Six Years Earlier

94

The Sea is Always the Same

The Lochlanach fleet flew south, cleaving passage through the humid, cloud filled skies. The spray from the waves splattered the wooden hulls as they passed above the swells. Every inch of every ship crackled with runefire. Spurts of silver flame licked from bow to stern and back again in the never-ending cycle that kept the vessels airborne. Each ship's sails were fully extended, spread wide to catch every precious push of wind and every hint of breeze. Every soul onboard that was not engaged hauling rope or working the great wheels scanned the waters below for trouble.

Ahead was the mighty flagship Trillium. She led the way with the little Sky Lion and the rest of the airships following in her wake. The pride of the fleet, the Trillium was a heavy man–o–war, a floating castle fully two hundred feet long. Expertly constructed of oak and iron she weighed three thousand tons before she was runed. She carried one hundred cannons and enough men to conquer a small county.

Rumour had it that the Queen of Lochlanach had personally outfitted the Trillium for conquest and that the commander sailed with her favour. The rest of the fleet were a motley assortment of vessels cobbled together by the merchants and the aristocrats of Stonehaven. There were three medium sized men–o–war, a handful of merchantmen haphazardly fitted with arms, while the rest were squat carracks and nimble caravels.

At the very back of the formation was the smallest caravel, the Sky Lion. Ansel Frost clung to the netting high above the Sky Lion's triangular sails. He watched the unending churn of the waves far beneath him with nervous attention. Two days. It had been two days since he had slept. His eyes were dry from staring but he dared not shut them. The dome of the sky was raked with fingers of cloud, but he dared not look up. There was nothing of concern in the sky – the danger would come from the waters. As it had before.

The boy who had eagerly signed his mark on the harbour wall was gone. That boy had died. Somewhere on the long journey south his youthful naivety had been washed away by coarse saltwater. Likewise, he was physically transformed. The demands of working an airship on lean rations had left his body whipcord thin and bronzed by the sun, his hands calloused by the ropes. His grey eyes were weary and cynical as he scoured the wave tops. His mouth was a grim line as he watched. Nothing. There was nothing to see but unending rolling swell.

Rope and cloth snapped in the driving headwind. Pennons fluttered wildly, the edges frayed after the long months at sea, their bright colours dulled by salt and sun. At this height, the wind was a raw scream through the ropes, and the gusts snatched at Ansel's short cropped black hair. Every now and then a particularly strong blast would make the crow's nest sway alarmingly. A rope secured him to the insubstantial bulk of the mast, and he held on tightly with his fingertips trying not to think of his last, meagre meal as it threatened to rise.

The sun was dipping towards the horizon and Ansel’s blood tingled. For six months the fleet had been sailing south. They had crossed the equator barely a month previous. Once more his thoughts turned to the shortage of food and now water. On deck patience was in short supply. They had left Lochlanach with a flotilla of twelve airships, but now only eleven remained. The Wivern had been lost the night before, attacked at dusk. A monster had risen from beneath the waves. With the rest of the crew, Ansel had listened to the screams of men and the screech of shattering wood as the airship had been ripped to pieces. And now twilight approached once more. He licked his lips. But there was nothing to see.

Ansel shifted nervously on the railing, trying to get comfortable in the small space. He could not shake the feeling of doom. Something was about to happen. But there was nothing. The waters remained unbroken. He watched, waiting, his nerves as taut as a bowstring. Perhaps the night would bring relief but he doubted it.

All of the ships were hybrids, designed to sail through water and air with equal ease. The Wivern had been taken unaware with its keel in the sea. No one had seen much of the creature that had destroyed the ship – it had attacked without warning. Just before full night. The lookouts had caught glimpses of scales and tentacles. Sweat beaded Ansel's brow at the memory.

As the alarm had rung out, the Sky Lion had risen like a cork, the night watch igniting the high runes to take them out of danger. Once the captain had deemed them high enough to be safe they had lighted flares, dropping them over the edge onto the scene of carnage below. The hellish glow had illuminated roiling waters and rippling chaos but provided no answers. The Wivern had been shredded and pulled beneath the dark waters with unsettling speed.

The fleet had spent a sleepless, uncomfortable night in the air, burning high runes and watching the darkness by the unsatisfactory light of the stars. The dawn had brought no answers. The rising sun had revealed only shattered planks and bobbing remains. There was not a single survivor to be found, though the fleet combed the surrounding waters for hours.

Ansel watched.

His heart thumped as a wave broke white, splattering foam high into the air, but it was merely a wave. He sucked in a ragged breath of salty air. Now, on the Commander's orders, the fleet ran high and fast, with all available eyes on the waters below. While this made everyone feel safer, it was an undeniable fact that at the rate they were burning runes, there would not be enough cavorite for safe passage home. The only option was to press on – for glory and survival. When it ran out there would be no escape from the monsters beneath the waves.

Ansel gripped the railing hard and squinted at the water ahead. Once more his stomach clenched as he spotted a disturbance in the water below. He drew breath to shout the alarm and then huffed it out in relief as a large school of silver–finned fish broke through the curling waves. He passed a hand over weary eyes. Then blinked and straightened. His nerves were frayed, he needed to sleep. If only the screams of dying men didn’t haunt his dreams.

The sun was low in the west, and the shadow of the Sky Lion's keel was drawing long. The molten glow of the setting sun emerged from behind a cloud, casting the ocean in shades of rich copper. Shading his eyes, Ansel stared off towards the horizon and then down at the water racing past the Sky Lion's shadow. A flash of silver caught his eye.

"Rise! Rise!" he screamed.

Some deep–seated instinct made him sure that this time it was not a false alarm. “Starboard bow! In the water! Rise!”

He grabbed the flare gun from his belt and fired over his head. The firework exploded in a lazy arc over the Lion's mast and the men below swung into frenzied activity. The high runes ignited and the Sky Lion rose, soaring upwards. The other ships of the fleet followed suit a minute later, lurching up one after another as the warning flew down the line.

Ansel gulped, bracing himself against the rigging as the air rushed past, gravity pressing him down. On the deck below, cannons were uncovered and positioned. Men steadied themselves against the railings, safety lines tied with all in readiness to prime the cannons. Powder boys spilled out of the mess to take up their positions.

There was a breathless silence broken only by the hiss of burning runes. The wind dropped with the setting sun. The waters below remained quiet.

“Frost!”

Ansel winced. Captain Marlow’s voice sounded harsh on the deck below. Ansel shifted uncomfortably. “If this is a false alarm, I’ll flay the skin from your bones­ and feed your carcass to the godsforsaken fish myself. Do you have any idea how much cavorite the high runes bu–”

Dark waters exploded outwards and upwards in a torrent of spray and tentacles –tentacles the size of large, gnarled tree trunks. Bigger. They shot skywards towards the great bulk of the Trillium which was still in the process of trying to gain height. A ship that large was not agile. The runes had to balance. One miscalculation could cost the crew their lives. Ansel could see them now, scurrying, lighting the high runes with feverish haste. They were too slow. Ansel’s heart seized in his chest.

Suckers the size of wagon wheels grabbed onto the vast oak keel, smashing through the horizontal wing sails as if they were made of matchsticks and tissue. The Trillium lurched to one side, one deck sloshing into the water at a devastating angle. Screams cut through the air and then were lost beneath the ear–splitting crash of splintering timber and bone. The cracking of the wood and the pop of gunfire punctuated the violence.

Desperate to see what was happening, unable to bear the dreadful sounds, Ansel pulled himself to his feet. Leaning over the nest in the dying light of the day, Ansel had a clear view of the monster attacking the Trillium.

His breath quickened. Illuminated in lurid, glistening red by the sun’s last weak rays, the leviathan was so large only a portion of the creature was visible. Ansel caught a glimpse of a great silver exoskeleton, and a maw lined with a crimson so deep it was almost black. It gaped briefly and then closed on the hull of the wretched Trillium. An eyeball the size of the Sky Lion flashed vivid blue. It looked up. At Ansel. It saw him.

For one long, time-defying moment, they locked eyes. He staggered back, in horror.

The leviathan contemplated the Sky Lion before returning its attention to the floundering flagship in its maw. The helmsman was desperately fighting to right the sinking vessel, the great wheel spinning with desperate energy. Lazily, with what looked like minimum effort, the creature smashed into the main bulk of the Trillium's hull and ripped into the boards. The Trillium's bulwark folded with a sickening crunch.

“Higher!” screamed Captain Marlow on the deck of the Sky Lion. The stupid fool.

“We’re as high as we can go,” came the muffled response of the runemaster.

The Sky Lion and the other more agile members of the fleet swung around, positioning their cannons broadside. They were moving quickly, with practiced discipline, but the destruction below was happening so quickly and with such violence it seemed futile. Ansel grabbed the mainmast to steady himself. There was nothing he could do but watch and pray. And hold on. The Lion pitched forward. He swore as his feet tangled in the safety line. The remains of the Trillium careened sideways. Pitiful screams cut through the air as men fell overboard, disappearing beneath the churning waters which turned slick and red. Their blood mingled with the haze of the setting sun.

"Ready!"

Ansel wedged himself into the bottom of the nest so he could cover his ears. On the decks below, men rammed the shot into the cannons with ruthless precision, heaving the gun-tackles until the carriages were braced against the bulwark. Ansel knew this activity would be repeated on every available ship, as the fleet prepared to launch their attack. Pointless. It was pointless.

"Fire!"

The cannons exploded into the monster's sides. Ansel winced. As he suspected cannonballs had disturbingly little effect. They seemed only to agitate the creature. The monster’s maw rose out of the water, taller and greater than the topmost mast of the Trillium. For one terrible moment it loomed over the remains of the hull and over the men that scrambled in the water before biting down, cracking the remains of the ship like an egg.

The sounds of smashing wood and the cannons’ roar rang in Ansel's ears as the surviving ships fired round after round into the monster's side. To no avail. Or perhaps... The roiling tentacles smashed one last time through the three-thousand-ton warship as if it were made of twigs. Then it disappeared into the waves, pulling the wreck of the Trillium after it. The ocean sloshed and rolled, crashing in to fill the vacuum.

The sudden silence was shocking.

The wind had dropped, and the cannons smoked gently as the remaining crew bore mute witness to the devastation in the waters below. Ansel swallowed, his heart pounding. Slowly, like an old man, he gripped the net. He had to see it, had to see for himself. Pulling himself up, Ansel leaned out as far as he dared. The water below was littered with debris – planks, torn sailcloth, and body parts, but Ansel could not see anyone whole, or alive.

The survivors looked on for long moments, frozen in place.