Adler

The searing flash of light cut through the formless sky as tumultuous waves tossed the two-masted vessel about like a ragdoll. Hanging on for dear life to the bridge rail, Adler waited for the retort of thunder. When it came, his sturdy little ship shook to the very timbers. He gritted his teeth through the lashing rain, and tried to make out what the helmsman was trying to yell.

“Brace the wheel!” he finally managed to hear, and he did, just as the ship smashed past the crest of another titan of a wave, almost airborne before the bow began to dip, and dip, till a barrel broke free of its confines and went careening down the deck, taking two men with it as it crushed through the starboard rail and disappeared almost instantly into the frothing, unfathomable waters.

Somewhere amidships, the last lantern swung madly from its rafters, the flickering flame within casting a feeble glow through the sheets of rain to shine down upon the river that had become the weatherdeck.

All around him, his men fought the tempest, reduced to indistinct shapes in the violent murk. Between himself and the helmsman, the great wheel was tamed and frantically brought to heel as the ship angled into another swell. A loose line of shorn rigging raggedly danced in the air, like a forlorn banner unfurling from the main mast.

“She can’t take much more of this, Cap’n,” Bors, the helmsman, yelled into his ear. “The sea’s taken Dubner and three others, we’re short-handed, can’t-”

A thunderous crack rent the sky and drowned out the man’s words. Adler didn’t think it mattered, he knew what the man had to say, and he had no answers to yell back. So he did the only thing that he could, and with a brief signal of warning, heaved against the spokes. He imagined he heard the chains groaning beneath the deck.

* * *

It ran through the heart of the ship like a slender vein. In the moist darkness between the lengths of wood, it was colorless, but by light of day it might have been rusty red, or a darkened gold. Copper, scuffed here and scratched there, but copper nonetheless. From the highest point of the main mast it ran, in an unbroken line into the planks of the weatherdeck. Diving ever deeper, encased always by wood, it burrowed, past the hold, and past the bilge, it emerged like the slender tail of the serpent, into the great sea below.

It was the hidden guardian, the secret defender, against the worst of nature’s terrors. The walls that encased it were scorched, but never burned. Every ship that braved the deeps had a serpent such as this. Those that did not had been burned, had blistered, and had sunk.

It might have prided itself on this guardianship, if it were aware of itself.

But unknown, and unseen, it had found its failure. At that point where the mast meets the deck, the juncture of timber and plank, it had proved too frail. It had been rent.

It was broken.

* * *

In that half moment in which the lightning came, Adler could see everything. He could see the sky, bright as any day, could see the majesty of the sea as it roiled all around him, towering above his ship like the hand of a wrathful god. He could see the raindrops, as if frozen in perfect clarity in the air before him, each tiny sphere distinct from the others to his widened pupils.

And then it struck, and a jagged line of white fire danced from the heavens to smash through the main mast, running through it like the air through his lungs. The wood exploded outwards in a rain of shards, and the great mast began a violent fall, crashing through snagged rigging and snapping through tangled lines, its base nothing more than a burning stump and a memory.

The madness that followed was difficult for Adler to remember. He could recall the sounds of screaming men, shouted curses, and the roar of fire and sea. He could recall the great groaning crash as the proud mast fell to the deck, smashing all that stood between it and the wooden floor.

All this Adler could later recall, if only vaguely. But he could not see. There was a bright light blinding him. Dully, as if from afar, he realized that his face was on fire.

* * *

Adler woke in a familiar hammock, staring at a familiar ceiling, tilted at an unfamiliar angle. Even as this realization passed through his mind, the pain came gleefully to greet him. He groaned, lifting a hand to touch at the burning mass that was his face. The entire left side of his head was swathed in bandage and the flesh beneath it burned like nothing in the world.

With a pained hiss, his breath feverishly hot, he managed his feet. The deck was tilted too far, he knew, and the roll of the waves didn’t right it. But in that at least there was some solace. The sounds of storm and sea were but memory now, and there was only the gentle motion of a ship in calm waters beneath his feet.

Slowly, on unsteady legs, he made his way from the almost-cramped cabin, down the gangway to the stern ladder. Above him, he could hear the murmur of men’s voices, but could not make out the words. Significantly, sunlight, bright and clean, filtered down the open hatch to bathe his face in its glow.

Emerging onto the deck, his relief quickly began to fade. The wrecked remains of the deck angled unnaturally towards port. All around him was a mass of ruined timber and smashed rail. Broken crates and the remnants of barrel, sail, rigging lay strewn upon the scarred and broken planks. A seared hole large enough swallow a crate gaped up from the place from which the main mast had once challenged the winds. Of the fore mast, only half remained, ending in a jagged spine of broken wood where the timber had broken clean away.

The ship was lost.

“The hull’s holding out, at least,” Bors spoke from behind. “She’s listing badly to port, Cap’n. I’ve got some boys pumping water out of the crew deck, took a beating to it when the mast went down. But the bilges are clean as they’re ever like to be after that storm. She’ll hold.”

Adler took in a breath. The air was as he had always liked it best: Crisp with the scent of the sea. “She’ll hold. What about jury rigging-“

The crusty seaman shook his head, grizzled hair as salty as the sea, “No sir. Can’t do it. The mast’s gone, blown clean into the water. Rudder’s gone too, best as I can figure. Wheel’s spinning free. Can rig something up for that, given time, but I reckon the best we can do right now is put some sheets on what’s left on the fore. Keep her sliding on best as we can.”

Somehow Adler felt like smiling. Or he did until the motion caused his face to split into another wave of agony. “Hells. She’s a grand old lady.”

Bors chuckled, nodding. “That she is. Ain’t done yet, I reckon. If we can limp her into port, she’ll be seaworthy in a month.”

“But she’s not seaworthy. And we’re at sea, Mister Bors,” said Adler.

“Aye, Cap’n, that’s the song.”

Adler studied that familiar face, with its graying beard and glass eye and pockmarked features. He wasn’t a comely man, Sander Bors, never was. Even as the corpse of the ship shifted lazily beneath the two of them, his face remained as calm and as stoic as ever it had been. And damn the pain, but that made Adler smile.

“Report on the crew, Mister Bors.”

“Aye, Cap’n. Seven dead, sir, including the cook. Three unfit for duty, and five hands able, though all willing. And we’ve still got the Marshal. Took a knock to his head, but seems to be holding out alright.”

“Good,” said Adler, turning to take stock of this broken craft, his vessel, “Supplies?”

“Lost most of the tar to breakage, sir. Barrels split ship wide. We’ve enough of the salted stuff for a month, and fewer mouths to feed. We’d stuffed half the load of lamp oil in the bilge and most of its survived the battering. Most of the liquor’s beat too, though we got lucky on the water. We’ve enough in rigging and sheets to man the mast, sir.”

Adler nodded to the broken half-mast, “I want that thing rigged with enough sail to keep us moving, Mister Bors. Shore it up as best as you can. Tear up the deck if you have to. And I want to know exactly where we are and how far that storm blew us off. I want this ship pointed towards the nearest port by sundown. Send a crew down to patch up a rudder.”

Bors might have been smiling. “Aye aye, Cap’n.”

“Ration out whatever ale you’ve left, tell the men we’re going home. Where’s the Marshal?”

“In the cabin, sir. He’s been asking after you.”

“I’ll look in on him then,” said Adler. “And Sander?”

“Aye, Cap’n?” asked the other man.

Adler clapped the man’s shoulder lightly, “We’ll be alright.”

Adler saw Bors’ hazel eye flicker to the ruin of the main mast. But the old man simply smiled, “Aye, Cap’n. ‘Course we will.”

Adler watched the man go. Half his face was afire and his head still hadn’t quite stopped spinning. He wished he had the surety of his words as he made his way towards the Marshal’s cabin.

Inside, he found the Marshal seated at a table, drinking from a metal flask. The cabin was the best the ship boasted, which was not much. It was roomy, as such things went, and had a proper seafaring bed, privy, chest of drawers, all bolted, and the table at which the ship’s only passenger now sat.

Aros of Ellend, First Marshal of Angranost was a large man. To Adler’s eye, it was not a largeness of flesh or bone, as some men had. It was a largeness of the man himself, and the long roads he’d traveled. And who’d not heard at least some of those journeys? Mercenary, soldier, general, and savior. He’d spent a lifetime at winning, and for it all seemed not so different from old Bors.

“I see you’re up and about,” said Aros, as Adler entered, “Good, thought you weren’t going to make it, from the fever.”

Adler pulled up a seat and accepted the flask as it was passed to him, taking a long swallow, “The sea wants me bad, she does. But she’ll have to wait a little longer.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Aros chuckled. “So… how bad are we, Captain?”

“Honest truth? We’re in a bad way, Marshal. Fucked proper, actually.”

Aros nodded, “Tell me.”

“We’ve got no sails and we’ve got no rudder,” Adler shrugged, “Half the crew’s gone or hurt too bad to work. We’re a few hundred leagues from the nearest port at best, and we’ve got no way of getting from here to there. Food’ll last a while but… well.”

It felt good to say it. It felt good to get it off his chest. This man did not look to him for guidance, for a way out, when there wasn’t one. For that, Adler was thankful.

“Might want to tell Bors, then,” Aros said, after a reflective silence, “He was in here earlier telling me something about rations.”

“He knows,” said Adler, shaking his head, “No fool, that man.”

“Well, Captain. I’m not one for last stands. What do we do now?”

Adler laughed, though the pain in his face made him feel like crying, “Not a gods damned clue. Any ideas?”

“Well, the usual thing to do at this point is kill whoever’s idea it was in the first place.” Aros smiled, though his eyes didn’t share in the gesture.

“That would be you, unless I’m off.”

“Aye,” said Aros, “That would be me. I’m so-“

A seaman burst into the cabin, interrupting, and the sheer excitement of life dripping off his features brightened the room even before he had a chance to speak his message.

“Sails to starboard, Cap’n! We’re saved!”

“What?” snapped Aros.

“You sure, man?” asked Adler.

“Seen it myself, Cap’n,” said the man, grinning wide. “Mister Bors has the glass, sir.”

Adler grinned back at Aros, “Save your apologies. The man says we’re saved.”

* * *

“She’s getting further away, Cap’n,” said Bors, his stoic features grim as he handed the looking-glass to Adler.

“How can they not see us? How?” Aros smouldered beside Adler on the starboard rail. Half the crew had gathered at starboard, of those that remained, and two or three were perched precariously on the fore-mast, holding the ties to a loose white sail.

Adler peered again through his looking-glass at the distant set of sails that marred the seam of the horizon. His jaw was clenched. Aros was right. His ship had no mast, a bare scant sheet of a sail fluttering between the grip of three men and a coil of rope, but any half-decent crow should have spied them out hours ago.

“In less than an hour, it’ll be dark,” said Adler, unable to keep the grimness from his voice. He had played the brave captain. His crew had needed it of him and he had delivered it. But the strain was beginning to show. The burning in his face had not subsided and his one eye was irritable and watered often.

“And then we’re done,” finished Aros, seeming more angry than grim even now.

Adler’s eye was drawn to the fluttering sheet, gleaming white in the last light of day. All of their hopes now rested on that slender fabric. Gone now was the pretense of order, the busying of hands with a purpose to fill the minds of men. Here was hope, real, a chance in the miracle of those sails on the horizon. And all of it turned on that one sheet.

“No,” said Adler, suddenly sure. “Then we’re saved.”

* * *

For Torrin it had been an uneventful day. The sun had been beating hotter than ever and since they’d skirted that storm two nights past, even the breeze seemed to have been fitful and tired. And then they’d caught a bad crop in the night’s fish stew. Half the crew had taken to unhitching their trousers over the rail at the slightest provocation, and they now lay down below in the sun, sipping the vile concoction the Ballentine’s physician had cooked up for them.

Torrin had been one of the lucky ones, he’d not gotten sick. And of course, the lucky ones got double shift to make up for the slackabout bastards sunning themselves on the deck below. That made Torrin feel sick in a different kind of way. Torrin had always been good at nursing his resentments, and let’s face it, up in the crow’s nest, there isn’t much in the way of things to do anyway, and how many times will a man spin his head in circles staring out at a nearly flat, featureless sea?

Torrin had done that. For a while. For a whole shift. Then he’d done the sensible thing

Torrin had fallen asleep.

* * *

“These words, you have spoken them before, you speak them again. I am fat. But not deaf. I have heard you,” said Mashal, as he leaned against the bow railing, admiring how the setting sun set ablaze the golden pain beneath his fingers.

“And you’ll hear them again, sir,” said Jordan Sulpher, tossing his head to clear the blond curls from his eyes, “You’ll hear them till you find a captain that’s lost either his tongue or the wits to use it. You were there, you saw. The man’s dangerous, and you’re putting my life at risk, and the life of every man aboard, by harboring that man aboard this ship.”

Mashal snorted, “You have the soul of a pirate, Sulpher. Can you not understand that we are bound?”

“Yes, yes, bound as tight as a virgin’s skirts, I’m sure,” said Jordan, “But are these men bound as well? Am I? I’m your Captain, Master Angranosti. Your best captain. Listen to what I say. No good will come of this, and frankly, we’ve made decent money as it is, the diamonds alone are worth the weight of this vessel. Take your winnings, and cut loose.”

“We have one dead man, by my mother’s eyes, you weep like the virgins you are so fond of! Are there no men left in the world?” Mashal spat into the ocean.

“Men we have in plenty, but few of them are fools,” Sulpher replied, more heated than he intended, “It’s an ill trip, I tell you. Just look over your shoulder, half the crew lies sick. Must the seas catch fire before you see?”

Mashal started an angry retort, but it died in his throat, replaced with sudden laughter. The man lifted a hand to point off to port, “Mashal Angranosti is unmoved. But look, the seas, it seems, have caught fire.”

Sulpher gritted his teeth and turned to look. He struggled for something intelligent to say.

Amid clouds of smoke, the blackness contrasting sharply against the growing grey of the encroaching twilight, the telltale glow of fire licked at the horizon.

. . .

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