Seaborn

When Rhistel said we could try and befriend the Charybdis, I thought … well, I thought we’d have a deep sea monster heeling our ship the same way a nosy whale tailed a fishing boat. I thought that I’d have to make sure the crew struck a balance between not being terrified of our newest pet and not being so familiar they stupidly antagonized it.

Really, I knew so little about communing with sea life. It’s a wonder Jones even offered me Menagerie Master.

Rhistel had set up a meeting place with the Charybdis before it had its meal, should it be interested. He left for this place alone, jogging into the surf and then along the sea floor. His running abilities merged with his curse and trumped whatever swimming skill levels he had. He’d be back within a day because he had no other choice, but I knew little else of what was going on with him.

I was contended to leave it that way. I hadn’t picked the profession related to beast-taming, I’d picked the one tied to my ship. It was time to see to it and trust Rhistel to do his own job.

Abner was the sort of carpenter who liked to have someone else be in charge, but plied his trade with unparalleled skill. This led to occasional problems when he didn’t speak up about better options when either Burdette or I gave orders. However, it also meant that when I gave him a broad objective and set of parameters like, “I need the hundreds of pounds stone missiles stuck in our ship removed and the worst holes fixed within two days” he knew exactly how it could be done. Since I ended up giving him a third day while we waited for Rhistel to return, he got even more work done.

The decks were all cut open further and the damaged sections removed as much as Abner said they could be at a time and maintain structural integrity. The stones were lifted free with ropes, pulleys, and straining arms. Then our carpenter was able to fix some of the damage enough to hold the ship together while we cut open the next wound and removed the offending projectile. The ship probably hadn’t seen such work since was finished, but between her curse and Abner’s professional abilities, we were able to tend to her.

If the ship hadn’t been able to simply sit on the sea floor, or if the ship had needed to be watertight to float, then we would have had a much harder time with repairs. But under Abner’s ministrations, the ship was ready to sail by the time the Charybdis feasted. By the time Rhistel had his chat with the creature and returned, the crew didn’t have to step around open holes in the deck anymore. The ship durability points had taken a slight dip when he started cutting, like a surgeon’s scalpel removing HP. It had climbed significantly since then, however.

Burdette had made a comment about the ship being nearly back in fighting shape. I reminded him that as long as the ship held together enough to be considered one, the ship could continue. I controlled whether the ship floated or sunk, not the number of holes in her hull. Of greater importance was the crew on board.

I sometimes wondered whether Burdette understood that or not. I knew him to be greedy and self-interested but he knew how to be a Captain, too. Just when I thought he had no concern for anyone on board but himself, I’d catch him having a quiet word with someone – even the non-humans! – which ended with a slap on the back or a handshake. Around me he was the picture of the officious first mate representing his Captain (most of the time, he was anyway.) When working personally with the crew, he had a personal touch. Maybe he didn’t have the heart of a teacher like me, but he was a good leader in his own way.

When Rhistel returned, he swam up to the deck and sighed like he was sitting down at the pier with a fishing pole after a day of throwing cargo. Imagining that he could stare into the unfathomable depths longer than my patience could hold, I made my way to him for his debrief.

“Well?” I asked.

With a quick glance in my direction the elf returned to looking out into the depths of the sea. “We’re safe to resume our operations.”

He had a decidedly more sage-like elvish introspective air than usual. “Well, tell me about it!”

“Cherry is going to take some time to hunt and explore, she …”

“Cherry? She?” I said, wondering how out of the vast ocean of names a terrifying monster nearly able to swallow up ships got named ‘Cherry’ like she was a lucky fish or something.

And she … yes, I expected the creature to have a gender, but when faced with crushing tentacles and a devouring, toothy maw, my mind didn’t take a time out to say ‘don’t forget, it could be a girl!’ I was used to considering animals as ‘it’ anyway. I even tended to regard shapeshifters as ‘its’ rather than gendered pronouns when they were in their animal form.

“Yes, our friendly Charybdis is a female, and given that she is not the only one of her kind however rare they are, and that nearly everyone on board has pronounced ‘Charybdis’ differently … I thought it appropriate to give her a name amongst ourselves.”

“And you chose Cherry as the name for the all-devouring creature.”

I’d swear the elf’s eyes twinkled as he opened his mouth for a condescendingly witty reply, but I wasn’t subjected to it thanks to Burdette arriving. The twinkle in Rhistel’s eyes disappeared, even if he maintained the same tone.

“Cherry has, simply put, hit the limit of civilized interaction which she can tolerate within a week. As an independent creature, this means she is going off to hunt and explore her new territory – though ‘her territory’ extends to nearly anything she desires.”

“Just like any woman,” Abner said to chuckles from some of the others. Varinya cuffed him, to the cheers of everyone.

Rhistel ignored the peanut gallery. “Trying to maintain contact with her would be to push her instincts from ‘leaving for some air’,” Rhistel paused as he considered his choice of words before plowing on. “And ‘provoking her into removing the irritation’. She is still a wild creature, and I believe you whished for this to be handled delicately?”

At my nod he continued. “I’ve established a type of bond with her, enough for us to sense the other’s whereabouts. She will return to us when she’s ready, and leave again when she desires. Over time, she may come to spend more and more time around the ship.”

That sounded like a fair process for bonding such a powerful creature. I couldn’t expect a juvenile Charybdis to suddenly want to join my crew and slay my enemies for me, could I? Though that would make things for me a lot easier.

Hence, why it naturally wouldn’t work for me.

“In that case, we prepare to sail now.”

“Where to, Captain?” Burdette asked in a tone that said he’d have liked to know the answer before everyone else. That was too bad, because I had reasons to keep my first mate off-balance every now and then. I surprised everyone by naming the island we’d taken our last port call in.

“Gildra.”

“Captain, why?” Burdette asked.

I frowned. Sometimes Burdette was good about supporting me in front of the crew, challenging me in private. Other times, he wasn’t. Were those times getting more frequent?

“The jarl of that island and the garrison commander at that port made themselves enemies by what they did. I intend to make them pay for it. We’re not strong enough to take on the joint task force trying to find us. We don’t have a fleet to attack multiple locations. What we can do is perform a strike and disappear, never to be hunted down. We lead the navy along by the nose rather than dance to their tune. Hit these islands where they don’t expect it and take targets of opportunity as we need.”

I’d presented it a bit flamboyantly, but that was essentially my strategy. The strike force hunting me had only ever been able to tail me, never pinning me down but the once I made foolish errors. What I didn’t say aloud – but truly hoped – was that some of the ships from the task force would have withdrawn to that port to make repairs; namely the Athair.

If I could sink her and put an end to the whole Sins of the Father, Sins of the Son quest, I would be happy. I had no desire to face my father – either in a fight or for reconciliation.

I refused to let go of his abandonment, and fighting fair was for those willing to lose.

My crew didn’t exactly cheer my decision to retaliate, but they set to their stations. We were heading back to a town that had shown most of the lads a good time, even if it had led to the death of a third of them. In my own situation, the town had presented me with the opportunity to meet with Hali and get some news and closure … and hope.

But I would be as hard as I needed to become.

We saw the Emerald on our return. In fact, she sailed right above us, the Spirit of Retribution and the cutter Pursuit on either flank. However, none of them knew we were there. Whatever magic they had let them figure out that we’d made repairs at Cuffmagin, but they weren’t in time to catch us there, and they likely knew it.

I noticed the absence of the Athair and the Hunter. One likely required repairs, and the other had lost its commanding officer in our last engagement. Apparently they were stretched thin for people, as they didn’t have anyone with the profession to step up to command.

Or they were doing something sneaky. I couldn’t imagine what, but they’d proved capable of it.

So it was that we closed in on the port in the night. Their guard was down; they thought they’d had the only brush with Jones’ cursed lieutenant that they needed to fear. They thought that because I was fleeing from the navy, that their waterfront had nothing to fear.

Maybe Jones’ mandate was all designed to expose me to moments like this: I was greedy for retribution. I wanted to sow chaos and destruction. In my previous life, my vindictiveness had never extended beyond the level of pettiness. Now I was deliberately targeting a vulnerable area with the intention of making blood flow.

This change should scare me more.

It didn’t.

I stand by Rhistel and Arnnaith at the gunwale when I give my orders to Phillip and Zander. As my two best remaining fighters, they were in charge of the assault team for the minor role they were to play.

“Zander,” I said quietly to him. “I’ve tried in our previous engagements to keep you on a leash. Now, I’m letting you off of it. Make an impact. Make it count. Draw the garrison out.”

He nodded. Phillip had overheard and given me a strange look, but said nothing.

The teams swam to the bottom of the channel and then anchored themselves there, trotting up the bay to where the waterfront was. When the arranged time came, I surfaced the ship and we eased forward invisibly. Phillip and Zander’s teams were just making their attacks.

Different levels of ports had to have different protection in place. To advance a port from the basic level at all it had to have some protection, usually from land assaults. Naval protection was gradually scaled up too, but it always seemed to lag behind a port’s other defenses. In the case of a relatively small port like this, they had no measures against amphibious assault teams clambering up the pylons of the waterfront and beginning to devastate the area.

To be fair, very few ports did.

I didn’t have many combatants, and didn’t want to lose any who I still clung to. To that end, the strike team didn’t forage into the port to take buildings of strategic importance. They didn’t even target areas for maximum casualties. No, they were trying to be showy. They wanted panic to spread, but not panic so thoroughly that no one knew what word to spread.

Phillip had overall command, and coordinated their fighting. Zander took my phrase ‘freedom from his leash’ almost literally as he dashed away from the rest of the team to kill the strongest people in the area – none of whom could match his level 21 spearman onslaught.

“The garrison is marshalling,” Arnnaith said beside me. He had a spyglass lifted to the stone garrison on hillside. “They’re forming in ranks outside their gate.”

“Pass the word to Sadeo.”

The half-elf boy ran down to the artillery deck and I had Burdette turn us to present the garrison with a broadside. While Sadeo gave the last orders to his teams, I looked at the one potential threat in the harbor.

The Hunter was indeed moored here, but the cutter did not have anyone listed as in command. Its threat level had dropped from a relevant 3 down to a 1. Still, the vessel had been part of the force arrayed against me, and I didn’t want it to be playing any tricks. There were no other ships currently at harbor that could face us.

With a series of tung’s, fifteen ballistae unloaded. 10 were below under Sadeo’s direct supervision, 5 were on deck with me straining their ears to hear relayed commands. Some artillery was loud enough that you knew what and where it was immediately. While our ballistae were hardly quiet, they were easily lost over distance and the clamor on the docks.

When the mix of poison and explosive bolts began falling amongst the ranks of the garrison, they had no warning. One second they were preparing to rebuff raiders of some type, the next they are choking on fumes, the men on either side disappearing in nova’s of blood and viscera.

The well-trained troops thought they were facing an ambush from people hiding nearby, and closed ranks to keep a tight, disciplined formation. Had they realized they were facing artillery shots, they would have known they were making my gunner’s jobs easier.

By the time they broke – either realizing what they faced or lacking the spine to keep standing in place and dying – the garrison forces were crippled. Few made it back inside the stout walls, and those that did were poisoned and covered in the remains of their fellows, clinging to life by a handful of HP.

“Time to redirect fire,” I said to myself. Sadeo knew the plan, and had the teams swap out the bolts they were using. They no longer targeted the garrison: now they were firing on the port itself.

Phillip had been listening and once we started firing, rounded up the strike force and retreated. All fighters in town would have been withdrawing at that point to meet the garrison. Since the garrison wasn’t coming, even my small low-combat efficiency band could have run around unchecked. I didn’t want that though, it carried too much risk. Instead, once my men were out of there I lit the town on fire.

15 scorpion ballistae throwing enchanted fire bolts at wooden buildings. Sadeo could fire, reload, line up another shot and fire again in 10 seconds. He was obviously head and shoulders above every other artillerist – metaphorically speaking – but each of my gunners had the basic artillery levels down by this point. My ship was putting out about 30 fire bolts per minute. Over a 4 minute period, that was 120 fire bolts we lit the town up with. Nobody wanted to fight flames refreshed at that rate.

Not that the shots were spread out willy-nilly. I’d discussed with my crew the best places to hit to cripple the ports’ abilities. Several of those were indeed of the merchant or residential sort, but the biggest priority were the warehouses. When those went up, not only were they nearly uncontested blazes, they took out a good deal of whatever was within. Burned rubble was no use to traders and freighters. With the colder months setting in, this port was going to face a crisis as they attempted to rebuild.

Once those fires were going, any other building that seemed to be propping the level of the port up was targeted. It was supposed to be a level 3 settlement, or at least on the cusp of being a level 3, but by tomorrow it would be a level 1. If my selection of targets proved well-chosen, it would be nothing more than a hamlet come springtime.

Let this be a warning to those who mess with my crew.

“The Hunter is getting underway!” Arnnaith said, scurrying to my side. I turned my spyglass from the burning warehouses to see that the cutter was indeed setting sail. A few flaming bolts had targeted the ship, but it had some decent fire-resistance upgrades and a solid crew to put things out, making it fruitless.

“She’d have done better leaving her sails down and firing from where she’s at,” I said. “She’d have at least inflicted some damage on us before we could respond. They don’t have a Commander to tell them that, though.”

“She’s going to ram us,” Arnnaith said. “It’s the only way she can hope to truly hurt us. Whoever is stepping in for their Commander knows this. He’s probably rousing his shipmates with speeches of ‘for home and glory!’ right now.”

It clicked. Yes, that would make sense. The half-dozen ballistae the cutter might be able to orient at us wouldn’t do much, but my ship wasn’t partial to being gutted by a bowsprit any more than a normal ship. Seeing that my strike team was finishing climbing over the side via some pre-staged lines into the harbor, I whistled and gave the signal to Burdette to have us leave.

Could we have held our ground and punched the Hunter down? No doubt. Did it look like we were turning and running from a ship that barely had a threat level? Yes. Did I care? Not at all. I’d already exacted retribution on the garrison and the port was on fire. Why stay?

Smashing the Hunter to pieces to deprive Admiral Michaels of it was a decent reason – not to mention it would be cathartic for the damage the ship had done to mine with its stone missiles – but I could be patient.

Who was I kidding? I wasn’t being patient.

I stepped closer to Rhistel. I said nothing, but he still correctly interpreted my query. “She’s ready, Captain.”

We sailed out of the bay, over a patch of ocean that daylight might have shown hid something large and dark. The townspeople were cheering their heroic navy on chasing us away. The Hunter was fighting to reach us before we dove, sure that we were fleeing.

Their celebration ended when the water started to swirl. Cherry was using her ability and caught the cutter in a whirlpool trap only a skilled seaman could possibly escape. The Hunter was now prey.

Cherry’s arms reached out of the water like the arms of a kraken and batted at the ship, snapping wood and tearing rigging. The crew panicked, some even thinking it was even a remotely good idea to jump overboard and swim for land. If Cherry didn’t already know the taste of human flesh, now she did.

The Hunter might have had upgrades for fire resistance, and probably more that were related to speed. One thing that had not been upgraded on it was durability. Cherry battered it to pieces and with a surging chomp, latched onto the ship – the entire cutter! – with her gaping maw. It cracked and splintered. She let it go to continue her whirlpool, though soon it was only flotsam that was swirling about.

She couldn’t devastate the Emerald or a similarly outfitted ship like that, but our dear Cherry was orders of magnitude more powerful than your average kraken or sea serpent. She would be one of the legends of the sea one day.

It only struck me then that Jones was paying attention to my thoughts. He didn’t communicate, not even to comment on my recent act of bloodshed. The only things I noticed from him were a vague interest and curiosity in Cherry, and a sense of pride in me.

There are some people whose approval fills us with disquiet.