Bowhunter – Chapter 8

The Mane, The Unclaimed Waters between Fohalin and Nauberta – Typhon Resurgence, Day 20

The Daemon Flamingo was a ship of legend, recognisable to even those most ignorant of myths. Even those ignorant of the ship’s legend – and few they would be – would be struck still with reverence at the vision of the ship upon the horizon.

The deepest, lightless black took the form of wings, sweeping along and up from the main body of the ship. Upon the three tall masts, misleadingly soft pink sails were boldly thrust out in the wind like a beast huffing itself up for a fight. At the rear of the ship, sculpted into a fanning conflagration, was a wide, daring display of feathers, teaming with fiery hues of orange, and stary whites. From the prow came formidability, with a blunt ram shaped like the hooked beak of the ship’s namesake, almost pompously wearing the scars from many fortress, larger ships, and superior beasts crushed upon it.

Then there were the colours; the flag that was as old as the ship, and like the Flamingo, not a soul knew who designed it. Upon a field of abyssally imbued pink, a fiery flamingo held up, outstretched, one of its wings in an arcing crescent as if trying to snare the sky. Beneath the reach of the arcing wing, was a shape of gold, land, its name and location unknown.

Even the threads through which the flag was sown are recognisable to no one. A popular theory proposes the idea that the wardrobe of various gods was stolen by Anordaithe’s first thief, and from these stolen garments came the threads.

An immortal ship, a hub of autonomous magical capacity, that has dominated almost every square mile of sea upon the world of Anordiathe at one time or another across centuries. Ordinary men and women stepped upon its decks, and either died or retired as legends, their stories set into the annuls of mythology for all time.

All of this was why Rena hoped the sea over the past couple of days had been so empty. Anyone with sense would turn about and flee at even a hint of the ship.

But Rena knew this wasn’t the truth.

The sea around them had changed, no longer the same world the pirates of the Daemon Flamingo knew so well.

Rena had listened to Fredricka and Gabrijel speak of the waters as if they were sailing into an undiscovered world. It wasn’t simply the stillness, the emptiness that Rena perceived. Something sinister, intangible in its horror hung over the seas now, beyond those still foolish enough to be on the waters.

Each tickle from the breeze brought a toxic touch in its wake, its cooler balm contaminated, holding the prickly warmth of poisons instead. All the richness and wonder of the sea had fled, with something malevolent pouring into the void.

There wasn’t a member of the crew who did not work with a furrow of concern set into their brow, or a throbbing distress deep in their eyes now. Whilst there were still attempts at the crass banter Rena was so used to, even these jibes were mere shades of what they had been.

The closest Rena could relate to the crews’ circumstances, was a story from the Maytoni exodus, when the people were lead into a land of perpetual darkness – likely somewhere in The Crown. A fear of becoming lost and wandering around in circles until death was forefront in the minds of some, and for many others, after losing track of time with no sun rise or sun set, they began to believe they were dead and had been condemned to purgatory.

Rena had shared the story with Fredricka, as the Quartermaster made frequent visits to her bed to check on her.

“How did your lot manage to navigate and escape the never-ending darkness in end?” Fredricka had asked, looking more haggard than tense.

“Well, there’s a statement that contradicts itself. If it was never ending, how would anyone escape it?” Rena teased. “The Seer breathed fire into an arrow,” Rena then replied seriously.

“What? Was he a manticore or something?”

The remark made Rena chuckle, and she shifted herself up against the headboard. “I don’t know how literal that part of the story is. No, the then Seer wasn’t a manticore, or at least there was nothing to say he was. It could be that the Gods, specifically Wespar the God of Purifying Lights and, or Nol’Tec the God of Stillness and Environment, breathed a guiding light into the Seer. Or that the Seer was granted wisdom from Baopat the God of Upholding, Duilsut the God Actions, and Aygen the God of Wisdom, which the Seer then whispered into the arrow. Either way, when the arrow was loosed, it cast away the darkness and flew in the direction the exodus was to take.”

“So, the Seer shot the arrow, followed its path, picked it up, and shot it again?” Fredricka said, ponderously. Then she frowned, and asked, “How many gods do you have?”

Whilst the previous comment only provoked a chucked, this question made Rena laugh, a warm spark in her spirit. “Many,” she had answered.

Rena wanted to be the light but was feeling a deep shame at fainting back upon the floating palace.

After leaving the floating palace – or for Rena, having been carried off of the floating palace – Egill had decided to set the beast alight. It was simply too dangerous to leave behind, riven through with the venomous songs and corruption of the feral sirens.

It had been the heat, and the sour taste of smoke that had awoken Rena from her collapse. A vision of a world ending, untameable heat gorging itself upon the unhinged desires of a lost civilisation, in a destructive orgy.

Going on was like trailing an anchor through a swamp, but when Rena looked at Egill, at the firmness in his eyes, she knew she had to match that courageousness. Yet, Rena, knowing she was too experienced in the pastoral ministries to take anything on surface value, also knew that beneath Egill’s prickly features and wonderful whiskers, was a sphinx wrestling with his own courage, searching for the will to sail on and into this apocalypse. But he marched along the deck as if it was glory and legend that awaited him and his crew.

Thus, Rena took to her role as a Pastoral, and would stand herself as straight as Egill did, and move with the same purposeful intent, speaking with the crew and helping out where she could – not that she knew a thing about managing a rowboat, never mind the Daemon Flamingo. Her hands were scalped from rope burn, her arms and elbows and shoulders knotted in pain from hauling cannon balls. Though the worst of it came when Rena decided to help the ship’s cook, a tidy half goblin, half siren called Quetzal Khatib, in preparing meals and went eagerly, yet thoughtlessly ahead to salt the meats with her skin-sundered hands.

Not a member of the crew missed her screams.

Whilst Rena never felt more useless, comparing herself to these magnificent and seasoned sailors, she conversely had seldom felt more needed; in speaking with the crew Rena could minister to doubts and fears, and listen to those who needed to talk.

Now, in the early evening, Rena stood at the rear of the ship, by the helm, trying not to complain about the stiff cold air.

Indigo swept across the sky, turning the sea inky black, with no clouds to challenge the proud, shimmering moons, the major silver titan Rathraven and the minor bodies, Asherfield, and Gaelspear with their steely rays of light. Worn like a glamourous and prestigious sash, the great ring of promise burned gold, like sun-hot sands, sweeping diagonally up from the corner of one horizon, and down into the opposite corner of the opposing horizon.

At least the celestial bodies remained the same, and just as beautiful as ever, Rena thought. Untouched by the disasters, and the horrific changes coming out of the sea. No matter the size of the typhon, or the savagery of the feral sirens, the ferocity of the many other beasts within the sea now emerging, none of them could possibly reach into the sky to touch any of these bejewelled bodies.

Even so, Rena could feel the gentle sway of the waves, and was reminded that she was upon the waters, everything with sight of the Daemon Flamingo, falling beneath the tyranny of the typhon and its legions.

And the Siren Lords had been no exception apparently.

There should have been lights. A solar body spearing out of the sea. Only dark, ashen black, silhouetted the horizon, as if a heavily scorched spear tip was protruding from the sea’s surface.

Rena could feel the trepidation rolling over the deck, slithering its way up to the helm, as the crew’s bawdiness fell away. Egill remained steadfast, refusing to let his face betray what roiled within his spirit, standing fixed to the spot as Fredricka, Gabrijel, and Zane moved forward, practically perching upon the guardrail as they took in the sight.

Harmony’s Victory, or Siren City, sat upon the tip of a colossal mountain, a land mass submerged beneath the sea. The very city itself, a whole mountain top, resembled a tall spire, with the broken remnants of the great pirate ship, Galestorm impaled upon its tip. Naturally the corpse of the great ship had been fixed into the infrastructure of the towering city, so as to make it liveable for the Siren Lords and their families, and to ensure it stood as a trophy, and a threat for all time.

The legend behind the creation of the city told of a Siren Lord duelling in song with a demi-god, renowned for his wordsmithing – a member of the Divined, The Poet or The Songsmith Rena was sure. Their combined melodies poured such splendour and energy into a lowly mountain beneath them, that it burst upwards above the surface. Another interpretation says that the very air, sea, and bedrock was so horrified by the din, that Nature thrust a mountain up from the bedrock to separate the two. Of course, the former was the preferred story.

Enclosing the spire, the city itself, were the city walls, built up from the mountain’s slopes beneath the surface. A gasp caught in Rena’s throat at the sight, the walls rising up at least two hundred feet. The rock of the walls had been shaped so as to resemble a crown of feathers encompassing the city. From between the delicate, madly detailed feathered carvings, emerging proudly were the likenesses of sirens of historical significance.

Presumably there would have been a more stringent sense of awe, only pitting the sea before the decorative walls were the hulls of ships, some smouldering under plumes of thick black clouds, others intact, but bare of life. Such listless bobbing held its own hypnotic powers, and Rena had to force herself to look away. Yet, she wasn’t escaping the uneasy quiet, prickling her arm hair and bristling her cheeks.

“It’s more like a graveyard,” Gabrijel murmured, stepping back from the rail, shaking his head and clenching his jaw. His hand fell to an ornate dagger on his belt, his calloused thumb rubbing the rounded hilt. “Abject Void, where sailors no courage go to spend eternity languidly floating on stagnant, dead waters.”

“We’re still in Anordaithe, that much is true, Gabrijel. And don’t summon such morbidity, there’s enough in this realm as it is. And there’s dead to be found in a graveyard,” Egill growled, close to the moan that comes from a wary feline.

“It’s as well we were late,” Fredricka said, still fixated upon the Chasm-dark split in their horizon.

Every gentle rustle in the breeze came with forbiddance, starting Rena. She swallowed and made to compose herself, whispering a few prayers under her breath in the hope of divine courage. She straightened her shoulders, and strode to the front of the helm, holding out a hand for Fredricka’s spyglass. Of course, Rena did not know what she was doing or looking for. She just wanted to resemble a measure of competence.

“Orders, captain?” Sighed Zane. “There could still be people in there. It’s a city after all.” He looked across to Egill, the sun-hot red of the downy feathers about his cheeks shimmering with concern.

Rena struggled with the spyglass, waving it along the darkened walls, across the ghostships that failed to escape in time. In the end she handed the glass back to Fredricka.

Zane was correct, Rena figured. But before she could speak, Egill was roaring orders.

“All hands! Seal every hatch and prepare personal weapons! Siege formation and get ready to boot away any boarders!” To the shivering pilot upon the helm, Egill ordered, in a quieter, but still steady voice, “Keep us in line with the gates, lass, and sail us in, and find the Royal Dock.”

Slivers of metal cutting the salty, cool air filled the deck, followed by the clack of pistols and other black-powder weapons.

Even Rena placed a hand upon her bow in its sheath at her hip.

“Do we really think there is anyone left?” Gabrijel said. He pressed the lower tip of his magnificent bow against his boot and began to string the weapon.

“It’s a city, Gabe,” Zane was quick to reply. “There can’t be so many ferals as to be able to strip a whole city.” His voice quavered somewhat towards the end, Rena noted.

“That floating palace was substantially populated, and there wasn’t anyone or thing left,” Fredricka added, backing away from the rails, flexing her fingers nervously. “But it wasn’t this,” Zane said, throwing an arm out, pointing to the shadowy mountain top ahead of them. “This is city. There are thousands here!”

“I’m saying that the feral sirens got all of the population, I’ll bet plenty of people did escape, and they’re on their way to Nauberta.”

“We have to start culling them some time,” Gabrijel then said. “May as well do a scouting run whilst we’re here. If there is anyone left, then we’ll pick them up.”

Fredricka looked incredulous but only shrugged. Their current situation fell under the guise of battle, and thus she retained little authority. “Right so. But those fleeing would be best served with our protection as they sail to Naubetra. We should catch up to them – I can think of a few of our kindred who might decide to prey on them. Wouldn’t have been a problem a month ago, but all this so-called success has turned many a captain and crew into something sinister; preying on refuges, going after smaller, local mercantile ships, executing whole crews even. We’re not the scum that infests The Poet’s Sea and should be fighting to uphold our way of piracy. Otherwise, it’s just barbarism, and murder. Gods, they’ll be selling slaves before too soon.” Fredricka turned, looking directly at Egill, something knowing in her shimmering eyes, something Rena couldn’t discern. “I think we’re more than obligated, given-”

Before the discussion could boil up into anything heated, an intense light, hot-white, like a comet soared out from the apex of the spire, cutting through the oncoming night.

Egill was the only one who managed to keep his eyes on the flare during its arc, as it bloomed to full intensity.

“Ah, we have our answer!” He roared, loud enough for all upon the deck to hear. “Someone has seen us, and they need our help! Make ready for great violence!”

The crew roared back, incoherent and bestial cries, with weapons thrust into the air.

Alongside her bow, Rena held a dagger and a pistol, both given to her by Fredricka – and both far too ostentatious for her liking. The notion of using either of them, the notion of being in such close quarters with the kinds of beasts capable of the horror she witnessed on the floating place, brought about a swirling weight in her gut, and made her limbs go cold.

“People need my help,” Rena whispered to herself, a mantra to try and instil courage. A vison of the typhon reared before her, stealing her breath, crippling her body with fright. You hurt it! She told herself. You made it wail! You wounded it perhaps! Thoughts like arrows thrown against the overwhelming tide of doubt and fear, breaking it up… Somewhat.

“You can stay on the ship,” Egill’s bristly whispering dispelled the vision, and snatched Rena’s attention. “I can’t give you orders; you are my gracious, gallant guest.”

“Not a chance,” she replied quickly, turning about and facing the sphinx’s bristled chest. She stepped back and looked up. “People need help, and I’m in a position to help them. I know the horrors now; I can withstand them!” She was careful not to raise her voice, to make sure others did not hear her.

Egill tilted his head, searching her face, for something Rena hoped was there.

“I don’t hold it against you, dear lady,” Egill replied. “We were all ambushed by terror… And you don’t have my finer, finicky sense of smell. There wasn’t only copper, and rot, but the sourness of the sirens’ own bile dripping echoes… I can pick it up still, coming from the city ahead of us. If you want to wade into this terror, I won’t turn down a willing volunteer… But stay with me this time.”

“Of course… And you can give me orders, you know,” Rena replied, still weighed down by trepidation, despite Egill’s vindicating words.

“Ah, well, just listen to anything I say, and heed my advice, but I suspect you can look after yourself. You did stare down a typhon after all.”

“I guess we have work to do here, but everything I said still stands,” Fredricka said, rubbing Rena’s shoulders, and patting her on the back. She then looked to Egill.

A large taloned hand came up, placating, though halting, an unspoken order. “Yes. You are correct, Quartermaster. When we return to Nauberta, we shall see about our future. Rena, you may see yourself terribly tested, because I don’t like how our kindred have been behaving as of late.”

It made Rena wonder if she should have stayed on Nauberta after all. Perhaps she could have kept some form of order, preventing the pirate crews from getting too high on the sudden riches and glories that had been pouring through their waters over the past few weeks. She couldn’t bear the notion that they would so easily slip into such wickedness so rapidly without her on the island. If they required her physical presence, then she was no more than teacher looking over a classroom, the pupils waiting for her back to turn so they could continue whispering and passing notes. What true order and civility was there?

It was a gravely cold weight that fell upon Rena. She didn’t see her work unravel but realised it was likely all an illusion.

Surely not all?

Rena could hardly move, frozen by something deathly in her very soul.

Night had fallen upon the city by the time the Daemon Flamingo had reached the Royal Dock, the very embarkation point kept for use by the Siren Lords. It wasn’t as if it was seeing any use, Egill decided has he had the ship gently turned into the jetty.

For one thing, the Waves’ Lusterus Song, the Lords’ flagship was floundering to port, slowly being sucked down into the black waters, its prow of sculpted fangs and tongues lashing upwards as if paralysed in a desperate cry, rather than the haughty defiance they would normally portray.

And given the circumstances, Egill didn’t think anyone would complain about proper decorum.

He wanted to get in as close as possible, not risk boats rowing in, should there be anything lurking beneath the water – and he was certain there was.

Eyes, flittering, avian-, and lizard-like were watching him, Egill knew as he stepped upon the wood and stone of the Royal Dock, into enemy territory. It wasn’t a gentle breeze that prickled the fur upon his back and chest or set his whiskers to perk up. Something else, a dying echo of the sirens’ songs latched onto the very air, like a tick to a deer, spoiling the meat.

With a few swings of his sabre, Seas Asunder, he cut the parasitic reverberations from the air, filling the void with a salty, shoreline tang, softening his whiskers in the process, easing the tension in his jowls.

Behind Egill came Fredricka, armed with enough guns to take a Dytrentian Super-Galleon, and Rena with her elegantly woven bow, and those beautiful arrows. She was doing well to mask her trepidation, and even better persevering against the horrors now invading her life. He had to hand it to the Maytoni, they did make beautifully souled people, and instruments of war to match, even if they wouldn’t hesitate to hang someone like him.

Egill batted his arcing wings, dispelling more of the toxic echoes infesting the air, and turned to face the landing party. They weren’t buccaneers, this ship to land attack method not something any of them favoured, and they would likely be here for longer than it took to subdue any ship on the ocean. Thus, this would be rough going, hard fighting to tax their muscles and awareness.

“Scum of the seas,” Egill hissed, grinning and, his fangs glinting the light of the moons.

Chuckles and a hoot met his comments. Aside from Fredricka, Zane, and Rena, twelve others had come ashore with him. The Flamingo was moving off, under the command of Gabrijel to sail in a circle, around the inner perimeter of the city, looking for survivors, and to make the great ship a harder target to assault by anything lurking upon the wrecks or beneath the surface of the sea. Having the first officer with him would be of a great advantage, however, if anything were to come upon the ship, Gabrijel had the furore alone to defend it.

“Feral sirens, a name from an older time, misleading, await the chorus of our own blades, guns, and cries!” Though facing the group, he made sure his voice would reach the interior of the covered dock ahead, and thus into the shard proper. “Fan out into a kite shape formation, I think, yes. Watch every shadow, every height, every… Well, everything.” He pointed at one party member. “Bridesman, dispel the dark, and clear a path we can follow. And I do prefer to see my enemies coming.”

A fighting mage, though a moderate in their learnedness, Bridesman was formally of the famous mercenary group The Honoured Bearers, who were hired by wedding parties to escort and protect the bride should anyone wish to sever a treaty, or alliance, or simply enact a jealous altercation. Upon the Flamingo he was a mage, armed with spells.

Lithe, a body shaped for duelling with swords, Bridesman stepped a few feet beyond Egill and threw out a flare of near-blinding white light. The comet plunged into the gloom, evaporating it in tidal washes of light bring with it a noonday brightness.

As Egill led his party, he noted that the orderliness of the docks had been lost to the remnants of chaos; crates, barrels, and stalls were strewn as if heaped upon a bonfire, forcing the group to step over or around these accidental barricades.

Despite the manufactured daylight, Egill’s tufted ears stiffened so much so that they were close to spasming. Inner hairs tingled anxiously, a very faint, dull throb beginning to build in his inner ear. The air was becoming heavier, as if the weight of a gale was upon them, but without the directed force.

A large pully system had collapsed, its upper arm caught in the rocky wall to the group’s right, creating an unstable archway. At the end of the dock, by the mouth of a large cave, several smaller boats clacked against one and other in the tepid waves, their mooring ropes splayed and tangled up in the water.

“My ears are burning,” one party member muttered, scanning the waters to their left.

“No One’s ever said a good thing about you, so it must be some siren magic,” another replied.

Egill slashed at the air before him, as if a stolidly built adversary stood in his way, the sword’s furore, and the heat of a leviathan’s heart, pouring forth to dispel the toxic echoes.

“Bridesman, can you purge the air before us?” He asked, twirling Seas Asunder in his taloned hand.

“I’d sooner have Tova belch out her lunch, might work better,” Bridesman replied, stepping forward again.

A few subdued chuckles followed him, and mage spun his right hand about in the air.

“Those clams were off, I told ye,” Tove replied. “Not that it deterred me I’ll confess.”

Bridesman thrust his arm out, a cyclonic whirl of flame and thunder erupting from it, like breath from a fire-draig. The torrent of fire and noise launched itself towards the cave’s entrance, cracks, and snaps of hot white sparks filling the air as the toxic after-echoes erupted.

Egill was about to speak again, when a wail of gut-tearing noise and force broke loose from the cave’s mouth. Every colour in the world before him blurred and shook fiercely, and a brief, though intense agony shot inwards through his ears to the centre of his brain.

Slabs of rock and loose debris fell away from the body of the shard as the reverberations wracked the entrance way to the city proper. The whirling torrent loosed by Bridesman, of fire and noise, died, buried under the toxicity of the cry, snuffed out.

Fredricka was cursing, the words coming in through a funnel. Egill shook his head, as if that might help, and forced himself upright as the aguish seizing his temples fell away. As suddenly as the roar had erupted, it dissipated, to leave deathly silence in its wake.

“What the Weaving Waters was that!?” One pirate choaked, righting themselves, staggering as if drunk.

“A web, like that of a spider, but invisible, and woven of the worst cries and wails of the ferals. Set up to crush the brains and organs of anyone who walks into,” Zane replied, shaking his head of feathers, and staggering up to Egill’s side. “A trap basically. We were lucky not to have moved in further, otherwise the sweetly, imperceptible songs woven before it would have led us in under a kind of hypnosis.”

From her ear, Rena dabbed at blood, looking more disgusted than afraid. Then she looked into the mouth of the cave, the entrance to the city proper, and screamed back, “I dispel your unnatural echoes, through the might of Senphire, and the honesty imbued in the light of Wespar!”

Behind her, the pirates roared and cheered in the wake of such a bold declaration, heartened by it, Egill noted.

“I’m so fed up with fear thinking it can subdue me,” Rena continued, seething. She raised her bow, an arrow sitting on the string, and drew at the mouth of the cave. “As Senphire loosed an arrow into the world to subdue the wildness of it, I, chosen of the Gods, use the same divine tool, and in Senphire’s name, through this arrow cast out the unruliness poisoning Their Creation!”

With words spoken into the arrow, and the action, Rena let slip the string of her bow, with all the grace expected from not only a lifetime of practising archery, but from a Maytoni to whom the bow was divine.

Following in the arrow’s wake, pulled from the hidden recesses in the air, from every shadowy pool, the wails and cries, forlorn and enraged, erupted. The very air, the very light shimmered violently, within the cave, and Egill had to cover his tufted ears as his bones rattled, and muscles spasmed.

It was more than silence that fell in the wake of the arrows flight, but a stillness, something both eerie to Egill and calming.

“I think we’ll be alright boys and lasses,” one pirate said, her voice clear and pure, as if it could be the only sound in all the city. “We’ve got gods on our side.”

“They’ll do for me,” another added.

“We move on!” Egill called out, turning back to his party, throwing his sword arm out.

It was easier taking point now, he felt, as Rena stepped up to his side.

“I don’t know much about your gods… Well, I don’t know anything, but it seems they are still happy to see you representing, resplendently, their power. And I’m happy to fall in line with that,” Egill said, leaning down slightly as he walked towards the entrance way to what was the opening of the Royal Chambers.

“Hey, it’s a surprise to me too. I seem to fall between forsaken silence, and sudden booming light,” Rena replied, having nocked another arrow, marching on boldly, angerly even.

“I’d say that’s most people’s experience with gods and such. At least you don’t fall into the trap of seeing and hearing only what you want to.”

The party moved into the Royal Chambers, a sea-level chamber for receiving the Lords and their serfs. It was hauntingly empty, a circular ruin of shredded tapestries, melted down paintings, with many fine displays of precious objects shattered, or pulverised to fine dust.

Purple carpet, a single strip leading into the chamber had been torn and cut into by fleeing feet or perhaps attacking ferals. Every few steps, Egill could feel his boots squelch upon dampness and picked up the copper tang of shed blood. He didn’t look down to confirm this.

No richness, ostentation, or beauty was left.

Paintings, once overwhelming in their remarkably life like details, or splendorous in their perspective of the artist’s eye, had been reduced to smeared, smouldering slag by the reverberations of audible, or sonic attacks. Rags hung like wet dirty clothes, or were bunched on the marble floor, once tapestries holding within the threads the history of the city and the Siren Lords. Every thread had been wrenched apart and split further still as the various cutting sounds of the sirens tore through the displays. Most were mouldering, smouldering, the toxins in the cries eating through the materials, and leaving disgustingly coloured fumes hovering above the soggy piles.

Egill couldn’t help but hiss in aggravation, his heart wrenched clean in two at the very sights of such art destroyed.

Yet, an unsettling tingle rippled over his arms, and through his face, before plunging back down into his stomach. Guilt? Egill wasn’t one for such feelings, he was a pirate after all. But he did have something akin to honour, or at least his own sense of morality to keep himself right with Nature and whatever gods were out there.

The floating palace was one thing. Anyone revelling upon such a brazenly decadent slab of sentient pride and greed, well, taking from them was poetic justice, fair game. No one should be hoarding that amount of wealth or think that they were so beyond the laws of the Natural world or gods for that matter. Egill’s home nation believed that debauched, sinister people could be justly preyed upon, with wicked intent, with no transgressions staining the soul. Who was to say it wasn’t divine retribution after all? Thus, piracy was a pure haven for Egill, though not without its limits.

Siren City was civilisation, a city, with people just living out their lives, having families, planning for a future, and trying to be as honest as the world allowed them.

Trident Elemental – that was the treaty between the three civilisations, keeping the sirens, the merpeoples, and islanders from plunging into further war with one and other. It held, likely because each party was just sick of shedding blood, and seeing not only their own, but their kindreds’ stain the sea.

What did it matter now? All those lives and generations saved, now at the mercy, under the fangs and gait of a titanic creature only a god could hope to slay. And countless lost already, who should have been living a life of peace, a peace that came at the wrenching of egos, and pride, and personal wars.

It was a sour weight, falling heavy over Egill’s shoulders, staining his jovial spirit, and bounding it in stagnant, dank, darkness.

Was this his fault? It wasn’t the first time the question sprang at it him, coming out of the depths of his soul like a barbed arrow. The Flamingo had been there, trying to prevent the tiny, discreet fishing vessel and its undead cargo from falling foul to the machinations of others.

He’d failed, and put the Flamingo, and its crew in jeopardy – not to mention his old Quartermaster, the Grand Raptor of the Seas, Ksenia Kiamount and this new paramour of hers, The Phoenix Archer.

Egill growled, lowly, and sucked in a great breath of salty air to steady himself. There were people still to be saved, to be pulled from this disaster, and he wouldn’t be able to do that dwelling on his failures and what should have been.  

Crunches and sharp clatters met his ears as he walked through the detritus of battle. Ceramics, shards of metal, splinters of wood, and so much more covered the marble floor so thoroughly Egill was sure his boots were unable to meet the marble.

“No bodies,” Rena whispered, the quaver in her tone audible.

“No bodies, indeed. When you hunt down a fat pheasant, you don’t leave it behind do you,” Egill replied, a bit too grimly he thought.

Before them, pulling away some of the horror with its own beauty, was the lift. A cylinder of magical energies woven to control gravity, icy in its translucent colours, almost like shimmers of heat coming off the dessert ground, pouring upwards into the ceiling.

“Are stairs beneath the lords, then?” Rena said, hardly impressed by the use of magical energies. “I suppose their serfs have a stairway somewhere here, in order to follow.”

A smirk worked its way across Egill’s mouth. He hadn’t thought about it like that, but for all his own fair ideologies, it took a Maytoni to note the finer details of social inequality.

“Probably, my dear Maytoni. But given the height of the shard, this works in our favour, does it not?”

 The look Rena returned was not one of encouragement.

“Is the magic still stable?”

“Bridesman!” Egill called, looking back over his party.

The mage stepped forwards, knowing already what was to be asked of him.

“I’ll look ‘er over, boss,” he said, his hands raised slightly, thumbs dancing across the tips of his fingers.

Both eyes shone, gleaming with a translucent light, and the air around Bridesman seemed to reach out towards the lift.

“I have control of it, boss,” he said, looking up its length. “The diamond cord energies are stable… Enough for us anyhow.”

“Oh, that’s encouraging,” Rena said.

“Not one for magic? How unlike you,” Fredricka said, moving up, a pistol in each hand.

The Pastoral returned a scowl.

“I know… But most people who claim to understand it, are talking nonsense, out of a place of pride and vanity.” She then remembered Bridesman ahead of her, and quickly added, “No offense, Bridesman. But the advanced magical theory and application here is obviously beyond the capacity of anyone’s mind. I refuse to believe whoever engineered this didn’t go mad.”

“Don’t worry, Ms Zeman,” Bridesman replied, gentility – as always. “The vain, lazy, and greedy often see magic as superb means to enact their desires without the requisite efforts. You may not be wrong, that whoever built this, is no longer of a sound mind. But this will take us up to the Royal Quarters, and we can see what’s what, eh.”

That was good enough for Egill. He approached the lift, his whiskers, chest hairs, and even the tufts on his ears suddenly tingling, as if the breath of something sinister had washed over him.

“Portner, Ganza, Jugovac, stay here, and hold the dock entryway. I want to use this as our exit and avoid blundering through anymore of the city than we need to,” Egill ordered, looking each of the crew in the eyes as he spoke affirmingly.

Each of them held muskets, and numerous pistols, and that firepower would be better served holding onto their exit strategy, than in the closer confines of the upper city.

“I’ll go first, Bridesman you follow, then Fredricka,” Egill continued, straightening himself and wafting his wings. “I want magic, and violent intent on my heels in case I come out against any sudden aggressors.”

When it was Rena’s turn, the anxiety in her gut sharpened.

Magic to the Maytoni was treated like any dangerous element. It was useful, beneficial, and in small measures, permitted by the Gods. But They had made Their decree clear, after the Divined had rebelled, reducing sentient kind’s mental and physical capacity for taming and managing magical knowledge.

And finding out that she, Renata Zeman, was chosen by the Gods, to be a vessel for Their power, to see Their will carried out in Maytoni, magic was no longer treated with reverential caution, it became taboo – forbidden.

There was still a rotten feeling that came over Rena when faced with magic, especially anything as severe as manipulating gravity, despite have broken a vow to use the same elements to save a life.

It had been insisted upon that she go last, to make sure the lift was safe, and to ensure the upper level was secured. It was all very flattering, but Rena wasn’t some holy relic to be kept guarded at all times, or to have her hand held when following this path, she had found herself upon.

Leaving the three pirates guarding their exit, Rena quieted her mind through brute force, clenched her jaw, forced her spangly nerves to settle, and marched into the centre of the lift.

She almost squealed as her whole body became as delicate as a shed feather, wrapped up in the engineered streams of magical energies, with about at much control as that feather caught in a gale.

Dark rock, flailing amber braziers, all blurred into one murky mess as she was lifted far faster than she wanted to be, floor after floor.

Though, mercifully, Rena caught sight of the others sooner than she had expected, as the catapulting thrust devolved into nothing more than a fleeting pounce from the sort jumping tarp, she was familiar with from her days as a student, taking part in physical education.

Voices came through the shimmering translucence, heavy and dull, like she was hearing them through thick glass, and then Rena realised they were shouting. Dull cracks from guns popped around the lift, a shrill, yet melodic warble lunged through the din of violence, and the scene outside of the life shook, vibrating rapidly.

Except it wasn’t the world that was shaking, reverberating from the sordid squeals of the sirens, it was the lift itself.

Suddenly Rena felt her full weight return to her, yelping as she plummeted. Hot white light poured down over her and boiled up from beneath her. She was hauled to one side, then ripped back, and finally tossed to the right and forward into sudden darkness.

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