Strife on the Strait-C and B series #3

The waters of the Azural Strait were blindingly blue against the bright sun. There was a light breeze as the ship rhythmically rocked back and forth. Cynthia stood at the bow, practically on the bowsprit, with her face to the wind, long blonde hair dancing in the breeze, arms wide open, and face full of joy. Bec, on the other hand, had her hands clenched around the railing with her head bent down to rest upon it in a failed attempt to stabilize herself. She was sure her knuckles had to be white under her dark brown fur.

“Will you get down from there? You’re starting to make me nervous,” Bec said to her companion when she noticed Cynthia actually get on the bowsprit.

Cynthia held onto a rope with one hand as she stood precariously on the thin piece of wood extending over the water. “Don’t you just love the open sea? I swear by Isros, if reincarnation was real, I would have been a pirate in a past life.”

“I swear by Isros if you fall, I’m not going after you,” Bec grumbled.

Cynthia looked back at her partner and laughed. “We could have flown, you know. The mage’s college has plenty of griffins we could have borrowed for the trip.”

Bec lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at Cynthia. “And risk falling from thousands of feet in the air?” Bec quickly put her head back down on the railing as the world started to spin. “I grew up riding horses across a dry grassland. I’m not for sailing or flying, but falling into the water at least gives me some chance of survival.”

“You could have at least let the healers do something about your seasickness.”

Honestly, Bec never thought she’d be on a ship again. The last time she was on a ship, she was a child sailing away from her home in flames, destroyed by their rival clan, the Blood Taken. With one parent slain before her eyes and the other assumed dead, she sailed for Valdrian with no family and without a penny to her name. She was lucky that all of her and Cynthia’s jobs so far had stayed on the continent of Valdrian with no need for ocean travel, but now they needed to go to the jungle-infested island of Rys for their current mission. Bec’s stomach lurched as a wave of nausea passed over her. She didn’t know if it was from the memory or from the ship’s rocking.

Bec had pressed her ears flat against her head to try to drown out the waves but heard something different now. They stood straight up as she listened. It was groggy and muffled, as if underwater, but moving quickly. She willed herself to look over the ship into the water below. A large dark shadow, larger than the ship, swam by with speed something that size shouldn’t have. She was suddenly aware of Cynthia still swinging at the front of the ship over the water.

“Hey, Cynth, I think you should get down from—“

The deafening sound of something massive breaking through water cut her off. There was a piercing scream right before she was knocked back towards the cabin. She hit the wall hard and pain shot up her spine. Kneeling over, Bec took a few seconds to catch her breath before looking at what was attacking the ship.

It seemed to be a squid of giant proportions. It was grotesquely pink, and two of its tentacles started to wrap around the masts. Bec noticed they were considerably larger than the smaller, but still incredibly thick, tentacles that were constricting around the ship like a snake sealing the fate of its prey. The ship groaned in protest as it resisted the tension of caving in on itself. Bec mentally screamed in irritation. She loved seafood but hated anything slimy and with tentacles. Why did it have to be a giant squid?

“Bec!”

Bec swung her head towards her name. Before she turned all the way she stopped, frozen. Along the whole length of the ship was what Bec assumed had to be the body of the squid, with a massive eye staring at her. Fear made her fur stand on end and she did the first thing she could think of—take out one of her many daggers and throw it straight at the eye. It didn’t blink quite fast enough, and there was a loud sound, almost like a roar, as her dagger pierced it. Bec figured with the size ratio it was the equivalent of an eyelash, but the squid still thrashed about. She rolled out of the way as a tentacle came down on where she had been standing, sending wooden shrapnel in all directions.

A bolt of fire flew past Bec’s head. She turned around in disbelief to look for the source. It came from the opposite side of the ship, where one of the tentacles held Cynthia by her waist. She was struggling to break free, but Bec noticed that she looked angrier than anything, as if being wrapped up by the squid had ruined her ocean vacation. Bec started to move forward but caught herself as her legs wobbled. She really wasn’t fit for battle on the sea, and she started to feel even more nauseous with the ship moving around so much. There was so much noise—the ship creaking, the crew screaming and running about, the screeching from the squid. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her ears against her head for a moment.

Another streak of fire went by her head, this time singeing a tentacle that was coming up behind her. She looked back up at Cynthia.

“Are you going to get me down from here or not?” Cynthia yelled down to her.

The thought had occurred to Bec, but she didn’t really know how to go about it. The tentacle holding Cynthia was too far out for her to just sever—they would both fall into the sea. She frantically looked around and saw a rope hanging nearby. Dreading what she had to do but knowing hesitation would throw her off, she unsheathed her sword and ran towards it. Once she grabbed on, she ran in an arc towards the edge of the ship and immediately kicked off, hoping the momentum would get her to Cynthia.

Not accounting for her weight, Bec yelped as the rope dropped her lower than she expected, and she sailed through the air. This was her two fears combined—flying and the open water. She nearly missed the tentacle holding Cynthia as she flew by, but her sword happened to be out and sliced through Cynthia’s captor. Bec wouldn’t even deny that she had been lucky. She quickly sheathed her sword and grabbed Cynthia’s arm as the severed tentacle fell off her and into the water below. The squid screeched again, and nearby tentacles started thrashing about, harder than before. Bec was afraid one of them would knock them off course.

Bec’s muscles strained against the weight of carrying Cynthia, who was much larger than Bec, and as they swung back around towards the ship, Bec realized how off she had been with her plan. The added weight had lost a lot of their momentum, and now they were going to hit the ship’s side instead of landing on the deck like she thought. Bec held her legs out so they would hit the ship first and bent them upon impact as a cushion. It still sent waves of pain up her legs and now her whole body felt like it was on fire. Luckily, they weren’t far from the rail along the deck. She looked down at Cynthia.

“I need you to climb up first. Use the rope to help you,” Bec said as she moved the rope closer to Cynthia. In reality, Bec should go first because she was closer to the top, but she couldn’t count on herself to be able to hoist Cynthia up. Plus, Cynthia needed more help getting up than Bec did.

Bec watched as Cynthia grabbed the rope with her free hand before letting go of Bec. There was a moment of relief as her arm got a break, but then she had to help literally push Cynthia up the side of the ship. Cynthia scrambled over the rail and then appeared to help Bec up. Bec went to reach for her and saw the look of shock on Cynthia’s face a second before something slammed Bec away.

The wind was knocked out of her when she hit the water, back first. Disoriented, Bec tried to take in the scene around her. Through the murkiness, it looked like a chaotic nightmare. Crew members that had fallen overboard, some dead, some not so dead, either floating or sinking. There were twice as many tentacles down here than there were attacking the ship, and they all writhed about. Her eyes followed to where they all connected to the body, and her blood ran cold when she saw its mouth. It looked like a tunnel into its body with rows upon rows of teeth. She would never eat squid again.

The cold feeling was replaced with a burning one as Bec realized she was running out of air. She swam towards the surface when something grabbed her leg and started pulling her down.

When she looked into the darkness below she saw a humanlike face, but at this moment she didn’t care what it was if it was trying to kill her. She kicked down with her other foot and felt the weight on her leg release. Bec swam frantically to the surface. Just as she was about to break through, something slammed hard into her collarbone. Instinctively she gasped for a breath and swallowed…air?

Bec blinked her eyes a few times in confusion. She fingered the pearls that seemed to be embedded in her neck. They were somehow filtering the water around her or were a viable air source on their own. Either way, she wasn’t drowning.

A more urgent sense came over her as she swiveled in the water to find her attacker. The same creature that was dragging her earlier was before her. It had the top half of a woman and the lower half of a fish. Scales covered its body along with what looked to be battle scars. Instead of hair, its head swirled in the back like a seashell lined with what Bec thought were dull lights. It must be a form of bioluminescence. It was holding a spear made of bone, probably the spine of a shark. Bec opened her mouth to speak, but the creature cut her off.

“No time to talk. Help hunt squid,” the creature said as it pointed to the squid still attacking the ship. From the physique and the voice, Bec figured it was feminine.

Bec squinted her eyes and could see now that the tentacles below water weren’t thrashing about randomly. She saw other creatures similar to the one in front of her quickly weaving in and around them, and some attacking the body of the squid, although the majority of it was out of the water. This must just be a regular hunt for them. She turned back to the one in front of her.

“What do you expect me to do? I can’t fight underwater.”

The creature handed her the bone spear. “I know. Go above and split body. Can’t reach above water.”

Bec barely understood but didn’t have time to think when she felt the water moving unnaturally under her. She looked up in time to see the creature moving her arms before the water under Bec shot her upwards. She screamed as she broke through the surface and hardly felt herself land on deck. She stood paralyzed for a second, not believing what was happening to her.

“What in the world are you holding?”

Bec turned her head to see Cynthia staring at her. Her eyes followed Cynthia’s to the bone spear still in her hand. “Um, long story,” she said with a shrug.

After a quick scan of the deck, she saw that they were down to half the crew. The ship wasn’t going to last much longer. She spotted the head of the squid now at the front of the ship, intent on making sure it couldn’t escape. The tentacles above water were still thrashing about, but they were visibly getting weaker. The creatures below water must be doing a number on it, but Bec knew she was the one who had to finish it. She looked over to Cynthia.

“Hey, Cynth, cover me.” Bec didn’t wait for a response as she started sprinting down the center of the ship. The squid saw her and positioned multiple tentacles, determined to stop her advance. Before she became one with the deck, Bec felt a searing heat above her. A flurry of magic arrows pierced all the tentacles, the magic inside setting them aflame. Bec would have to thank Cynthia later. There was now a clear path to the bowsprit that was miraculously still there.

Without hesitation and ignoring her screaming muscles, Bec ran along the thin piece of wood and jumped, spear in hand. A guttural cry rose from her throat and the spear penetrated into the squid’s surprisingly soft skin. The squid’s piercing wail made Bec’s ears ring, but she held on tight as the spear started dragging down the length of the squid’s body from her weight. Blood and insides started raining down on her as she split the squid down the middle. She almost couldn’t wait to reach the water, a thought she never thought she’d ever have.

When Bec slid into the water, thee was the same tugging on her leg as from before. The same creature that had given Bec the spear and thrown her out of the water was now pulling her away from the giant squid carcass that was slowly sinking into the ocean. Bec saw the other creatures start swimming around it; it seemed they were draping nets around the body, probably to take home. It had been a successful hunt. She turned back towards the one in front of her, who was smiling.

“Thank you for your help.”

Bec was about to say something when she realized she no longer could breathe underwater. She simply nodded and held a thumbs up instead. The creature swam away towards her group, and Bec swam towards the surface.

As Bec’s head broke the surface, something heavy fell down on it. She shouted in pain as she was thrown back underwater. Momentarily curling up into a ball and clutching her head, she waited for the pain to pass before poking her head back up above.
“Sorry!” Cynthia shouted from the deck.

Bec saw what had hit her was a bundle of rope. At least Cynthia had good intentions. Bec grabbed a hold of the rope and began to slowly pull herself up the side of the ship while letting Cynthia and a few members of the crew do most of the work from the other end. When Bec crawled over the rail, she plopped onto her back and lay there, breathing heavily for a few moments. She was suddenly aware that she was still covered in the squid’s blood and guts when the smell punched her in the nose. She would have to change, but right now she just wanted a break.

The sun was still blinding. The ship was a mess, the crew would need to spend a few days repairing it before they would make any real progress to Rys, and, with only half a crew, it was going to take longer than usual. Cynthia knelt next to her, checking her for any major wounds. Bec waved off her partner. Sometimes she worried too much.

“I’m fine, promise.” She lay there for a few more minutes staring at the blue sky dotted with a few fluffy white clouds, none of which would conveniently float in front of the sun. Flying didn’t sound too terrible anymore. It couldn’t be any worse what she had just gone through. She imagined flying through those same white clouds and the wind through her fur. It probably didn’t feel any different from riding a horse.

“Hey, Cynth, do they have griffins in Rys?”