Pirates try to force Dayanara, to gain access to the Witches Isle, but danger lurks below. |
The Lamb and the Sacrifice: The ocean fog hung still in the air, not a single breath of wind stirred the rigging of the ship as it rested upon the dead calm waters. Too thick to see more than a few paces away, the stink of the unwashed pirates permeated every board and nail. The dampness of the fog clung to each man's tunic, sticking their clothes to their skin, infecting their lungs with the putrid stale air. The place they sought was said to be a cursed and solitary place. Loaded with hoards of treasure, an Eden of riches beyond any mere mortal man's dreams. The Isle of the Witches. The Isle that the banished practitioners sought to practise their perverted craft, away from the relentless men who wanted them dead for their unholy powers. The Queen of the Witches had once ruled with the King of Droemoda over the Eastern Lands, before her perverted powers had revealed themselves to all. She and her kind were then hunted and drawn out of the lands, they fled to the Isle and raised barriers of fog and confusion across the sea to prevent the men from finding them, and there they stayed, lost in the fog of the Witch Queen of Droemoda, for centuries. Javerio grinned at the thought, before he spat overboard unto the sharks platform. The Isle of the Witches, that was an old story. It was said, only a witch could enter the Isle or leave safely through the enchanted fog, and so when the time had come, when he had finally a ship and crew of his own, he had purveyed a witch with which to plunder the rumoured jewels of the Isle, that the Queen was supposed to have taken with her. Everyone knew that no sight or sound had been heard from the witches that had fled to the Isle, centuries before. The only thing that had deterred other pirates of plundering the place was the difficulty in purveying a witch. Rarely was a child born with powers and not culled immediately. But now he had one, a slave from one of the Hill people, brought to him by that scurvy slaver rat Adelio, and by god that bitch would clear the fog, even if he had to strangler her to do it. He slowly unclenched his fists. They had been in dead water for over three days, and still the girl had not been able to part the fog. Their rations were thin at the best of times, but now they almost gone. He was so close, he knew it, from all those riches, and that wench would give him the means or he would throw her dead body overboard to be consumed by the sharks. Carefully he studied the the shark platform below, lowered beneath the water, the platform allowed the sharks to rest near their meals. He could see the fins of the east ocean beasts slip calmly through the tepid waters. Their elongated heads were hard as diamond, strong as any steel sword, so they could crush the life out of their prey before they ate them with their ravenous, insatiable appetite. Javerio smiled, he liked to watch when they threw men overboard, he liked to watch it especially when it was the eastern sea sharks, with their deadly appetite and deadly armour. So much like himself. Four figures emerged from below the decks, one shackled, dragged by two others towards the edge of the ship, the other, more portly figure, scrambled behind in their wake. At the ships edge Javerio stood, surveying the dead ocean waters. Captain Javerio turned from his post to watch the small female as she was thrown to the deck infront of him, and curled up into a small ball between sobs. Wordlessly he waved his two crewmen back. "Adelio, old friend' spoke the Javerio, in a deep singing voice to the last figure, ' did we not agree that I would pay you two hundred drakes for a live witch?" " You did indeed, old friend." Murmured Adelio, he licked his lips nervously, tightly grasping the edges of his stained, but colourful tunic. "Well I don't think you sent me a witch,' spat Javerio, as he kicked the shivering mound of a girl with the tip of his boot. "We have been three days adrift in this enchanted sea fog, and this thing, has not shown one bit of magic. You promised me magic Adelio, deliver it now or... perhaps you would like to join our friends?" Javerio looked over the side onto the shark platform. Adelio visibly gulped and grasped his hands. "No! No, Javerio, please, thats not necessary,' quickly he mopped his sweating brow. ' This girl does possess magic, she is untrained for lack of a better word but she is a witch! She just needs the right incentive." with a smile he finished wiping his brow. "Then by all means Adelio." Adelio bobbed his head, as quick as a snake he grabbed his slavers whip and proceeded to hit the girl as she scrambled about the deck, mewling cries of pain as each time the whip cracked down on her. Each time she tried to flee, she would trip on the shackles about her feet only to skin her hands and knees. The deckhands came close by to watch the spectacle, bored of a days watch with no respite. Javerio held up his hand, motioning Adelio to stop. "Perhaps, Adelio you are right, but I have something a little different in mind.' Javerio motioned to two of the ships hands who both nodded and disappeared below deck. 'when you found this girl at the market, you told me she had a lamb with her, a Hill Lamb, creatures that never separate from their flock unless they are one of the sacred Hill Lambs, the kind that are witches familiars. The dealer, believing her and the lamb to be cursed, but wanting to make a profit, sold her to you without even checking if she were tainted. The lamb followed her back with you. You told me, that you then killed the lamb, and intended it for your supper, but your cook claimed that when he opened the oven door, low and behold the lamb jumped out alive and well.' leaning down Javerio grasped the girls chin and pulled it towards him, studying her pale features with her mass of swirling, silver hair and blue eyes, so particular to the Hill Tribes. 'Tell me girl, do you know what I found aboard my own ship the other night?' the girls eyes widened with fear. 'We found something, but unlike Adelio here, we were smart enough not to try and kill it, well, not all at once." Javerio smiled as he pulled away from the girl so she could see and hear the lamb as one of the hands carried the bleating creature out from below the deck. The lambs fur was snow white, but where it legs should have been the fur was matted brown with stained with dried blood on sewn stumps. "No! No! No!" Screamed Dayanara through her tears as she tried desperately to crawl towards the lamb, only to be restrained by Adelio. The other ship hand arrived and brought forward a wooden box. The Captain swaggered calmly over to it, ignoring the girls moaning sobs and the lambs continued bleating. "On my travels' contiued Javerio, ' I have encountered many strange and cursed things, of which I think this will certainly do.' He pulled out two matching, chocker styled, vivid silk blue ribbion necklaces, each set with a large deep blue opal. 'Once put on, they can never be taken off, until death of one of the wearers. You see,' and here he bent towards the girl, forcing her head to the ground as he tied one on her. 'They make the two wearers share each others minds, but when one wearer dies, the other feels as it they have experienced it first hand. A harrowing experience I am told. Would you like to know where I found it?' He whispered into her ear, teasingly, like a lover, "I traded for it from one of the Endia Sorcerers. Quite powerful creatures, I hesitate to call them men as they are so physically deformed from their magics there is barley anything human left in them at all." with a final twist Javerio locked the necklace in place. Standing up, he did so again this time on the lamb. The instant he tied it on, both lamb and girl fell silent. A glimmer of silver seem to dance around the girls blue eyes. "I don't know if this works on animals but lets give it a try." Taking the lamb from the other mans hands he tossed it overboard onto the submerged shark platform. The girl gasped as the cold water hit her and the lamb, its terror overrode them both, was she the lamb of the girl? Were they both? The girl-lamb struggled as it drowned with the cold ocean water filling its lungs as its stumps tried to move, releasing more blood into the water. Trying desperately to reach the surface it bleated in pain, drowning itself slowly, the girl-lamb felt the presence of the big predators, moving in swiftly, the jaws of death as they opened and crushed the lamb. NO! Came the scream from the girl-lamb. No longer sure where the sound echoed from, its power seemed to ripple across every mind, body and tear out through every viable throat. The girl screamed, the lamb screamed, every pirate on board held his head and screamed as their minds were blasted with the intensity of a scream of terror and survival. In that brief moment the girl-lamb felt every mind amongst the ocean bed, from every crew member on board to all the mosters in the deep, and as she and the lamb slipped away she felt an echo in response. We are coming. Javerio and the sailors picked themselves up from the deck, the fog began to swirl around the ship. "It is done!' he laughed with glee. 'The witch has done it!" The other pirates, picked themselves up warily from the deck, crossing themselves for protection against whatever dark magic had been unleashed before them. Adelio looked away uneasily from the girls collapsed form and gazed down at the no longer calm water, what he saw on the shark platform made him pale. "There!' he screamed, 'Javerio, by the Gods! She woke the Kraken!" Tentacles whipped themselves over the deck as sharks, Kraken and Sea Dragons alike descend, mercilessly onto the vessel. The ship was crushed within moments, the pirates drowning in a sea of monsters that tore them apart one by one. A bleating noise awoke Dayanara, it was her lamb calling out to her, lost in the fog and the sea. Opening her eyes she realised she was adrift on a large piece of wood amongst a sea of shattered ship and body parts. Trying not to cry out in fear, Dayanara weakly pushed her vessel closer to the sound of her lamb, finding it barely swimming, treading the calm sea. Small and whole once again. Desperately she clung to her friend, pulling it onboard the small wooden raft. Exhausted and cold, she held onto her lamb before the waves bore them away gently. Authors Note: I hope you guys enjoyed it. Also feel free to give me some constructive criticism as I would love to hear how i can improve my writing style and narrative (Yay!). This was based on, by far, one of the strangest dreams I've ever had. o_0 |