The
little hypostatickally fuelled boat carrying Greta, Luke and Ellis rounded the
weathered bowsprit of another ancient ship and a patch of sand came into view
not far away. They could see that it
had once held a campsite, only that morning in fact, but what remained there
now was nothing so welcoming. Ellis let
his eyes skip from detail to detail – the still smouldering campfire; the
scuffle of footprints; the occasional pack, dropped or abandoned; the dark
brown stain seeped into the sand next to a piece of wreckage and lying atop it-
“That’s
someone’s arm!” Ellis cried out in alarm, “There’s someone lying there!”
They
leapt out of the boat and Ellis and Luke dragged it ashore as Greta ran ahead
toward the limp limb and let out a gasp of horror.
“It’s
Micah,” she said, her voice still with shock, “he’s dead.”
“What
happened here?” Ellis asked, trying not
to look at that arm and instead taking in more and more details of the scene
before him – shot buried in stone panelling, sand fused by heat or energy, an
unnatural chill in the air.
“There
was a fight,” Luke replied darkly, “and it looks like Siren must have called a
retreat.” He pointed to the path of
footprints tracing a path between the fossil-like ships further inland.
“But
Micah…” Greta said, still staring down at the body of her former crewmate.
“Both
the crew and whoever attacked them are long gone,” Luke observed, “We should bury him. We can use the oars to help us dig.” Ellis closed his eyes, searching for
something within himself or without which he could cling to for support – a
piece of reality to fall into place that might help him to deal with this. He thought of the sweat and labour of
digging and opened his eyes. He was
nodding.
Digging
was harder work than Ellis had been expecting.
They wanted to do a proper job, so they went as deep into the sandbank
as they could, but at the same time they were aware that they needed to try to
catch up with the others, for who knew what kind of danger they were in right
then. As a consequence Ellis, Luke and
even Greta dug far faster than they might have under other circumstances and
the effort was enough to bring all three out in a heavy sweat. The bare sun of early afternoon rose high
overhead and, by the time they were finished, both Ellis and Luke were stripped
to the waist, dripping.
“Should
we say something?” Ellis asked as he
stared at the mound they had created, knowing that the body of a man he did not
know - but who had probably known Siren much longer than he himself had - lay
not far beneath.
“I
liked Micah,” Luke said. He sounded
slightly bitter, as always, but the succinct statement was hard to follow so
Ellis kept silent as Greta added, “So
did I.”
Once
the moment had passed they gathered together everything they thought they might
need from their pack and from the supplies left lying around the abandoned
campsite. Ellis strapped his rifle over
his shoulder and found a knife to arm himself with as well, which he sheathed
with a scrap of cloth and slipped into a belt loop. When they had everything they could carry without being
overburdened, they set off along the trail of footprints, moving as quickly as
they could through the soft sand. It
was hard to gain much traction and it was clear from the nature of the trail
they were following that both crew and pursuers alike had had similar
difficulties, with one notable exception.
Interspersed throughout the scuffle of marks were patches of fused sand,
much like the ones they had seen at the campsite, but these had the regularity
of footprints.
“What
could make marks like these?” Ellis
asked, staring down at the trail of glassy prints.
“I’m
not sure I want to know,” Greta replied.
“If
we’re quick, we’ll find out soon enough,” Luke added.
Ellis
nodded and they kept moving, but he couldn’t help but wonder at what kind of
creature – of monster – they were chasing that could turn sand into glass with
every step.
As
they advanced deeper into the shoals the haunting landscape of upturned ships,
broken hulls and stark, monumental ribs transformed something much more like a
city, where each building was a vessel left amazingly intact despite the
millennia since its grounding.
Despite their pace,
despite the urgency with which they made their pursuit, Ellis couldn't help but
marvel at all he was seeing. It seemed
that every new part of Shadow he saw astounded him more than the last. There as always something new, something
incredible awaiting him around the next corner and even here, with danger all
around, he was being granted vistas of antique splendour such as he could never
have imagined two weeks previously.
An hour later
and it had gotten old. Ships, ships and
more ships paraded by on either side and though there was an enormous amount of
variety in the style and design of the vessels, Ellis was beginning to realise
that once you've seen one stone ship, you really have seen them all.
"Does
this place have no end?" he moaned, slightly out of breath as they rounded
another corner to be confronted by yet another long avenue of ships.
"It's
basically a complicated sort of sand island covering about fifty square miles,
Ellis," Greta replied, also out of breath but demonstrating great patience. "We're not going to see the end of it
for quite a while."
"Of
course not," Ellis replied, "but Siren and the others can't have run
forever. We must find either them or
their attackers sooner or later."
"Let's
hope the former," Luke added, his gaze flicking to the glass footprints
that continued to form part of the trail they were following.
"We can
really only hope they've found somewhere good to hide and that whoever was
attacking them has already passed them by."
"But they
could hide in any of these ships at any time.
We might have passed them already!"
"Think,
Ellis," Greta replied, still as calm as ever, "firstly we're still
following their footprints, so that would seem unlikely, and secondly whilst
any of these ships could be a hiding place it would remain far too
obvious. The enemy could follow
footprints just as we're doing and if they did lose track of them, checking the
ships would be the first thing they would do."
"But
there are so many-" Ellis began
"And the
enemy would have plenty of time to search them whilst Siren and the others
could do nothing but wait for the inevitable."
"Oh."
"Indeed. So, they're going to have to have found
something more reliable than that, and the only hope of that lies in the very
heart of the shoals."
"What
hope is that?"
"The
inhabitants," Luke replied, as if he had been part of the conversation all
along.
"And who
are they?"
"Well,"
Greta replied, "No one really knows for sure - it's all rumour and
conjecture - but one of the reasons no one tends to venture into the Shoals
these days is that people believe they have been colonised by a tribe of-"
“What’s that
up ahead?” Luke interrupted with uncharacteristic energy and a hint of fear in
his voice.
Greta frowned
at him, then glanced in the direction he was pointing. Ellis’ gaze followed likewise and he could
just make out an unnatural purple glow on the other side of a series of large,
swanlike vessels which must once have formed fleet in its own right before
becoming part of the great Stonefleet.
He could see the flashes of amaranthine light licking off the pale stone
of the ships, hinting at some object hidden from sight at the centre of it all.
“What could
that possibly be?” Greta asked.
“The same
thing that did that, maybe?” Luke asked, pointing at the congealed lump of
glass at his feet.
“I think we’ve
caught up with our enemies, then,” added Ellis, “so what do we do now?”
“We need to
get a closer look, find out what that thing is,” said Greta.
“Agreed,” said
Ellis, “but how?”
“Difficult,”
said Luke. “Follow me.”
The sullen
young pirate changed his stance and dropped low so as to better sneak along the
side of one of the nearby ships, peering around the hull at the stern once he
reached it. He signalled back to Ellis
and Greta and, sharing a brief look, they mimicked him until they were crouched
just behind him, at which point he vanished around the stern of the ship and
they were forced to follow after him.
They repeated
this process a couple of times, skirting around the edges of the ancient
vessels, until they were close enough to their quarry to hear voices. It sounded like Harker’s crew, and whatever
was leading them, were just on the other side of the nearest stone ship. Luke cupped a hand over his ear to listen
and the others mimicked him once more, but what Ellis heard made his skin
crawl.
Something was
speaking, but its voice was not human in the way that Ellis had come to
recognise the concept, nor was it the gravely voice of the Lithoderm race. It was both harsh and whisper-like, fragile
and ancient and yet strong and full of unnatural energy. It seemed amplified in some way, carrying
better than the other voices they could hear accompanying it. As they listened it gave orders and Ellis
almost felt as if he must obey them himself, as if the words carried a
compulsion to act within their very timbre.
“We cannot
have lost them!” the thing said, its tone defying anyone to question it. “They must be hiding around here
somewhere. You will find the
girl-captain and her crew and you will bring them to me. I will not crawl amongst these musty graves
looking for them myself.”
“Y-yes,
Captain,” a series of faint voices replied, growing more confident as they
committed to their orders. “We will do
as you say.”
Ellis wasn’t sure
whether he was more disturbed by the commanding voice of the creature or of the
eerie obedience and obeisance of the crew members, but even so, he felt that he
needed to see what this creature was.
“We need to
get closer,” he whispered, “I want to see it.”
“Are you sure,
Ellis,” Greta asked, her brow knotted with worry, “shouldn’t we find somewhere
to hide before the crew find us?”
“We’ll go up,”
Luke said suddenly, a strangely rapt look on his face as he began climbing up
the side of the ship beside them, using gaps in the ancient stone ‘planks’ as
his footholds. He made rapid progress
and had nearly reached the deck before Ellis began to follow.
“Luke, Ellis!”
Greta hissed, but it was too late. Luke
had vaulted onto the deck and Ellis was only a few feet behind him. She stared up at them in horror.
On the
fo’c’sle, Luke was creeping towards the starboard rail as Ellis climbed over
the port side. The purple glow of the
whatever-it-was pulsed and evanesced ahead of them. A faint sizzling crackle could be heard and Ellis realised that
his hair was starting to stand on end, as if the air were full of static.
“What do you
see?” he whispered as he approached Luke, silently staring down towards the
light source. “What is it?” Luke remained silent and so Ellis continued
to creep ever further forward, the electrified atmosphere and compelling glow
becoming stronger with every step.
Then, as he reached out to grab the rail, the hairs on his arms seeming
almost to dance as they rippled through some electromagnetic field before him,
something moved behind him.
He tried to
turn, to catch this new assailant and throw them to the ground, but somehow he
was simply too slow. As he spun on the
spot the thing moved with him, just out of eyeshot and as he reached to grab it
he found only the charged air and emptiness.
He stumbled
forwards, his feet tangling behind him even as he came clattering to the deck,
clumsy as a breeze block. There was a
moment, just then, when he seemed almost to hang in mid air and in that
split-second he caught a glimpse of this newcomer, a vision of shapes and
angles he could not quite discern, which seemed almost out-of-phase with his
understanding. And then his head hit
the hard-as-concrete deck and all sensation fled, the door to consciousness
slammed shut, hard, in his face.
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