Chapter 12 Starts and Sharps

This day had not ended well, a great beginning but it had gone downhill pretty fast. Will paused a minute to gather his thoughts, writing the log was important. It gave him perspective about events, what led to them, if they could have been avoided. Lessons for the future, because we did this, that happened. Don’t do it again. First off and most importantly the crew was safe, Minnie and Naomi were well and unharmed. The Rose was intact, little bit of damage here and there, mostly cosmetic. Scuffed paint, broken rope but he was always amazed by how tough the heartwood was. Stronger and more resilient than steel it seemed, no wonder there was only one. Again he wondered where and how this home of theirs came to be, one day he thought, one day we’ll find the makers. But back to his writings, after his and Minnie’s breakfast they turned closer to shore…

“Waters clear dad, no sign of underwater stuff.”, Minnie was looking through her telescope toward the shore. “All right Min, let’s get closer and see if we can find any trace of their herds.”, Will said. Minnie spun the wheel and the Rose heeled over a bit as they curved toward shore, bow plunging through the icy blue water. Going out on deck Will thought it was a bit warmer, not much though. Still needing his thick coveralls and long underwear, and the wind was cutting in deep. The boat was getting close to the icy shore and he felt Minnie cut their speed and start their course parallel to the land. Since Jeri was still with them he asked her to go below and get her friends, the more eyes on shore the better. “Of course captain,” and she quickly ran below. In a few minute all of the young people had come on deck and were eagerly scanning for any trace. “Do the herds come near the lake?” Will asked. Tor answered “No, they don’t usually, but this is different land for them.”, he shrugged, “They might.”. It looked as there was no clue that could be seen from the boat. Minnie used her telescope but to no avail, they chugged on this course for a couple of hours, taking shifts at the rail. Warming up belowdecks then coming back up again.

The sun was between noon and setting when a cry rose up, “I see one, no there’s three, four, ten, the whole herd!.” Din had been at the bow, looking toward land and had spied the reindeer, grazing in a copse of trees, fairly near the shore. “Dead slow MIn.”, Will called and the boat slowed, just making way now. He was looking for a safe place to anchor, and a good place to drop off the young people. “Up ahead, fifty yards, and we’ll drop off there,”, he pointed to where the beach gently dropped into the water.

The land beyond looked as good as any. Lots of trees, rolling plains, and hopefully soft rock below to start digging homes. “Let’s ready the boats.”, he asked and the visitors helped him drop the folders over the side and drop the dory. As he was doing this there were several soft thumps against the hull. Quiet at first, then louder and many more until it felt as though a giant was hammering the boat. The Rose was starting to rock, not too much as she was a broad beamed vessel, but any kind of rocking is bad, especially when the sea is calm. Will ordered the waiting villagers to get lifebelts out of the deck boxes and get them on. Minnie was in the wheelhouse and flung the door open, “Dad, what’s going on, did we hit rocks or something?”. “I don’t know, get your life belt on, whistle down and get Naomi up here, something bad is happening.”, Will bellowed back. Holding the rail with an iron grip he looked over the side, oh no, he thought. Turning and calling to Minnie “Sharp attack!”.

The tall fins were cutting under the boat and were the cause of the thumps and bangs. Will cautiously cranked the dory back up and locked her in place. The folders were a different story as they were already floating. Grasping the tied off bow line he slowly pulled the heavy boat on deck, as he was doing this it sent the sharps into a frenzy. Biting at the stern as it left the water, leaping madly up, full length out of the water. There were hundreds around them. He reached for the second line, to pull that one up too, but a sharp bit the line clean through just under his hand. The folder was drifting off, toward shore, being attacked by the maddened fish. One giant eighteen foot sharp leapt up and onto the small boat, flattening it and sending it down to the bottom. “This is madness, step back all, in fact go below. It’s safe there, they can’t get through the heartwood.”, Will called out and watched until all the visitors had gone down. “You too Jeri, it’s not safe up here yet.”, he shooed her down.

The next step was to open the main hatch and jump down. Minnie and Naomi met him, coming in from belowdeck. “Remember the gear we wore sharp hunting?”, he asked. Minnie nodded and began opening the water tight boxes lining the hold. She brought out the chain mail arm and leg protectors, as well as the metal sheathed gloves. Naomi was pulling down all the harpoons they had and tying them to a line to haul on deck. “When we’re on deck, tie yourself to the tow bollard, short lines though, you don’t want to fall overboard.”, he puffed as they dressed in the protective gear. As they readied to climb the rope ladder to get back to the deck , he stopped them both. “Don’t take any chances, stay back and take care of the ones I haul on deck, headshots through the gills.”. Minnie was shivering, more in anticipation of a hunt than fear “Why they attacking us dad, we hunted them a long time back.”. Naomi echoed her “They’re just fish, they shouldn’t do this.”. She looked as determined as Minnie, to defend her home from the evil fishies. “I don’t know why,” Will said “but it looks as though we don’t have to hunt them again, this time they came for us.”.

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Before going back on deck, he stuck his head into crew quarters, the villagers were huddled together. “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks or sounds.”, Will said, “Just stay here, we’re a lot tougher than we look.”. Tor stepped forward, “We can help captain, all of us have hunted wolves and we brought our spears and axes, please let us.”. Will was torn, there was only the three of them, admittedly the crew was much more than they appeared. But there’s a lot of fish out there.. “All right, get prepared.”. There was a rush for the hold where their equipment had been stashed and the soon they had armed themselves with long spears, axes over the shoulder or on their hip. A very deadly bunch. “When we get on deck watch those spears, don’t get one of us by mistake.”, they laughed, “We use these from when we are tiny, no mistakes.” Din growled out.

Going up on deck with the group was a bit comforting. As strong and tough as the crew had become they couldn’t be everywhere. And there was a lot of sharps around them, hundreds it seemed. Minnie and Naomi would harpoon one or two, haul them on deck where they were killed instantly by eager spears. Will was pulling in bigger ones, sometimes two at a time, if the harpoons bit well enough. Quickly dispatched by the lads near him. The deck was awash with blood and sharp chunks, making for slippery footing indeed. Being roped was the only thing stopping them from sliding around and maybe even off of the boat. The slaughter continued, dozens of sharp carcasses had been tossed back into the water but these were the smaller ones, up to fifteen feet. There were a few true monsters gliding around the Rose, some larger than twenty feet, easily a third of the Rose. These were truly worrying. For now though they were feasting on the remains of the smaller ones, sometimes moving curiously slow or jerkily. Will pointed the biggest one out and he and Minnie launched their harpoons together and speared it, they started pulling the enormous fish closer to the boat. I hope the barbs hold, Will thought. “Let’s get it as close as we can and kill it Min, I’ll hold it, you spear it.”, Will called out. Minnie was standing on the tow bollard, with another harpoon braced on the deck beside her, “Yeah, let’s get it, maybe the others will get the message.” she yelled. Naomi came up and stood beside them and waited for the sharp to make an appearance. Will and Minnie hauled mightily, Naomi jumped on the rope as well and the fish, no matter how hard it fought, couldn’t escape. The villagers watched in awe as the head appeared on the port side, no way to get away the inexorable pull, thrashing, beating its head on the side of the boat.. As soon as she saw it above the rail Minnie plunged her harpoon through the fishes gill, followed by Naomi’s, the fish shuddered once and stop moving. Tor cleaved his axe through the spine to make sure and the huge carcass slipped back below the waves, harpoons and all.

“Captain, that weighed as much as ten of us, how did you lift it?” Din asked. Will looked at Minnie and Naomi, “Being crew of the Rose we have been getting stronger and tougher than we would have on land.”, Will answered. “It’s probably the lake, it loves us, the fishies don’t though, I love to eat them though, with chips and maybe gravy, but not these guys,” Minnie said,”No one want to eat these things, even the lake thinks they’re yucky, the sea serpent might like them though.”.

The attack had stopped when the huge fish had died, so far anyways. It looked like they had taken out more than half of the attackers. The lake was red with blood, on deck the snow and ice was gone, washed away by blood as well. Minnie’s and Naomi’s snow people had not fared well. No more fins thumping against the bottom of the boat, just the waves lapping on the hull and the wind blowing. It had been a wild hour but it looked like they had won. Good thing too, the temperature had lowered even more. In the minus twenties now, the water was liquid ice. The blood had frozen and when it did warm up, it was going to be a long cleanup.

What worried Will the most was if they had entered the boats fifteen minutes earlier. So many what ifs to worry about there. The three crew would probably have survived, the visitors not so much.

The villagers had killed many of the smaller ones, harpooned by Naomi or Minnie, yanked up and neatly speared. Tor and a few of the others had been using harpoons with lines so to not lose their fine spears to the depths and. “Hey Naomi,”, Minnie called, “Could you use your bow to shoot the sharps?”, Naomi stopped what she was doing, a strange look on her face. “I didn’t think of that, I sure could have. It would have been safer if the two of us had been shooting them. I have lots of arrows.”. Will laughed “Well hindsight is always twenty twenty, right?”. At the bow Jeri and a few others were looking out at the lake, “Captain, you might want to see this.”, they called. Will and crew hurried over.

The body of the huge sharp they killed had floated to the surface, surrounded by several others just as large. Some still moving slightly but most unmoving, rolling in the icy water, dead. More and more were coming up, acting the same until the Rose was surrounded by dead fish on every side. “What the heck?” Minnie said. Will unclipped a long boat hook from the rail and gave a big one a few pokes, nothing, no reaction. Naomi threw a harpoon and speared a smaller one and they pulled it onboard. Making sure to cleave it’s head in first, then they examined it. “It’s very cold, the blood isn’t flowing, I think they have frozen in the cold waters.” Naomi said. “Well they’re not the same as great whites from our old world, they were able to live in the cold waters. These are much more cold blooded,” looking down Will laughed “very cold blooded.”. “So they tracked us down, swam like crazy and attacked, and didn’t notice they were freezing until they died, pretty dumb fish.”, Minnie said.

The cold was getting to them all, so after all the remains had been shovelled off the deck, all weapons tucked away again in the hold, everybody but Minnie and Will went below. Those two started the Rose moving again, just a few miles down the coast, away from all the dead fish. “They’re gonna wash ashore tomorrow and that’s yucky, I don’t wanna climb over them when we land.”, Minnie said. “Me either,” Will agreed, “Let’s steam along a while and get shut of this mess.”. Minnies stomach gave a huge rumble,“I hope we can have some dinner soon, I’m starving.” she complained while standing at the wheel. “Oh yeah, me too, anything but fish though.” Will laughed.

The last remnants were swimming desperately for warmer waters, just a couple of dozen. Smaller ones. In the frenzy to find and kill they had gone well beyond where the fish usually hunted, into the death zone. Swimming slower and slower, but trying to get away from the hated noise now, blood freezing in the veins until nothingness took them. Revenge was over, as was the pack.