Sparrow on a Plank Chapter 16: On Not Becoming a Shrimp's Dinner

Sal and Hajime were walking down the pier as a group of merchants were running the other way. Some of them were covered in stew. They looked at each other and shrugged. As they came closer to the Hell's Wrath they saw Rick putting away the catapult and a couple of boys from the mess rubbing the big pot down. Rick saw them, and bellowed, “Heave to!” They rushed up the gangplank, past splotches on the pier, and it was taken in just as they hit the deck. Hajime kept moving to his quarters, where he quickly secured the book and shucked off the more confining of his clothes. He was down to tunic and breeches and then up to the crow's nest to help guide the ship out.

Which left Rick and Sal the only two not getting the ship ready to sail. Rick sidled up to Sal. “I hope the mission went well?”

Sal hugged him and kissed him on the nose. “Yep. A few minor problems with paperwork, but otherwise it went well.” She turned just a little bit. “Did you have fun waiting for me?”

Rick grinned. “Oh, there were people to entertain when I returned from my scouting mission, and some of them to feed, but it was pretty boring.” His arms dropped a little bit so he could grab her waist. “But I think we're about ready for the real fun to begin.”

“Sounds good.” The two headed to the mess as one.

* * * * *

The sun had come up as it always had, with little fanfare and taking almost forever to take the chill off the world. They had crossed into The Spine just before dawn, and everyone was on edge. Rick had sent someone to wake Captain Taylor; he was already awake and double-checking his math. He had checked the location twice during the night, and was satisfied that they were on course. He only hoped that The Spine hadn't changed too much; in order to keep current on The Spine's details he bought all the usual charts, but his insight into the current allowed him to guess where the monsters lay. His guesses had to be accurate, or everyone aboard might be dead by dinner.

Rick was still up, even after surrendering the wheel to the captain. He knew that he should get some sleep, but he preferred to be on his feet in case something happened. He already had made sure everyone was armed, and that the cannons were in fast-load mode; he was doing everything he could to ensure that the captain could concentrate on steering the ship through the current. Sal was ready as she could be; she had made sure that her daggers were in their sheaths, and that they were all sharpened. In all honesty, there was little else she could reasonably do considering her expertise was avoiding combat rather than wading into it. To give her an option, Hajime had given her a half dozen glass vials of naphtha to throw at whatever target presented itself.

Hajime's expertise was more in preparation. He could keep up, but would most likely fall behind as a straight combatant. The good news is that he was the most likely to survive any attack in and of itself, but that oddly didn't console him much considering how far he was from land. He had made sure that the ship's doctor (some kid in his mid-twenties who had some herbal remedies and some experience sewing stitches on his idiot older brothers) had some healing potions. However, like Rick, he was helping to relieve some of the captain's stress by helping with navigation, and giving updates every hour or so. Captain Taylor and he had checked and double-checked the course that both had memorized, and so the confirmations were more like a security blanket than of any real use.

Captain Taylor himself was actually sort of enjoying himself. He always liked sailing The Spine, if for no other reason than it reminded him of his squandered youth. Sure, a monster could pop up any moment and ruin the mood, but that was unlikely. He was more worried about ordering someone to split apart Rick and Sal due to some lover's quarrel; apparently the lack of long-term romantic plans eliminated any real friction. That was a shame as the crew liked things that they could bet on; there was even a betting pool on when the first major argument would be. Outside of the potential threat, however, it was actually fine sailing weather; the wind was at his back, the sun was shining, and even the clouds were behaving and blocking the sun while not threatening rain. The current was his only problem; he was making constant adjustments to deal with the current putting them where he didn't want to be. The only thing that really irritated him was that he couldn't whistle merrily; for some reason his whistling disconcerted his crew.

“AHOY! Man overboard!” At the call, everyone snapped to. The noon sun beat down on the crew as they prepared for the rescue. Captain Taylor's happy mood disappeared as he steered the boat to the unconscious man in the water. They were just about to grab him when Edrickson (one of the men just hired in Cyrill) noticed that he was more bloated than he should be. Captain Taylor swore under his breath as he realized what was going on and tried to steer his way out of there.

“Rick! Prepare for a fight!”

That was their only warning. The head of some arthropoidal leviathan breeched the surface, followed by segmented tentacles and shelled pincers. It appeared to be shrimp the size of a whale, with tentacles where a normal shrimp would have feelers. Its tail was beating the water in order to keep it afloat; if not for the captain's quick steering it would have impaled itself on the hull. However, the very action of that gargantuan tail made steering almost impossible even as it helped the boat keep away from the shrimp itself. The shrimp was able to compensate quickly enough, and so was able to attack the Hell's Wrath, attempting to grab onto with its gigantic claws as the tentacles grabbed for sailors.

It did not attack with impunity, however. The crew went to work defending their ship immediately. The captained turned the ship as soon as he could, so as to give as many crew members a chance at attacking as possible, and to get the cannons into the fight. As the cannons were being loaded, those with ranged weapons attacked what they could, peppering the eye and body with arrows and bullets. Those with swords and axes chopped at the tentacles that reached for them and their fellow sailors. Sal tosssed her vials at the tentacles, and the naphtha exploded. The several mages let loose with their spells, and gouts of fire and electricity sprayed the monster. The leviathan kept up its attacks, used to fighting creatures capable of much more damage than these mosquitoes.

Tentacles weren't just seeking crew members; they were also ripping through rigging, punching holes in sails, and causing other incidental damage as they sought out the men. Most of the tentacles were stopped before they could reach their targets, but a few did get through, carrying a man screaming away to the abyss of its maw. It was a battle of double attrition for the crew of the Hell's Wrath; not only were they losing men but they were losing the ship itself as well. But there was no time to grieve just yet; there was only time for survival. They had to continue fighting or they would lose even more lives.

Hajime looked towards the captain. “Would a little more speed help, captain?”

The captain was concentrating on steering, as the ship was bucking like horse thanks the shrimp's efforts to keep itself afloat by flailing at the water with its tail. “It couldn't hurt!”

Hajime started casting a wind spell. His final gesture was punctuated by the loud explosion of cannon fire from below. Four dozen cannonballs sped to the shrimp, puncturing the shrimp as the sails filled with new wind. The shrimp began losing fluids, causing it to slow a little as the boat almost left the water, hydroplaning for a few hundred feet, and dropping back into the water. The wind was just a burst, but it was able to free the ship from the leviathan's attention. The monster sunk below the surface of the water, choosing to speed away rather than fight the boat.

However, whereas their foe could rest and heal its wounds, its would-be prey could not. The men went to work almost immediately, fixing ruined rigging and doing a quick inspection. They also did a quick headcount, discovering that the leviathan had taken eight men, men that would be grieved; their widows and children would be given a fair share of the profits when they arrived back at Cyrill, and Captain Taylor hoped that it would be enough to enable them to live for a little while at least, allowing them the time they needed to grieve and a way to start over. The men would be grieved soon enough, but the ship needed to be repaired before anything else could happen; again, survival took precedence over other needs, even though some of the men were crying already.

Captain Taylor left the repairs to Rick; he needed to concentrate on where they were and getting out of the current. Hajime had already calculated where they were and presented those findings to Captain Taylor. The captain nodded and steered the ship towards the now near edge of the current. The two of them concentrated on leaving the current, and debated various tacking and what would happen if they tried other ways of leaving quickly.

By dinnertime, what repairs could be done were done. They still needed to repair parts of the hull, but the ship would need to be in dry dock to effect the remaining repairs. Captain Taylor called the men together as the sun set. He had Thomlinson bring out his bagpipes and play a dirge in the background. Thomlinson didn't know how to play bagpipes quietly, but figured he may as well give it a go.

“The sea is a mother that we hate when we think she's been unfair, but that's just like the children we ultimately are. Their loss saddens us, and we know that it's the cost for our line of work, but let us remember the departed in days of glory and sun, and leaven it with memories of who they were drunk and soaked. Those men have returned to the bosom of the mother that they loved more than their mothers in blood. We commend those men, despite what they may have owed in gold and anger, and hope that they will have a restful sleep in the arms of Mother Sea.”

The captain and Rick went to the captain's room to deal with the unforatunate paperwork. The crew dispersed, breaking into smaller groups. The smaller groups consoled each other, and then they would switch with other groups. After a few hours the crew had changed from sadness to drunkenness, having dealt with their crewmates demise and their own mortality.