Chapter 109: Romulus
Serena rushed through the Vengeance’s corridors, sensing the ship roll to starboard. It took her less than a minute to make it to the bridge. Stepping through the threshold, she didn’t need to give any commands before her capable First Officer updated her.
“Captain,” Dagon said quickly, stepping towards her. “Fifty, maybe sixty stranded souls on an island at the low-mid-sky boundary. They’ve lit a signal fire. Observers saw the smoke, and then we saw them. I’ve put the ship in a circle, figure it best we…” Dagon trailed off, a strange expression appearing on his face as he looked at her.
“First Officer?” Serena questioned.
“Ahem!” Dagon coughed into his hand. “Figured it best we scout the area to make sure there are no… surprises”—Dagon’s eyes flicked to above Serena’s head—“and, uh, notified Medical to prepare for incoming patients.”
Serena nodded. Unless necessary, she wanted to avoid exposing any rescued sailors to Amelia’s healing. She was confident her crew would follow her orders to keep Amelia’s identity as Lia Liona a secret, but that was her crew. Whether the stranded souls below were part of the Myrmidon or the Indefatigable’s lifeboats, neither they nor their captains knew Amelia was travelling on the Vengeance. Although she didn’t have much faith in Amelia keeping the disguise up for long, she’d rather not jeopardise it immediately by spreading it far and wide.
“Good,” she said. “Let’s take a look.” Serena moved to the starboard observation room, whose inhabitants quickly parted for her. The ship was tilted to the side, giving her a clear view through the thick windows. It only took her a moment to take in the sight of the survivors.
An island—no more than a hundred metres in diameter—would have been barren if it weren’t for the shipwreck sprawled across its rocky surface. The ship wasn’t in one piece; much of it had broken apart and what remained had been retrofitted as an impromptu shelter. Only a part of the hull had stayed intact, and the ship’s upper superstructure lay broken and shattered across the island. Serena flared her aether to see better, identifying dozens of demons that were climbing the wreckage, waving pieces of white cloth.
From this distance, they looked like mice swarming a carcass.
“Fire an illumination round,” Serena ordered. “Let them know we’ve seen them!” She headed back onto the bridge as one of the Vengeance’s turrets spoke in a loud whisper, brightening the area for kilometres.
“Sensors!” she called. “Did we hear anything?”
“No, Captain!” Finella replied. The Northerner looked up from her instruments. “Looks like they lost their aetherscope. Observers sighted them! We—” Finella stopped suddenly, her gaze moving to Serena’s horns.
Serena frowned before realising half of her officer staff were also looking at her horns.
“What?” she questioned. “Is there something on my—oh.”
Oh, indeed.
She was still dressed up in Amelia’s hornweaving!
Serena panicked for all of half a second before recovering her usual composure. “Damn it,” she muttered, reaching up to try to undo the red and gold thread. “Continue,” she ordered Finella, while trying to pick at whatever knot Amelia had used to tie the hornweaving together.
“Y-yes, Captain,” Finella stuttered before collecting herself. “Nothing detected in the immediate vicinity, and any rocks large enough to hide an ambush behind are beyond our firing range. There’s a storm system from the Shattered Isles approaching, but it isn’t anything we can’t handle. No tornadoes in sight.”
“And the ship?” she asked, trying to use a fingernail to find some purchase in what must have been a magically infused knot designed by Amelia to be as difficult to unravel as a fifth-circle ward. “Have we made an identification?”
“It’s the Myrmidon, Captain,” Dagon said, looking a little awkward. “Superstructure matches. Doesn’t look like they all made it, unfortunately.” At his words, the officers on the bridge muttered their commiserations, some making religious gestures with their hands. If there were only fifty or sixty survivors, then it meant that the Myrmidon had lost more than half of its complement.
“Bring us in,” she ordered the helmsman. “Find a place to dock.”
“Aye, Captain!” the helmsman responded. “Bringing us in.”
“Anathor, tell—damn it,” Serena cursed as her finger slipped, undoing the tiny amount of progress she’d made in Amelia’s knots. This was ridiculous. From what book did her girlfriend learn hornweaving? Serena made a mental note to find the author and stab them. Why worry about the ship’s sensitivity to Amelia’s magic when it seemed that Amelia could just wrap the Vengeance in thread and it would be nigh indestructible given the knots she was capable of making!
“Anathor,” Serena began once more, “tell the kitchens to prepare hot food, I’m sure our upcoming guests will appreciate a good meal.” She made one final attempt to undo the knot before giving up. She looked at Dagon and explained, “Miss Liona has taken up hornweaving as a hobby. Seems she also has a talent for picking the most opportune time to practise, and the most uncompromising of knots.” She made sure to give her First Officer a look that said, ‘Amelia being Amelia, right?’
Dagon responded with his own look that said, ‘Right. Amelia being Amelia.’
“Bring Menes up here,” Serena ordered.
A few minutes passed before the large Arakian lord appeared.
“Saddiyah,” Menes intoned politely.
“Menes,” Serena responded.
As the days had passed, the attitude of the Arakian captain towards her had improved. Perhaps it was the fact that Serena had shown him that his amount of freedom and quality of food was directly proportional to how respectfully he treated her, or maybe his pride had recovered from losing the engagement against her with the Indefatigable. Whatever it was, Menes no longer interrupted her as much, and in turn, Serena found that the itch to stab him didn’t beg to be scratched nearly so often.
“I heard—” Menes stopped speaking when he saw her horns.
“No comments, Menes,” she said forcefully.
“...Yes, my Saddiyah.”
“Take a look,” Serena continued, gesturing to the observation room.
“I heard you found survivors,” Menes said as he approached and peered through the thick windows. “Yes. That is the Myrmidon, I am sure. Only…” the Arakian trailed off, his forehead furrowing. “The damage looks greater than it should be. A ship should not shatter so easy, yes? Maybe they were attacked after they crashed?”
Serena looked at the wreckage. The Arakian had a point. Parts of the Myrmidon’s hull appeared to have been caved in, as if they’d been pelted with boulders. It wasn’t the kind of damage that could be produced from munitions. “Maybe they took a beating from a boulder field on the way in,” Serena suggested. “Last Captain Matthew saw of them, they were seen in an uncontrollable spin.”
“Hmm… maybe,” Menes said, gesturing through the window. “They look happy to see you.” Down below the stranded crew were raising their arms in celebration, hugging each other and saluting the Vengeance. Some seemed to have collapsed, whether from exhaustion or relief Serena couldn’t tell.
She wouldn’t jump to conclusions.
“Could it be a trap?” Serena asked. “Could pirates have taken over the wreckage, disguised themselves as the crew and managed to lure in the Indefatigable?” She, along with the rest of her officers, were painfully aware that something untoward had happened to the Indefatigable. Serena was confident of her and her crew’s abilities, but she refused to walk into a disaster by becoming complacent.
She already had her hands full and her horns twisted managing one particular disaster in the form of a chaotic bundle of blond energy.
“Hmm…” Menes hummed, rubbing his chin. “You should be careful, but… I do not think so.”
“Why not?”
“Such an act is dishonourable, even for pirates, my Saddiyah.” The large Arakian shook his head as Serena scoffed in disbelief. “If word travelled that they would do such a thing, then the consequences would be dire. I have explained that the factions in the passage prefer to live alongside us, rather than fight us to their certain death. They know they would become hunted if they committed such an act of, an act of…” Menes chewed his lip, looking to Serena for assistance.
“Perfidy,” she finished for him.
“Yes. Perfidy.”
“Storms getting close,” Menes said, peering into the distance. “Close to his territory as well. You must keep a lookout for more of his kind, my Saddiyah. You wouldn’t want to anger him with any accidents.”
It took Serena a second to realise the Arakian lord was talking about Rhaknam and the arcwhales. “Do you ever have any problems with them?” she asked.
“Eh.” Menes raised a flat palm, wobbling it slightly. “Sometimes. We are careful in Ishaq not to fish in their territory much. They will get angry if they think we are taking food from their offspring.” The Arakian chuckled. “They are very big, yes? And we are very small. Even as we build mighty ships of steel, we must know our place.”
“Well,” Serena said, “right now your place is with me. I want you there with us when we meet the survivors; see if you recognise them.” Menes, in his position in Ishaq’s perimeter defense, knew the officers of the Myrmidon and Indefatigable by their names and faces. Apparently, he’d shared drinks with the Centralis crews on more than one occasion.
Serena gave her final set of orders to her officers before gathering Finella and her squad, along with Amelia. As they met her girlfriend in the corridor, Menes raised an eyebrow and asked, “You are bringing the kitchen mage?”
“Miss Liona has some combat capability,” Serena answered, waving the question away.
Some combat capability, Serena thought. Understatement of the century.
“Hello!” Amelia said, waving cheerfully to Menes. “Oh, Se—I mean, Captain,” Amelia said, awkwardly indicating to Serena’s horns with her eyes. “You, uh…”
“Yes,” Serena said, trying to inject as much disapproval in her voice as she could. “We’ll be discussing your knot-tying abilities in the future, Miss Liona.”
“Mmm… sure!”
Clicking her tongue, Serena led everyone outside onto the first deck, waiting the final minutes as the Vengeance manoeuvred to a position where it could dock against the small island barely bigger than itself. As they approached the final dozen metres, Serena pushed her aura into a healthy orange, trying to detect if there was anything unusual—anything suspicious.
“If anything seems out of place,” Finella said quietly to her squad. “Don’t hesitate.” Finella gave Serena a look and they exchanged a nod. It was good that they were on the same page.
For Serena, at least, her concerns about a potential ambush were dropping by the second.
While the stranded demons hadn’t been marooned long enough to starve, Serena could see that many of them had only managed to get little sleep. The deep-set weariness in their eyes and expressions was evident, even if many of them were smiling with jubilant cheers. Their clothing looked as dirty and in disrepair as one might expect of a shipwrecked crew; they were torn, but not from a blade.
And, above all, the vast majority of them were Cerulean—with light-coloured hair and stubby horns—matching the expected ethnic makeup of the Myrmidon. If they were pirates in disguise, then they must have had to dig deep to find enough Cerulean members in their ranks to put together for such a deception.
The Vengeance belched steam from its vents and made its final alignment. With a clunk, the ship’s gangway extended, connecting them to the shipwrecked island. For a moment, everyone became quiet, simply looking at each other with eyes of appraisal.
“Captain Serena Halen!” Serena shouted, her loud and clear voice piercing through the slowly worsening weather. “Of Her Majesty’s Imperial Cruiser, the Vengeance!” Her voice trailed off, and for a moment, no one on the other side moved.
Then someone stepped forward.
“Acting Captain Alaric Voss,” the demon said, saluting and then double-tapping his horns with respect. “We were worried when we sighted a black ship, but to think it was you, Captain Halen. Last I heard, we were supposed to be escorting you, rather than you rescuing us.” Alaric smiled weakly at his joke. “The Empress smiled on us today.”
The Acting Captain’s eyes widened when he saw Menes. “Sayyid Bastet. I am surprised to see you here. May the blessings of the Red Moon light your way.” Again, the demon tapped his horns.
“Hmm…” Menes hummed.
Serena watched Alaric closely. His appearance matched the documents Intelligence had shared with her through Aiden, but his current position didn’t.
“Acting Captain?” she queried. “What happened to Captain Duval?”
“Captain Duval has left for the under-sky,” Alaric said solemnly. “I regret to inform you we have also lost Weapons Officer Henrik Falk, and Sensors Officer Lucius Bramwell, along with our Medical staff and fifty-four sailors. It has been…” The demon trailed off for a moment, swallowing awkwardly. “A difficult time.”
Serena glanced at the other survivors, noting their eyes full of sadness and pain. “Before we can examine your injured, explain to me what happened to the Myrmidon, quickly.”
“Yes, Captain Halen,” Alaric responded sharply. “We were trailing the Indefatigable eastward, approximately two-thirds through the passage, when, on the fifteenth of this month, we encountered catastrophic interference with our portside lift stabiliser shortly after sighting a black ship. It was some kind of aetheric attack like none I’ve ever experienced.”
As the demon took a breath to continue speaking, Serena cast a side-eye at Menes to see that he was doing the same to her. It appeared that the Arakian had picked up on the same thing.
A black ship.
Had the Blackhorn picked off the Myrmidon?
“The Myrmidon rolled into a nearby storm system,” Alaric continued, “and we entered an uncontrollable spin. Captain Duval, may the Empress light his way, fought to bring it under control, but it was too late. We collided with this island ten days ago. Injuring dozens, including Officer Bramwell. The ship’s lift engine was damaged, but otherwise we were mostly intact.”
“Intact?” Menes frowned, nodding towards the half-destroyed wreckage. “This does not look… mostly intact, yes?”
“Yes, Sayyid Bastet,” Alaric affirmed. “After three days, we were able to detach and reposition our aetherscope so we could monitor the surrounding area. We hoped rescue would come, but then we realised the island wasn’t lumina locked.” The demon tapped the ground with his foot, a grimace on his face. “We are slowly being pulled towards the Shattered Isles. Certain doom. As you might expect, morale hit rock bottom. If we were moving, then wouldn’t rescue be looking in the wrong place?” Alaric shook his head. He paused for a moment before taking a deep breath and continuing, “There were fights, despite Captain Duval’s best attempts to keep everyone’s spirits up. If it weren’t for Romulus, things might have escalated beyond control.”
“Who’s Romulus?” Serena asked, not remembering the name from the manifest she’d read.
“Our rat-catcher,” Alaric answered. “The Myrmidon picked up some vermin in Ishaq. They run up the ropes. Romulus is excellent at catching them before they can breed out of control.” He cleared his throat and continued, “So as shameful as it is, we became… desperate. We picked up a signature on the aetherscope. Bramwell—our expert—was still unconscious, and we could not rouse him for his opinion. The signature was disappearing, and we were convinced it was a rescue ship on the periphery of our aetherscope range. We feared our only chance would be lost forever, so the Captain ordered us to send it a ping. A loud ping.”
Serena’s mind instantly connected the dots, already knowing where the story was going.
“It wasn’t a ship, was it?” she asked softly.
“It was not,” came the response.
“But an archwhale wouldn’t attack so easily,” Serena said. “How many pings did you broadcast?”
“Only one, but…” Alaric sighed, rubbing his forehead. “It turned out to be a mother.”
“Oh.”
“With her pod of babies.”
“Oh.”
Serena didn’t say anything else, letting the revelation spread amongst the people present.
“...Foolish man,” Menes said, clenching a fist, “to harm one of his children.”
Arcwhales possessed, like many fauna in the Known World, an organ that detected aetherfield disturbances. It was a survival adaptation that enabled animals to avoid predators and find fragments of moon crystal to consume. Large animals, such as adult arcwhales, were generally resistant to most aetherscopes, but could still be harmed by persistent pinging, especially by massive installations, such as the kind Finella spent time at. Baby arcwhales didn’t have the same resistance. They were highly sensitive until they matured.
“We injured its offspring, so it attacked. It happened so fast. It was so powerful”—Alaric gestured to the fragmented remains of the Myrmidon—“we were helpless. Captain Duval and Weapons Officer Falk tried to defend, but it cast the most terrible magic. We were assaulted by rain, lightning and blasts of wind that tore into our hull. The ship was shattered, and everything from the bridge to Medical to the cargo hold and everyone sheltering within was blown off the island.” The demon's shoulders slumped. “That’s how we lost Captain Duval and the other officers.”
“Did it Speak?” Serena asked. “Did it invoke Rhaknam’s name?”
Alaric shook his head. “I don’t believe it did. If it had, I’m sure none of us would remain.”
“What did you do after the attack?”
“I took command. Our aetherscope was damaged and it would take a long time to fix, so I ordered preparations in the hope we might survive entering the Shattered Isles. If we were lucky, it would spit us out the other side and we’d be able to get the attention of a ship. We harvested debris to maintain the signal fire”—Alaric nodded towards the fire at the crest of the island, belching smoke and flame—“and started digging into the island. Figured our chances would be better against a future collision if we were behind ten feet of rock. Progress is slow, we only have access to a first-circle earth mage.”
At his words, a nearby demon raised his hand to make his existence known. The stranded mage looked to be suffering early signs of aether exhaustion. The man must have been pushing himself bloody to try and secure enough shelter for everyone.
“We lost most of our food in the attack,” Alaric continued, “so we’ve done our best to set up fishing lines. We lost the Medical wing, but we have ten pairs of horns, too injured to move, set up in what remains of the ship’s quarters.”
“Are any of your injured close to death?” Serena asked, glancing at Amelia. Serena wouldn’t let a fellow sailor die just to avoid the chance that the Myrmidon’s crew might have loose lips. And even if she would, Amelia wouldn’t.
“Those that were died in the night,” came the response.
“Last night?”
The Acting Captain nodded. “We had the funeral this morning.”
“My condolences,” Serena said, tilting her head. “Our medical bay is more than prepared to take over. No more will die under our watch.” She resisted the urge to look at Menes. She knew what he would be thinking.
If I hadn’t gone to the fortress and instead searched immediately, they could have been saved, Serena thought.
Consequences. The terrible price of command.
Serena cleared her throat. “We have hot food and warm beds,” she said. “We have some fine roasted hog left over from our Christmas meal. If I remember correctly, it’s so tender it melts in your mouth!” As she spoke, she could see the stranded demons swallow, their eyes brightening in anticipation. “I’ll have the kitchen bring out some wine, not to celebrate your rescue, or to drown your sorrows, but to honour your lost brothers!”
As she received hearty cheers, Serena stood aside and allowed the stranded sailors to board the Vengeance. She briefly returned to the bridge to update Dagon and have Tomes start processing the identification of each person before returning and overseeing the process.
“Officer Bright, take your squad and retrieve the injured.”
“Aye, Captain,” Finella responded.
“I-I’ll help!” Amelia piped up, looking at Serena for permission.
Serena only hesitated for a moment before giving her a nod.
After Amelia crossed onto the island, Alaric spoke up. “I should also help, Captain Halen.” He made to move, but Serena put a hand out, stopping him.
“No need. Tell me, are there any documents that need to be recovered or destroyed?”
“We lost nearly everything of value when the bridge was destroyed,” Alaric responded. “The important documents left in the Captain’s Quarters…” He tapped his chest, where the inner pocket of his uniform was located, “I have them right here.”
“Good work, Acting Captain,” Serena said. “Have you faced any further trouble from the arcwhales? Any other ship sightings?”
“No ships, Captain,” the demon answered. “We saw the occasional arcwhale. They seemed interested in the signal fire, but we hid when they approached. Some of them were bigger than the island itself, I swear on the Yellow Moon. How such beasts stay in the sky is beyond me…” Alaric trailed off before continuing, “We jury-rigged the remains of the engine, figured we might risk broadcasting some aetheric combustion signatures in the hopes a nearby ship might see, but when it came to it… I wasn’t brave enough to order the men to try it. I was too scared we would be attacked again.”
Serena nodded, feeling her mouth tense. Alaric’s words made her concerned that the Vengeance’s lift engine could attract unwanted attention. She already knew they were closer than they would have liked to the Shattered Isles, but if there was an angry arcwhale prowling the skies looking to take further revenge, she couldn’t linger for long.
“We’ll be out of these skies sooner rather than later,” Serena said, assuring both herself and the demon next to her. “You’ll be back in Ishaq before you know it, Acting Captain.”
“...Thank you, Captain.” Alaric coughed politely before asking, “Is it safe to assume you missed meeting the Indefatigable? I was worried they might have been attacked in the same manner we were. I’m not certain they saw or detected our disappearance immediately.”
“We’ll discuss the Indefatigable later,” Serena said, glancing at Menes. “Safe to say, some interesting occurrences have taken place in the passage these last few weeks. I’m particularly interested in hearing details of this black ship and the manner in which it was able to cause trouble for your lift engine.”
“Captain Duval made a sketch of it,” Alaric said, tapping his chest. “A strange-looking ship.”
“Useful,” Serena intoned, as the injured remains of the survivors started to be brought out of the wreckage, carried by Finella and her squad using makeshift stretchers. The injured were unconscious, with bandaged bodies and broken limbs. A few even had broken horns.
“Four more left inside,” Finella said as she passed by.
Amelia came out last and Serena was just about to give her an appreciative look for holding back on her healing for now when she stopped, noticing what her girlfriend was carrying.
“What in the Seven Hells…” Serena muttered.
“Look what I found!” Amelia announced happily, her face stretched with a wide grin.
“I see you met Romulus,” Alaric said. “As I said, it was because of him that morale didn’t collapse. We’re blessed that we didn’t lose him when the arcwhale attacked.”
“When you said rat-catcher, I assumed you meant the profession. I didn’t expect…” Serena gestured to Romulus, who was doing his absolute best to cover Amelia’s disguise in as much saliva as possible.
“He’s so licky!” Amelia said, hugging Romulus.
“He likes you,” Alaric said, before turning to Serena. “I hope you won’t mind hosting him. The crew have become quite attached to him. He’s a pure-bred Luscan. Salt-harvesting waterships use them to hunt vermin that sneak aboard. He was Captain Durval’s.”
Serena sighed.
“Of course,” she said as Amelia approached. Serena reached out and gave Romulus a pat on the head. “Welcome aboard the Vengeance, Romulus.”
“Mew,” answered Romulus, the Luscan peeka.