--Late at night. At a bolted trestle table in the galley of the Greenest Dolphin - the only one not uprooted and turned into scrap. Two young men are talking in hushed tones; one burly and broadshouldered, with hands like a miner, the other slender, with sideswept black hair and eyes that seem to notice the smallest movements. The bigger man is speaking...emotional, grateful, questioning,
"...Will you please let me know if there's some damn way I can help you? Not now ... whenever. Whenever you want."--
(In the common quarters, aboard the Greenest Dolphin)
Yeshev crouches, his ears pressed against the squat cabin door leading out of the forecastle. An otherwordly howling pierces through it, and the sounds of something large scratches its way across the deck. He holds up a single finger.
"I only make one, so far."
Its been a long and terrible day. The ominous mists have come alive, turned against the crew and the passengers aboard, coalescing into giant creatures with sharp fangs that stalk the quarterdeck relentlessly in waves. The wounded are piled up in the communal sleeping chambers, the screaming of the afternoon replaced by quiet moans and a tense silence.
Rostam Marzani shifts from his position, his voice urgent. "We need.. we need to fight. Now. Before their numbers grow." Waving off concerns voiced at his injuries, he insists, "If we do not, we'll face four at once again. We must hold them off from the doors." He gathers the burly smith Yesin, the duelist At'ar al-Tessere, Vahir, Sayid. Some wield steel, others have made do with rough hewn scraps of wood. He concocts a quick plan, and a torch is struck into life. "We'll see how they like real fire," the lofty, retired Lion Guard growls. He just needs someone to hold the torch, and his eyes fall on slender young man by the door.
The slender young man mutters to himself and pushes a stray lock of hair from his face. "Right behind you, I guess," he sighs, sliding the steel jambiya from his waistloops as he takes the torch in his other hand.
Risking my life, in the middle of nowhere...for strangers I met barely a fortnight ago.
The four are out the door and onto the dark, blood-slicked deck. Sure enough, one of the monstrous foggy creatures stands in wait, roaring a challenge to the small band. Steel is drawn, the torch is thrust in its face, and frantically, the men hack it to its knees. As it dissipates back into swirling, incorporeal fog, At'ar screams, "Die, devil! The Caliphate prevails!"
The hard-won silence is short lived, as another of the beasts floats or hovers off the bow. Marzani sheathes his saber and brings out a crossbow, training it on the mottled fog beast. "All ready? When it charges, keep it off me...I will not have time to draw my sword!" The light from Yeshev's torch barely penetrates the swirling mists as Marzani looses one - two - three bolts into the creature. It hesitates, wounded and surprised. The mists above begin to shift, and Yeshev gasps in relief. "The sky! I can see the sky!"
But the young man has spoken too soon. The mottled beast from water screeches and breeches the deck, lunging for Marzani. The older man is knocked off balance, fumbling for his saber, and without hesitating Yeshev thrusts the torch in its eyes and stabs his jambiya at its gut. As he does, the mists behind him coalesce, a second mist-monster looming just behind him. Before Yeshev can react, its whiplike tail slams into his back, sending him staggering. The first creature rakes its claws across his ribs. Marzani loads and fires another bolt, but it sails wide. Yeshev can hear Yasin screaming his name now.
Time seems to freeze as Yeshev scans the fore and aft, weighing his options, running the calculations. He sees a clear shot to the hatch, but...Rostam is still struggling with the crossbow. The other men are regrouping. He does the math in his head again. Inek - whipped nearly unconscious the morning before. Kinsa, Esfandiar - wounded earlier. Illi - who knows if Illi's still alive? The captain - Yeshev gives a short, humorless chuckle - the captain hasn't had a handle on things since the mainmast snapped. If Rostam goes down...its going to be a slaughter. The creatures will storm the deck, the door will eventually give way...No. He reaches the hatch but keeps running, waving his torch frantically to keep the mist-creatures in pursuit of him. He knows what he has to do. Time. He has to keep them off Rostam .He needs to buy them time, to regroup, to make a stand, to turn back this wave.
And the hardest part - he's going to have to trust he was right about these people he barely knows.
--"Sure. When I get too clever for my own good, an' you find me layin' face down in the water...I'm counting on you to drag me out, smith," comes the slender young man's reply, grinning back over the bolted trestle table as his eyes track a sailor moving past the hearth.--
Yeshev is fast - but these things move like the wind. He turns hard, thrusting the crackling torch at their eyes, but one of them gets its jaws around his knife-arm. Yasin is running across the deck, his pickaxe whirling in the air, but the other mist-monster leaps onto Yeshev, its fangs sinking deep into his chest and ragdolling him. "Damn you! Fight me! Fight me!" Yasin is shouting with a terrible mixture of anger and fear, but to Yeshev its just a distant garble, like being under water. Everything is going dim, and all he can see is that cursed fog swirling around him.
Yeshev is vaguely aware of the blows Yasin is raining down on his tormentor's back...even more vaguely aware of At'ar's rapier, sliding triumphantly between its ribs...Its jaws release, and he slumps to the deck, bleeding everywhere...Vahir and Rostam have flanked the other mist-monster...there's a note of hope, fighting desperately for attention in Yeshev's fading consciousness...the tide is turning...the fog beginning to lighten...we wo-
Then the roaring pain drowns everything else out, and his vision goes black.