Page 6 of Queen’s Griffon (Swords & Tiaras #2)
Chapter 5
Avera
Avera remained on the bridge rather than follow the captain into the storm. While Simhi had shown her how to tether herself so as to not become lost as sea, she didn’t quite trust a rope to save her. Not with how hard the vessel rocked.
However, she did debate heading out when she heard the captain yelling. She turned to the man at the helm and queried, “What’s an undine?”
“Nasty creatures,” was his grim reply. “Shaped kind of like a man mixed with a fish. Like the taste of flesh, they do. Our flesh,” he emphasized to make it clear.
The response rounded her mouth. “You can’t be serious.”
“Look for yourself.” He indicated with an inclined head, his knuckles white as he held on to the helm.
She glanced out the window and her jaw dropped as a slick and glistening form slid over the rail. Despite the lanterns, she couldn’t see it well but made out enough to know it stood.
And it didn’t come alone.
More shapes clambered onto the deck, and who stood before them with his sword outheld?
The captain, of course. And once more, his sword glowed as if lit from within. Did it thirst for battle?
His crew flanked him, Kreed being the biggest aside from Griffon. To her surprise, Simhi joined the pirates facing off against the monsters, bearing a curved cutlass.
“I’m going to help” she advised the helmsman.
“With what, your majesty? You ain’t got nothing but your bare hands.”
The mention had her eyeing them. It did seem kind of pointless to go out there without some kind of blade.
“Do you have a dagger or something I could borrow?”
“Why would you put yourself in peril when we’re safe here?” the helmsman exclaimed. “Cap won’t let them enter the bridge.”
She had her doubts. The boarding monsters advanced on the crew, and had it only been that handful, the pirates would have easily prevailed, but more undine appeared, climbing over the rails, slapping onto the deck, and immediately rising.
More sailors arrived from below decks, bearing weapons of all sorts, and the fight began. Men—and women—against creatures of nightmare. Even from her safe spot on the bridge, she could hear the sounds of battle. The grunting and hollering of the sailors. The thuds of weapons as they hit and slashed through flesh. The cries—some recognizably human and saddening as they were injured—others more keening and unnatural, raising the hair on her arms.
A bright flash of lightning illuminated the length of the ship, and Avera whispered, “There’s so many.”
“More than usual, aye,” agreed the helmsman. “I’m going to help.” He wrapped a rope around a spoke of the helm and left, as did the two other crew that had been silently watching.
Alone, Avera stood by the window and watched the moving shadows occasionally lit by lightning. While she’d witnessed some pretty horrifying things since her mother’s death, something about this had a surreal feel to it. People were falling to these sea creatures, and she couldn’t help. The helmsman had a point. Her bare hands couldn’t do much, but she also couldn’t stand by, watching.
A jagged streak of light illuminated long enough for her to see a man fending off a pair of undine. He didn’t see the third that crept up and slashed him behind the knees. The sailor fell and screamed as a pair of monsters dragged him to the rail and went over the side with him, leaving behind the long dagger he had been fighting with.
Lips pursed, body tense, Avera ventured into the storm. She went for the blade sitting on the deck, not entirely unnoticed.
A wet hissing sound from behind as she bent for the dagger had her quickly gripping it and whirling to find herself face-to-face with a creature. A nearby lantern illuminated it in all its horror. A cross between a man and a fish: two legs, two arms, a head, covered in slick, scaly skin. It had no hair, no ears, nor even a nose unless the two holes above its mouth counted. Black orbs for eyes. Webbed fingers tipped in claws. And a mouth that opened to show pointed, jagged teeth.
It swiped at Avera, and she reacted, slashing with the blade, its edge sharp enough she sheared off its hand. Then, before it could react, she stabbed it in the chest. It fell, showing at least it could be killed the same as a man.
She pivoted and struck at the next that attacked, her swing going wide as the ship tilted and she slanted with it, hitting the deck on one knee hard enough she yelped. But the fall saved her. The swipe of claws narrowly missed her head.
Before she could struggle to her feet, something tangled in her hair and yanked. She shrieked, twisting and kicking as the undine dragged her to the rail.
Face down, she dug the dagger into the deck, trying to halt its intention to toss her into the water. The pressure suddenly eased, and she rolled over to see the captain standing over her glowering.
“Get inside!” he yelled.
“I’m helping,” she hollered back.
“By getting killed?”
She lunged around him and stabbed the beast sneaking up behind. She tossed her hair back and huffed, “By saving your life.”
“Stay close,” he grumbled as he in turn met the next attack.
They fought back-to-back, the swarm of undine relentless as they went after the crew. Visibility and conditions worsened as the threatening rain came down in sheets that drenched and made the slippery deck even more treacherous. Add in the pitching of the ship and Avera was hard-pressed to keep her feet as she kept having to shift her balance.
The only good news? She didn’t throw up.
Eventually the tide of monsters eased. Dead bodies littered the deck, mostly undine, but she spotted a few of the crew as well. Not Simhi or Kreed, though. That pair slapped each other’s hands in victory and grinned.
The captain heaved a sigh. “Been a while since we’ve dealt with undine.”
She glanced at him. “Do they always attack like that?”
“Never seen them this far south. But they do like using storms as cover.”
“Why did they attack?” she asked as she watched the crew grabbing corpses and heaving them over the side.
He shrugged. “Food, I assume. Now get your butt to your cabin. The storm’s about to get worse.”
She nodded. “Aye, captain.” In this, she wouldn’t argue. With the adrenaline wearing off, she shivered in her soaked garments.
As she headed for the entrance to the cabins, the ship rocked violently, tilting on its side just as she stepped on some slime.
Her feet slid in the muck, and so did she, careening across the deck, only belatedly realizing as she flew past a crew member held in place by his taught tether that she’d forgotten to tie hers off. It would be fine. The rail would stop her. It would hurt when she slammed into it, but she’d be?—
Smash. She hit it hard, too hard, and with the ship still at an angle found herself flung over. While she couldn’t see the water as she plunged, she sure felt it as it closed over her head.
And sank.