“I’ll let you carry her. I trust you know better now than to try anything?” Erik said.

  Connor gave a small nod, his attention focused on Adelia as he lifted her up. For all her strength, she felt incredibly light in his arms.

  Connor started toward the closest hatch with stairs that led back down into the heart of the ship. Bitterness, frustration, and worry for Adelia swirled inside him together with a sense of hopelessness.

  How is Erik this powerful? Connor wondered.

  He couldn’t help feeling stunned by Erik’s casual displays of might. And it’d seemed like Erik had intentionally been trying to avoid hurting them the entire time.

  Connor had fought his share of wizards and although most of them had been on the weaker end, he’d never encountered one like Erik. Especially not one that could cast without so much as a single word of power.

  The ship jerked to one side and Connor stumbled as did everyone else. One of the crewmen failed to regain his balance and fell hard on the slick deck. A glowing orb slipped from the man’s fingers and rolled across the deck ahead of him.

  “What are those elementals playing at?” Erik spat.

  The ship bucked from below with a bone-rattling thump that made Connor’s teeth ache.

  The deck fell silent. Even the storm suddenly sounded far away as every man on board halted for just an instant… no doubt all coming to the same conclusion at once.

  “That ain’t no wave, milord,” said the newly promoted captain with fear in his voice, “Man the ballistae! Ready the spears! Get those lights off my deck now!”

  The crewmen and even Erik paid no attention to Connor or Adelia now. Instead, they scrambled to tear canvas off the impressive weapons and load them as several others distributed long, enchanted spears among the crew.

  The water around the ship churned as though boiling as something worked the ocean into a froth.

  Connor swallowed hard. He’d intended to be long gone by the time anything was attracted by the blood and soft light of the glowing orbs… and he found himself wondering just what the spectacular display thousands of times brighter than that had drawn to them.

  We must’ve blazed like a beacon for miles, Connor thought.

  He pulled Adelia tighter against him and scanned the frothing waters for any threats. He thought of going beneath the deck, but it seemed wiser to stand around the weapons, sailors, and the relative safety of Erik’s power.

  Erik did seem to want them unharmed, after all.

  Lightning flashed, revealing large, glistening frills poking above the surface of the dark water. Each as large as a ship’s sails. Connor saw more frills on either side of the ship, stretching into the distance as though the ship rested above a mountain range.

  The ship lurched again, pulled unnaturally in the waves. Ocean water sprayed over the deck and wood creaked.

  Several sailors swore. Connor glanced down at Adelia, wishing she’d wake, but her eyes remained closed.

  “Steady, men. Whatever happens, we’ll handle it,” said the newly promoted captain.

  A massive serpentine head rose up out of the water on a long, sinuous neck with frills running down its spine. It stretched high into the air until it loomed over them like a tower.

  “Gods preserve us… a sea serpent,” muttered one of the sailors.

  Ocean water streamed down from the serpent like a waterfall as its tongue flicked out and its utterly black eyes regarded them. The soft glow of the orbs reflected in those dark eyes like glittering stars as the men carrying them stood frozen with fear.

  “Take aim,” said the captain, his voice clipped and his eyes not leaving the massive serpent’s head.

  His words snapped the sailors out of their frozen stupor and the ballistae turned, aiming their enchanted bolts at the massive serpent.

  Erik swelled back into the shape of a fiery werewolf and the serpent turned its attention to him.

  Its coils seemed to shift ever so slightly, but it was otherwise impossibly still even in the rolling waves.

  Connor very slowly backed away from Erik, holding Adelia close in his arms.

  “Fi—” the captain said and before he could finish the order, the serpent struck.

  Connor didn’t even see it move. One instant it was almost motionless, and the next its massive jaws were locked on Erik’s flaming form and continuing on over the side of the ship.

  The serpent’s head and Erik plunged into the dark ocean with the serpent’s bulk following after the creature. Rigging snapped and broke apart in a tangled mess over its frills as chests, ballista, and boats shattered into splinters of wood and metal against its thick scales. The shattered chests spilled dark iron ballista bolts over the deck like metal toothpicks.

  Several sailors unlucky enough to be caught in the sea serpent’s path were crushed with sickening, wet crunches before they had a chance to scream.

  Connor jumped backward on pure instinct, but far too late to have evaded it in the slightest. Only his earlier backing away and distance to Erik had saved him. A shiver of fear rippled through him at that and the sheer speed and lack of warning from the massive creature.

  Ballista fired and enchanted dark iron bolts detonated against the sea serpent’s massive scales, erupting into fireballs along its length. But they were dwarfed by the sheer size of the creature and merely singed its thick scales as its bulk flowed over the deck like a river of carnage.

  Many of the sailors stabbed futilely at the serpent, their enchanted spears failing to do more than lightly scratch the creature’s impossibly tough scales.

  For a moment, Connor thought Erik had been killed. Crushed in the serpent’s massive jaws and pumped full of deadly venom. But the ocean flared with hundreds of red-orange lights the color of Erik’s magic beneath the waves.

  They hurtled toward the serpent’s bulk like comets and their light revealed a teeming horde of thousands of smaller dark shapes the size of sharks in the water.

  The comets exploded against the serpent’s bulk, erupting in geysers of water that sprayed ocean water over the deck and made the ship buck wildly.

  The sight struck Connor with awe and fully confirmed that Erik had indeed been holding back when facing Adelia and himself.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Even amid the chaos and danger, Connor found himself laughing. A dark chuckle that he’d ever thought he could beat the Syndicate back in Vigil.

  The way Erik fought seemed more like the stories from days before the Binding. Back when gods had walked the earth and wielded powers too great and terrible to imagine.

  Why the Syndicate had bothered with treachery when someone like Erik could likely walk in and take over whichever kingdom he desired, Connor didn’t know.

  More bolts exploded along the serpent’s bulk. So many of them that even the mighty scales blackened and burned from the assault.

  “Reload and fire again!” shouted the captain.

  The serpent’s bulk shifted, sliding over the deck like a landslide, shattering and crushing everything in its path. Mighty ballistae broke upon its scales like water on rock as did the crews that operated them.

  Connor ran from the avalanche of scales as the ship shook under his feet. His enhanced strength gave him an explosive speed and he rushed past several sailors.

  They screamed behind him as they fell beneath the scales only for their screams to be abruptly cut short by the crackle, pop, and crunch of breaking bones.

  The serpent’s scales smashed against the already-damaged mainmast and the entire ship shuddered violently as the mainmast snapped.

  Connor stumbled and fell to one knee, squeezing Adelia against him and forcing himself up and forward out of sheer desperation. A moment’s hesitation would mean certain death.

  Connor didn’t dare look back, but he heard the mainmast fall with the sound of groaning wood like some great tree. It smashed against the deck behind him and the ship reverberated from the impact.

  But, after that, the ship seemed to shudder less violently, so Connor spared a glance back and saw the serpent’s coil had stopped moving for the moment. He looked down at Adelia.

  “Adelia,” he said as he shook her slightly in his arms, “I could really use your help right now.”

  But his words were drowned out by several more ballista bolts exploding against the serpent’s scales.

  The serpent’s head burst out of the ocean again, with Erik scratching and tearing at its snout as it tried desperately to bite him. It wound over the ship with another coil ahead of Connor and plunged with Erik into the depths once more.

  Connor looked at the coil in front of him and the one behind him and felt as though he were trapped between two slimy walls. Slimy walls that could crush him and Adelia into paste.

  Well… maybe she’d live through it… but I certainly wouldn’t, Connor thought.

  He looked around, anxious for the next thing they needed to avoid and eager to find something, anything that might help them survive this.

  The serpent’s coils tightened, squeezing the massive ship like it was some great beast to be suffocated and dragged beneath the waves.

  Wood creaked as the entire ship listed to one side and the few remaining ballistae fired as fast as the men could load the things. Others continued to stab at the hard scales with enchanted spears.

  A few had managed to stab between the thick plates, but even that seemed minimal to such a great beast and Connor wasn’t sure if it even noticed their efforts.

  “Adelia!” Connor shouted above the din of battle and the raging storm as he tapped her face lightly. But she still didn’t stir.

  The serpent’s coils tightened. Wood groaned and cracked as the ship tilted further on its side. The port side of the ship tipped toward the ocean.

  Connor ran starboard, up the ship to the higher railing, still carrying Adelia in his arms.

  His enhanced strength allowed him to move with explosive speed, but as the ship tilted more, his feet gained less purchase and he started to slow and slip on the slick deck.

  As Connor neared the railing that had now become the top of the ship, his feet slipped out from under him and he reached out with one hand, grasping for the ballista closest to him.

  He just barely managed to catch onto it and held on firmly as many of its crew did the same, with some holding on to the railing on either side.

  Connor held Adelia tight against him with his one arm and with his other, he pulled himself up further along the ballista. Half walking, half climbing up the ship to where he could get a better grip, and then up to the railing.

  As the ship tilted, turning onto its side, everything that wasn’t secured to the deck slid down toward the dark depths and the frenzied horde of slender shapes darting beneath its surface.

  Men clung to the railings, masts, and anything they could find as those not fortunate enough to get a handhold fell into the water.

  Dark black, partially translucent fish the size of sharks swarmed over them, ripping the men to pieces with massive jaws filled with large, misshapen teeth.

  The water churned with their movements, backlit by the orange glow of Erik’s battle with the sea serpent beneath them.

  A chunk of railing gave way and three men that’d been using it as a handhold plummeted into the water. Two of them were ripped apart in an instant. Several fish bit into them with massive jaws and swam off in different directions, ripping the men apart before more hungrily tore into them before they’d even finished dying.

  The water surged strangely, forming a crescent blade that cut through several of the fish and bought one of the men enough time to make it back to the surface.

  Another pulse stirred the waves and ripped more fish into bloody chunks though Connor couldn’t see what caused it in the dark water.

  But whatever it was, there were too many of the fish for it to fend off and the man screamed as one bit off his shoulder and arm and another tore off his head.

  The fish swarmed his body and the bodies of their own kind with equal ferocity.

  Connor swallowed hard. He’d hoped something like this might befall the ship. Just not while he was on it.

  He felt a sense of guilt too, watching men getting torn limb from limb as a result of his actions. But they were far from innocent, and the feeling of guilt was drowned out by the overwhelming fear of the same happening to him and Adelia.

  “Adelia!” he shouted, desperate to wake her. He had no idea how to get himself through this alive, let alone her as well.

  But she didn’t stir. Whatever Erik had done, not even she could shrug it off so easily.

  The wood of the railing was slick and wet in his grip, but he kept a firm grip as the ship listed fully onto its side.

  Connor’s feet dangled in the air beneath him and he looked down just in time to see those that’d grabbed hold of the masts for safety fall prey to the fish.

  The two-meter-long creatures leapt out of the water, grabbing the men in their massive jaws and plunging into the depths with them. Only for others to swarm upon them beneath the waves and rip the hapless men to pieces in a feeding frenzy.

  Connor gripped the wood and Adelia so tight his fingers ached. He took a calming breath which steamed in the air. For the moment, they were alive. And the only way they’d stay that way was by keeping calm and finding a path through this.

  Connor looked over his surroundings.

  Erik and the serpent continued their battle. Evidenced by the pulsing orange glow emanating beneath the waves and the geysers of water that sprayed into the air.

  Whichever of them won, he and Adelia were doomed if they were still on the ship. Either they’d be devoured in the ocean boiling with hungry snapping jaws or suffer the Syndicate’s promised ‘re-education.’

  Neither option seemed appealing.

  The dark shapes were going wild beneath the water and judging by the human look of more than a few of them, it seemed like a hole had opened in the side of the ship and the hungry fish were feeding with wild abandon.

  Looking over the ocean, it seemed that the fish were heavily concentrated on the deck side of the ship, with what had once been the bottom angled away from the carnage.

  Though it still had too many of those dark shapes for Connor’s liking.

  Deafening thunder rumbled as Connor considered his options.

  The ship was sinking, whether dragged down by the serpent’s coils or from the water flooding into it, he wasn’t sure, but if they stayed, they’d be stuck in the middle of a feeding frenzy.

  If he jumped off the side away from the main frenzy… they might avoid the worst of it. But they would also be alone and surrounded. He doubted he could defend himself against many of those creatures. Let alone himself and Adelia. And, doing so would fill the water with blood, and attract even more to their position, he was sure.

  He looked at her again, her peaceful face looked utterly out of place in their current situation. Worry gnawed at him. It wasn’t a good sign that she still hadn’t woken, and he found himself afraid that she might not.

  But there wasn’t much he could do about that. Not right now at least.

  He looked again at the ocean. Jumping off the side seemed like the least terrible option…

  I’ll have to keep her above water, so she can breathe. I still have the runed rod I took from the armory. If I use that rather than my knives, there shouldn’t be much blood. Maybe that’d be enough to avoid the worst of their attention and get out of here? But, if I’m pulled under, we’re both done for. There has to be a better way… Connor thought.

  But if there was… he didn’t see it. Most of the boats were little more than debris floating in the water. The only ones that had survived were tied by canvas and would have to be righted and bailed out. Things he doubted those creatures would give him the chance to do.

  “Look,” said one of the sailors holding onto the railing near Connor, “there’s birds.”

  “Idiot,” said another, “birds don’t fly in storms. And we have bigger problems.”

  Another flash of lightning split the sky and Connor saw what the first sailor had been talking about. A flock of winged shapes was heading straight for them. Only they didn’t look like any birds Connor had ever seen.

  They had long, serpentine tails ending in barbed points and Connor’s eyes widened as he realized what they were.

  “Those aren’t birds,” said another, giving voice to Connor’s own thoughts, “those are wyverns. Storm wyverns!”

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