The battle was at a distance, but even from afar with the help of my eyes, I could see every terrifying detail in perfect focus. The Kraken’s body was underwater, but its long root-like tendrils hit people so hard it no doubt killed many of them.

A man came flying towards us from off the castle wall as we approached. I thought for sure he was dead, but Airsidh just casually caught him and set him down. “Just one kraken right?” He asked.

The man seemed too shocked to speak but eventually nodded.

‘This is surprisingly convenient.’ “What kinds of tools do you guys have for defending against sieges?”

He looked closer at me, focusing his eyes on the crest on my dress before answering. “Nothing, we are only outfitted to suppress monsters.”

I let out a low growl. ‘So your lord’s an idiot…’ “Ok… What do you use for that?”

“Two ballista, 3… He scratched his head. Well… One wyvern lance. We don’t have any working ships anymore, but they were each outfitted with whaling tools.

“Now we're talking!” My brother stopped to stare at me again, making me clear my throat, slightly embarrassed. “Anything else?”

“Nothing else that’s working. This thing has been attacking us for two days, it won’t let up.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.”

Suddenly both were staring at me blankly, close enough to make me a little too aware of my height.

Airsidh just sighed. “Ok, well. We're here. I’ll get on a wall and do what I can with my bow. “Tell the guards to all focus on severing the limbs where I shoot them, if we can break its holds on the rock we will be able to push it back out to see, luckily the river current is strong right now, so let’s get moving.”

The guard saluted and as the carriage pulled in they both jumped off the roof and got to work. ‘Let's see what we have here…’ I slowed time as I looked around the castle. The stone ground was cracked, chunks were torn up and pushed down and the footing was a mix of small canyons and jagged slabs sticking halfway out of the ground. The walls were still standing by some miracle, but just barely. The one facing the sea was entirely gone as if it had been eaten. Just outside that missing wall was a string of giant leathery vines raging and tearing through the already dilapidated pieces of the castle.

‘Ok… So we're trying to break its anchor points and get it off the castle right? Interesting. We don’t have to sever the limbs though if we can force it to let go instead. But how would we do that?’ I glanced over to the boats sitting in the docs. ‘I might have another crazy idea…’

“Zu, can you make sure Lu is safe?” The moment I asked she came walking out of the carriage, yawning, but otherwise perfectly normal, as if nothing had changed.

“Oh, we’re fighting a Kraken now? This’ll be fun.”

‘Right… A perfectly normal reaction…’ I let out a heavy sigh. “How much do you remember about Mom's lessons on monsters?”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Wern’t they all pretty much the same? It freaks out when you poke its eyes out and try to stay away from its teeth.”

“There was more to it than that… Sometimes…”

She joined up with me again and we stood side by side and watched everyone around us pannick. Airsidh was directing them with his massive arrows and they were hurting it… But I couldn’t really say they were winning, and it wasn’t like we would be of much help trying to saw away at its tendrils like the rest of them.

Lu sighed. “So I guess we're just trying to force it out to sea?”

‘She catches on quick… It’s funny that our family makes her shudder but this doesn’t phase her at all.’

One of the soldiers flew past us tumbling across the ground but she just moved slightly to the side and let him keep going, not even uncrossing her arms. The poor guy hit the ground in pain, struggling to breathe after getting the wind knocked out of him.

After double-checking that he could still move, I looked back at the Kracken. “So… You wanna poke its eyes out?”

She nodded. “Only if we can stay away from its teeth.”

I just shook my head. ‘Not much of a plan, but if it freaks out it would probably let go and be swept away.’ “Sure, follow me.”

I made a break for it towards the boats, carefully weaving myself around any frantically waving tendrils and staying out of the guard's way as they continued to saw away at some of the many limbs anchoring it to the castle, all the while Airsidh continued loosing arrows that shook the ground as they penetrated through the leathery hide of the monster and left massive gashes.

“Something’s wrong…”

Lu followed me out onto the docs and then onto the boats, gathering up as many whaling harpoons as we could. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not bleeding very much… Or… At all.”

“Well yeah, it’s a fish… or… A plant maybe? I don’t know, let's just kill it already.”

“Right…” We took off, making our way back towards the castle. Despite how chaotic it was, for some reason, I was able to stay calm. Lu was too for the most part, although when a stray tendril nearly took her head off she did get shaken up a bit… Thankful Airsidh had our backs.

Before long we were right back to where we started, square in the middle of the courtyard, carrying a total of 12 harpoons. ‘She seriously went through the trouble of grabbing two more than me… No, I’m sure it’s just my imagination.’ “Finlo!” I yelled.

After grabbing a guard and forcing him to duck another swinging tendril he jumped from the wall, landing in a roll before casually taking a few steps toward us. “You called my lady?” He said, whimsically waving his hand as he bowed.

‘Glad to see you’re not taking this seriously either…’ “We could use a few more hands… How good are you at fishing?”

“Uh… You know we're trying to push the thing away… Not bring it in closer.”

“It’s called catch and release.” I threw him a harpoon. “We pull it out of the water, take out its eyes, and then it should let go on reflex.”

“And if it holds on tighter?”

“Oh… Well… Then we go back to Airsidh’s plan but with a much angrier enemy.”

He clapped his hands together. “Great. How are we going to pull it up?”

“They still have a couple of anti-wyvern baristas, we launch these harpoons and tie the chains to the winches in the loading mechanism. The guards should be able to operate those while we pull, Are crackers very heavy?”

“This one is probably around a medium-sized whale. So something like the weight of 20 oak trees.”

“How do you even know that?” We paused staring at each other. ‘That’s way too heavy isn’t isn’t it?’

“So… Is the plan a bust? We can always try it anyway just for fun.”

I looked around again, focusing my eyes on the drydock. “Finlo… What are the odds the Kraken is sitting on a slipway right now…”

He shrugged. “This fortress was originally designed to be able to perform maintenance on the royal castle ships, so that entire side of the island is a slipway, that’s also why the courtyard is so big.”

I slowly raised a hand to my face and pinched my eyebrows. “So can’t we just use that? Where are the wenches?”

“Four of them.” He said, pointing to each one and drawing my eyes to them. “If we use those, the plan would probably work, they can take a whole lot more weight than a ballista. They’d have no problem with it.”

‘Not the smoothest I’ve come up with a plan… But hey, we got there eventually.’ “Where’s Zu?”

Lu raised her hand, jumping up and down. “Ooh, I know this one, he’s over there… Oh, no, he’s gone…”

“What do you mean he’s gone?” I looked over to where she was pointing just in time to see him wrapped tightly in the monster's grip as it flailed him around, pulling him out of the water before smashing him back into it on repeat.

“Hey, he’s back!” She cheered. “Oh, no, he’s gone again.”

‘Dangit Zu…’