Sekali, "The Sister City"
Chapter 57
There was an unnatural stillness in the weather that settled in by evening. The sea became as if it were glass, and the sails hung useless. The captain and her crew were silent, many of them had armed themselves with bows and blades, ready.
Sekali went to the captain. “Captain he whispered softly, “what are the weaknesses of a dredgeworm?”
She snickered, “They bleed. But before you can bleed one out, they break into Frenzy. They go mad and attack without hesitation . . . they become careless. That is when the danger is the greatest . . . that is when you must strike under the jaw, up into the hollow where the neck ends on the inside. Just before they strike, a white membrane covers their eyes, just as the shark, blinding them for a moment. You see, they do this to keep the shattered bone fragments and pieces of their victims out of their soft, bulbous eyes. That is another weakness; their eyes . . . they are easy to blind, and the creatures break into an unnatural Frenzy Rage when you mess with their eyes.”
Sekali began to make his way to the bow of the ship. Grabbing his arm, she stopped him, adding one more bit of information.
“Sekali, just before an attack there is a noxious stench that fills the air. That is when they have risen out of the water; that is when you know the danger of attack is imminent. Also, do not let their blood fall into the water unless you wish to witness a Dredge Swarm.” She gripped his arm tightly.
“Luck.” Smiling brightly, she winked; it was as if she was having fun.
Sekali nodded once and turned to take his place at the bow, but not before relaying this information to Uther, who grinned in silence, keeping watch over the side of the ship. Uther’s eyes were changed. His usual dark-brown eyes were solid black, as if his pupils had expanded fully to fill the entire center of his eyes.
In silence the crew waited, the captain softly walking to and fro between crew members, whispering to each of them quietly. She seemed to be their morale. Her crew seemed to give heed to all her most subtle movements, and when she spoke to them they seemed to absorb her words, as if they were children craving their parents attention.
Hours passed as the Harbringer sat motionless in the waters, the captain glanced up at the sails often, hope in her eyes.
As the sun set in the west, the winds had not picked up. Darkness was coming on and the captain began to openly fear the night. She told the three passengers that light attracted the worms. But in the night, if there was an attack, the enemy would be practically invisible to the eye. Sekali did not share her fear in this, nor did Uther. But, also, they did not wish to fight these worms by themselves.
A dead silence, broken only by the occasional creaking of the shifting Harbringer, echoed eerily in the growing darkness. The light began to fade altogether, leaving only a soft glow on the western horizon. The captain lit a small red-glass lantern, and placed it at the center of the bow. It gave a very dim red light to the area, making it seem ominous and macabre, but it was enough to barely see by. She lit one more like it and placed it at the stern, and then another amidships, to give what light she could to her crew.
Sekali waited, kneeling with his toes under him, ready to spring into action. It was deep into the night when Sekali felt sudden alarm rising up in him as a stench filled the air about him. Not daring to make a sound, he merely raised his arm up slowly as he scanned the waters below him. But he saw nothing.
The captain whispered at his right ear, “It’s below us at the base of the ship. If blood hits the water we will not have long before others come. Are you ready to fight? I know you see clearly. I will be at your back, if you move, call out every movement and I will match yours, always move to the right, if you can do so safely, and I will stay with you. I move when you . . . move!” She screamed, grabbing Sekali and heaving backwards onto the deck as a lengthy and slender, greenish-skinned worm rose up before them and struck out where Sekali was kneeling.
“There may be more!” She called out intensely, gritting her teeth.
The fangs of the dredgeworm were as long as short swords, its forked tongue snaked out over the bottom of its open jaw, smelling out the air before it as it hissed loudly. He watched it slither quickly up onto the deck after them with amazing swiftness.
“Watch its eyes!” The captain called from behind Sekali as she watched his back with one hand on it. As she spoke, the huge worm’s eyes seemed to turn white, and it struck at him with a swiftness that rivaled the dreaded attack of a Wasteland basilisk. Sekali’s vision became red, as if he saw through the red-stained glass of the dimly lit lanterns on deck, slipping into blood lust.
As its eyes shifted to white, Sekali quickly called out. “Strike!”
He leapt to the right, feeling her hand still on his back, gripping his tunic hard, her body brushing against his in perfect unity. He side-stepped the worm’s attack and pivoted, slashing downwards in an attempt to behead the dredgeworm.
But it recoiled faster than it had struck. The whites of its eyes vanished as it shifted its aim of attack to face Sekali once again, keeping at a slight angle. Instantly it coiled, readying to strike again as Uther charged up beside it. It abandoned its strike on Sekali and shifted so that Uther’s powerful stroke missed its mark. The jaws on this creature could easily swallow a man whole.
Three arrows, from different points, behind those engaging the creature, whizzed past their heads, just missing them, two striking wood and one sinking halfway into the dredgeworm’s mouth. The worm jerked as the arrow struck, but instead of gaining the advantage over it, it shrieked as its eyes instantly changed to a blood-red illumination. Frenzy took it, and the captain turned on it, now seeing its eyes clearly in the darkness.
“Frenzy, Frenzy!” She screamed as a tiny dart, no larger than her smallest slender finger whizzed past her from the starboard side of the ship, though she did not take her eyes off the dredgeworm long enough to find out. The small dart struck its neck just below the jaw line, seeming not to harm it in the least.
Striking out wildly, it bit Uther’s axe, wounding itself in the mouth as it chewed once, powerful jaws contracting about the axe, and swallowed it whole, not caring that the axe was wounding it as it swallowed. In the same motion its tail struck out and caught Sekali full in the chest, sending him hurtling backward onto the deck, slamming him into the railing. The impact caused him to lose his blade.
Following him into the railing, the worm quickly coiled to strike as Sekali leapt to his feet. He had taken a nasty blow to the head as he struck the ship’s rail, and could feel a knot rising at the back of his skull. The dredgeworm raised up swiftly before him, baring a bleeding mouth. Its eyes went white as it poised to strike . . . and jerked frantically once, arching its head back as if something had struck it from behind. It raised up thrice the height of a fully grown man, seemingly frozen in place for a split second.
Screaming hoarsely, as if being choked, it began to spasm as it crashed to the deck, writhing violently. Arrows by the dozens pierced both deck and worm as they hailed down from above where crew members perched upon the masts. Then it exhaled with one last, stiff shudder and went limp. Sekali grabbed his blade, rubbing his head painfully.
Finyat rose out of a large coil of rope, blowpipe in one hand, walked over to the dredgeworm and kicked it in the eye. Again silence dominated the ship as all turned outward, expecting another attack. In a silence that lasted much too long, the captain finally relaxed and looked over at Finyat in wonder, nodding her approval.
“Nice work, all.” She said in an even voice. “No worm overboard . . . no blood spilled into the water. We may just live out the night after all. Let’s hope there are no more that noticed us.”
She snapped her fingers and ten men were at her side with large cloths, soaking up all the blood that was slowly creeping to the edge of the ship, threatening their victory.