextant case and log and place it inside the second mate's boat. Be careful. They may be below decks. Cephill, go with him."
"The first mate, sir?" Van Reiver pressed—dissembling, if honest, wanting someone to take the hard decisions from him.
"He hasn't returned, and I sent Comace for him. I fear their responsibilities are yours. I've not said it before, but you will adapt. I have every confidence in you as an officer, but more so, Edouard, as a man." Bullsen shook his head as loss piled into loss and raised his voice over the crackling of fires that signified the blaze settling in. "Now get going. You are my best crew, my best. Now be off. Save yourselves."
Most said hurried goodbyes. A couple shook Bullsen's hand, while Van Reiver felt an uncomfortable lump rise in his throat. Like a boy cadet in front of the captain for the first time, he found himself unable to speak. Bullsen gave a weak smile and handed across his prized family's spyglass. Van Reiver's stomach sank, and his heart stuttered to a crawl. It was the captain's most treasured possession. A stunning example of gold and silver dwarven craftsmanship, in black enamel with a burgundy leather grip. It was a Bullsen family heirloom for over a hundred and fifty years. The old man cherished it as a mother would her newborn babe. "You will need this, Edouard," Bullsen handed it over. "It is yours, now."
"Is that everyone?" Grimm hollered, pushing through bloody men to join them, slicing the solemnity. No one replied, and Bullsen watched the seamen follow the trail of Hatch's blood.
Van Reiver looked over the burning spar and the safety it represented. "No one is coming through that for a while."
Bullsen nodded at the irrelevant remark. It had been something to say to delay leaving Tryphon. "I'll scuttle her. Now go!"
"Shouldn't I be the one to do it, sir?" Van Reiver protested, ignoring the rapid head shake from Grimm, who gazed hollow-eyed at the spyglass in the navigator's hand, his mouth slack and bloody.
"My ship, my responsibility, you know this." Bullsen gulped. "You know why it is my task, which is why you will make an excellent captain. Thank you, gentlemen, for what you attempted tonight." Bullsen half-turned and locked gazes with Grimm, his snow-grey eyes searching familiar steely grey orbs. "Get him to the boat, Cox'n." Bullsen ordered.
With a stifled protest still forming on his lips, Grimm pushed Van Reiver aft. The cox'n gave him a look and no opportunity to turn around, twitching a shoulder at Van Reiver's resistance. Van Reiver was taller, but Grimm was more muscular and determined. Bullsen left no wriggle room with his order, and Van Reiver had to concede Grimm would obey the old man if his loyalty killed him. Neither liked the look in their captain's eyes—that much was clear. Like his beloved ship, he was overwhelmed and dying. Bullsen seemed desperate to garner some success from the disaster, even if he died achieving it. Looking back one last time, Van Reiver saw Grimm
blinking through tears, sideburned cheeks clenching and unclenching with emotion.
.*.*.
Van Reiver and Grimm arrived untroubled at the wrecked aft ballista crew room, to discover Harcux and Trevir looking tense amidst the dark splintered panelling. Harcux' booming voice had carried to them despite the noise of Tryphon's slow death. Van Reiver saw Harcux wave a ham-sized fist under a weasel-faced topman's face while growling, "Get in line yer cowardly cunt-monkey, before I break yer fuckin' skull."
A reddening mark on a smaller man's forehead highlighted trying to slip past hadn't gone to plan. His three compatriots considered their options in a huddle behind the quarrelling duo as nervous fingers reached towards belt knives.
"Problems?" Grimm asked, glowering at the furtive seaman and saving Van Reiver another problem. Men coming under that mistrustful stare unclasped weapons as the big man unblocked the doorway to the splintered balcony. Their way out.
"Not now. A few spineless maggot-fucker shitbag turd-dicks tried to swipe a boat after the marines left. I had words, and Trevir ejected that yellow shanker, Herp, from the premises when he pulled steel on us. We lost the lady's boat to boarders. The bastards sink a treat when our tin-heads pincushion them, but shame on the boat." The big man grinned with mirth and looked sideways at the marine, who had an unpleasantly pleased expression as the seamen shrank against the bulkheads.
"Can Herp swim?" snorted Grimm, surprising Van Reiver with an incongruous bark of laughter. Trevir leant out. Van Reiver noticed he kept a pair of deckhands in his peripheral vision while glancing down.
"Not anymore," Trevir observed. The two deckhands looked at each other and the blank expression filling Van Reiver's face, before staring woodenly at the deck. "We were wonderin' if there wus anyone left," said the marine. "The last few seemed more dead than alive."
"How many are away?" Van Reiver asked, unable to see through everyone. He dismissed the bizarre death of Herp—what was one more stupid, desperate man to the death's roster—someone's husband, brother, or lover? This was not the time for morbid introspection. With a start from his guilty indulgence, his mind staggered to the present and looked to Harcux.
"We have a dozen marines in the captain's barge with ten crew and the quarterdeck ankhbows. With them are the apothecary and the lightly wounded," Harcux jerked a thumb astern. "They are about twenty yards out, covering us. The cook, quartermaster, stewards, supplies and about thirty men are in the larboard boat. The passengers, doctor, the rest of the injured and stern crew, including Merizus and Mr Dagmar, are in the other boat waiting for us. Jimi and our youngest cadet—whose name I can't remember—are stowing supplies and charts. Everyone I found aft, bar the old man and you two, is here."
"Well, I doubt you'll forget today," Grimm grunted, face sour as he scanned the remaining men, then Van Reiver. Anxious eyes peered over their shoulders every few seconds, feet ready to run, ears pricked for the order.
"Outstanding work, go now and join Jimi."
Harcux gave an incredulous stare at Van Reiver, "You're not goin' first, sir?"
"No, if you sink it, I'll take my chances with the quartermaster and his poxy wig." Van Reiver forced a grin, shouldering the responsibility. A few chuckled, but no-one could bring themselves to laugh.
"Ha. Ha." The big man snorted, and peered with suspicion at Trevir, as he clambered past.
"Enough. After him, and hope he doesn't chuck you over the side," Grimm smirked and formed the eager seamen into pairs. Before Harcux vanished from view, a hairy hand rose back up in the hole, raising its middle digit.
"Has he sunk it yet?" Van Reiver asked, giving the last of the men time to move nearer to the boat. Grimm stepped to the port, to tug his gore-splattered shirt from his waistband, as the last of the seaman huffed down the short rope. Grimm pushed his head out to peer over the last man.
"No, but he's made it lower. The rope's now in the amber."
"Go on. I'll go last."
Grimm nodded. To Van Reiver, the cox'n looked wrung out. Yet despite the blood, bruises and bandages, Grimm dropped out of the stern port, his huge arms and torso effortlessly handling his weight. Van Reiver checked for stragglers, but no-one followed. Motes of smoke became tendrils, then streams surging serpent-like over his feet, tongues caressing his boots.
Van Reiver had waited enough, done his duty, and killed his fellow man—he assumed they were men. The madness in his mind laughed. He had survived. His face twisted at each searing memory, his breathing suffocated by self-loathing. He'd never imagined himself as a killer, in self-defence or otherwise. Gagging on smoke and realising recrimination was stupid—if not downright suicidal, Van Reiver stuffed Bullsen's spyglass into his sword-belt and followed Grimm into the chill, soot-covered sea. He shivered and pulled himself hand over hand into the gathering gloom. The fog to his imagination thickened in a suffocating claustrophobic embrace, making the boat less distinct and the water a soothing balm.
Part II
Adrift
15
Van Reiver was halfway to the boat when the lingering fog pounced and blanketed his sight. He paused, and holding the line, rolled onto his back and looked behind. A veiled glow pulsed, and for a moment he considered going back to help Bullsen. Contrasting guilts warred. Should he abandon his charges? He could imagine the dread expression on Bullsen's face having left the surviving crew. Van Reiver shook his head. He was wasting time and it would be a godawful climb back up. It was enough to get him moving; he turned to face the boats and almost had his arm jerked from his shoulder when the line jerked taut and dragged him half clear of the water. He dropped the line, chanced all his remaining luck and splashed into the mist.
Ten strokes on, he pushed up and fumbled for the hemp. Nothing—shit. His fingertips flicked it on the backswing and he ploughed on. What he wasn't expecting was the rope to come down as he thrust his arm out, slam him in the throat as he sucked a breath in and try to drown him. Foam gargled from his mouth and nostrils as he felt himself dragged under. In desperation, he flailed and snatched for the rope as his lungs emptied. No use, it was like iron. He took a two-handed grip and pushed down, rolling his head until he was free and pushed up for the freshest breath he had ever taken.
He felt the rope twitch against his leg and he set off again, spitting out the sourness that tainted his mouth as he pressed on. The rope shook, undulated and rose to slap his armpit. Playing it safe, he hooked his arm around it and splashed along with the other. It couldn't be far, could it?
He stopped. He heard a loud splash and voices. No, he was wrong; it was a woman screaming. Not in fear, but rage. He slipped closer, trepidation squabbled and lost to curiosity. Carla? Hadly?
"You fucking idiot! If we get back, your pitiful career is over!"
"Don't—"
"You ruin a crown mission to save a wig over despatches? A wig! You are a disgrace—"
"But—"
"Careful, she has a blade!"
"Fuck, keep her back and move 'em apart."
"Get her, she's well pissed an' gonna 'av' 'im!"
Shit! Van Reiver thought, splashing harder with wearied limbs. Could this day get anymore ludicrous?
.*.*.
"Your satchel's in the stern locker, sir," Jimi reported, so breathless and excited he suppressed any panic. The lucky bastard. Savage-looking men hauled Van Reiver dripping over the side as the boy babbled. He nodded, surprised by someone not covered in blood and soot, and extracted Bullsen's spyglass from his belt. Shaking the water from it, he gave it to a deckhand with a gaping eye socket and jerked his head aft. Coughing to clear his throat, he glanced at the weary men. Had he missed the drama? Dagmar returned his sombre look and raised a hand gingerly in greeting. Then smirked.
"So, this happens when you sleep on watch?" Van Reiver accused, giving a lopsided smile. Dagmar grinned back from beside Carla at the transom and held up a slender dagger by the blade. She gave the navigator a strange look while wrapping another blanket around her father and
took the knife. Bundled at her feet, sacks of scavenged food swaddled the old man as the knife vanished as if by magic as light bloomed. Van Reiver glanced at Tryphon and saw no further crewmen or Bullsen. The buff stern decorated with glittering gold-leaf towered cliff-like over them, empty of life. The second mate's shoulders slumped, and a twisted expression of pain crossed Grimm's face as he also willed Bullsen to appear. Grimm's gaze flicked to Van Reiver, expectation stifled, as smoke billowed from where they had departed. He looked about to say something, glanced at the noblewoman and shrugged.
"We do as ordered. Cast off, Harcux. Cox'n, back us off fifty feet. With that blaze, she's going up, despite whatever Captain Bullsen planned. We need to avoid getting swamped." Harcux nodded, his face expressionless, and accepted an axe from a grey-haired sailor with horrific facial scars clutching the rope in his right hand.
Grimm shuffled to the stern, past the half dozen oarsmen to the tiller near Carla and her father. With a last glance at Tryphon, he barked, "Prepare oars, make space forrard!"
Van Reiver studied her, watching the lingering anger fade in the frosty silence as he heard the men respond. "You may wish to keep your head down, when Tryphon ignites it will be quite a bang." Once again she was drenched, filthy and bedraggled, but calm. She slid low against a frame and added another blanket over her father. As though in revelation, Van Reiver saw how she had kept herself and her father alive for several days. Her size suggested vulnerability, but her large eyes showed unwavering determination. Was it unjustified to think she held back vital information? After all, she was no unintelligent girl, and not panicking like half his sailors.
THE TRYPHON ODYSSEY (The Voyage Book 1) Page 14
