6/6

WAVEBREAKER CHAPTER 6: Sleeping in the cold below

Nearly two days passed aboard the ships, heading at a clip south. The decks swarmed with pirates now; less friendly folk filled the cabins now. There had even been a few fights on the decks, sailors accusing one another of rifling through their belongings. I kept my bags close and my eyes open.

The sailors belonging to the Flooded Grail were kept in separate quarters and separate tables, away from us to minimize the conflict. Still, the ship wasn’t big enough to separate us entirely, even with them split across the ships.

I hadn’t managed to gain any more levels on Wildspeaker. However, Decker clung to my side after the poker game. It turned out he had been on my ship, and he found me in the mess hall. He had even pushed out the bunkmate nearest me, following me around like a lost puppy, despite him being older than me.

“Seventh shift!” Merrick’s voice rang throughout the entire ship, sounding like it was right next to me despite him not being in sight. The men around me shifted in their bunks.

The ship creaked and groaned with them, rocked by the waves. Half a dozen men slipped out of hanging hammocks with me. For my part, I slipped over the side, landing on the deck with a wet noise and scrambling to hold my footing as the ship lurched to the side.

Decker rubbed his eyes in his hammock.

“Seventh shift! Second call!” Merrick’s voice rung through the ship again as I strapped on my boots.

“Time already? Bastards.” Decker said, slowly twisting out of his hammock. He stunk like a sailor too.

“Second call already. Better get to it.” I said to him, not waiting as I turned. With half the quarters split off for the privateers the only route to the rowing stations was to go up a deck before going back down.

Sailors threw themselves into the hammocks or stripped naked on the spot, washing themselves with wet clothes to try to strip away the smell of sweat that clung to their skin.

I had to press the hatch open. At first it resisted like there was a stack of barrels on it, but then it snapped open as the wind took it, slamming into the deck. Sailors cursed as it slammed next to them before pressing past me and descending the stairs.

Wind assaulted me as water splashed over the edge of the ship, the world fading away into darkness at the deck’s boundary. A black horizon stretched into forever.

“Slow down.” Decker said, walking beside me. “Haven’t even got breakfast yet.”

“Too late for it now. Shouldn’t have spent so much time drinking last night.” I admonished him.

I squinted. I wasn’t sure if it was a reflection of our own lights or if I was imagining it, but for a moment I thought I saw more lights on the distant horizon before they were occluded. Whether by fog or water, I did not know.

But knowing things had never been my job. Details on our heading were short coming, and below deck it was impossible to tell. Maybe I was imagining, but there were more people above deck than typical.

My job was to row.

I descended the deck, pushing open hatches and walking down leaning staircases until I found my station. Sixth shift still occupied every other row, ensuring that the ship kept moving. Half way into our shift, they would trade places with eighth shift, and half way into eigth’s, we would leave and be replaced by first shiftDecker shoved himself beside me into an empty row.

“TWO!”

I pulled my row, focusing on nothing but the orders and letting my mind bleed away. Every push and pull inched my Sailor class forward bit by bit, every minor contribution to keeping the ship running.

The hours always blurred working rowing shifts, every muscle in my body being exerted to the fullest. It was equally relaxing in a way; I didn’t have to think at all. I was a piece of a machine, rowing in and out.

“What…” Decker panted beside me. The man was always exhausted. He must have had low Endurance — potentially he skipped the Sailor class entirely. “Was that?” He asked.

Lots of people skipped the sailor class, focusing instead on some work that could be done on the island. It didn’t always work out. It obviously hadn’t for him, or he wouldn’t have been on this ship right now.

“Wh—“ I started to ask, but was interrupted by the thunderous noise of the order to row. “What?” I asked.

“Arrows.” Decker said, staring upwards through the deck. I blinked, then focused.

I heard it too. The sound of dozens of arrows being launched off the side of the ship, the enhanced form of the casters meaning that every bow shot cracked the air and arrows carved through it with roars.

The armada was fighting. Murmurs and whispers spread up and down the rowing deck, but we continued. The rowing captain kept shouting as if she couldn’t hear a single one of the whispers.

Waves rocked the ship, nearly causing me to fall as I bumped into Decker. He said something that I couldn’t hear over the sound of the entire deck creaking.

“What?” I turned to ask him.

The side of the ship opposite me exploded as the ship rocked the other direction. On the opposite row, a man exploded as a beam of horrible red and orange light pierced through the ship, through the entire row below me. I fell on my back as the ship rocked, the laser staying still despite the rocking of the waves, causing it to slice a deck apart.

Then everything was fire and screams.

The boat rocked back upwards, and I threw myself from the bench, pressing to the floor as the rocking of the boat brought the laser back downward. The heat of the thing scalded my skin. Burning hot blood rolled over the deck, stinging my arms as the boat’s rocking motion pushed me closer and closer to the beam. I turned my head to the side, eyes fixed on the ray of fatal power only inches from me.

Then it flickered out.

“ROW! BACK TO YOUR SEATS!” The rowing captain shouted, voice enhanced with magic and authority.

Decker was a puddle next to me. Wind and water bled into the ship from the gaping wound in its side. Already, the wood began to close shut, growing like a scab as mages out of my sight worked to seal it. We were above sea level.

My hands rested on the row, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look away from Decker’s corpse.

Bile rose in my throat. I wretched. Then I nearly threw myself to the ground as I caught sight of more of those magical beams of death through the wound in the ship.

Dozens of shapes glittered in the dark, red light lancing from them into our fleet. Waves of water were thrown forward by mages, the water diluting the magic too much for it to reach our fleets. They didn’t look like any ships I had ever seen. Arrows glinted as they rained down on them.

“ONE!” The rowing captain yelled. I pushed.

[Kill contribution: 5 XP]

[Kill contribution: 12 XP]

[Kill contribution: 27 XP]

[Kill contribution: 11 XP]

[Kill contribution: 3 XP]

[Level up!]

[Kill contribution: 11 XP]

[Kill contribution: 46 XP]

[Kill contribution: 2 XP]

In the distance, there was a boom, reduced to a popping noise. The ship sealed itself shut.

All I had to do was row. I shut my eyes and pushed.

The ship shuddered. Even the rowing captain stopped for a moment, turning to consider the side of the ship before throwing herself to the ground. I didn’t know what she saw through the walls, and I didn’t have to. I threw myself to the deck as well.

The ship exploded. Properly, this time. A half dozen beams of red light shot through the deck like rows of sunlight, carving open wounds in the side of the ship that revealed the sea below. Wooden debris fell around me as portions of the ship lit on fire, and only then did I process the screaming had never stopped. Rowers writhed on the ground around me. Only the rowing captains skill had made me row through it. I crawled towards the stairs, towards the exit, as the rows of lancing light disappeared.

Sections of the ship fell apart on either side. I had to get out of here; I had to get aboard the collosus. That was the only ship safe in this entire formation. Outside the newly made window, I saw ships being swallowed by the sea.

Glinting lights appeared on the sea around us, tiny metal vessels having appeared from no where. I watched as they sunk beneath the water completely undamaged. They had ships that could go underwater. The very thought was insane. I cursed as I crawled forward, still twenty rows away from the stairs.

Another shape rose from the water, the sound of it audible even over the noises of the fight and the collapsing ship. I eyed the ceiling warily, still crawling forward, before looking left.

A ship the size of ours rose from the water. It didn’t have masts or decks. Water flowed away from the rounded top, magic creating a barrier that pressed the water away, creating a bubble of air where a dozen men and women were waiting and ready. Before the ship had even climbed all the way out of the water, they began to leap to our ship.

We were being boarded. I cursed, rising to my feet and starting to run towards the exit, now only fifteen rows away. The rowing captain on the opposite side spun before rising to her feet, pulling free her saber right in time for a woman in black to land on the rowing deck.

She simply leapt from her ship to ours, sailing through the air and landing in the open hole, legs spread apart to stand on two rowing decks. She spun a chain in her hand, staring down the rowing captain.

Without even looking at me, she flung the chain out, a sharp point at its end carving through the side of the deck and decapitating rowers in front of me. I threw myself back down.

She swung through more than a dozen people, ending as many lives in a second.

points for the point god