James Clemens - Shadowfall

Tylar had already guessed that this was the reason Rogger had called him out on deck. He fingered the loose shirt that covered the black palm print centered on his chest. He sensed the savage beast lurking behind the stain. Since their escape, he had not dared attempt to call forth the black daemon… the dred ghawl.

Still he balked. On every level of his being, he feared what dwelled inside him. He remembered the crush of his fist under the torturer’s hammer, the pain as his body broke apart, crippling once again. But that was not the worst. He also sensed the bloodlust, savagery, and raw hostility in the daemon, along with a foreignness to this world that felt deeply wrong, an affront to the very existence of wind and stone, blood and flesh. And while connected by the dark umbilicus that tied palm print to beast, Tylar had felt himself drawn into that wrongness.

He was loath to feel it again… even if it meant his own death.

Past the ship’s stern, the waters remained empty. Tylar was not deluded enough to believe the miiodon had fled. It had simply dived deep, tight on the trail of its quarry, preparing to launch its dramatic attack.

At the great wheel, the captain grumbled, “I’d give my left stone right now for an ice harpoon.”

Rogger shook his head. “You’d have a hard time making that deal. One stone doesn’t sell as well as it used to. You’d probably have to give them a matched pair.”

“Aye, I’d if I still had the other,” the captain bantered grimly, one eye on the seas behind them, one on the sail. “My first wife still has it in a glass jar on her mantel.”

“That’s why I always stick to sell-wenches,” Rogger said. “While they may lighten one’s pocket, they take little else.” The thief kept his stare fixed on Tylar, awaiting his decision.

Tylar took a deep breath. It wasn’t only his life in danger. Belowdecks hid an entire ship’s crew, with families in ports scattered across the Nine Lands.

“How…?” Tylar had to clear his throat. “How do I loose the daemon? I don’t have a hammer handy.”

Rogger kept his voice low. “I wager it takes only a single broken bone to unlock the cage that holds the beast. Like a snapped finger. It’ll break free on its own from there.”

Tylar watched the seas. Break free on its own…

“Here it comes!” the captain shouted.

Beyond the ship’s stern, a flurry of bubbles preceded the miiodon, boiling up from below as if a deep-sea volcano had opened on the ocean floor. Then it appeared, shooting straight out of the depths.

The miiodon’s roiling tentacles had fused, narrowing its form to a sleek arrow almost half the size of the Grim Wash itself. As its bulk cleared the waters, the mass of tentacles unbraided from its streamlined form and billowed out around it. Tylar had witnessed fire-sky displays exploding above nighttime festivals. This was the same-only instead of fire and lights erupting, here exploded a horror of flesh and poison.

A plume of water showered the deck as the creature sailed over the stern masts. A trailing tentacle, its footpad, struck the mast’s sailcloth. Poison burned through, allowing it to reach the mast’s wooden pole. It latched on and used this toehold to bring its bulk crashing into the middecks.

The sudden weight drove the boat deep into the waves. Seawater sloshed across all decks. Screams rose from below, echoing up through the planks. The center mast cracked with a thunderclap and went toppling sideways, a tangle of sailcloth and ropes.

Tylar fought to hold himself upright by gripping one of the lesser wheels. The captain hugged the central great wheel and kept the ship from swamping completely. It was a skilled effort. The Grim Wash bobbed back up, lolling back and forth.

But the boat could not escape its new passenger.

The miiodon lay spilled across the middle of the ship, filling the space between the stern and forecastle. It was a forest of snaking tentacles around a central mound of pale, watery flesh. A pair of black globular eyes, as large as pumpkins, gazed from deep within the translucent mass, protectively buried in the center.

Tylar felt those eyes gazing toward the trio of men. Tentacles wormed in their direction. Easy meat.

“Below!” Grayl bellowed. He waved them toward the hatch in the stern castle.

As they retreated, Rogger tossed an oil lantern at the nearest tentacle. Fire splashed across its skin.

The captain shoved the thief toward the hatch. “Fool, you’ll burn my ship to the waterline before you even warm its hide. Ice is all that can harm a jelly shark.”

Rogger glanced at Tylar, his meaning clear. Act now, or see the ship sunk.

Tylar stopped a few paces from the door. “Get the captain below,” he whispered through clenched teeth.

Rogger nodded and hurried to the hatch with Grayl.

Tylar turned his back on the pair.

Tentacles squirmed over the stern deck’s rail and roiled toward him. He smelled the bitter tang of their poison in the salty air. Channels of oily yellow venom flowed beneath translucent skin. A mere touch would melt flesh to the bone, creating a liquid feast for the tinier, sucking tendrils that fringed each tentacle.

“Skags,” he swore and sheathed his sword. He needed both hands free.

“What is the fool doing?” the captain grumbled by the hatch.

“What must be done!” Rogger answered. “Now give the boy a bit of privacy.”

Tylar heard a scuffle and assumed Rogger was forcing the stubborn captain away. It was not his concern. As a questing tentacle snaked toward him, Tylar grabbed the smallest finger of his left hand. If this didn’t work, at least he’d have his right hand, his sword hand, to fend off the miiodon’s attentions. He bent his small finger backward to the point of pain. Just one fast snap, he told himself.

“Stop!”

The sudden shout almost did the job for him, but he released his strained finger and swung around. “What in all the gods’ names are you doing up here?” Tylar barked.

Delia strained to push past Rogger, but the thief had a grip on her upper arm. Here was the source of the scuffling. The captain stood behind the pair, clearly bewildered by his strange passengers.

“Let me go, you damnable oaf!” Delia yelled, finally shaking free. Her cheeks were fetchingly rosy against her snowy skin, but now was not the moment to notice such things.

Tylar danced closer to his companions as a persistent tentacle scented his blood. Delia hurried to his side with Rogger in tow. The captain kept guard at the hatch.

“When you all didn’t come below,” Delia said in a rush, “I knew what you were going to do.”

“We have no other weapon against the jelly shark.” Tylar glanced past his shoulder to the captain, careful of his words.

Only now did the young handmaiden seem to notice the Grim Wash ’s new passenger. Her eyes widened and the rosy color fled her cheeks.

The miiodon, now settled and secure in its middeck roost, began its assault in earnest. Muscular tentacles ripped planks loose with loud pops. A foredeck hatch was torn free and flung through the air. It struck a flap of sail and tumbled into the sea. Closer, the roil of tentacles that had been sniffing over the rail of the stern deck now surged toward the gathering before the doorway.

“Get your arses down below!” the captain ordered. “I must seal this hatch.”

Rogger simply kicked the door closed in the captain’s face. “Then bolt the damn thing already!”

Delia reached a hand to Tylar’s elbow. “If you free the dred ghawl, there’s no way to bottle it back up. We don’t have any of Meeryn’s blood.”

Tylar knew this. They had traded the repostilary bearing the last of it to book passage and cover their escape. But what choice did they have now? He’d simply have to find another way to get rid of the daemon… or live with it. And living was the key point of it all.