A s.h.i.+ver ran down Cobiah"s spine, but he laughed it off. He"d heard such rumors before. Sailors were notoriously superst.i.tious and had an irrational trust in everything from the number of knots used on the sail ropes to coins thrown into stormy seas to appease the G.o.d of death before a voyage. A mere whisper of bad luck could make the swabs turn white and start muttering about curses and evil eyes. Nothing more than sailors" talk.
"Look there." One hand clutching the crossbar between his legs, Sethus raised his other to point toward the s.h.i.+p"s bow. From their vantage at the top of the Indomitable"s mast, Cobiah could see a darkness on the horizon, a place where the waters turned into moving shadows beneath the storm. The sky there was green with sickly storms and black with clouds, and lightning flashed in the depths like twisting eels fighting in clouded waters. Where they reached down to touch the water, Cobiah could see shapes illuminated beneath the waves. At first he thought these were merely rocks, bits of island, or coral formations just below the white-foamed surface. As he peered longer, he began to pick out regular and oddly distinct edges, the features taking strangely familiar form.
Spires. Pointed stone rooftops, like the high pointed tops of churches and meeting halls in Lion"s Arch, but standing beneath the surface of the sea. Startled, Cobiah narrowed his eyes and tried to see more. "What are those?"
"Those are the ruins of one of the great cathedrals of Orr. Legend doesn"t say which one. Sailors call them Malchor"s Fingertips." Sethus s.h.i.+vered, pulling himself back up onto the spar to stare out over the sea. "s.h.i.+ps don"t cross that threshold. When the pilot sees those black spires, you turn back."
"Malchor?"
"An old legend," Sethus said. "Malchor was a great artist who carved statues of the G.o.ds. After he was done carving their statues, the G.o.ds shut themselves away from mankind. But Malchor had fallen in love with Dwayna. He couldn"t stand thinking that he"d never see her again, so he threw himself into the ocean and drowned. Sailors say those steeples are Malchor"s hands reaching out of the sea toward the heavens, trying to touch the G.o.ds that left him behind so long ago."
Cobiah looked at the faint pillars of stone at the edge of the horizon"s curve. They did look a little like fingers. "That"s where the seas of Orr begin?"
"Yeah. Right at that line of stones."
"What"s beyond?"
"Orr itself. They say the water there is as black as night, like ink"s been poured into the waves. It never gets lighter, and the sun never warms it. Sailors have used Orrian water to freeze things even in the Maguuma Jungle"s heat. Just one drop turns meat into jerky. A canteen could ice over even the fires of Sorrow"s Furnace!"
"Superst.i.tion," Cobiah snorted, but he didn"t take his eyes off the sea. In his time as a sailor, Cobiah"s stomach had never given him an inch of trouble. Come smooth seas or rolling winds, he"d never been seasick and he"d never offered a "sailor"s prayer" over the side of the deck. Suddenly, thinking about sailing over the depths of a land abandoned by the G.o.ds and cursed by haunts, Cobiah felt his belly roll over. He"d been excited before, when Orr was a figment of his imagination. Now that he could see black stone fingers reaching up out of the ocean"s murky depths, he suddenly felt the tang of fear.
"Do you think we"ll find the monster that the king is looking for?" Cobiah whispered, coiling salt-roughed rope around his elbow and wrist. "Does it live in Orr?"
"I don"t know," Sethus answered in a somber tone. "But I do know that no s.h.i.+p that sails beyond Malchor"s Fingers"-Sethus gulped, suddenly looking down at his net-"ever comes back."
The next morning dawned crisp and cold, wintry enough to drive away the warmth of early autumn they"d known only the day before. Last night at sunset, the slender spines of Malchor"s Fingers had been barely a jagged line against the horizon. In the soft gleam of morning, the spines were much closer, clawing their way up from the depths through rings of thick sea-foam.
"Eyes on the rocks, lads!" Vost shouted from the bow. The s.h.i.+p"s bosun seemed ill at ease, one foot planted atop the bulwark near the Indomitable"s six-armed figurehead. He kept his bosun"s whistle clenched in one hand, the other holding fast to a mainstay rope as wind buffeted his crisp white s.h.i.+rt. Captain Whiting and his first mate stood on the forecastle with him, staring past the cutting waves at the front of the s.h.i.+p toward the sea ahead where rocky stanchions loomed. The captain fidgeted with his sleeve cuffs as he stared into the wind, but the bosun and the first mate were as still as statues.
Ice-cold water splashed up onto the deck as the galleon made her way bravely forward. She barely rocked at all in the tow of the waves, cresting fluidly over each ripple and valley of the sea. Her topsail was wrapped against the crossbar; the jibs were lowered, and her long, pointed bowsprit was bare of white muslin sail. Only the two central wind catchers, the foresail to the front and the mainsail at the rear, remained aloft, s.h.i.+vering in the heavy winds that buffeted ocean froth around the tall jagged rocks.
"Were those stones really the top of an ancient church?" Cobiah whispered to one of the other sailors as they folded netting. He tucked the wrapped cords into wooden caskets below the railing of the forecastle.
"Who told you that old chestnut?" Urim scoffed, tightening the knot of a bright red bandanna wrapped about his neck in hopes of warmth. "They"re just salt pillars. A rock somewhere below started breaking the water, and the salt of the sea"s gathered up layer on layer "til the whole thing sticks up above the waves. S"nothing to be afeared of."
Tosh snorted mockingly as he walked past, twisting a long skein of rope between his thumb and his elbow. "Church towers? Fell for that one, did you, whey face? I heard it when I was six-and I didn"t believe it even then. You always fall for those toothless jawers" yapping. You should"ve been a priest, Cobiah. At least then you"d get paid to listen to fools." Although the jibes were rough, Tosh snorted and moved on without staying to pick a fight. That much, at least, had changed in the last half year.
"c.o.c.k of the walk, he is," Cobiah spat under his breath.
"Tosh"s just ribbing you, as always. Don"t pay him any mind," Sethus said as he trotted up with a grin. "And Urim"s as glazed as Lyssa"s mirror." Sethus pointed at the sailor and mimicked taking a swig of brandy. "Just salt rocks? What"s under that salt, I ask you? Orrian church towers. Now c"mon, Coby, and help me shove this heavy lot after that gun." Sethus grabbed Cobiah"s sleeve and dragged him toward the hatch nearby. Below, they could see four sailors dragging one of the s.h.i.+p"s big guns to its firing post. The captain had given orders that the cannons as well as the smoothbore carronades were to be kept loaded and ready at all times. The top-deck carronades were bolted to the frame of the s.h.i.+p and were always in place, with firepower and shot nearby, but the cannons on the lower deck were too large to shot-pack without need. It was the first time that Cobiah had seen the big guns freed of their moorings, and he watched with great interest.
Sethus and Cobiah dropped down to the lower deck and moved to help the gunners, pus.h.i.+ng pallets of cannonb.a.l.l.s and small burlap bags of powder into place beside each cannon at its porthole. Although the work was hard, Cobiah couldn"t help being pleased that he was helping with the gunnery while Tosh was saddled with the everyday task of gaffing ropes.
"Ho, there!" The voice was crisp, the vowels rounded, and the tone one of immutable authority. Aubrey Chernock leaned over to peer down through the hatch opening. The Indomitable"s first mate cut a fine figure, brown ponytail dancing against her shoulders, fists on her hips, golden coat flaring in the wind. "The captain left his astrolabe in the chart room." She pointed at Cobiah, hand striking out like a shark. "You there. Run back and retrieve it. Ask Pilot Damran-he"ll know what I mean."
"Yes, ma"am!" Cobiah leapt up from the pallet he"d been loading and clambered back to the top deck, giving her a fumbling salute. He rushed toward the rear of the s.h.i.+p without a second thought, pausing only when he"d reached the mainsail. Damran? That was the pilot"s name. Chart room? Astral what? Neither of those terms made any sense to him. Cobiah considered asking, but the first mate of the Indomitable had already turned and headed back to the captain"s side on the forecastle. Oh, well, he thought. I"ll just have to figure it out on my own. Cobiah ducked to avoid hanging shrouds of net as he jogged under the main boom. The captain"s cabin was at the rear of the s.h.i.+p beneath the quarterdeck. That seemed like the best place to start looking for the pilot, and the captain"s astral . . . laboratory . . . thing.
He climbed the stairs to the heavy oak doors of the captain"s cabin, hesitantly pus.h.i.+ng them open. "h.e.l.lo?" Cobiah"s voice wavered uncertainly. He slipped inside, hoping to be in and out before anyone noticed him there.
His eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light inside the cabin. The room inside felt as far away from the deck of the s.h.i.+p as Lion"s Arch was from Cantha, and for a moment, Cobiah thought he"d been transported to the king"s palace. Huge gla.s.s windows covered the rear wall, surrounded by velvet curtains the color of ripe tomatoes, spread wide to let in the sun. Gilding twinkled from the window frames, the ceiling, and even the chairs arrayed around a long oak table. The table itself was st.u.r.dily fastened to the floor with bolts through the clawed bra.s.s feet. On one side of the cabin, a soft down mattress was piled high with fluffy pillows in the same deep-red tone, each decorated with fine golden embroidery.
The wooden walls had been polished to a high s.h.i.+ne. Small unlit candles hung in delicate ornate sconces every few feet. A rug in shades of blue and purple lay across the floor"s open area, worth far more than the house Cobiah grew up in back at Lion"s Arch. "Anyone here?" The sentence died on his lips as he noticed an old man sitting in a chair by the bay window, reading a thick leather-bound book. "Oh. You must be . . ." He struggled to remember the pilot"s name. "Dargan . . . um . . . Darran?"
"Damran. Pilot Damran. And you are, boy?" s.h.i.+fting his wire-rimmed spectacles down his thin nose, the old man stared at Cobiah with a disapproving smirk.
"Cobiah. Sir. I mean, I"m Cobiah, sir. I"m here because the mate-First Mate Chernock. She sent me."
The two men stared at one another for a long awkward moment before Damran finally snapped, "And?"
"Oh!" Cobiah blinked. "She wanted me to bring the captain his astro thing?"
Damran shut the book in his lap, blinking owlishly. "His what?"
"I"m not sure, sir." Cobiah faltered. "She only said it once, and she was talking really fast, but Chernock said the captain"d left something in his chart room, and I was to bring it to him right away."
"Did she, now?" Damran began to chuckle. "It"s his astrolabe, of course. Captain Whiting wants his astrolabe."
"If you say so, sir."
"Come here, boy." Damran rose from his seat and stepped to the big table in the center of the room, lifting a metal instrument from a pile of papers there. It was a flat circle of metal within a thin frame. The frame was ornate, almost delicate, over the platterlike base. Much of it had been cut through to show the etching on the plate below. A second, smaller inner circle perched on top of the other one, both bolted through the center to the circular base plate. "You"re new aboard s.h.i.+p, aren"t you?" The old pilot raised an eyebrow at Cobiah"s obvious interest.
"Not so new, sir. I"ve done three pa.s.sages to Cantha."
"Barely got your sea legs under you, then. Now, look at this. The astrolabe is the most important instrument on the s.h.i.+p. Do you know what it does?"
"No, sir."
"It tells us what our eyes cannot. Namely . . ." Damran turned the bra.s.s frame, sending the circles spinning around and around over the etching of the under plate. "This little fellow can tell us where the s.h.i.+p is located even when it"s on the open sea."
"It can?" Cobiah frowned. "But that"s impossible. The sea is featureless. You can"t tell where you are unless you can see the coast." Even as he said it, he realized that it couldn"t be true. How did the s.h.i.+p find Kaineng City each time? It had to cross months of open ocean. The idea"d never occurred to Cobiah before, but now that he thought about it, he had no idea how the Indomitable found its way across the Sea of Sorrows.
"This instrument allows the captain to look at the stars and see our position-more or less."
Feeling brave, Cobiah ventured to say, "He can tell by the stars?"
The pilot pushed his gla.s.ses up on his nose. He took the instrument in both hands and raised the frame off the bottom plate. "This is the mater." He gestured to the solid bra.s.s platter, p.r.o.nouncing the strange word "mayter." "Look at those etchings. Do they seem familiar?"
Cobiah stared down at it, trying to place the odd shapes. When he shook his head no, Damran harrumphed. "The sky, my boy. These are the constellations of the stars above us, you see? This one is the Vizier"s Tower, and these are the four spokes of Grenth"s Eye." Damran reached out and lightly rapped Cobiah"s head. "Pay more attention to the things around you, and you"ll solve half your problems.
"Now, this piece-it"s called the rete-goes over the mater and spins. Like so." He placed the frame back on the mater and let it spin around.
"Why?"
"This lets you see how far apart the stars are, and how high over the horizon. With that, you can measure them against the height of the sun to tell your s.h.i.+p"s lat.i.tude. Lat.i.tude," he said, noting Cobiah"s confused stare, "is the measurement of how far north or south you are at sea. To use the astrolabe, you must look along this line"-he indicated a straight slice of bra.s.s that spun through the center-"and sight either the sun or Dwayna"s Heart. That"s the one star in the sky that never wavers or alters its place. By finding the alt.i.tude of that star-how high it is in the sky in relation to the horizon-you can tell if you are north or south of center. Center being Arah, you see?"
"Arah?" Cobiah asked.
"Arah is the city at the heart of ancient Orr. The city that the G.o.ds themselves created, at the center of the world. We judge everything"s location by its distance north or south of Arah. When the astrolabe was invented, Arah was still alive and well, with a thriving society and a prominent armada of s.h.i.+ps. The Orrian people were seafarers . . ." The old pilot cleared his throat and left off tale-telling to finish his thought. "Ahem, sorry, not important, not important.
"So, we find out how far north or south we are. We go to Cantha by heading steadily south and bearing west when we find the Canthan coast. We find Lion"s Arch by heading north and bearing east when we see Kryta. North and south by the stars." Damran tapped the instrument proudly. "The captain will take our lat.i.tude at Malchor"s Fingers so he knows how far into Orr we"ve gone. That way, he"ll know how far we"ll have to go to come back out. You see?"
This was a revelation to Cobiah. "That"s amazing! How do we use it to tell if the s.h.i.+p has gone too far east or west?"
Damran sighed, brows knitting together over his wire-framed spectacles. "I"m afraid we can"t. The sun only goes in one direction, and thus, so does the astrolabe. There"s no marker to tell how far east or west we"ve gone. Perhaps one day, some enterprising young sailor will discover a way to tell." Damran patted the astrolabe and laid it down on a soft cloth from the table. Gently, he wrapped the bra.s.s instrument inside.
"That"s fascinating. Thank you, Pilot."
Damran smiled. "It"s not often that an old man like me gets to share his craft. Now hurry along and take the astrolabe to the captain. Shoo, pup." The old pilot settled down in his chair again and nodded toward the cabin door.
Cobiah managed a shuffling bow, making the pilot smile. He crossed the cabin and then the main deck toward the forecastle. He cradled the little bundle against his chest, fearing he might break the precious instrument.
He was halfway across the deck when the s.h.i.+p jolted beneath his feet. Caught by surprise, Cobiah fell toward the gunwale and skidded precariously toward the Indomitable"s edge. With one arm wrapped around the bundle, he grabbed desperately for the central mast. The s.h.i.+p was shuddering violently, boards protesting in high-pitched shrieks, and there was a horrible crunching sound from the rudder at her stern.
The s.h.i.+p pitched again, and Cobiah"s hand slipped on the damp wood. Toppling down across the deck, Cobiah crashed painfully into the b.u.t.t of one of the ma.s.sive cannons. He desperately grabbed its iron cap, wrapping his legs around the gun and holding on for dear life. Other sailors, not so lucky, were cast into the icy sea. Cobiah could hear men screaming beyond the gunwale.
With a lurch and a groan of her arched keel, the Indomitable righted herself in the waves. Water splashed onto the deck in huge swells, toppling over the sides of the s.h.i.+p as the galleon settled into the ocean once more. Cobiah lifted his head and tried to ascertain what had happened. Had the s.h.i.+p hit the rocks? Was the bottom of the s.h.i.+p torn, taking on water that would drown them all?
Fingers of stone towered above the s.h.i.+p to either side, pointed tips clawing toward a gray, boiling sky. Yet they were still distant. The s.h.i.+p couldn"t have struck one. Cobiah glanced over the lip of the deck and saw deep blue ocean-no sign of reef or coral. That left only one answer.
If they hadn"t hit anything, then something-something big-must have hit them.
A shudder raked the Indomitable from stem to stern. There was a resounding crash of wood, the sound of splintering keel and hull, and the screams of wounded men echoed across the writhing face of the sea-and still, Cobiah could see nothing beneath the dark waves.
"Did you see it?" a sailor roared at the edge of the deck. "Where did the beast go?"
"What hit us?" another shouted amid the clamor.
"A sea monster! It was fifty feet long," the first answered. "With a maw the size of the Indomitable"s main anchor!" Before he could say more, a clear, sharp command cut through their yells.
"Stand your posts!" Chernock yelled sternly into the wind. The s.h.i.+p rolled farther to one side, the masts wavering uncertainly with the change of gravity. "Clear for action!"
The sailors rushed to obey, leaping to close the hatches as the s.h.i.+p"s bell clamored the general alarm. Something that sounded like a broadside battered the Indomitable"s bow, and there was a heady sound of creaking wood. The foremost of the three masts tipped to the side with the severity of the jolt, a thunderous crack heralding its demise. With a twist, the broad shaft of the mast swung to an awkward angle above the main deck. There it hung, tangled in the rigging of the mainsail and tethered to the shards of its broken stump by jib and spar ropes. Each time it slipped down a bit more, the weight of the mast pulled the galleon farther and farther to its side-and closer to the sea below.
"The Maw!" one of the sailors cried out. "Beast of the sea! They said it was just a legend!"
"Legend or no," Chernock said through gritted teeth, "if it"s flesh and it bleeds, it can die. Man the cannon and fire at will!"
"Watch out for those mast spars!" Vost yelled. Cobiah saw that several long ropes had broken away from the wildly flapping sheets. They whipped about like shooting stars, and where they touched flesh, they cut through to the bone.
Cobiah lunged to his feet. He scrabbled toward the mast but froze as his hand reached the smooth facing of his belt. His knife was down among his bedding. If he was to be of any help cutting loose those las.h.i.+ng ropes, he"d have to grab it before he made his way into the rigging. Cursing, Cobiah reversed course and dove down the stairs past a cracked and battered hatch.
The crew"s berth was ravaged, and rocking hammocks had dumped sleeping sailors, bedding and all, onto the lopsided floor of the hold. Several shouted for help, while others dug to find them, lifting comrades to their feet as the boat fought to right itself. Cobiah made his way to his cubby as one of the men shouted, "Are we taking on water?"
An answer came from farther down, in the hold. "Cracked but holding, sir! Aye, we are!"
"Draw out the bilge pumps! Get them ready to draw water!" One of the older sailors quickly took control, ordering others down into the dim belly of the s.h.i.+p. The fury of the unknown sea creature"s a.s.sault hadn"t cracked the keel, but the s.h.i.+p was suffering. If the creature returned and they couldn"t fire the s.h.i.+p"s cannons, the Indomitable would be split open by the next blow to the s.h.i.+p"s hull.
Kneeling by the crew cubbies, Cobiah jerked bedding out, dumping everything on the floor in his haste to get to the knife. As his hand drew it out by the white hilt, his sister"s rag doll tumbled from his pillowcase onto the floor.
Cobiah stared at the rag doll. Was it a sign from the G.o.ds? G.o.ddess Dwayna, protect our s.h.i.+p, Cobiah thought, sweeping up the doll. Biviane, if you"re an angel now, keep a weather eye out for me. He began to stuff the doll into his vest but realized quickly that it wouldn"t fit beside the captain"s astrolabe. Instead, he tied Polla to his belt with the scabbarded knife and dashed back onto the main deck.
The first mate, Chernock, stood near the rear of the s.h.i.+p. She drew a leather tawse from her belt and shouted orders that cut through the pandemonium. She called for the men to bring hoses and water, thumping stunned sailors with the heavy, knotted leather if she caught them standing still. Her expression was as hard and cold as ice.
Something to the rear of the s.h.i.+p was smoking, black wisps trickling out from beneath the quarterdeck. Cobiah grimaced; fire on a s.h.i.+p was more dangerous than sinking. Fire would eat you faster than the sea would swallow you, and if those flames reached the black cannon powder . . . they"d all be done for.
"Cobiah!" Sethus waved to catch his attention. The young sailor was standing by the tottering foremast, sawing desperately at a thick sheet of sail. "If we don"t cut this free, the canvas will take on water. The weight will tip us over!" He hacked at the ropes and tarpaulin with great sweeps of his long knife. "Grenth"s mercy, help me!"
There was so much going on all around him that for a moment, Cobiah froze. But in that moment, his anger rose, and he felt the same stubborn rush that had come over him when he was fighting Tosh on his first day aboard. Cobiah set his feet against the planks and ran forward through the slos.h.i.+ng water, hurling himself past las.h.i.+ng ropes and over slick boards with a lack of care that bordered on the suicidal. His friend needed him.
Everyone else was dealing with the fire in the rear or the bilges belowdecks. A few stood at the side of the s.h.i.+p, trying to pull their fellows back aboard before they vanished into the black waters of the Sea of Sorrows. Vost was below. The first mate was concentrating on the flames. Captain Whiting clung to the s.h.i.+p"s wheel on the forecastle, his face as pale as the sail that dragged, heavy and drawing water, against the side of the Indomitable. His lips moved, but the sound emanating was too soft to distinguish between prayers or orders. Whimpering and wide eyed, the captain tightened his arms about the many-spoked rudder wheel and did nothing at all.
The mast wavered and the s.h.i.+p shuddered again. "If we can cut the rigging free," Sethus panted, "the mast will carry away the sail." Spray and panicked sweat plastered brown hair to his forehead as he chopped wildly at billowing yards of loose canvas. "I"ll cut this part. Can you climb to the yardarm at the top of the mast and slice the cross ropes free?"
Nodding grimly, Cobiah slithered beneath the sail. He gripped the unsteady trunk of the mast and studied the damage. The trunk hadn"t come entirely free of its base, but it hung half-shattered, rippling with its weight. It was definitely unsafe to climb, but if he didn"t try, the sail fabric would take on water and the s.h.i.+p would capsize. Forget the fire and the bilges, even the awful sea creature that threatened them from below-if the s.h.i.+p rolled, the crew would die to a man in the icy sea.
Cobiah wrapped his hands with sharkskin and pressed the palms to the wooden beam. There was still tension on the mast from the thick ropes twined about its yard-arms, interlaced with the other masts of the great galleon. As he"d done a hundred times before, Cobiah s.h.i.+mmied up the trunk, grasping rope and netting and pus.h.i.+ng his wrapped hands against the slick wet wood to get some faint purchase. The s.h.i.+p tossed beneath him like a horse testing its reins, and the thick smell of smoke clogged his nostrils.
He could hear the shouts below on the deck. Captain Whiting seemed to have found his voice at last-if not his sanity-and was yelling orders to fire into the waves. The heavy guns roared. Sparks flew, and to the starboard side of the galleon, a plume of white sea-foam sprayed up from the charge.
"Gun crew!" Cobiah heard the captain shriek. "Raise the level! Fire again! We"re consigned to b.l.o.o.d.y that beast by the king of Kryta himself, and by Balthazar"s dogs, we"ll do it even if it sinks us!" Some of the sailors struggled to obey the captain"s command on both decks, manning the upper carronades and the lower main guns. Others jumped to ready a new fuse, pus.h.i.+ng the black rope into the cannon"s small touch hole. After powder and a heavy ball had been rolled down the barrel, one of the sailors brushed a handheld torch to the fuse, and within seconds, the mighty cannon thundered its ma.s.sive bellow of deadly flame.
Now Cobiah could hear the picket fire of the smaller guns, carronade blasts pounding out a martial rhythm. He risked a bit of balance to glance down at the deck below. The fire in the rear cabin had been put out, but smoke still trailed up from the windows. Sailors cl.u.s.tered about the guns, heaving powder and shot into the glowing-hot mouths of long barrels. Sethus was nearly finished cutting the ropes to one side of the great mast. Unable to stop himself, Cobiah looked out to sea.
From his vantage near the top of the tilting foremast, he could see black water quilted with white foam. The sea stones that had frightened him with their nearness were now far to the side, well out of reach of the beleaguered Indomitable. No sign of the underwater beast. Breathing out a breath he hadn"t realized he"d been holding, Cobiah reached for the tethers that tangled the foremast with the forward jib sails and began to saw at them with his knife.
He"d cut through two of them when something in the water caught his eye. At first it was a purplish blur beneath the surface, a shadow within shadows, notable only by the speed and direction in which it flowed-counter to the ocean"s tide. The knife slowed in Cobiah"s hand. He watched the oily patch of color pa.s.s beneath the s.h.i.+p, trying to mark its true size and shape. Could the gunners see it? Grasping a rope, Cobiah leaned and shouted down to the deckhands, "Look aft, boys! The creature is-"
Just then the beast rose from the depths. Sharp teeth, each nearly the size of a man, broke through the gla.s.sy surface of the ocean, pouring water in flowing gouts down its ma.s.sive throat. Cobiah could hardly believe the scale of the creature. Its maw was vast and cavernous, capable of engulfing half the s.h.i.+p"s stern in a single bite. Beady eyes flickered behind thick, coiled lips. From his high vantage, Cobiah could see fins the size of lifeboats propelling the monster forward and, far below, a tail that thrashed so hard it formed its own mighty current beneath the sea. One of the cannonb.a.l.l.s had struck the monster in the cheek, rending a b.l.o.o.d.y hole in sensitive flesh, and the pain must have driven the monster to strike again. Cobiah barely had time to wrap his arms tightly about the mast before the monster slammed into the rear of the s.h.i.+p. Everything pitched forward, and he slipped precariously, his body twisting into the very rigging he"d been working to cut away.
The planks of the stern began to crack and complain as the Maw"s great teeth fastened upon it. Windows in the ornate rear cabin shattered as it bit down, and heavy shards of broken gla.s.s slashed the creature"s lips and gums. The pain only infuriated the creature further.
Its roar shook the sails, stinking of brine and rot. There was a horrible, cras.h.i.+ng impact as the creature bit into the rear of the Indomitable, tugging the s.h.i.+p backward into the water. Teeth sank into thick wooden panels, and the vessel lurched in the water like a wounded animal. A splintering of boards was followed by a sickening yaw, and with a jolt, the entire mast began to slip toward the sea, carrying Cobiah along with it.
The trunk toppled, cras.h.i.+ng through line and spar, and caught with a listing stagger in the netting between the two main masts. It spun about, wrapping Cobiah in rope and the canvas of the sea-damp sail hanging more than seventy feet above the deck. He choked back a scream and clung to the swaying lanyards. In his desperation to hold on, the long knife slipped from his hand. He lost sight of it as the blade vanished into the ocean"s dark waves.
Somewhere in the pandemonium below, Vost was howling orders. If they could only get it to release its grip before the Maw crushed the s.h.i.+p"s hull, the Indomitable might just survive the encounter. To push it off, they"d taken up the s.h.i.+p"s fis.h.i.+ng harpoons, jabbing at the monster"s eyes with all their strength.
Tosh"s spear struck flesh, and the Maw roared again. As it did, its teeth slipped from the stern of the galleon, and the monster fell back into the sea. Slowly, it sank into the ocean, dark fins circling in ma.s.sive watery drafts, the tail las.h.i.+ng up waves that swept the top deck. The s.h.i.+p shuddered with the effort of shaking off the beast, but she bobbed back to her full height once its weight dropped away. The hull wasn"t punctured. The Indomitable still held.
That didn"t help Cobiah. He stretched to grab the sail canvas as the deck swung sickeningly below him. The mast tilted from side to side as the wind and the violent rocking motion of the s.h.i.+p tossed the heavy timber back and forth in its stays. He wrapped the ropes around his fists, struggling to pull himself upright, but the effort was barely worth it. There was no way he was going to disentangle himself from the netting without a knife.
Along the southern horizon, a dark line swelled against the gray-green clouds. It rose up from the sea, first a thread, then a rope, then a hand"s breadth of thickness, and then, impossibly, reaching higher than the forecastle-higher, even, than the s.h.i.+p"s yardarms on her great masts, all while it was still too far away to ripple the sea around the Indomitable"s bow.
It was a ma.s.sive wave, a tsunami. Cobiah had seen storm billows in Lion"s Arch. One year when he was a child, there had been a great storm in Lion"s Arch. When the sun went down, a little cl.u.s.ter of st.u.r.dy houses stood along the sandy strip near the docks. When it came up the next morning, after the storm had blown itself out, the sand was clear, clean, and empty. The houses, families and all, had simply ceased to exist. Later, sailors said those waves stood more than twelve feet high when they hit sh.o.r.e. Those storms were nothing compared to the wall of water filling the sky on the Indomitable"s starboard side. Because of his awkward vantage point high amid the topsails, Cobiah was the first to see the wave coming. It crested more than twice as high as the s.h.i.+p"s great mast, and it was still growing. Cobiah struggled to understand-there wasn"t even a storm on the horizon. Something must have happened past Malchor"s Fingers, deep in the heart of the ocean of Orr.
Desperately, Cobiah struggled to be free of the twisting ropes and tangled netting. He screamed for aid, but his voice was swallowed by the cheering on the deck below. The sailors had driven off the sea monster, and now they were celebrating. Tosh was lifted on the shoulders of the older sailors, thrusting the harpoon over his head in glee. Vost thumped his shoulder and yelled his name with pride.
They were cheering far too loudly to hear Cobiah. Only Sethus remained below the broken mast, chopping desperately at stays and ropes to separate the sinking canvas from the galleon"s rigging. He looked up at Cobiah, white faced. "Hold on, Cobiah! Don"t let go of the mast!" Seconds were pa.s.sing, but they felt like hours. The sailors never even saw the wave until it was too late.