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Cold Light of Day - Rob Sanders

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COLD LIGHT OF DAY

Rob Sanders

Captain Bale Charnoslav of the Blagovashchenko uncorked the bottle and drank, letting let the liquid fire slide down his throat. The crowded quarterdeck of the whaler was bustling with sailors and petty officers who drove them on with batons and fierce looks. All knew better than to disturb their captain when he had a bottle in his hand. He was no drunkard or tyrant but he had his ways, and this was one of them.

New hands were no doubt baffled by their commander’s behaviour, some stopping to watch as Charnoslav detached the bottle from his lips with a slurp and made a toast to the chill waters of the river Lynsk. If they hadn’t been rapped across the back of the skull with a belaying pin, they would have seen him pour the rest of the bottle into the water and then they would have known he was mad. Charnoslav didn’t feel the need to explain his actions to his crew. He was captain and commander and his orders would be obeyed.

As it was, he was not drinking to the waters for safe passage or to appease some ocean deity. He was saluting the battered shell of the one hundred gun Kraskovia, dismasted and broken backed on the mudflats in the centre of the river. He had served on her as a master’s mate, during her last voyage. The old lady had received a mauling in her final action and, in the boarding that followed, lost all officers and over two thirds of her men. Charnoslav brought her back into Erengrad, shattered and jury-rigged but afloat and victorious. She had been paid off and turned into a prison hulk, a notoriously effective one. No one had ever escaped from the Kraskovia alive. The mud flats spelt certain death for anyone trying to cross them. Their reputation was enough to deter most would-be escapees.

There were several hulks lining the mouth of the river: the Tsar Alexandr, the disease ridden Osminog, Admiral Rebrov’s Borodino and the colossal Imperatritsa. Charnoslav always took his convicts from Kraskovia, however. He felt the old lady brought him luck, which he needed. He was well known in Erengrad as the ‘crazy captain’ who hunted whales at the top of the world. Sometimes, ghoulish crowds would gather on the wharfs to gape at the warped monstrosities he brought in. The trading company paid handsomely, they could afford to with the gargantuan specimens that Charnoslav towed into harbour, but outlawed waters and killer catches were enough to dissuade most of the city’s sailors and whalers from joining his crew. Charnoslav was forced to recruit wreckers, freebooters, smugglers and madmen from the city’s prison hulks, their freedom bought by the company.

The captain glared maniacally around his vessel, flashing the whites of his eyes and his teeth at the motley specimens that tramped by.

‘I signed aboard a whaler,’ Charnoslav sang harshly up the deck. ’I made me mark it’s true. An’ I’ll serve out me contract, as I swore that I would do. But those devil fish they rammed us; they smashed us one by one. They stove the boats in with head and fluke, and after they was done, we poor souls left half-alive, was clinging to debris…’

‘Excuse me, captain.’

Charnoslav turned slowly with a lazy snarl to finish his shanty:

‘I’ll never let those bastards rest, I’ll never let them be. Not until you find me, at the bottom of the sea.’

The captain greeted the newcomer with dead eyes, his displeasure obvious even through his thick beard. In the middle of the deck stood a thin, bespectacled man who looked completely out of place on the deck of a whaling vessel. He was clean and wore expensive clothes with trims and frills. In his arms he held a collection of scrolls and papers. The captain could read, but that had only taught him to distrust words more. Charnoslav took an instant dislike to the spruce stranger.

‘My name is Nickolai Mendelstamm of the Paluga-Bel’kovo Trading Company. I represent the interests of Miss Andreya Bel’kovo…’ The clerk hesitated for a moment, detecting no signs of recognition on the captain’s weather beaten face. ‘You do know of Miss Bel’kovo, don’t you, captain?’ Mendelstamm persisted.

‘Can’t say as I do. Now, Mister Whatever-your-name is, I’m busy. My ship leaves tonight. Why don’t you come back tomorrow?’ Charnoslav barged past him, scattering a group of resting sailors with a curl of his lip. He detested these city types with their short hair and heavy purses. He grabbed a signals telescope and trained it on the latest boatload of convicts he had recruited from the prison hulk. They were making slow progress across the bay.

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible, captain,’ the clerk called after him. Charnoslav pulled the telescope away and regarded him sourly.

‘You still here?’ he asked with genuine surprise. He handed the telescope to a passing sailor. ‘Pass word for the boatswain. Straight away if you please.’ Mendelstamm swallowed and watched the smirking sailor go. Steeling himself he looked back at Charnoslav, but the captain was already by the wheel, checking his maps and charts. Straightening his cloak, Mendalstamm approached him once again.

‘Captain, I regret to inform you of the death of your employer, Anton Bel’kovo. I’m sorry.’

Charnoslav grunted. ‘Don’t be. I hardly knew him. I only deal with Boris.’ The captain cupped his hands and shouted overboard: ‘Boat ahoy!’ Mendelstamm visibly jumped. ‘Give way, you damned lubbers!’

‘Miss Bel’kovo has assumed control of her father’s share of the company. We are unhappy with the books and their order, and we have some reservations in particular about your methods.’

‘I drag porkers into harbour, see,’ Charnoslav glowered at the clerk. ‘What you and your bastard company does with them afterwards is your business. I just find ’em and kill ’em.’

‘In illegal waters,’ Mendelstamm reminded him. Charnoslav turned on the quill-pusher, grabbing his arms and pinning them against his chest. Mendalstamm wheezed. The captain glared at him.

‘Wherever I can find ’em.’ The two men shared a moment, oblivious to the whaler’s frozen observers. Mendalstamm went to say something, but thought better of it. The grin of a maniac spread across Charnoslav’s face and the captain burst into song once more: ‘Now Oleg’s blind, Yerik’s lost an arm, and Sevastian’s gone below. My leg will heal but other men, no more aloft can go. I’ll never let those bastards rest, I’ll never let them be. Not until you find me, at the bottom of the sea.’

Charnoslav finally released his grip and pushed the clerk back across the deck. The insane gaiety had gone from the captain as fast as it had appeared. He stood tall and serious. ‘I hunt monsters. That costs money and it costs lives.’ Charnoslav rubbed his fingers at the fallen clerk, still feeling the silkiness of his robe on his rough skin. ‘You sir, haven’t done badly out of it.’ Charnoslav looked around, noticing the still bodies on the deck and in the rigging. ‘Get back to work, you swabs!’ he growled, ‘lively there, unless you want to find out what a whale looks like from the inside. Ahh, Mr Denko.’ Mendalstamm turned around to find the hulking shape of the gap toothed boatswain behind him. ‘Mr Mendalstamm is leaving us.’

‘Aye, sir,’ the boatswain rasped, half dragging the molested clerk to his feet.

‘Belay that order!’

From behind Mr Denko’s huge form stepped a young lady dressed in modest skins and furs. She was not pretty but her hair was red and striking. The boatswain looked from the woman to his captain, confused. Charnoslav looked from Denko to the woman, who was advancing like a predatory cat. And then he noticed the fine trunks and cases being loaded on the quarterdeck behind her.

‘Over my dead body,’ Charnoslav hissed.

‘Get up, Mr Mendelstamm, there’s a good gentleman,’ she said as she stepped around her clerk, but she didn’t take her eyes off Charnoslav. She offered her hand and a disarming smile, given the ugly nature of the scene. ‘Pleased to meet you captain, I’m–‘

‘Miss Bel’kovo, yes.’ Charnoslav became aware, once again, that his vessel had come to a complete standstill. There was a woman on the quarterdeck. Little work would be done while she remained. ‘I needs to speak with you,’ he growled, already manhandling her towards the gangway. She shrugged him off with a cold look.

‘I’m not a slab of whale meat, captain.’

Charnoslav dropped his eyes and lowered his voice, his eyes flicking between the soft but determined lines on her face and the dirty smirks of some of his crew. They would not make the same distinction she had.

‘Listen to me, Miss Bel’kovo. I’ve just learned of the death of your father. I’m sorry an’ all.’

‘Don’t be,’ she replied abruptly. ‘I hardly knew him.’

Charnoslav pursed his lips. ‘But, you see, taking passage on this here vessel would be a rash thing to do. Beyond the danger of the hunt itself, my men are largely convicts.’

‘I know. My company pays for them.’ Again she smiled.

‘You’re not hearing me, lass. They’re thieves, murderers and madmen. They’re not to be trusted. I can’t have a woman on board. Impossible.’

‘Captain, this is my charter.’

‘Your charter,’ Charnoslav spat, ‘but my ship!’

‘And my crew,’ Bel’kovo reminded him. ‘It seems we have reached an impasse.’ Charnoslav boiled in front of her, not quite understanding the words that she was using and finding it difficult to find his own. He had not felt this way since he was a boy, wrangling with his sister Yelena over the kitchen table.

‘Now you do whatever you have to do to make this situation tolerable, captain, but my clerk and I sail on this vessel tonight.’ She spun on her heel and strode across the deck, making for the hatchway. ‘Mr Mendalstamm, with me please. Boatswain, bring our things,’ she called before disappearing below decks.

Despite his earlier pomposity, Mendalstamm didn’t look like he relished the idea of spending the next few months on board. He gathered his papers and, averting his gaze, hurried past Charnoslav.

Denko approached the captain with a sloping grin and said, ‘Do you want me to throw ’em overboard sir, like that lady we found in the fo’c’sle that time?’

Charnoslav took a moment to think. It didn’t come naturally to him – he was a man of action.

‘No. Move me things into the chart room,’ Charnoslav handed the boatswain a brass key, ‘and move our guests into my cabin.’

‘Aye sir.’ The huge sailor nodded and loped off in the direction of the trunks and cases.

‘And Mr Denko.’

‘Yes, captain?’

‘Lock them in.’

The Blagovashchenko sailed north. The waters grew cold and the weather unnatural. Strange storms hovered on the horizon and large ungainly creatures flew high overhead. Charnoslav pushed onwards, ignoring the groans of his crew and the concerns of Uri, his first mate. The whaler was on her own, with only the increasingly frequent sight of icebergs for company. The ship was caked in frost, apart from the tryworks, where copper cauldrons steamed and bubbled, waiting for their first taste of whale flesh. Men gathered around the fires in solemn groups, bemoaning their fate, too cold to sleep in the fo’c’sle. Lanterns punctured the darkness at intervals along the ship and the drone of the lookouts carried on the crisp breeze, guiding the helmsmen and keeping the ship out of the path of icebergs.

Charnoslav spent most of his time on deck, eager for a sighting or a call from the tops. He had spent even more time here since he had inherited the cramped cot in the chart room. He was not a good sleeper and had got even less of late. It was for the best, anyhow. The crew were restless and argumentative. Uri had returned with a choice group from the Kraskovia. The old lady had not brought him luck this time. They were all experienced seamen, but they were wreckers and mutineers for the most part. There had been fights, murders and even a fire started by a religious maniac refusing to travel any further north.

News that there was a woman on board had spread even faster than the fire, and had given men far from the comforts of Erengrad something to think about. The floggings were the worst. Every other day Charnoslav had Denko break another sailor on the rack for some villainous misdemeanour. Punishment had to be carried out, but the constant sight of flayed and bloody flesh filled the ship with a feeling of resentment and mutiny. Whaling required teamwork and Charnoslav blamed this atmosphere for their lack of success so far. The lack of success only drove them northwards, however, filling the crew with further desperation and discontent.

‘Mr Arzenhammer,’ Charnoslav called one night, as he often did, across the midnight deck, ‘a little something to warm the bones?’ Hargund Arzenhammer was the Blagovashchenko’s dwarf sailing master. The dwarf hailed from the sea port of Barak Varr, far to the south. He was a carpenter, engineer and a master navigator and never lost the look of nervous concentration that wrinkled his bushy brow. He had an uncanny feel for wind and water and Charnoslav had never known him get it wrong. If the master said there would be fog, then within the hour the vessel would be becalmed and smothered in a curtain of white. Charnoslav passed him the flask and went back to whittling down a whale tooth with a scrimshaw blade.

‘Thank you, sir,’ the dwarf answered gruffly. He parted his thick boat cloak and took a polite sip, then passed it back. It was their little ritual. Charnoslav knew that the whole bottle would have little effect on the dwarf’s robust constitution.

‘The wind’s backed a point or two.’

‘Aye, sir. An’ it will further. Some rain as well, I bet. Before dawn. I’ll shave me beard if she doesn’t, although I don’t know what will fall from those ill-begotten clouds,’ Hargund nodded. His face threatened to completely disappear in the folds of a frown that almost brought his beard to his eyebrows. ‘Can I speak candidly, sir.’

‘We’re all friends here,’ Charnoslav laughed, slapping a meaty hand on the back of his helmsman, Egor, a hunch-backed mass murderer from Praag. Hargund lowered his voice to a barely audible boom.

‘We’ve been off the charts for two weeks. Every voyage, we push that little bit further.’

‘He’s here,’ Charnoslav replied stiffly, grabbing the frosted rail. ‘He’s got a taste for it now. An’ these waters won’t bother him. He don’t feel nothing.’ Charnoslav nodded to himself. ‘But I can feel him.’

‘All I feel is the cold.’ The dwarf sneezed into a large red handkerchief. ‘Bale.’ Charnoslav looked up: it was unusual for them to use first names, on board ship formalities never quite left them. ‘We must be getting close to the pack ice, perhaps even the mainland. The Wastes, where no man has business.’

‘Are you trying to scare me? You sound like the crew,’ Charnoslav chuckled. ‘Get to the bones o’ the matter, man.’

‘We’ve never been this far north before. You can’t ask the men, even this sorry bunch of scum and villainy, to sail to their deaths.’

‘We’ll go as far as it takes,’ Charnoslav assured him through gritted teeth. The sailing master nodded, the moons glinting off his bald head. There was no use arguing with Charnoslav. The man was driven, by loss, by anger and by the flecks of insanity Hargund could see in his raw eyes.

‘Aye aye, captain.’

The sailing master set off along the companionway to complete his rounds, leaving Charnoslav to his scrimshaw. The captain plucked and scraped at the whalebone, his hands shaking, but not with the cold – the bottle had seen to that.

‘I’ve been watching you.’

Charnoslav spun around. A hooded figure, swathed in furs and skins stood behind him. It was Bel’kovo’s voice.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked savagely, pulling her to the rail.

‘I come up here every night to get some air and watch the men at work.’ She took the flask from his fur-lined pocket and wiped the rim with her sleeve. Charnoslav’s face creased into an angry frown. ‘I climbed out of the cabin window and up the stern. This is not the first time I’ve been on board a ship, you know.’ She took a swig from the bottle, but found it difficult to hide the grimace that spread across her face. ‘Good stuff. What’s that?’ she said, indicating the object in his huge hand.

Charnoslav hid the scrimshaw in his hand and replaced the blade in his belt. ‘It’s nothing, just something that I do to pass the time.’

‘Let me see,’ she insisted, stepping forward. She prized his rough hand open and squinted at the model in the poor light. She traced the outline of the graceful looking vessel with her fingers. ‘It’s beautiful. You served in the Tsar’s navy, didn’t you? Is it a vessel you served on?’

‘No.’ Charnoslav shook his head. He’d been allowed to be distracted. He snatched the scrimshaw back and buried it in the depths of his pocket. ‘It’s dangerous for you up here.’

‘Hence the cunning disguise. Do you think I pass for a sailor?’ Andreya asked playfully.

‘This is not a game, Miss Bel’kovo. These men could kill you – or a great deal worse,’ he assured her moodily, but it came out more like a threat.

‘Don’t lecture me, captain.’ It was her turn to be savage. ‘I come up here and watch a selfish and obsessed man, push his ship, crew and luck further than they have any right to go. To you this is a game, a game you are obsessed with winning. At any cost. Everyone on this ship is expendable to you. And as for “worse”, we are at the top of the world, Captain Charnoslav, it doesn’t get much worse than this!’

‘Thar she blows!’ a lookout called. Charnoslav held up a finger as if to silence her. He heard Hargund call from the foremast.

‘Nor’-nor’ west, fine on the starboard bow.’

Charnoslav snatched a telescope from the helmsman and leapt up into the nettings. Winding his arm through the rat lines he fixed the glass on the shiny black horizon. Then he saw it: a bright, thin plume of flame, reaching up into the heavens. He dropped to the deck, deep in thought. Then a brutal grin spread from its hiding place in his thick beard. He absent-mindedly gave Bel’kovo the glass and moved slowly back to the wheel.

‘Alright lads, this is it. That’s the one,’ Charnoslav bawled along the length of the vessel. ‘This hellspawn won’t escape us this time. Mr. Arzenhammer, all ’ands aloft. Loose tops’ls. Helmsmen, steer nor’-nor’ west. Put your back into it.’

Bel’kovo pulled the telescope from her eye, confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Miss Bel’kovo, as I have been trying to tell you, this is no ordinary whale. This is no gentle giant o’the deep. These beasts come back to these unnatural waters year by year, an’ every year they come back, they grow in size and become ever more freakish.’

His voice was surprisingly calm and gentle. Bel’kovo saw the glow in his eyes. The thrill of the hunt. Men swarmed across the decks, shouted on by hard faced petty officers. Bel’kovo was suddenly surrounded by sailors. They cannoned past, launching themselves into the rigging and shrouds. One slipped on her cloak and tumbled onto the icy planks. Charnoslav plucked him from the deck with a snarl, setting him on his feet like a fallen tin soldier. ‘You’d better go below with your clerk.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Bel’kovo informed him. ‘This is what I’ve come to see.’

Charnoslav’s eyes screwed up in annoyance. He could do without this distraction. ‘Stay close. Don’t wander off, no matter what you see.’

The Blagovashchenko leaned into the wind, her keel cutting through the icy slush on the surface of the water. Charnoslav was everywhere, roaring into the tops where sailors fought with frost encrusted knots and lines. Bel’kovo stuck close, still in her disguise, watching with professional interest as the captain put sailors, freshly tumbled out of their hammocks, to work on the chains. Mr Denko appeared nearby with his starter – a thick length of knotted rope that he always carried in his belt – and gave them some encouragement. The men lowered the Blagovashchenko’s four whale boats over the side, their crews armed with an assortment of stabbing weapons: lances, harpoons and flensing blades.

Every so often the captain would grab the glass from the fascinated Bel’kovo and turn it to the north. The spouts of flame were growing larger and nearer.

Charnoslav called behind him, ‘Helm, two points north. Aren’t you watchin’ it?’

There was a pause.

‘It’s gone.’

‘What d’ya mean it’s gone,’ Charnoslav growled taking the glass and fixing it on the horizon. Bel’kovo was right. It had gone.

‘It’s probably on a dive,’ Bel’kovo reassured him. Charnoslav smashed the telescope over the rail with a sudden fury that shocked her. She took a step back.

‘Really?’ shot Charnoslav through gritted teeth. ‘A whale can go down for hours. One of these things, well y’see they’re different. They’re altered. It could stay down there for days.’ Charnoslav grabbed the rail with white knuckles and lowered his head. Bel’kovo remained quiet, staring out into the inky blackness that surrounded the ship. The brooding captain suddenly let out an unearthly cry, like an animal caught in a trap. He clambered up onto the rail and clawed at his shirt. ‘I’m here, you bastard. Come get me!’

Bel’kovo looked around the deck, but no one else was looking. They were obviously used to Charnoslav’s bouts of mad fury. The captain dropped his head and climbed down, the fight gone out of him. The whale boats had reached their position. Bel’kovo saw a petty officer waving from one boat and calling for further orders.

Charnoslav lifted his head. ‘Hold yer position, damn your eyes!’ From above, one of the lookouts made a call, but Charnoslav and Bel’kovo couldn’t quite make it out. Looking up they saw him pointing back down. Leaning out over the rail they both saw something incredible. The water was lighting up beneath the ship. Giant bubbles erupted around the hull, accompanied by a stunning glow, getting brighter and brighter with every moment.

‘What does that mean?’ Bel’kovo asked. Charnoslav didn’t answer at first, his mind racing.

‘It’s under the boat. Now this porker, he’s either very smart or very dumb. It’s under the damn boat.’ Charnoslav seemed worried, which in turn terrified Bel’kovo. He was a formidable hunter but seemed uncertain in circumstances where the roles were reversed.

Charnoslav began barking orders around the vessel, ‘Mr Denko, the tryworks and galley fires out if you please. Helm, ’old yer course, steady as she goes. Mr Arzenhammer, load the ballista.’ Bel’kovo had seen the weapon, mounted on top of the fo’c’sle. It was a huge crossbow, of dwarven design if the runes were anything to go by, attached to a braced winch. It was impressive, even if it made the vessel appear ugly and unbalanced.

Charnoslav ran back to the rail. The light was almost blinding. Shielding his eyes, Charnoslav peered over and yelled, ‘Grab ’old of something!’

A great force hit the hull. The whole vessel rocked and leant over to one side. Men were thrown across the icy decks and one of the copper tryworks pots tumbled, depositing its boiling contents over a group of sailors. Several foretopmen were thrown from the crosstrees. Bel’kovo under-estimated the impact and her fists slid off the rail. Charnoslav grabbed her arm and pulled her to the deck. Water showered over them. Bel’kovo looked up through the freezing cascade and saw it.

The monster surged up out of the water beside the ship. It had been a whale once, but years at the bottom of the ocean, near the top of the world had changed it beyond belief. It was huge. Its soft, blubbery skin writhed with perpetual flames. It didn’t have one mouth; it had three, each brimming with warped tusks and fangs. As it fell backwards Bel’kovo could see that it had long lost its beautiful paddle-like tail. Its grotesque body trailed into a collection of powerful tentacles, like a squid, driving the massive body of the beast onwards.

When she could pull her eyes from the altered creature, Bel’kovo found that she was alone by the wheel. Charnoslav was on his feet and running the length of the ship. He was heading for the ballista. He found Hargund by the weapon, attempting to shoulder the weight of the fat crossbow around. Throwing himself at it, Charnoslav pushed with all his strength. The ice encrusted weapon let out a screech before turning slowly on its swivel mounting. Lining the harpoon up with the huge body of the creature Charnoslav yelled, ‘On the uproll... fire!’

Hargund tugged on the firing mechanism and the harpoon launched with a jolt, throwing the dwarf to the ground. Charnoslav watched the winch spin, giving up its lengths to the harpoon’s path. The winch stopped as the weapon buried itself deep into blubber and an unearthly scream filled the air. Charnoslav threw his fist at the sky and roared at the colossal beast.

‘It hurts, yes!’ the captain wailed.

Bel’kovo felt every timber in the vessel vibrate and had to cover her ears. Nearby, the compass shattered, spraying her with glass. For a moment night became day as the creature glowed white hot, turning the frozen ocean about it to instant steam. Then, there was nothing.

The night regained its darkness. Bel’kovo rubbed her eyes. After the brightness from the creature, she was virtually blind in the twilight of the deck. Leaning over the rail all she could make out was a few charred planks of wood from the smashed whale boats, bobbing in the current. She made her way through the ship, past the ruined tryworks with its scalded sailors and petty officers directing dumbfounded men into the tops, where a fire had taken hold. She found the exhausted dwarf sailing master sat beside a blank, dejected Charnoslav, who held in his hand the black and burnt end of his harpoon line.

Charnoslav drove the Blagovashchenko north under all available sail. Many had hoped that his lack of success with the ballista had proved that the venture was futile. It was the first time he had got a shot at the monster and the weapon had failed. The ‘crazy captain’ had met his match. There was no way this beast was going to let itself be towed into Erengrad harbour. Several days passed with the crew in stunned silence. The tryworks were repaired and the fires re-lit; canvas covered the deck where the sailmaker was fashioning a new main upper topgallant. The first had been lost in the fire.

Strange storms, full of colour and bizarre lights came out of the west, giving the men more than enough to contend with. They were also preoccupied with the thought that the creature might come back. The idea that they were actually chasing the very same creature drove some of the men to distraction and, before long, the brawls and floggings began again.

Bel’kovo was on deck. Charnoslav had allowed her some time out of the cabin, escorted by the boatswain at all times. Her moody clerk stood nearby, next to the rail, his face a pale green with cold and sickness. The first mate, Uri, had the watch, with Hargund watching over the helm and providing a reassuring presence on the deck. The dwarf puffed on a large pipe, carved in the shape of a sea serpent. Charnoslav was conspicuous by his absence. He was usually on deck, even during the other mate’s watches, either barking orders at the top of his voice or sulking morosely by the rail. Hargund had slipped something a little stronger into the captain’s flask to help him sleep.

‘Deck thar, sail on the weather bow.’

The lookout’s call caught everyone out, including Arzenhammer. These were illegal waters and he knew of no one else that would brave them. Uri gave the dwarf a perplexed look, followed by a contorted snarl up into the tops, confirming his desire to have the blind lookout flogged for falling asleep.

‘An experienced eye, I think, Mr Arzenhammer,’ said Charnoslav walking up behind them, his face full of colour and confidence again. The dwarf hated heights and he was a poor climber. Charnoslav handed him a glass.

‘You bugger,’ Hargund snorted under his breath. Charnoslav managed a thin smile. It was the first bit of good humour they had shared in a little while. Watching the dwarf scramble his way clumsily into the crosstrees was amusing, but the unusual sighting played on Charnoslav’s mind. If the vessel was here in any sort of official capacity they would have to turn and make a run for it, before she got a cannon shot off. Without a proper topgallant sail on the mainmast that would be difficult.

The dwarf came back down, his face awash with sweat. Taking out his large handkerchief he mopped himself down as he delivered his report. ‘A pinnace, two-masted and schooner rigged. She’s a merchantman out of Erengrad. Name’s Demetrius.’

Charnoslav digested the information, ‘Any signals?’

‘No,’ the dwarf replied. ‘In fact there’s very little of anything. No men on deck, but her sails are set. She’s sailing erratically with the wind. Nobody on the helm.’

Charnoslav was quiet for a moment. Bel’kovo slipped in behind them. She had been listening to the sailing master’s report. ‘You are going to investigate, aren’t you?’

‘We have to hold our present course. We’re losing time with the sail damage, as it is.’

‘That vessel is in trouble. It needs our assistance. There’s no one else out here,’ Bel’Kovo pressed him.

‘Miss Bel’kovo, that ain’t my concern. We’re hunting, we’re on the trail. If a whaler abandoned a hunt every time she came across another ship, they’d never catch anything. That thing is heading north, and so are we.’

‘They could have been attacked by that monster – like us.’ Bel’Kovo decided to try a different tack, ‘They may have information, sightings for you.’

Charnoslav hesitated for a moment. ‘We weren’t attacked, Miss Bel’kovo. We were reminded not to underestimate our quarry. If we’d been attacked then we’d be in little pieces floating south.’

‘Sir, permission to–’

‘Speak candidly?’ Charnoslav inter-rupted. ‘Do you do anything else, master dwarf?’

‘She’s right, captain. They may have been struck by an iceberg or anything. They could be sinking,’ Hargund spoke evenly.

Charnoslav scowled: ‘Is this because of the climb?’

A new voice entered the argument from the rail. It was Mendalstamm, his voice weak but thick with insolence. ‘You have no choice, captain. The Paluga-Bel’kovo Trading Company owns over half the men on this ship. One word from Miss Bel’kovo and they could turn this vessel around, which, after all, wouldn’t be against their inclination.’

‘I’d call that mutiny,’ Charnoslav snapped.

Bel’kovo leant in closer to the captain. ‘And I’d call it business.’

The Demetrius was deserted. ‘Not a single soul, sir,’ Denko informed him.

‘What’s she carryin’?’

‘Nothing. Hold’s empty, checked it meself.’

Charnoslav was troubled. The deck cabins had been hastily battened down using planks of wood. He had had Denko gain entrance with a boarding axe. Below decks the mystery had intensified. She was well provisioned with food and water and a sounding of the well proved that she wasn’t sinking.

‘They must have made a mistake and abandoned ship. A storm or something,’ Bel’kovo ventured, rifling through the abandoned charts and navigation instruments. She had insisted on coming, as had Mendalstamm.

The topsails were damaged and the spanker torn to shreds in the perverse gales that had obviously tormented the vessel. ‘That’s as may be, but ar would’ve taken a sextant, maybe a map or somethin’. Wouldn’t you, Miss Bel’kovo?’ Charnoslav didn’t try to hide his sarcasm. ‘An I certainly would’ve taken a lifeboat.’ Bel’kovo raised her eyebrows at Hargund, just returned from the stern with his toolbox, who confirmed Charnoslav’s observation with a nod. The boat remained in the chains.

Charnoslav put his hands on the pinnace’s small wheel. Curiosity had brought him over to the merchantman. Both mates had offered to command the boarding party, but something had drawn Charnoslav to the vessel. Perhaps he wanted to hear any reports of his prey first hand, or maybe he wanted to see the face of the captain who, like himself, was insane enough to sail in these doomed waters. He’d left the Blagovaschenko in Uri’s capable, if brutal, hands and had taken the boatswain and four reliable sailors to crew the whaler’s remaining gig.

Now that he was standing on the deck of the Demetrius, he wanted nothing more than to leave. The vessel had a strange emptiness that made Charnoslav feel uncomfortable. Almost as soon as he stepped on board, he felt the desire to return to his whaler with her flaking paint and stink of boiled blubber.

‘I’ll go check the captain’s cabin, go through his papers,’ Bel’kovo announced, but Charnoslav caught her by the arm.

‘Now wait a minute, lassie. I’ve kept me part of the bargain. There’s no crew, the vessel’s in good shape. That porker’s still out there, so if you’ll excuse me I have a whale to catch. Stay if you wish.’ Charnoslav moved to the rail. ‘Boatswain, assemble your crew.’

‘What about salvage?’ called Mendalstamm, just loud enough to catch the ears of the returning sailors. He stood in the smashed doorway. He had been doing some calculations. Charnoslav shot him a menacing glance across the deck. He had had a bellyful of the clerk’s interference.

‘She’s a fine vessel,’ Bel’kovo ventured.

‘I can’t spare the crew to take her in. We’re short of hands as it is. Besides, we can’t fix that,’ Charnoslav told him, pointing to the spanker. ‘She’d slow our passage.’

‘I think as we’ve established, the crew is our concern…’ Mendalstamm did not get any further. Charnoslav went for the clerk, jamming his meaty forearm against the man’s throat, pinning him to the shattered door. Mendalstamm writhed and choked as Denko, Hargund and two nearby sailors tried to prize the captain off him.

‘Stop!’ Bel’kovo screamed at them. ‘Listen!’

The six men froze for a moment, A musket cracked. Charnoslav removed his arm from Mendalstamm’s throat and let him crumble into the doorway. He shrugged off the sailing master and his men and surged for the rail.

‘Glass, now!’ he ordered and Bel’kovo didn’t argue with him. She handed him a battered brass telescope from a rack by the wheel. Charnoslav pointed the glass at the Blagovashchenko and had his fears confirmed. He heard several more musket shots, followed by small plumes of smoke that trailed like ribbons from the quarter deck. Impossibly, the crew had got into the weapons chest and stormed the ship. Without weapons any resistance to the mutiny would be futile.

‘Captain, the yard arm.’ Denko was beside him with another telescope. Moving his glass up from the deck Charnoslav caught sight of the yard arm, bearing two ropes and nooses: one for each of the whaler’s mates. ‘She’s cutting her cable.’ Denko swore. It was all over. Some of the men would have fought bravely, but they would have been no match for thirty armed and desperate convicts. Charnoslav had lost his ship and with it any possibility of acquiring his quarry.

‘I’m sorry, captain,’ said a stunned Bel’kovo, as she moved to the rail. The words came out as a strangled hiss, so she repeated herself. She was just beginning to realise the implications of the situation. What if the Demetrius was sinking? Charnoslav didn’t move a muscle. He just stood and watched the whaler turn her stern towards him and set sail.

‘Captain, what are we going to do?’ asked Denko, his glass now by his side. Charnoslav looked around. Bel’kovo, Denko and the men were looking straight at him, half expecting some hysterical outburst of rage and frustration, but Charnoslav was well beyond that. Only Hargund looked out across the silvery waves, at the abandoned tryworks and ballista that were being pulled down and man-handled overboard by triumphant mobs.

Charnoslav wanted his ship back. Cold fury coursed through his veins and the others could see it. He strode across the deck to the wheel and consulted a tattered chart. Everything was silent, apart from the sound of Mendalstamm coughing downstairs.

‘Mr. Arzenhammer, I’m going to need a schedule of repairs, starting with that spanker.’

‘Aye, sir,’ Hargund replied heading for the fo’c’sle, relieved that the captain had used his wrath to fuel some purpose. They needed him to keep it together. Marooned on an abandoned vessel at the top of the world, their survival depended upon it.

‘I don’t understand. Where are we going?’ Bel’kovo asked, half expecting Charnoslav to put about and head north, after the monster in the tiny pinnace.

‘They’re ’eading for Bilbali,’ Charnoslav announced confidently, and began measuring times and distances with the compass, occasionally glancing up at the pale haze of the sun.

‘How can you be so sure?’ Bel’kovo asked him.

‘You’re a lubber an’ you been sat in a rotting hulk on a frozen river for six months. You’re wanted for insurrection and murder in over five principalities. You’re goin’ south. You’re goin’ to Estalia.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Bel’kovo asked.

‘Give chase, lassie. Give chase.’

Bel’kovo shot the boatswain a glance but the hulking sailor merely shrugged his shoulders. Charnoslav scribbled some figures on a map with a stub of charcoal.

‘Mr Denko, go below, find the ship’s stores. Bring me as much canvas as you can lay yer hands on. We need to patch that sail.’

‘Aye, sir.’ The boatswain knuckled his forehead and disappeared below.

‘All hands,’ Charnoslav called, ‘prepare to wear ship. I’ll not lose this wind.’

‘What do I do?’ Bel’kovo asked, watching the sailors dash up the merchantman’s slack rigging. Charnoslav thought for a moment.

‘You can stay the hell out of me way!’

The Demetrius was a poor sailor. Charnoslav knew the weather and waters at the top of the world well, and was confident that he could overhaul the whaler, especially under an inexperienced mutineer commander and crew. The pinnace was fast and manoeuvrable, despite the damaged spanker but the voyage south had been plagued with difficulties. The Demetrius felt unbalanced and sluggish to Charnoslav, for a vessel of its size, especially in ballast, without cargo. Hargund had commented, handkerchief tied in a bandanna around his head, in between the many repairs and reconfigurations that he had begun, that she was the worst vessel he had had the displeasure to sail in. To make matters worse, several unnatural storms that could not have been predicted by the dwarf had moved out of the north and seemed intent on catching the merchantman and blowing her off course.

Charnoslav was preoccupied with other matters. It could be weeks before they intercepted the Blagovashchenko. By then the whale could be a thousand leagues away and out of his reach. He had never been as close to catching and killing the beast, but with the passing of every dawn, sailing south, he realised that the monster may slip through his fingers forever.

Had he failed? Had he failed Yelena? While this horror of the seven seas swam and ate and fathered baby horrors, his sister was on the ocean floor, with the scavengers of the deep. He had been aboard the Kraskovia when he received the letter, reporting that the Nord, the transport Yelena had been travelling on, and her escort the Martza had gone down. Only later did he discover the full horror of her fate. There had been survivors. Charnoslav had found them. Horribly burnt and disfigured, twitching and thrashing in their beds at the Temple of Shallya. Between their screams they told him of an unnatural monster, a whale, twisted and malformed, that inexplicably attacked their vessel and breathed fire. Fire!

Charnoslav could not know if his sister burned or leapt to her death in the tempestuous waters that inevitably swallowed the shell of the transport, but when she came to him, in his dreams and nightmares, she was fleshless and crawling with crabs and hag fish.

Bel’kovo found Charnoslav where he had been stationed for the past four days, by the wheel making endless calculations and re-calculations, furiously dedicated to catching his beloved vessel. What he had in mind, when they eventually sighted and caught up with the whaler, Bel’kovo could not guess but, from what she knew of Charnoslav, it would be bloody. This man killed sea monsters for a living. There would be no holding him back when he came face to face with the new captain of the Blagovashchenko.

She had other things on her mind beyond the murderous intentions of the captain. It was late and the polar sun had long dipped below the iceberg encrusted horizon. Bel’kovo needed some air. She needed time to think. She took both on the cramped poop deck.

She had done exactly as Charnoslav had ordered and stayed out of his way. She had spent most of her time in the cabin of the Demetrius’s captain, inspecting the log and the paperwork. With the taking of the whaler and the precarious nature of their situation, Charnoslav and the crew had completely forgotten the strange circumstances in which they had boarded the merchantman in the first place. With nothing else to do, the disappearance of the Demetrius’s crew played on Bel’kovo’s mind and she became fully involved in rifling through the log entries and scraps of parchment that littered the captain’s desk.

The log gave little away, being written in a terse, functional style. The entries outlined the vessel’s swift progress but said nothing of its business in northern waters. Following a recording of the vessel’s sighting of pack ice, the entries skipped several days, in which Bel’kovo could only imagine that the captain was not on board. The log then recorded a succession of strange storms that hampered the ship’s progress for several weeks, appearing as if out of nowhere and molesting the vessel. They disappeared just as fast, leaving the merchantman leagues off course each time.

Then she found the charter. It had been hidden in a compartment with other sensitive papers, in a bottom drawer. She was still clutching the crumpled piece of parchment in her hand as she paced the deck. She needed to tell someone. Charnoslav was the obvious choice. Their lives might be in danger.

It was bad timing for the captain, who was struggling with the wheel as wind and ice conspired to slam the tiny pinnace into the side of a number of bergs that he had decided they had too little time to avoid. The wind had backed several points and the clouds had begun to boil above the tiny vessel.

‘You need to see this,’ Bel’kovo insisted, holding the charter under the wheel lamp. Her demand seemed odd in the silent darkness of the deck, especially since they had seen virtually nothing of each other for days.

‘I’m a little busy, lass,’ Charnoslav told her, straining at the helm. ‘Boatswain!’ he called. ‘More hands to reef topsails.’

‘I’ve found something.’

‘What’s that yer babblin’ about?’

Denko came out of the gloom, his face unusually lined with worry. ‘Beggin’ your pardon, captain, I can’t find Lev or Arkady.’

‘What?’ Charnoslav snapped, turning his head from Bel’kovo to his boatswain and back again, all the time fisting the wheel round.

‘The Demetrius is under charter, to the Paluga-Bel’kovo Trading Company,’ Bel’kovo continued as Charnoslav’s eyebrows met in suspicious confusion. ‘I promise you, I didn’t know.’

‘I’ve looked everywhere for ’em, captain.’

‘It’s all downstairs. My father’s company processed your catches and grew fat on the profits. Some took more interest in the waste product, the impurities left behind after the process.’

‘The dross?’

‘Yes, they extracted a material they list as warpstone.’

Charnoslav knew something of warpstone.

‘What do you want me to do, captain?’ the boatswain persisted.

‘Well, whatever it was, they were making a sizeable profit on the black market, enough to finance an expedition to acquire it from a more direct source.’

‘An’ when she didn’t return…’ Charnoslav ventured.

‘Then we came out here looking for her.’ It was Mendalstamm. He had been hiding in the shadows. Hargund was with him, his hands above his head.

‘Sorry, captain,’ Hargund rasped. Medalstamm smashed the dwarf across the back of the skull with his pistol, sending him to the deck on his knees. The clerk was armed and he was smiling.

‘Nicolai, what have you done?’ Bel’kovo whispered.

Mendalstamm ignored her. ‘She’s right, you know. She didn’t know anything, poor fool. Just following in daddy’s footsteps.’ The clerk stepped forward into the lamp light, waving his pistol casually at the four of them. ‘He was a short-sighted fool as well.’

‘He was wise not to have been involved in this,’ Bel’kovo interjected, holding the scrunched up charter in her fist.

‘Well, luckily we have more enlightened men than your father in the world. Men like Boris Paluga and his famous captain here,’ Mendalstamm made a mock bow. ‘It’s thanks to this maniac that we’ve managed to recover our precious cargo. My compliments, captain. I couldn’t persuade one single other vessel to come up here. It seems money doesn’t talk in these parts.’ He chuckled. ‘Well, until now.’

‘Cargo? What cargo? We’re in ballast,’ Charnoslav said grimly.

‘Not quite, captain. You see, the cargo is the ballast.’

Charnoslav’s mind whirled. The Demetrius sailed north, made a landing, unloaded her ballast and replaced it with several tons of raw warpstone from the top of the world. Warpstone that would make Boris Paluga far richer than whale oils, wax and scrimshaw ever could. Mendalstamm smiled smugly. ‘We couldn’t have the port authorities in Erengrad discover our little secret, now could we? And we couldn’t have Miss Bel’kovo or yourself ruining things when we got home, so I arranged for the Blagovashchenko to sail on without us.’ He pulled a chain out of the top of his shirt. Around his neck the clerk was holding the key to the whaler’s weapons chest. ‘I forgot to thank you for the exclusive use of your cabin, captain.’ Bel’kovo felt Charnoslav tense next to her and instinctively put a hand on his arm.

The boatswain made his move. Lurching forward he made a grab for the scheming clerk.

‘No, Denko!’ Charnoslav shouted. Mendalstamm looked terrified for a fleeting moment as the gigantic sailor came at him with his tree trunk arms. The pistol roared, lighting up the deck with its powder flash. The boatswain dropped awkwardly to the deck, his mighty heart beating its last. More by luck than judgement, Mendalstamm had shot him in the head.

The clerk took several steps back, shocked that he’d killed the sailor himself. He frantically began reloading the pistol and was surprised that Charnoslav or the dwarf wasn’t already on top of him, smashing his head into the deck planking. Looking up he saw that Bel’kovo and the captain hadn’t moved. They stood horrified, riveted to the spot, staring through him, rather than at him.

There was a long, drawn-out scream from aft. Then another, a horrible high pitched screeching from the bows. Pavel and Orekh, the master’s mate, were dead.

Mendalstamm turned around. He was surrounded by several large dark shapes, skulking and twitching in the shadows. Bel’kovo and Charnoslav had seen them in the pistol flash. Their overgrown claws scraped on the deck as they cautiously moved in. Their thick black fur was matted with old blood and crawled with obscenely bloated fleas and ticks. The clerk screamed in terror, causing the pack to retract for a moment. Their ears and noses twitched horribly, caressing the deck with their huge whiskers. They were rats, monstrous in size and proportion, homing in on the scent of warm blood. Their dead eyes glazed over in the lamp light and their lips curled back to reveal teeth that could gnaw through the hull of a ship.

They all leapt together, their grotesquely lean bodies and scaly tails swarming all over the shrieking Mendalstamm. Hargund lurched to his feet. Leaning against the mast he pulled a boarding axe from the rack and swung it experimentally at several of the giant vermin working their way round to him.

‘Go!’ he stormed as the rats closed in. Charnoslav didn’t wait to hear the dwarf’s screams, or his own. He furiously spun the wheel starboard and grabbed Bel’kovo by the arm. She was limp with fear and offered no resistance. Charnoslav made a dash across the deck, but was halted by the sight of four more of the monstrous brutes closing in from the bow. Drawing his scrimshaw blade the captain slashed at a mizzen line. Dropping the knife he grasped the frayed cro’jack yard line in one hand and Bel’kovo in the other. They shot up through the rigging and canvas, braced hard against the wind. Below them the rats thrashed and scratched at each other as their prey disappeared before their very whiskers.

As the damaged spanker crashed to the deck in a heap the line stopped abruptly. Charnoslav’s rough hand slipped along Bel’kovo’s slender arm and they snatched at each other, holding on with cupped fingers.

‘Don’t you let go of me!’ Bel’kovo gasped in the odd, black silence of the tops. The captain groaned as various forces tore at his body. He began to swing the alarmed Bel’kovo slightly to give them some momentum, until, after several attempts she managed to grab onto the crosstrees. It had been years since Charnoslav had been in the nosebleeds and he prayed that his old agility and confidence had not abandoned him. Looking below he saw that the rats had begun to tentatively crawl up into the rigging. He could count about twenty of the giant creatures, but was sure that he could see far more black bodies slipping onto the deck through the forehatch from the hold. Hargund was dead. They would be up to them before long.

‘Go,’ the captain growled, out of breath. ‘Keep climbing, lassie.’

‘Are you insane?’ Bel’kovo spluttered, oblivious to the irony of the question. She had no time to argue, however. Charnoslav was right behind her, forcing her up toward the masthead.

‘Don’t look down, just keep going, as fast as you can.’

‘What are they?’ Bel’kovo demanded as she scrambled up the rigging, trying desperately not to think about the distance between her body and the deck.

‘Rats, lassie. You’ll find vermin in every ship’s hold from here to Tobaro,’ Charnoslav informed her.

‘What?’ she called down, then wished she hadn’t. The captain put a hand on her back to steady her. ‘The warpstone must have changed them. They grew, and they grew hungry.’ Charnoslav could suddenly feel extra weight on the ratlines below him. Climbing past Bel’kovo he plucked her from the rigging and heaved her up into the crow’s nest. She knelt in the masthead, digging her nails into the wood. She was clearly terrified. Every wave and trough that the merchantman struck shivered up the mainmast, reminding Bel’kovo that she was sickeningly far above the ship. All around them the sky was lit up by red and green lightning, as one of the bizarre storms that they had become accustomed to, opened up above the merchantman.

‘What’s the point, then?’ she screamed at Charnoslav with sudden anger. ‘We’re dead.’ Charnoslav crawled in awkwardly beside her, taking one last look down the trunk of the mast, where eight or nine rats were weaving their way up through the rigging.

‘Not quite,’ Charnoslav tried to reassure her in a resigned tone that was anything but reassuring. ‘Hold on.’

‘What?’ Bel’kovo seethed. ‘Why?’

‘Because lassie, you’re about to find out what happens to a ship when she strikes an iceberg.’

Despite the height, Bel’kovo spun violently around. There she was. One of the colossal icebergs Charnoslav had been trying to avoid, right in the path of the Demetrius.

‘You’re insane,’ she hissed at the captain.

‘Quite probably,’ Charnoslav answered as he heard the bowsprit splinter against the ice and felt the shockwave pass through the ship.

Charnoslav awoke. He was cold, but he was alive. All of a sudden there was light and he realised that he had opened his crusty lids. His head hurt, as did his arm which he discovered was broken when he tried to move it.

‘You’re awake,’ came a familiar voice. It was Bel’kovo. She was beside him, helping him to sit up. He could hear crackling, but could see little. His eyes felt sensitive, everything was too bright. ‘You gave me quite a fright. I thought you were going to leave me out here all alone.’

He could make out her face now, bruised and smeared with dried blood, but she was surrounded by a bright white light, like a spirit, and he began to suspect that they were both dead. She put something cold to his lips. Ice. He crunched and swallowed it, realising how thirsty he was.

Bel’kovo stood up and became a blur again. He followed her with his eyes and felt them begin to improve. They were on the iceberg.

It began to come back to him. The Demetrius struck the iceberg at high speed, shattering her prow and toppling her masts. The wall of ice reduced the pinnace to toothpicks, ripping up her decking and cracking open her hull. Her diabolical cargo had sunk down into the depths, where it belonged. The sails collapsed, snaring the monsters below and pinning them to the smashed merchantman as she sank below the waves. The mizzen top gave way and hit the water with a force Charnoslav couldn’t have anticipated, knocking the captain senseless.

‘How long…’ Charnoslav croaked, but Bel’kovo couldn’t hear him. He looked around. She had been busy. He found himself at the centre of a small makeshift camp. She had erected a shelter made of canvas to keep out the worst of the searing wind. The odd cask and barrel littered the camp, as did several pieces of smashed equipment. Best of all a small fire burnt near a pile of driftwood. Bel’kovo returned from the edge of the berg, where warmer waters had already begun to slosh against the solid ice. She was holding an armful of wood and cordage. ‘How long have I been out?’ Charnoslav asked again.

‘A few days,’ Bel’kovo confirmed. ‘We’re going south, I think. I hope. Last day or so, pieces of wood started to wash up on the berg and drift by. I’ve gathered what I can, anything that I thought might be useful.’ She flashed the whites of her eyes at him and sat down on the cask, dumping the wood beside him. ‘This,’ she indicated to the cask, ‘is salted meat.’ She seemed excited and beautiful. ‘How lucky was that?’

Bel’kovo’s smile faded as an unusual sound filled the crisp air around them. It was deep and resonant and seemed to travel through the iceberg and their bodies. ‘What’s that?’ she enquired, her eyes looking everywhere.

‘It’s a whale,’ Charnoslav informed her and laid a reassuring hand on her wrist. They were safe on the iceberg. She smiled and left the camp to continue her foraging. Charnoslav sat with his pain but was glad to be alive, the bright white of the iceberg lifting his spirits. Then it caught his eye. There was a name on one of the charred pieces of wood that Bel’kovo had dropped beside him.

The Blagovashchenko.

His ship. Charnoslav polished the nameplate with a damp sleeve and chuckled to himself quietly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rob Sanders is a freelance writer, who spends his nights creating dark visions for regular visitors to the 41st millennium to relive in the privacy of their own nightmares, including the novels Atlas Infernal and Legion of the Damned. By contrast, as Head of English at a local secondary school, he spends his days beating (not literally) the same creativity out of the next generation in order to cripple any chance of future competition. He lives in the small city of Lincoln, UK.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Originally published in issue 40 of Inferno! in 2004. This version published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

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ISBN 978-1-78251-057-4

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