Gormánuður
The Slaughter Month
October
Thunder boomed overhead, and lightning struck the water mere meters from the ship’s bow. The fragile peace I’d struck with my crew had not extended to the sea. As we turned the ship for the continent, the ocean fought us. Hail crashed onto the deck like stones hurled from the sky. Thick clouds blocked the moon and stars. The waves tossed Forseti’s Arm up in the air, then threw her down again like a child’s toy. Each time we crested one of the titanic swells, I wondered if the water would crash over the deck and break the ship into pieces.
Ersel had once told me how she’d spent her childhood exploring wrecks and gathering human trinkets. I didn’t want to imagine my ship at the bottom of the ocean with curious mermaids swimming over our skeletons. But as the water started to pool on the deck, it was hard to think of anything else.
I knelt beside the stempost and held onto it with all my strength. The men clung to their benches and prayed. Ersel sat inside the skiff, which we had dragged onto the deck when the clouds began obscuring the sky. She wrapped four tentacles around the warship’s mast to anchor herself, and the other four around the hull of the skiff. Even with the storm threatening to drown us all, someone needed to guard the weapons. I knew too well that desperation made people brave. Unlike the rest of us, Ersel was the picture of calm. Her expression was almost apathetic as she gazed out over the gigantic waves. Drowning wasn’t something she had to fear.
Steinair vomited on the deck, and a wave rinsed it toward me. My stomach heaved, but I kept my mouth clamped shut. I couldn’t look weak in front of the crew. Not now, when my position was still so precarious. It was a good thing I had forgone the stale bread we’d passed around for breakfast.
Ersel shifted her grip, and a gust blew the skiff out from under her, scattering weapons. I dodged as a dagger flew past my shoulder into the sea. Trygve battled his way across the deck, opened the hatch to the hold and kicked swords, axes, and maces into the belly of the ship. As he slammed the hatch closed, he slipped on the deck and collided with Torstein. Both of them rolled toward the starboard edge and the crashing waves below.
Two men grabbed Torstein’s arms. My boatswain tumbled toward the ship’s rail. My heart stopped. I lurched to my feet. I was too far away. Would they let him drown? I knew they resented Trygve’s position. Without him, my control over the ship would be even more tenuous. But two aquamarine tentacles wrapped around his waist, pulling him to safety. I closed my eyes with relief, even as a new fear assailed me. My two friends and I had to look out for each other. The crew would not save us.
It had been nearly three days since I’d reversed our course. The storm was the latest in a string of disasters that had begun when Smyain discovered that one of our ale-barrels had been polluted with seawater. We were running low on food, and our supply of fresh water was down to the dregs. If even one man died, the crew would blame me. It would be ironic if we survived the infamous Trap only to perish here.
The ocean took on an electric, cyan glow as another bolt of lightning pierced the waves. Ersel glanced at the sky, then crawled toward me. She peered over the ship’s rail and pointed down at the water. It was lit as if a thousand jellyfish clustered just beneath the swelling waves. Overhead, the sky had turned yellow.
“We need to row away from here,” Ersel hissed, her voice raw with fear. The apathy she’d worn earlier had slipped. Her gaze darted wildly from the waves to me.
I hesitated. I’d never sailed through the eye of a storm before, but the color of the water didn’t seem natural to me. And if Ersel, who had lived her whole life at sea, was afraid, then I didn’t want to know what might be lurking beneath the waves. Still, if we tried to row, we might snap an oar. Worse, one of the men could be pitched overboard.
“I can’t ask them to row in a storm like this.” I dug my hook into the ship’s rail to anchor myself as a neon wave crashed over the stern. The crew scrambled back, out of reach. The water glowed like green fire on the deck. I imagined it eating through the wood of the bow, burning us all alive. “If we don’t hang on, we’ll be swept into the sea. The wind could shatter the mast. We have to save the oars.”
Ersel gripped my arm. Even under the blue scales that covered most of her fingers, her knuckles were white. “I can breathe under these waves. I have nothing to fear from the ocean, but the color… I have only seen a color like that in the North Sea once, and it was right before I met Loki.”
My chest constricted with fear. Could the Trickster influence the water? Ersel had left her home to escape them, but Loki still believed she had passed a kind of test. They had wanted her to serve them. They had promised to come after her. “The Trickster doesn’t have dominion over the weather,” I scoffed, trying to sound confident.
“Don’t under estimate them.” Ersel lifted one of her tentacles into the air. The mouths on its slimy underside gaped at me. “I did. Look what it got me. I was almost trapped like this forever. Loki may have followed us from my home.”
“Should we pray to them?” I asked hesitantly. “To stop the storm?”
Ersel’s eyes flashed with anger. “Pray to them? Don’t ever invoke them.”
The sail stretched in the wind and then tore. Ersel was right. Out on the high seas, with only some wood and nails separating us from death, was not the place to try my luck with the God of Lies.
Another wave broke over the deck, sweeping Bjarak into the water. By the time Torstein and I scrambled to the rail to look for him, the cyan waves had engulfed him. I imagined drowning beneath the liquid fire: crawling to reach the air, kicking my legs through a thick mucus, as jellyfish closed in around me, poisoned stingers ready. If I died here, what would happen to Yarra?
“Get to your benches!” I screamed over the wind. “Pick up your oars. We have to sail beyond this storm.”
The crew stared, faces ashen beneath their sodden wool hoods.
“Look at the color of the water!” I spread my arms wide. The ocean glowed so brightly now that the mast cast a shadow across the deck. “If you want to live, we have to get out of here.”
To my surprise, Torstein was the first to his bench. He grabbed the nearest oar and began rowing with all his strength. His jaw was set, but his eyes had a glassy, disbelieving expression. He knew this was no natural storm. “To oars, lads!” he shouted.
I seized another oar and sat beside him. With only one hand, my ability to row was limited, but that didn’t seem to matter to the crew. Seeing me take a position, the rest of them scrambled to fill the benches. I braced the oar under my armpit. We began to row in tandem, Torstein’s shoulder brushing mine. The water churned like thick butter.
Smyain began to chant in time with the oars, and the rest of the crew joined him in song. I lost myself in the movement and the music, the fear and the pain. The ship slowly crested the cyan waves, propelled toward the glimmer of blue sky ahead.
Ersel crawled past us. She slipped behind the stern and into the sea. I whirled around. The trance of the song was broken. What was she thinking? Didn’t she worry that the waves would swallow her? Was she abandoning us? The warship lurched forward. Abandoning my oar, I raced to the stern. Ersel’s small hands were braced against the hull and her mermaid’s tale kicked us forward.
The men stopped rowing. The ship shuddered, and a wave broke over the bow, bathing the deck in light. Forseti’s Arm weighed far too much for one mermaid to shift, blessed with gods’ strength or not.
“Keep going!” I called over the wind, but none of the men moved. I tried to scramble to my bench, but the wind kept blowing me against the rail.
“Row!” Torstein bellowed.
The men threw all their strength against the oars. A wave taller than a house slammed into the deck. The mast cracked at the base; the weight of the sail dragged it into the sea. The men shouted, and a few of them abandoned their oars to throw themselves to their knees on deck. The ship moaned, and boards sprang loose across the deck.
Torstein’s reedy voice began the song again. A chorus of hoarse, frightened whispers answered. Our broken ship struggled on, and ahead blue sky battled the dark clouds. I clenched my fist so tight my nails drew blood. Torstein was saving our lives, and yet a jealous, insidious voice inside me insisted that maybe I should push him into the sea right now. I should finish what I had started. If he was gone, the crew would have no choice but to follow me.
Hugging the starboard rail, I moved toward him. I grabbed the remnant of the tattered sail and used it to pull myself along the deck. But as I reached the benches, a ray of sunlight broke through the black clouds and bathed my face in warmth. I extended my hand and let the sunlight pool in my palm. A cheer broke out: a cheer, I knew, that was not for me.