“Humanity must perforce prey upon itself, like monsters of the deep.”

King Lear, Shakespeare

I held my breath comfortably as I swam deeper. I would need enough depth to pass below the galley and not be brained by it as it passed overhead. I could not surface alongside either, as that would likely see my head bashed in by the oars propelling it forward. My swimming and iron man skills had never been more needed. Underwater combat was not my forte, a weakness from training under a beastkin with cheetah-like similarities – he did not like the water, preferring to fight on top rather than below it.

With their heavy hitters standing on the prow of their galley, I planned to emerge at their stern and strike them unseen from behind. It would have been wonderful to rip the keel off and the hull open while destroying the rudder, but I still needed words and, more importantly, air to cast my spellcraft and spellsong. While I could manipulate my mana well enough to damage it silently, touching the hull as it passed overhead would more likely break my hands rather than the hull and would not be a fair trade. I would have to wait a minute more.

Finally, the galley began to pass by overhead, and I swam up, ready to leap out after it. In an action movie, the hero grabs hold and pulls themselves up. But I had no desire to dislocate my shoulder or break my bones. Stats only did so much when faced with the physics of a 50-tonne plus vessel that was a cross between a Greek Trireme with its oars and ram and an Arabic Baghlah with its triangular sails.

I began to freeze the water beneath me, its displacement and density forcing me toward the surface. I needed more than my superb swimming skills to keep up with the boat once it had passed by. I would need other skills for that, and they would need a foothold on the surface to start. My time sense was pulling triple duty watching the long hull pass by overhead, timing the speed of the ice forming, matching my resurfacing with the galley passing overhead, and finally pinging off my sonar and danger sense skill. The sea serpents appeared to be waking up and working their way upward.

Finally, as the expanding ice began to shoot me toward the surface, the stern passed by and emerged, dripping from the salty waters. I had no time to spare if I did not want to be seen, though I doubted anyone would be looking back, focused as they were on my fleeing father and the sound of my impromptu concert still blazing from our speeding boat. Flash step and dart had me sprinting off my ice-made starting block after the receding stern of the galley, away from the serpents still rising to strike my last known spot, the block of ice. I needed to disable the galley before they hit and drew everyone’s attention back toward me. I would not have much time to make my play.

Without climbing claws of my own, Namir, whose semi-non-retractable claws were always ready to help him climb or explode into movement, had made me my own. Then he had taught me how to use them, and I was soon stuck limpet-like to the back of the galley.

Now came the ethical dilemma. Of course, we wanted to escape; the question was how many people I was prepared to kill to make that happen. Destroying their hull would leave them at the mercy of the sea serpents. Still, at the same time, I needed to disable them enough to prevent them from continuing the chase and give them enough to keep them busy so that they did not bombard us from afar with magic. When they had been attempting to take us alive, they had avoided such bombardment, but if we were likely to escape, they might change their attitude.

I set about disabling the runes that kept them hidden from the serpents. Now that I was out of the water, I could see the tangle drifting back down without ever breaching the surface. Only my foot in the water seemed enough to entice them to follow in the invisible galley’s wake. The more runework I disabled with my magic, the more the serpents focused on our fleeing stern. The galley grew steadily more significant in their minds' eyes as I ripped through the ship's protections without creating too many holes in the hull.

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The next step in my plan was removing their rudder. Unfortunately, I was going to have to assassinate the man holding it, the helmsman. I could not guarantee the knockout needed to steal their rudder, and I would not have the time to disarm him before my actions drew attention from the prow. I had to be silent, I had to be fast, and I had to get it down now before the tailing serpents struck the ship. The galley had to be floundering before I would risk a short flight back to my father’s boat.

Missing a rudder, with their invisibility removed and tangled in sea serpents, I hoped that would be sufficient to stall their pursuit permanently.

I slowly crept over the railing, ready to dash forward without thinking; I might not go through with it if I thought about it too hard. I had killed before but never a sapient. The premeditation made it somehow more questionable than simply responding at the moment. Although the fact that he was hunting me helped me to boil it down to the fact that it was either him or me, and unfortunately for him, I chose me.

1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .

I went without thinking about it and without inspecting to learn his name. I did not want to remember it. Then, there came the point in training where actions became reflexes, and at my height, Namir had taught me how to scale a man to take out their femoral or carotid arteries. Their throats, too, if I wanted to keep them quiet.

He never saw me coming, focused on following my father and the sound of my voice. He did not have time to flinch before my climbing claws ripped open his throat. I did not stop to watch as he collapsed, reaching for his ruined throat. Instead, I hustled to the rudder, pulling it out of its housing with judicious use of mana to destroy it before slipping it over the side. They were now rudderless and soon to be swarmed.

As the rear man of the galley, his passing had gone unnoticed. I was free to flee the now rudderless, exposed, and soon-to-be entangled galley. However, it was floundering slower than I had expected. Nevertheless, the oars still propelled it forward in the wake of my father's boat, unrelenting in their pursuit—momentum alone kept them on course even without the guidance of the rudder.

Unwilling to kill them all, particularly the slaves I could sense bound to their benches by destroying the hull, I decided to burn the sails to add to the chaos. But I suddenly realised I was out of time when Sinbad turned to shout at the helmsman. He must have noticed he was no longer doing his duty so lively, seeing he was now dead at my feet.

“Hard to . . .” He froze mid-shout as he saw me standing over his dead helmsman.

“You’ll need a bigger boat to catch me,” I shouted scornfully, releasing two fireballs to set their sails alight—a parting gift for the pesky pirate.

“Catch him.” Screamed the captain as I easily eluded Saava and Theodulus as they lumbered toward me. The heavy hitters raced along the deck from the prow to catch me before I disappeared over the ship's side. But they would be too slow. The sorcerer stayed still, deciding to put out the flames that were now licking the flame-retardant sails.

I was a step away from clearing the railing and launching myself into flight when the ship shuddered. The sea serpents appeared to have caught up with the meals I had made them aware of.

All part of the plan, all part of the plan, but they were a step too early, and it cost me everything. I stumbled.

. . .

“Ware serpents.” Shouted Sinbad as he continued to close in on me. My stumble had caused me to slam into the railing rather than over it. Winded, I turned to face the outraged captain rather than get stabbed in the back. Deflecting a cutlasses slash with a dagger; he passed me by as he raced to the stern. His ship was more important than a future slave, but he had not given up on gaining me completely. A serpent was pulling itself up the stern of the boat, and as the water seemed to boil with the twisting coils of the tangle, the slaves boiled up out of hold after shipping their oars. They were freed from the benches for the fight as well as armed to fight for their lives alarmingly quickly. Sinbad leapt to their head to lead them.

Fixated on me, the serpent struck toward me but was forced back by the wall of slaves though they lost two in the process, disappearing down through its distended jaws. While the captain couldn’t afford to focus on me as he was marshalling his sailors and slaves to face, the growing number of sea serpent heads popping up out of the water. I was not left alone by the heavy hitters who had only been a few steps behind the captain, and I suddenly found myself having to fend off the daggers of the rogue as he reached the back.

Deck life had become as chaotic as I had expected. Only I had planned to be somewhere else when it happened. The last sight I saw was the warrior lopping off the head of the one onboard; there was a surge from danger sense then everything suddenly unexpectedly went dark. Whatever it had been, it had hit me before I could respond.

. . .