The Wind Seeker listed slightly
to one side, sending up a great sheet of shining spray. The coasts
of Azgeras were sliding by some distance to the right, but still
clearly visible. The deeper draft of the ship preferred a depth far
enough out that the waves were starting to shade to a darker blue but
still safely close to shore. She was a trade ship, at least
officially, filled with goods from Azgeras to take to the clans of
the few lords of Kaymene with wealth enough to buy them. But the
crew was a hardened bunch, stout enough in a fight to fend off any
other ships that might take a mind to pillage her...or to pillage
other ships or raid coastal villages as might please her captain.
Today the weather was fair and she was running before a good wind so
only a few men were needed to man the sails and the helm. Most were
currently lying about, taking mid-day naps on the rowing benches
while they were not needed, some with sheets of canvas pulled over
them to shield them from the sun. Although the ship did have a deep
pit down the center, roofed with wooden planks, for protecting the
trade goods, there was nothing approaching a place where a man could
go to get out of the weather.
The breeze slackened slightly and
shifted a touch to the west. With the change, the captain began
banging the gong beside his seat in the prow and yelling loudly to
the crew. “Up boys. The wind has turned and we still need to
round the Havermal point before we make landfall tonight.” There
was some scattered grumbling but no open protest as the crew began to
rouse form their naps and drag themselves into their places at the
oars. Among them was one narrow of waist and shoulder, looking more
like the few boys in the crew than the grown men, tawny hair gathered
into a braid against the sea winds that, even in this state, reached
well down the back. The term boy from the captain towards the grown
men of the crew could be only an expression of satisfied superiority
but took on a tone of even greater condescension when applied to one
who was adult and female as well. Coranna took her seat on the
rowing bench and began to pull the oar in perfect time with her
partner, Darvesh. He hardly glanced at her. The crew was used to
her by now. The knife in her belt that she kept her hand resting on
in sleep was a product of long habit, not immediate need. Many of
the men did the same, having slept too many times in fear of having
their throats cut by one attempting to steal their goods, or get
revenge for having been robbed.
The sun glittered on the glassy blue
green of the waves and Coranna flinched from its piercing brightness
but her grip on the oar kept her from putting up her hand to shield
her eyes. Instead, she screwed them shut, which also helped to shut
out the stinging sweat that was beginning to run down her face but
which she could not spare her hand to wipe away. Fortunately, she
did not need to see their course. That was the job of the man in the
stern. All she need do was keep up the constant curling and pulling
motion, dragging the oar back against the resistance of the water
over and over again. She didn't need eyes for that or, really, a
mind either, only the muscles of her back and legs to keep up like
one of the northern savages in the throes of their wild possession
when, it was said, they did not know fear or pain or weariness. With
skill born of long practice, she let her mind recede as if she were
sinking back into sleep, while her body continued to work. But she
could quickly snap out of it if there was need, alert and ready.
Gradually, even through her closed eyes and distant mind, she began
to notice changes in the wind and sea around them. The wind that had
been coming from slightly in-land, bringing the smell of spring,
thawing earth and new growth, shifted to due south, so now there was
nothing but the sharp stark smell of the sea. No, there was
smothering else, something so faint it was hard to pick out, coming
and going in ephemeral whiffs, a rancid, rotting, fishy odor, like
the biggest wharf market in the world where none of the stock had
been turned over for days. But, fortunately, it was faint and she
could mostly ignore it. If it had been stronger or more persistent,
it would have been like to set her gagging.
Soon enough, however, she had all but
forgotten about this smell, as it was rapidly being overwhelmed by
another, far more concerning, if less unpleasant. This smell too was
ephemeral, though in a a different way. It was the smell of damp
air, of moisture seeping into the wood of the ship, into the ropes
and canvas, into their precious food supplies. And it wasn't the
smell alone. She could feel the heaviness of the air pressing
against her body, the dampness becoming one with her sweat.
Breathing became difficult, especially with the exertion of rowing,
the swallows of air she gulped feeling like they contained a fair
amount of water as well. All these signs indicated they could soon
have foul weather on their hands. A cautious captain would turn for
shore quickly but they were behind schedule and this captain's
priority was to make as much speed as possible, so they kept on their
way as the waves came choppier and more restless and the wind
gradually slackened. Coranna could no longer feel the white heat of
the sun beating against her eyelids. Opening them, she saw the light
had grown much dimmer, probably due to the tell-tale mass of dark
clouds drifting along the coast. Further out in the expanse of the
eastern sea, the sun still fell shinning on the waves, but this was
of little comfort as they did not want to go that way. To his credit
and her relief, the captain was eyeing the cloud mass closely. He
knew more of wind and wave than she and could be trusted not to risk
the ship. Getting his cargo there on time might matter more than his
crew's lives but not more than his own or that of the Wind Seeker.
She could see his eyes narrow as he examined the clouds.
But before he was able to act on what
he was thinking, the fitful wind shifted again to the south west and
with it came a gust of the rotten smell she had caught whiffs of
earlier but now it was much stronger. The whole ship noticed it.
Several of the men, including the captain pulled sour expressions as
their faces twisted in disgust. A few of the sailors slumped over
retching.
“What in the frigid hell is that?”
cried Charash, a few benches behind her.
“Naught to worry about,” the
captain said reassuringly, “some whale or great fish washed up on a
beach no doubt.”
“I hope it's no beach we need go
near,” muttered Charash queasily. Coranna wondered briefly, in
that case, why had the smell come from the direction of the open sea
rather than the shore. But she had also seen the captains eyes shift
towards the cloud mass as he spoke. Plainly that was
something to worry about. They rowed on for maybe a quarter of an
hour more in tense silence. The waves made a heavy hollow sound,
slapping against the sides of the ship and her arms ached from
dragging the oar blade through them. The wind died. The slight curve
of the sail sank to hang limp, like an empty sack but the crew, used
to rowing in calm, kept up their strokes all the same.
Suddenly, with a ringing blow on the
gong, the captain leapt to his feet, startling them out of the
hypnotic monotony of rowing. “Reef the sail,” he yelled. “Now.
Faster, you good for nothing dogs.” The rowers on the inside of
the benches, stood up and began to bring down the sail. “The rest
of you, pull, pull as hard as you can, round towards the shore.”
Trying to control the two person oar by herself would have been
difficult at the best of times but now the restless waves kept
grabbing the blade, almost wrenching it out of her hands. Coranna's
arms trembled with the strain of managing the over-sized oar alone,
especially when she was already weary from rowing for some time
before. They were all tiered and lacked the strength to properly
turn the craft against the contrary tides. The ship listed dangerous
to one side and wallowed awkwardly back and forth but only shifted
the slightest amount towards the beach. Not even a beach really.
Brown fields only showing the first faint green of spring ran down
almost to the waterline and then stopped abruptly. Once they reached
the shore, there would be no good place to land the ship but that was
the captain's concern, not hers. Her only purpose now was to will
her aching arms to keep straining against the oar. With a loud
crash, the sail dropped to the deck, the ropes snarling wildly
against the inner benches. The ship crawled forward slightly, its
bow only marginally turned towards the coast. Everything seemed to
have slowed to a crawl.
And then, like a bow breaking under
strain, the world snapped. The wind that had died, sprung fully to
life, driving against them so that, even without the sail, the ship
heeled over to the right and turned slightly. And the wind was
blowing almost due east, driving everything before it, away from the
coast. The waves leaped in answer, slapping into the side of the
ship and sending up great fountains of spray, opening deep gulfs
between them and the land they sought to reach.
“Pull, pull,” the captain
screamed, trying to be heard over the roar of the wind and the
pounding of the waves, banging on the gong as if that would do any
good. The men who have removed the sail quickly finished securing it
and returned to their places at the oars. As they did so, the clouds
broke and the rain came pouring down. With no shelter on board, they
were soon wet to the skin, their sodden clothes and, in Coranna's
case, hair, adding extra weight to their exhausted backs and arms.
With a full corps of oarsmen, they seemed for the moment to be making
progress, despite the fury of the storm. The prow had shifted the
slightest bit more landwards. But the wind and waves were becoming
fiercer and higher. Every surge of the tide pushed them at least the
width of the boat out to sea so they had to recover this distance
before they could make any headway and the wearier they became, the
more the distance began to tell. The shore was already visibly
further away than it had been when the storm began. Even over the
noise of the wind, she could hear the timber of the oars straining in
their locks, an eerie creaking, stretching sound that, if she hadn't
know better, she would have thought was being made by her own
tortured bones and sinews. The captain was still pounding the gong
wildly and yelling but they were already doing all they could so they
paid him no heed. The ship seemed to hover, suspended in place as
they bent to the oars past the point of agony, feeling nothing now
beyond the heart pounding need for safety, giving their all to remain
in that stationary, frozen position. Then there came a tearing crack
that set the ship to rocking wildly.
Several oars had snapped from the
pressure, sending splinters arching through the air and falling on
them, more stinging than the driving rain. The captain's voice rose
to a desperate screech and they could tell his words had changed
though those words were still unclear. But they needed no order to
know what to do. To a man, they raised their oars and dragged them
them back through the locks. In the now wildly pitching ship this
was no easy task and three more of the poles were smashed before the
remainder lay in a pile on the tilting deck. Charash and his bench
partner Ordan immediately began lashing them down while everyone else
huddled against the deck, clutching the benches or the sides of the
ship, anything to prevent them from being swept overboard. They were
now wholly helpless, at the mercy of wherever the storm might drive
them. The steering oar had been drawn up and stowed too. But this
must be for, if they broke all their oars fighting the storm, then,
even if they managed to stay afloat, they would be doomed with no way
to get back to the shore. In truth, their chances of survival were
thin indeed. The Wind Seeker was not made for rough waters or
deep seas. Nor did it carry many provisions, sailing close enough to
shore to pull in and resupply when needed, and should it last the
storm, would they be able to navigate their way back from the
featureless open sea and would their stores last to do so? Even if
they could, there was the other peril...of which it were best not to
think.
But none of this mattered. Coranna
had faced death many times and no matter how thin the odds, she knew
they must never interfere with her determination and focus to draw
breath in the immediate now. So she wrapped her shaking arms around
the legs of the water logged bench as wave after wave washed over
her, some of them throwing her body painfully against the wooden
structure. Each time her head emerged, she gasped for air and the
salt was bitter in her mouth, choking her. Once she heard a wailing
cry and something heavy went hurtling past her, only a dark shape on
the edge of her vision. One of the crew had been washed out to sea
but there was no way to know who it had been until the storm cleared
and she saw who was left, assuming she was still there at that point.
Another time, a rope that had come loose, fell across her back,
stinging like a whip. But, for the most part, all was subsumed by
the need to hold on and breathe.
How long this lasted, she had no idea
but, gradually, she became aware that the ship was pitching less
violently and the waves were washing over her head less frequently.
The wind slackened, although she still could not hear well for an
echo of its roaring lingered in her ears. The rain had let up too,
or she was simply so wet she could no longer feel the drops on her
skin. Opening her eyes, she saw the dead gray sea still heaving, but
much less wild. The deck was stable enough now that she could stand
without immediate danger of being thrown overboard. The captain
huddled in the bow, next to the now idly flapping gong. Around the
deck, the rest of the crew, like her, were struggling to their feet,
their wet clothes hanging from them in shreds and some bruised and
bloody from the battering they had sustained. A quick glance around
told her that Domo and Charash were still with them. One of the
young boys seemed to be missing and she could not see Ervain but it
appeared the bulk of the crew had survived, certainly enough to man
to ship at full efficiency. Then she looked further out, passed the
faces of her stunned but relieved comrades and her hope sank. There
was no land in sight.
“Sir, oughtn't we to hoist sail and
try to get out of here?” cried Ordan, while taring strips from the
wet canvas to bind a gash on his arm.
“No,” the captain yelled back.
“The wind's still too high and, until we can see the sun or moons,
we can't know east from west. Raise the sail now and you might be
shooting straight to the heart of the open ocean.” Several of the
crew wailed in fear at this.
“Sligoth help us,” Nemid cried,
“and shield us from the hunger of your children.”
Another of the crew spat over the
side. “Save your breath. He only does that if we stay on shore or
close to it. If we invade His realm, He will have no mercy.”
“We did not chose to,” one of the
other sailors cried in despair.
“Silence.” The captain's own
voice was strained. “Send the wine round while we wait for the
wind to die. We'll need all our strength and courage.” When the
flask was passed to her in turn, Coranna drank it gratefully, feeling
the heat run down into her belly, dispelling the stiff chill of the
storm drenching. She flexed her fingers and feeling and strength
flowed back into her hand and arm. This was their only source of
warmth. There could be no fire on board and every cloth and wrap was
as water logged as their clothes. The flask had passed through the
entire crew and was starting a second round, the others were starting
to calm, and some were even becoming merry with the wine when it
happened.
The rotten smell came again, so strong
now that it was as if they were wadding through masses of long dead
fish, their faces pressed against the slimy putrefying bodies.
Darvesh, who had the wine skin in his lips began gagging, sending up
a reddish black plume like dark blood. The wine skin fell from his
twitching hands, its contents running across the deck. Some of the
sailors rushed to the rail and vomited into the still heaving sea,
while others didn't make it that far, their disgorgement mingling
with the large quantities of water still sloshing about on deck.
Coranna had smelled foul things before, though she would not have
wagered money that she had smelled fouler, and was able to stay
relatively composed, though she did gag uncontrollably and tasted
acid bile in her throat, the belly full of wine a hindrance now.
Amid the chaos, she heard Nemid shriek and, following his trembling
hand, she saw the sea, a good bow shot to the south east, frothing
and roiling, in a completely different way than the storm tossed
waves around it. Great bubbles were rising and breaking on the
surface, like pockets of gas escaping from the decaying layer at the
bottom of a lake bed. But she had never seen gas bubbles this size
on an inland lake and, with every one that burst, the stench
intensified. Strange flickers of eerie blue witch lights could be
seen below the turmoil of the waves, rising behind the bubbles. Time
seemed to slow between one breath and the next. There was nothing
but the faint flickering lights, rising towards them. They saw them,
knew they meant death but were held rooted, staring, waiting.
Three black spikes emerged from the
seething water, needle sharp, glossy and shining. They were in a
line, spaced wide, a full boat length or more between. As more and
more of the length of the spikes rose from the sea, thickening in
girth by the moment, Coranna dragged herself from the trance of dread
that bound them all. She did not know what she was looking at but an
instinctive horror, worked into the very bones of any who had sailed
upon or lived near the sea, woke in her and she knew they had mere
seconds to act if they were to have even the faintest hope of life.
“Raise the sail,” she screamed, her voice ripping through the
wind like a knife. The crew stirred, almost groggily, and some
glanced at the captain where he crouched, cheeks drained of blood and
his eyes starting out of his frozen face.
“Do it,” he cried hoarsely. “Our
only hope is in speed now and, if we founder, at least we can hope to
die a natural death.” The men hastened to do so, the ropes lashing
and coiling in the wind like serpents as soon as they were untied.
Coranna looked back over her shoulder, clawing away the sodden hair
plastered on her face, as her braid had long ago come undone, and saw
the spines had risen much higher, now towering far above their feeble
craft and spaced along their lengths were rings of the faint, eerie
light, while clouds of the same hung about them like an evil mist,
vague and ephemeral but able to writhe and move, almost like a living
thing. Now the ropes were all in place and they were starting to
haul the sail and yard up the mast. But the wet fabric was heavy
and, in the wind, it swung this way and that, sometimes slamming into
members of the crew with surprising force. Carge was knocked back so
hard that he staggered back and tripped over a bench, sending him
sprawling so he cracked his head on another bench and was rendered
unconscious. Coranna seized one of the lines, the rough wet rope
digging into her palm. Again she pulled with her arms and back
beyond the limits of endurance. Again she looked back and saw the
black spines and luminous mist had began to move towards them. She
forgot her pain and pulled even harder. The sail rose. Now it was
more than half way up the mast, now almost at the top. All they need
do was tie down the lines running form the bottom of the sail. It
was already catching the wind, making the boat bound forward, but
this made it harder to control, to secure the lines, and the sinister
presence was still approaching from behind.
Suddenly, the mist seemed to draw
itself together and shot forward in a coiling, lashing mass, not a
mist at all but thousands of clear tendrils, no thicker than a human
finger, filled with the wavering ghost light. The strands raked
across the ship as the crew all instinctively threw themselves to the
floor, several of the men releasing their ropes as they fell. The
right side of the sail swung free and deflated. The ship began to
slow. As the tendrils drained back over the stern of the ship, one
grazed the back of Ordan as he crouched over the line he had been
trying to fix. He screamed, a shrill, brittle cry like breaking
glass, as the others fell to pulling the sail back into position.
Charash sprang to his bench mate's side but the mark on his back was
already black and swelling. There was no wound. The venom had been
applied on contact and absorbed through the skin. Again the crew
wrestled the wind and flying surf but Ordan's cries of incoherent
agony, on top of the fear they already felt, were almost more then
they could stand. Coranna managed to drag the rope she held to an
iron ring fixed in the boards of the ship for that purpose and make
it fast. Others did the same with their lines and the ship shot
forward, its sail strained against the tempest. But would it hold?
They had some spare ropes, even a spare sail, if it hadn't been
washed over board, but the time it would take to rig it would
assuredly be fatal. But even if they succeed in escaping, it would
be too late for Ordan. By now his whole back was puffed up, red and
angry. The black necrosis was spreading from the original point of
contact, his eye had begun turning yellow and he was shivering
uncontrollably.
Above his tortured moans cut Nemid's
scream. “It has come. The belly of Sligoth's child awaits. There
is no escape,” and he cast himself down on the deck, covering his
face with shaking hands. The spines had fully cleared the water and
the base to which they were affixed rose after them, also smooth,
black, and gleaming, like the curve of a volcanic stone. The venomed
strands trailed from the tips of the spines, occasionally twitching
and moving, and still the black hump rose. In the front, they saw
two round balls covered with faint swirling colors like the rainbow
that plays across oil floating on water. Then the balls moved,
tilting towards them and they saw the black slits of the pupils in
the center. They were eyes on a thing so vast that the word beast or
even monster fell short, the eyes alone could easily be as large as
they themselves.
This was the fear that had lurked in
them all too deep to speak or even think it, the great spawn of the
deep that ranged the light-less depths of the oceans. Only the
coasts too shallow for their vast bulk were any defense against them.
This was why even cargo ships were small and light and why they
hugged the shore even if it would take far longer than cutting across
deeper water. Far back in the dawn of history, as soon as people had
learned to build ships large enough to brave the open sea, they had
learned why not to build them and, among most peoples the knowledge
of how to do so had vanished long ago but the why still remained in
the form of half whispered nightmares passed from generation to
generation. Every hundred years or so, the royal house of Azgeras
would spend extravagant sums to build a larger ship, a veritable
floating palace, and an even greater sum to crew it, offer prayers to
Sligoth for His forbearance and send it out into the sunset to search
for new lands or legendary riches. Most of these ships were never
heard from again but a few had limped back to port months or years
later, crewed by gibbering madmen only able to babble the visions of
unspeakable horrors they had seen.
And now one of those horrors was
before them. Below its baleful eyes, the great blackness of its
mouth opened like a cave. Two massive fangs, yellowed and green with
sea scum, curved from the upper jaw but, below them, the lower jaw
opened like a bag, dropping wider than the ability of any jaw joint
to bear so that the opening of the mouth formed an almost straight
line. Other than the two fangs, it was toothless and from the gaping
maw the stench emanated, the remains of past meals swallowed whole
rotting in its guts. A faint flicker of the blue glow could be seen
in the back of its throat. As soon as the jaws opened, the sea began
to flow into the void beyond. If it were not for the wild wind and
the distance they had already come with their flimsy sail, they would
have instantly been drawn back into the creature's mouth with the
rushing water. The storm surged even more strongly and their speed
increased but the ropes strained dangerously.
“Hold the lines,” the captain
yelled. “Hold them fast. Turn the sail to catch the full force of
the wind.” In the stern, Ordan had begun to froth at the mouth,
babbling wretchedly of impending doom, saying it were better to die
now than rot forever, trapped in the belly of the monster, from whose
leathery hide even souls could not escape. Coranna thought grimly
that he was most likely right but that did not matter. His pain and
his black mood were demoralizing the others. Her choice would have
been to silence him and spare him further suffering, if not
permanently, then at least for the time being via a sharp blow to the
skull. But she knew Charash would not allow such a thing and she
could not release her rope in any case. Instead, she clutched the
line even more tightly with blistering palms, stinging in the salt
spray, and pulled with all her force. Suddenly, she felt more
strength joined to hers and was vaguely aware of Darvesh standing
behind her. Together they managed to turn the corner of the sail the
few inches it needed to catch the fully fury of the wind. The boat
jibbed wildly, turning on its side low in the water, and almost
foundered, but managed to right itself and sped away at a slight
angle to its former course.
This new direction, for a few
sickening moments, brought the whole side body of the monster into
view. It was vast beyond their ability to conceive, huge as a mighty
hill, easily able to swallow one of Azgeras's fabled floating
palaces. But it seemed to be all head. Directly behind the dread
jaws, the body shrank to whip thinness. Would their ship's mast even
be able to fit into its belly. But, despite its relative
slenderness, the mid body appeared slack and sunken, a hollow space,
seemingly without bones or organs. And then, with horror, she
realized it was exactly that, a bag, a sack, empty now but waiting to
fill and bulge with its victims. Equally terrifying, they could now
see it had three eyes on a side, the dark slits of their pupils all
pointing in different directions. The front eye was facing forward
to where the ship had been a moment before, while the hindmost was
looking back along the length of its of its body and the center eye
gazed down into the depths of the water. But then all three moved,
their independent motion eerily disturbing, to focus on the ship's
present location.
Behind the flat bag of this body rose
the even more slender expanse of its tail, tipped at the end with
flukes like double crescent moons, its length curled all the way back
along its body, almost reaching its head, then came down like a
hammer, splitting the seas. The shock waves rippled out, sending the
Wind Seeker, spinning, while the entire vast bulk swung round
to face them again and came on, barreling forward like a charging
bull. With seconds to spare, they forced the boom to the side to
catch the wind and held on desperately as it set the ship bounding
sideways only just in time. It scudded over the water, deck almost
vertical as Coranna dropped to her knees, bracing herself to try to
maintain balance and not loose the angle of the sail. Beside her she
heard a broken gasp as the boat, slapped through another swelling
wave, rattling their bones and soaking them all with cold spray.
Stunned, Nemid was no longer able to maintain his grip on the line
and several feet shot through his hands, probably shredding the skin
from his palm, before he was able to recover his grip and leaving the
right side of the boom free to swing wide.
The ship immediately altered course
again, causing Coranna to lose her footing on the rain slicked boards
of the deck. She fell hard on her side, feeling the air flung out
her mouth so that every breath she tried to draw was like an iron
fist crushing her lungs in its grip. But, even as she wrestled with
the pain and the black dizziness caused by lack of air, some deeper
part of her mind remembered to keep her hands locked in a death grip
on the rope, the finger bones soldered in place, immovable, even as
the wet rope they were locked around, ground gradually through the
skin of her palms, for she knew all their lives depended on it. For
some time after that, she was aware of little, only feeling the wild
pitch of the deck, the ache of her bruised body as it was flung to
and fro. From time to time she would see a vast darkness and feel a
cold rush of air as the beast of nightmares swept by on one side or
the other but her mind was wholly focused on keeping her hands on the
ropes and keeping the ship running as fast as possible.
As she gradually came back to full
consciousness she became dimly aware that the blackness was giving
way to a paler gray, like the parting of a curtain. The storm was
breaking and once that would have filled them them with jubilance but
now, they were overcome with horror. If the lashing storm gale died,
they died with it, for no lesser force could hope to move them more
swiftly than that which followed and the current's course was taking
them directly towards this space of clearer skies and calmer water.
In a shrill voice, they could hear Nemid praying to Sligoth, son of
Torash as, indeed, he had been doing the entire time but the raging
blast swept his words away and few had ever held much hope that the
god would hear them in any case. Already the wind was beginning to
slacken slightly, even as the sky above them grew lighter, though a
slight rain was still falling like a damp mist all around. But even
as hope waned, it was suddenly rekindled as before them on the left a
dark mass came into view, darker gray against the pale gray of the
sky, a low lying island with a single crag of rock in the center.
“Steer that way,” yelled Coranna.
Their only hope was that the sea bed around the island was shallow
enough that the creature would not be able to enter it. Gradually
the mass of land came nearer and more into focus, though, to the
frightened figures huddled in boat or straining at the sails, it
seemed they moved forward only at a crawl while the thing behind them
came on with all the speed of the storm wind and more. Still, as
they held their breath, the gray mass deepened, grew more solid, and
became rich green, so dark it was almost black. Thick expanses of
jungle filled the bulk of the island, tangles of branches and vines
blocking any view beyond the outer curtain. Still, they strained
towards this unknown, finding whatever dangers it might hold better
than the known peril looming behind them. As they came closer, they
could see the water below them change color as the pale sand on the
ocean floor rose up to meet them. But still the black beast behind
was closing in on them. Because even its belly was collapsible, it
could swim into much shallower water than its vast size would
indicate. Only the hinge of its jaw would prevent it from swimming
right up to the beach. And what beach there was was barely
discernible. The entire shore was a sprawling tangle of mangroves,
their knotted roots crawling down under the surface of the water. In
all likelihood, the entire island was inlet and swamp with no solid
ground but Coranna was not able to consider the implications of this
further as, at that moment, the keel below them sank into sand and
would go no further. Abandoning the rope she had griped for long,
she ran the length of the ship, grabbing one of the sacks of roots in
passing as she vaulted over the bow.
“Take what you can and run for it,”
she yelled, jostling Nemid as she passed. The entire crew leaped
into the surf, still chest high, and began to flounder towards the
trees. Two of the men pitched one of their remaining water casks
over the side where it half floated, bobbing low in the water with
the widest part of the barrel showing above the surface. Leaping in
after it, they began to push it in front of them towards the shore.
The creature had stopped some yards
back and seemed to have finally reached the limits of its depth for
it came no closer and, instead, began to move slightly side to side,
along the same line, like a horse pacing the line of a fence, all six
of its eyes rolling but not together. Then it dipped its head like
it was going to dive and its eyes sank below the surface but the mass
of translucent tendrils trailing from its spikes shot forward. Men
screamed and leapt from the deck but one had not been quick enough.
Several of the phosphorous blue lengths twined about the body of one
of the young new recruits from south Kaymene, probably from the new
permanent settlements around the colony. He shrieked horribly as the
venom poured into his body through the many points of contact.
Despite their flimsy appearance, the tentacles were strong enough to
lift him high so they could see his body convulse obscenely as he was
dragged over the side and into the dark waters beyond.
“Now, faster,” Coranna yelled as
the crew looked back in horror. “Don't wait for it to catch you
too.” They redoubled their efforts, straining against the pressing
weight of the water, breath rasping metallic in their mouths from the
exhaustion. The trees came nearer and the water sank to their
waists. The strain and heaviness was gradually overcoming them. The
trees had faded to a green and gray blur. As they staggered nearer
the shore, their burdens became heavier without the support of the
water. The sack on Coranna's shoulders bowed her forward and she
felt her feet sink into the sand so she had to wrench them out at
every step. There could very well be quicksand here. For that
matter, there could be poisonous fish buried in the sand. The island
could be full of predators or completely lacking in food or fresh
water. But, at least, they were away from the jaws of the deep, even
beyond the reach of its grasping tendrils now. She was a bit afraid
that it might vent its fury on their ship, without which they would
be stranded here forever, but it showed no indication of doing so.
Seeing they were now safe, several of the men stopped to rest or even
sank to their knees from weariness.
“No,” Coranna yelled. “If you
let the food get soaked with salt water, we'll starve.”
“We may anyway,” Charash growled
bitterly, still crushed from watching the hellish death of his bench
mate. “There may be no water for leagues that isn't salt, or solid
ground either for that matter. Those trees look none too welcoming.”
She looked forward again, the haze of
exhaustion clearing from her sight. Certainly the mangroves did not
look inviting, their branches hooked like claws hanging almost to the
ground, bowed with tangled masses of vines. Shags of putrid lichen
and mold hung from their gray bark or formed oozing masses like the
sores and rot of diseased flesh. The shadows under the trees were so
dark that they could barely make out even vague shapes beyond the
outer curtain. But, from the darkness, the heat and the reek came
seeping out, tropical and rancid. The interlacing boughs were like
the lid on a vast pot, seething with a wild unnatural growth that
proceeded just as rapidly to death and decay. Still...
“What other choice do we have?”
she shot back, “and what kind of coward are you to be afraid of
trees?”
“We can sleep here,” suggested
Kolin, another of the young men from Kaymene. “That way we can see
when it leaves.”
> “Fool. It won't do that while it
can still see us.”
“It won't do that anyway,” said
Nemid in a kind of faint, far away voice. “It is said Sligoth's
children trace the seas from north to south and back again but they
may linger for a turn of the moons or more around the islands. When
the flaming bow hangs down on the southern horizon, they lair in the
deep channels near the hot islands that our father Torash carved with
his smoldering blade at the beginning of the world.”
“That's very nice poetry,” snapped
Gorlab, a rotund, one-eye man with dark hair. “But now we need
action, not myths.”
But Nemid was not finished. “Here
they feed on the rich shoals of fish and here they sleep away the
monotony of their ancient lives before Sligoth calls them to His work
in the light-less depths again.”
> “In other words, this is the thing's
summer home.” The captain spat and made the gesture against evil
towards the dark shape still waiting in the water beyond their ship.
“Those of us who have sailed the sea for many years know the story.
Not all high and grand like he tells it.” He made a face at
Nemid. “But we all know of the lost isles where the things are
said to gather at certain turns of the year.”
“So there may be more?” Several
voices cried in dismay.
“Never mind that.” Coranna held
her rising wrath in check with difficulty. “Clearly we're going to
be here for some time. We must get to shore, what shore there is,
and make camp.” Turning back, she surveyed them briefly. Of the
twenty five crew that had manned the ship that morning, she now
counted eighteen struggling through the water around her. Still
enough to sail easily but, maybe, too many for the amount of the food
and water they had managed to salvage. They would need to find other
sources and quickly.
As predicted, once they had pushed
through the outer curtain of trees, there was still little solid
ground. Here and there, balls of tangled roots lifted above the
surface of the now black water, slick and glistening. They tried to
move from one precarious perch to the next, steadying their heavy
burdens with one hand while they groped for purchased against the
tree trunks with the other. But sometimes there were no foot-holds
and they had to wade through the water, now filthy with plant growth
and decay as the salt from the sea ebbed away, likely causing
infections in any exposed wounds. Sometimes, someone would slip and
scrabble wildly to keep their footing, most likely falling into the
dirty water. In his flailing, Kolin dropped the bag of roots he was
carrying, almost certainly ruining them.
The heat was oppressive. Sweat poured
off of them, making finding a source of water even more crucial.
They tried not to think about venomous snakes or flesh eating fish
lurking in the dark water. At least it was too shallow for other
swamp beasts like the sharp-toothed dunorby she grew up being wary
of. Gradually, it dawned on them that the place was eerily silent.
The crying of birds, the buzz of insects, or the chatter of other
small creatures that one would expect in such a place was almost
entirely absent. Very occasionally, they would hear a faint
scuffling or flapping of wings but, for the most part, except for
their own clumsy progress, heavy brooding silence filled the close
hot air. The entire swamp seemed deserted and yet Coranna could feel
a creeping sense of being watched. She found herself glancing about,
peering into the shadows, subtly so the men would not notice and be
further demoralized, but never seeing any living creature. Of
course, the darkness under the trees, to say nothing of the hanging
mosses and leaves and vines prevent her from seeing far.
After maybe half an hour of hard
going, though it felt like much longer, they reached a place with
solid ground where they could rest and set down their burdens. This
was an expanse of low lying, hard packed land, really only a few
inches above the surface of the water, about the same length although
at least three times as wide as the Wind Seeker. Large
patches were only naked mud, frequently crossing the area in great
ruts, like from huge wagon wheels. But other sections were covered
with mosses and even some ferns or stunted grasses, still damp but
dry enough that they could set down their provisions without ruining
them, at least for the moment. The trees surrounded the space
closely but there was an opening of laced branches almost like a
tunnel through which they could crawl. Though the area itself was
not fully open to the sky, the roof of interlocking branches was much
thinner here and patches of sunlight were able to make it down,
dappling across the gray brown floor. The heat was also less
oppressive as the opening also allowed cooler air to filter in.
Faintly, they could hear the sound of the waves breaking on the shore
so they must still be near the beach. Another gap in the trees like
the one through which they had entered, lay across the way and to one
side, possibly leading back towards the beach
Most cast themselves immediately on
the ground, already far too wet to care about the dampness.
Fortunately, the air here was still too warm for them to have much
risk of catching a chill from sleeping exposed like this. Some
attacked the supplies of food but, fortunately, they were few and too
weary to eat much. Supplies would need to be rationed carefully, at
least until they found other sources but the crew was too far gone to
attend to that now. Coranna ate a couple of the roots to keep her
strength up for the task ahead of her. Some of the crew were already
asleep, their deep breathing in sharp contrast to the harrowing
experience they had just gone though. Others were staring blankly in
stunned shock, waiting for the oblivion of sleep to ease the horror
they had seen, equally useless in the case of danger as their
slumbering comrades. It fell upon her to stay awake in this strange
place and guard against any hazards in the swamp around them.
The feeling of being watched was still
there. She turned around several times and got up to walk about the
clearing, careful not to disturb the men, but she saw and heard
nothing. Yet the feeling persisted, no matter which way she faced,
that eyes were resting on the back of her head. There were no sounds
of movement. Whatever it was must be many things all around her.
Being surrounded by something unknown was far from comforting but she
reached back over her shoulder to touch the hilt of her sword, glad
that reliable comrade at least was still with her. Perhaps she had
not known it until now. The act of grabbing it and throwing the
baldric over her shoulders even before she grabbed the sack of roots
had been so instinctive and natural that it had not even registered
in the heat of the moment. Her hand tightened momentarily on the
well worn hilt, fingers settling into perfectly shaped groves, eroded
by years of use. She felt herself half tense to draw it. But no,
there had been no overt threat. Why risk troubling the others?
The hours crawled slowly by as even
the dim light of the overcast sky faded towards night. From time to
time, she heard the mangroves rustle and creak but could feel no
breeze. The motion of air must not be strong enough to penetrate
through the canopy. At least the air wasn't so stifling as to impede
breath, she thought as she wiped sweat from her face. The day was
already well gone by the time any of the others woke. In the humid
swamp there was no need to light a fire for warmth and the biting
insects that were known to plague such places and needed to be driven
off by smoke were not in evidence. She was slightly concerned that
lack of a fire would leave them exposed to predators but as they had
seen no evidence of such, it seemed better to not endure the
discomfort of a fire unnecessarily. At least not tonight. Soon,
they would need one to dry their clothes to guard against the horror
of jungle rot.
In the deepening twilight, she
conferred with the others who were awake and coherent. They spoke in
hushed voices, though there was no clear reason to. The heavy
silence seemed resistant to being broken. Despite years as a sailor,
the captain was only familiar with ships and the sea and had few
land survival skills to speak of. The same was true of most of the
crew. They were strong and hearty and willing to work, at least the
ones well enough to be aware now were, but they possess few specifics
that would be of assistance. Charash, however, had once been a
soldier in Azgeras's army and knew all the skills of such. Several
of the men from south Kaymene had also spent time living on the open
plains with the cattle drives but they were unfamiliar with the
plants here or how to adapt their survival sills to this strange
land. For that matter, Coranna was in the same situation herself.
Although she came from a swamp as well, it was the swamp of Hormith,
still largely temperate and these lush, fetid jungles were wholly
alien to her. There was no way to know which of the many plants were
nourishing and which were instantly lethal. Still, the others agreed
to the need for rationing the food and water as well as for setting a
watch which gave her the freedom to do what she desired most and sink
into an exhausted sleep on the damp uneven ground. She had slept in
places less comfortable, though not many. Still, due to her extreme
weariness, she fell asleep almost instantly and slept the whole night
through, too tired even for clear dreams but in the back of her mind,
lingered the faint sound of rustling trees.
©Amanda Hamlin 2024
