Return to The Wrath of Hurucan, part one
The bow was pitching hard. The deck dropped out from under his feet twice before he could clamber up behind the figurehead, and he lashed himself to the cleats used to secure deck cargo. Above and ahead of him, the great gilded dolphin of the figurehead seemed to skip across the wave crests, and behind him, the crew labored to make fast the galley’s single sail.
If an old trading galley could transform itself into a flying fish, the Incari flew, and Soran’s heart was in his mouth. His belly clenched both in dread and in exhilaration as the ship sped a single breath ahead of the wind, the storm, and her own destruction. Priolas had spent most of his life on these very decks. He knew this galley as no other man would ever know her -- and still Soran’s heart hammered against his ribs, while Vayal seemed a thousand leagues away.
He flung a prayer to Helios into the storm-dark sky -- Helios the Sun, whose blazing chariot was gone, invisible in the shroud of silver-green thrown up by Hurucan. The priest-kings of Vayal believed they were descended from Helios, but Soran had never been sure if it were true, or of the great warlords of the New Kingdom simply flattered themselves while Helios chose not to comment.
A bellow from the masthead caught his ear before the wind would quite tear it away. Horem was there, lashed to the wood. The boy’s eyes were the keenest aboard, and Priolas would have been waiting to hear his voice. "The Myrmidae!" He shouted. "I see the shoals of the Myrmidae, to starboard!"
Soran clung to the side, and as the ship rolled he caught a glimpse of frothing white water. The reef always broke surface at low tide, and was marked by a bell which floated in a buoyant cage, tethered to the rocks by a chain longer than a man was tall. Those rocks had killed many a ship, and the bell only served warning to the foolish. The tides ripped and tore around the Myrmidae, and when Hurucan was on the loose, Soran knew no more dangerous waters.
In the stern, Priolas and three of his strongest were leaning their combined weight on the immense steering oar, and the Incari bucked, heaved in protest as they struggled against the force of the current. It was as if the galley longed to drive herself up on the Myrmidae, impale herself there and die at the whim of Hurucan.
The chill which invaded Soran’s bone marrow had less to do with the breaking storm than with the breath of the vengeful god which he thought he felt on his neck every moment. The Myrmidae seemed to call to the galley with the roaring voice of the sea and the keening wail of the wind, and the Incari fought her master hard in her lust to answer.
"Sweet Helios," Soran muttered into the teeth of the gale, "sweet Helios of the millions of years, spare this poor ship and these poor souls, for we are innocent and bound only for home."
Yet even as he spoke the words, he heard the sound of a lie in his own ears. Innocent? Priolas the mariner might be innocent, and most of his crew. But how much blood stained Soran’s palms? They were as scarlet as the hands of any warrior, though he had never seen a battlefield and never would. These hands were heavy, burdened with the doom of so many, men and women alike. The amulet on his breast was gold and platinum -- the mark of his rank, his warrant to take life, the sanction of Imperial Vayal to go where he would in the Five Lands, without limit or hindrance. Five years, he had worn it, and lately he felt its weight, like a burden that would drag him also to his doom.
If he had not been born to it, he would have cast it into the ocean, let the tides ripping around the Myrmidae take it into Peseden’s green depths, where the souls of the Kushoi and the Neftish were said to dwell. And where the Zehefti would dwell this night, he thought. The sky was dark as night, while sunset lay hours away, and the storm had begun to break, full force, as Priolas and his men struggled to seduce the Incari away from the shoals.
"Sweet Helios," Soran prayed, shouting now into the fangs and claws of a salt-hard gale that seemed to strip the flesh from his face and flay his body, "Helios, if I’m the son of your rage, the heir of your fury, pluck me off this deck and let the rest go free! You know me, Helios -- long and long have you known me! Not all the ocean could purge the blood from these hands, so let Hurucan and Peseden have me, let the ship pass by!"
Thunder bellowed across the sea, lightning blinded him, and the salt spray stung in his nose and throat. For a moment he believed his prayer would be answered, and his heart leapt. The old gods were often deaf to the pleas of men, but Soran’s voice was unique among them. Seventh son of the seventh son. The witchfinder of Vayal.
His eyes squeezed shut as the Incari turned her high dolphin prow toward the Myrmidae, and he held his breath, in that moment waiting only to be taken.
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