Page 9 of Wicked Tides #1
Vidar
A survivor was he of a nightmare at sea.
A wolf cub from the Mother’s Fang.
~A Sea Shanty
The ocean reminded me of so many dark things.
Horrible things. It took the spirit of the Mother’s Fang and the creatures within took her crew.
I’d done nothing but kill monsters or watch people die on the ocean and yet it felt more natural to feel the floor swaying beneath me than it did to stand on solid ground.
It was two days into our travels. I was going to follow the merchant routes, but we had a particular path that was much less direct and much less obvious.
Sirens stalked the merchant routes and following them exactly was too conspicuous.
Too expected. Daughter’s Pass was too rough that time of year, even for the Rose. So we sailed in between.
I stayed on the stern for some time the next morning, sitting on a stool with my feet up on the helm’s railing. In my lap was my book of smeared charcoal sketches and blotted ink writing .
The sea air really didn’t do paper any good. Even with the leather binding, nearly all of my sketches had been tarnished in some way.
I’d started a new sketch, trying my best to remember the siren Collin had in cuffs before we left.
She was different and a different siren was something I didn’t like.
I always tried to record all of the information I could gather on our hunts.
Their weaknesses. Their appearance. Their strengths.
I’d come to find they were all different and I wrote every detail in that damn journal.
When I could no longer stand thinking of that woman’s face, I tucked my charcoal into the folds of the paper and closed the book, setting it aside.
I stared out at the undulating expanse wondering how much I still didn’t know about it.
My heart still wasn’t completely set on taking Whitton up on his deal.
It could hardly even be called a deal at all.
It wouldn’t be long before every man-eating bitch from the sea decided to come ashore and wreak havoc on everyone, not just hunters and fishermen.
What Whitton didn’t understand was that we were at war, even if he never rolled his fat belly onto a ship himself to see it.
He was safe in his mansion eating the spoils of every hunter’s sacrifices.
The weather was calm and the sky was sunny all morning until a thin fog rolled in. The rain was soon to follow, but I had some time to think. Not that thinking ever brought me much comfort.
Below me, a few men had gathered on deck with an overturned barrel and some dice.
The sound of the dice rolling soothed me a bit.
I’d listened to that sound over and over on the Mother’s Fang though I’d never participated.
I was always too distracted by the sea and the way she moved like a temptress only to strike down anything that wasn’t ready for her violent tempers.
A few other men sat up against the rail talking.
And then there was Gus with a bottle of rum in his hand and a foot propped up on a crate.
The wind was soft, fluttering the sails and allowing us some time to just drift.
I enjoyed the silence, but Gus never did.
He told me many times that the noise of a busy tavern or a booming town was where his soul was at peace and I couldn’t blame him.
The laughter and boisterousness of a crowd kept his thoughts in line .
For me, the absence of sound was bliss.
“Join us, Cap’n,” someone said. I glanced down to see James trekking up from below with another barrel to sit on.
“Cap’n don’t join in games,” Mullins chuckled, tossing his dice out.
“Fine where I am, James,” I nodded.
“Well, it’s too damn quiet on this deck,” Gus rasped loudly, clearly getting a bit agitated.
“Not our fault the weather’s agreeable,” Mullins replied.
“Sing a song, Gus,” someone added.
“Aye, I’ll sing a song,” he grumbled, staggering toward the railing and leaning forward on his elbows.
There was a moment of silence as the men rolled their dice again and made some disappointed sounds.
Then Gus started tapping the bottom of his rum bottle on the wood.
One. Two. Three. He kept tapping it and tapping it and then started to sing to it.
He was a great singer, his voice deep and rough like the sea in a storm.
In the dark of night, on a restless sea
Dark seas, dark fate, dark seas.
A pirate’s son with his father bold,
Dark seas, dark fate, dark seas.
Dark seas, dark fate, to the ocean we go
With a heart full of vengeance and a tale full of woe
We’ll hunt the sirens till the end of days
Dark seas, dark fate, dark seas.
The sirens came with their haunting song
Dark seas, dark fate, dark seas.
They took the crew and his father strong
Dark seas, dark fate, dark seas.
Dark seas, dark fate, to the ocean we g o
With a heart full of vengeance and a tale full of woe
We’ll hunt the sirens till the end of days
Dark seas, dark fate, dark seas.
“Gus!” Mullins called out. “Really? Are you singing that on this ship while we’re in the middle of the sea hunting sirens?”
Gus took a swig of his rum. “Don’t forget it,” he said, pointing a finger at the men playing their game. “Crew don’t always win. You all signed up for it.”
“You don’t have to make us regret it,” someone said.
“Nah, it’s too late to regret it.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine where I was standing unphased above them. “Any minute, we could be torn to bits. He knows it. We all know it.”
“What are you going on about, Gus?” I sighed.
“This deal with Whitton. It don’t sit right with me. You saw that woman in town. She alone could kill twenty men before someone could restrain her again. It isn’t worth it.”
I sighed again, shaking my head at the fact that I couldn’t agree more. But I didn’t like seeing a strong drink take away Gus’ collected demeanor. It reminded me that the waters under the surface of those stoic eyes were just as squally as mine.
“What are you saying, Gus?” James asked.
“I’m saying this is wrong, sailing out here looking for sirens to enslave.
Fuck the money.” He pointed up at me. “That’s our captain.
That’s Vidar Bone Heart, but the wolf cub of the Mother’s Fang first. He knows these creatures better than anyone and I’ve been seeing it in his eyes since we left.
This shit’s going to get us all killed and for what? A pocket full of coin?”
“One good run could fill our pockets for months,” Uther said. The man was fairly new to my crew and he hadn’t grown up on the coast like most of us.
“Yeah, and it’ll fill that town with things that will eat your kids alive,” Gus said.
“Don’t got no kids. ”
“Good.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a scan of the waters surrounding us. Black waters. Water I couldn’t see through. It was a time when we had to be more vigilant.
“Gus,” I said, waving my hand at him. “A word.”
He groaned, taking one more swig of his drink before corking the bottle and setting it down on the barrel in front of the men.
He swayed as he walked up the steps toward me, but I knew his sway wasn’t just from his drink.
It was the weakness in his left leg that worsened the longer we were at sea.
He was getting old and his injuries were catching up to him.
Meeting me at the top of the steps, he leaned forward on the railing with a sigh. I stood next to him, perching my elbows on the carved wood.
“Something on your mind?” I asked.
Below, the men watched us for a bit before continuing with their games. But they had quieted. Their ears would seek out our conversation and I usually let them. There weren’t many secrets on my ship.
“The waters are changing,” Gus said. “Been feeling it for a long time. I know you have, too. Every time we sail out, I feel like we know the waters less and less.”
I nodded, staring off toward the clouds gathering in the west.
“Something is definitely different,” I admitted.
“You know, me and your dad had this same kind of conversation just before that wretched island.”
I turned and met Gus’s cloudy eye. “Did you, now?”
“He told me the tides were shifting. I agreed. We went on anyway. See, the ocean doesn’t bend to us. You know that better than anyone. We push hard enough, she’ll figure out our tricks and she’ll push back.”
“You think we’ve been pushing too hard?”
“I think this whole idea of Whitton’s to bring business by offering exotic captures is going to change everything and not in a good way. ”
“So? Tell me your thoughts, old man. You think we should all retire? Let the bitches kill merchants. Fishermen?”
“Maybe man wasn’t meant to live on the coast in the first place,” he grumbled.
“Maybe man should stick to land. Bad as it all is, the sirens stick to the sea. We bring ‘em into towns, that won’t be the case anymore. And it’s not like we get thanked for all we do.
If we were gettin’ proper thanks, we wouldn’t be living like dogs half the time. ”
Something in me had considered that before.
I couldn’t see an end to the conflict between man and sirens.
I was simply going through the steps, letting vengeance guide me.
But in truth, it was a path that I knew would end in death and likely long before I reached old age.
Looking down at my men, I wondered if any of them saw it that way or if it was just a job to them.
Mullins, a man I purchased with coin (and a side of violence) from a man with no regard for life and an affinity for pain.
James, a man who was once a boy with no shoes looking for work on the muddy streets of Boralis.
Any work. Boil was a cook with too many gnarly features on his burned-up face to get a job anywhere in the eye of the public.
Kole, Barney, Uther, Ben, Laurence, Jesse.
They didn’t join my crew because hunting was their passion.
They joined because they had nowhere else to go.
Whether I earned their loyalty or not, it was a job.
When they got enough coin, they’d stop. But me? It was my life.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Gus said. “You’re thinking that if you stopped, they’d win.”
I can’t stop.
But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything. My motives had always been and would always be different from my crew’s. For me, there was never going to be an end.
“Captain!” Jesse called from the crow’s nest.
My eyes flicked upward to see him pointing his finger westward.
Following it, I saw a distinct shape floating on the water.
A ship. I narrowed my eyes at the fact that no one ever took our route due to the moody waters and the shallows, which my crew knew very well.
Other ships would be stupid to risk their cargo .
“Bit far from the usual pathing,” Gus pointed out.
I pulled a spyglass from my belt and aimed it at the drifting ship.
“Sails are up,” I said. “They’re anchored.”
“Out in these waters?”
Handing the spyglass to Gus, I said, “Whitton said the Cornwallis was behind schedule. They’ve been missing for a bit.”
I marched over to the helm and immediately started barking demands at the men. Whether the ship was the Cornwallis or not, a familiar itch coiled around my spine. Something was off about it and I was going to find out what it was.