Episode LIX - Run!

            “Are they still behind us?”

            “I can’t tell.”  Out of breath, panting.  “Just keep movin’!”

            “We need somewhere to hide.  We can’t go on like this.”

            “Yeah, but where?  Any of these vessels would be too easy to search.”

            “There has to be somewhere.”

            “Maybe, but until we find it, we ‘ave to keep movin’, so keep movin’, Toby!”

           

            It was growing dark over the Shoals.  Afternoon was fleeing rapidly into evening and even evening didn’t seem to want to linger long amidst the haunting remains of the Stone Fleet.  Mists were again creeping in off the black sea, muffling sounds and distorting shapes, providing cover and yet confusing those who sought it, turning the Stonerib Shoals into an enormous, and deadly, labyrinth.

            Toby and Gulliver had lost the rest of the crew hours ago.  They had no idea what had become of them, but they fervently hoped that they had gone to ground somewhere and that Harker’s men, and their monstrous new captain, had not found them.  It was a slippery hope, a desperate, fragile hope, but if they let go of it they might as well just hand themselves over and face their fate and neither of them was prepared for that yet.

            It could never be said that the day had gone well, but up until Siren and the Former Baron had climbed onto the deck of that ship it had seemed like they might salvage something of the mission.  Siren was confident, calming.  She knew just when to flash a smile, to shout an order or to call a halt, and her crew loved her for it.  The world seemed a better place, a more stable one where the odds were somehow in their favour, as long as she was in charge.  And then that shape had appeared on deck and Siren and Franck had simply… vanished.  That’s when everything really began to fall apart.

            Firstly there were the questions: What just happened?  Where did they go?  What should we do now?  And these turned quickly into arguments about who was in charge and what course of action would be best.  Some of the crew left right then, disappearing into the Shoals to take their own chances.  Of the remainder, some rallied to a young woman named Jess, one of the longer-standing members of the crew of the Ebon Crest.  The rest stayed with Gulliver, recognising his closer relationship to their absent captain.

Jess had wanted to assault the Lich and the enthralled crew of the Dusk Raider head on.  She was sure that with enough firepower, with enough guile, they would find a weakness and repel the monstrosity.  Gulliver was doubtful, Toby had stood by his side and railed at her for her stupidity, but of course it hadn't been stupidity at all, it had just been arrogance and arrogance only grows worse when taunted and mocked.

Jess took her fragment of the crew off towards where the Lich had last been seen whilst Gulliver, Toby and the others searched, as Siren had done, for somewhere they could hide reliably.  Half an hour later they heard a barrage of gunshots, followed by a chorus of screams and shouts, then silence.

After that Gulliver’s little troupe became more and more agitated.  They bickered about which direction to run, about whether to hide in this ancient hulk or another, even over which side of a vessel they should walk around when it was clear they would meet again at the other end.  Gulliver tried to calm them down, as did Toby, but the fear was getting to them all.  It made them easily confused, easily lost.  It made them vulnerable and it made them a beacon.

That’s the only thing that Gulliver could think when he heard the sound of the Lich’s harsh, sibilant, horrible voice snaking its way between the stone ships. 

“I know you are out there.”

‘E must be able to smell us some’ow, sense our fear, maybe.  He felt like he had become frozen to the spot, that fear paralysing him, taking control of his faculties and just shutting them down one by one.

“I know where you are,” the Lich continued, “and I can find you, oh, so easily.  I can tear you and unmake you and make a game with your entrails.  There is nothing to stop me.  Why don’t you make this easier on yourselves, then, and just come to me.  Go on, come to me.”

Gulliver could feel the compulsion in that voice, making him want to move again, but not the way he would have chosen a few seconds before.  Though he could still hear the whisper-like voice of death in the Lich’s tones, it was like a filter had been placed over it to make it warm and inviting.  He wanted to see it now, to be welcomed by it.  Wouldn’t that be so much easier in the long run?  Why remain an enemy when everybody could be friends?

The others were going already.  He could see them walking across the sand, taking small, uncertain steps, but gaining confidence as they moved and listened to the Lich’s beautiful, awful voice.

Why don’t I just go with them? he asked himself.  Why don’t I just give in?

“No!” Toby shouted suddenly, from somewhere off to Gulliver’s right.  “Don’t do it!  Don’t give in to him!  Do you think he will be any less likely to kill you if you come to him willingly?  He’s a monster!  A greedy, ancient, evil, horror with no love for you or anyone.  Don’t obey!”

Toby’s words came at just the right time for Gulliver, who suddenly found himself shaking his head, clearing through the fog that had been forming so that he could remember who he really was and what they were doing, but for some of the others it was already too late.  He saw them drift, almost like zombies, around the bow of a distant ship and then vanish from sight.  Toby called again but none of them reappeared.

Later, once they were moving again, they would hear their screams.

Only the merest handful of Siren’s crew remained with Gulliver and Toby as they began to run through the graveyard of stone ships.  There were no arguments anymore, no complaints.  There was no time for talking at all in fact, only running.  Decisions were made as they happened, with one person turning one way and the others following, like a flock evading a predator.  The running was all they could focus on, all they could be.

But they kept losing people nonetheless.  Some just couldn’t keep up, other’s stumbled and though someone might have tried to catch them they misjudged, or their hands slipped and then suddenly the person who fell was abandoned to the monster and his henchmen closing in behind them.  Gulliver was not proud.  His heart sank a little more each time he looked around himself and saw fewer people with him.

Eventually, only he and Toby were left.

            “Are they still behind us?”  Toby asked from the shelter of a great stone ship which had somehow been torn in half by the sandbank rising beneath it.  The Shoals had gone eerily quiet since they lost the others and the only sounds they could hear now came from their own heavy breathing, their own thundering hearts.

            “I can’t tell,” Gulliver replied, out of breath, panting.  “Just keep movin’!”

            “We need somewhere to hide.  We can’t go on like this.”

            “Yeah, but where?”  Gulliver asked, raising his hands and pointing around them, “Any of these vessels would be too easy to search.”

            “There has to be somewhere.” Toby replied desperately.  It was clear he was reaching the limits of his endurance and Gulliver couldn’t blame him.  He felt just about ready to fall apart himself, but there would be plenty of time for going to pieces once the Lich caught them, until then, it seemed, there was only one choice.

            “Maybe, but until we find it, we ‘ave to keep movin’, so keep movin’, Toby!”

            And so Gulliver made the first move, stepping out from cover to begin running once more.

            But he didn’t run.  He couldn’t.  Instead he remained frozen on the spot once more, every muscle seizing up as if ready for a fit.  His heart felt like it was about to explode.  His eyes bulged with fear.  His body was taken over with irrational responses, and yet, what he saw before him was maybe reason enough.

            Only a few feet away, wreathed in lightning and wearing a grin carved by death himself, stood the Lich whilst arrayed behind him, tired and gory and almost little more than zombies now, was Harker’s crew.

            “Ah, excellent,” the creature said, sending shiver’s along Gulliver’s spine, and making the un-pirates grin, “I was hoping I might bump into you.”

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