Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

El groaned as a distant voice nagged in her ear—yes, nagged—and struggled to open her eyes. She had a crick in her back from the thin cot that felt like she was sleeping on… oh, that was because she was sleeping on something. Reaching her hand under herself while purposely ignoring the voice in her ears and keeping her eyes shut, her fingers found something smooth and hard to the touch.

"What in the Blaze…?" she asked, shifting around—but not actually getting up—to pull whatever it was out from under her. A rum bottle?

El groaned again, the dull pain of a headache reminding her that maybe she'd had a few sips with the food they'd brought.

"How did a few sips turn into you being empty?" she asked the bottle, then gave it an accusing glare. It had the common decency not to react.

"Sounds like you're awake, which means you're ignoring me," Laze's voice finally cut through El's haze enough that she couldn't ignore the words anymore.

"Might be. Kind of don't want to be," El responded into the magic of her communicator. The small room around her was empty of people, though there were bare scraps of food on the central table. The others had at least taken the time to eat. There were also two more empty rum bottles. "What time is it?"

"Morning," Laze said. "Feeling any better?"

"You saw her with that bottle, cuddling up to it like it was a fiery pork bomb," Nidina interrupted. "She's either amazing or hating every decision she's ever made."

El's stomach grumbled at the mention of the delicious sandwich, so much so she missed the next thing Laze said, but she pushed herself to her feet. Several long seconds of straightening out her very crooked uniform—Why did they let me sleep in it? Ah, because they knew it would drive me crazy to be wrinkled all day…—and she pushed energy into her Spark.

The blue flames flowing through her body didn't do anything for the hunger—if anything, it made it worse—but it did clear her head and ease the pain.

"Could definitely go for a pork bomb, and maybe I'll skip the rum tonight, but I'm doing okay," El said to the others. "Uh… how about Dayne? Did he…?"

"I'm fine," Dayne said simply. "Bits is a gracious host."

"Bits?" El asked.

"His nickname for the captain," Nidina replied.

"I… don't think I want the details, actually," El said. "But, if you're asking if I'm up, something must be going on."

"You could say that. There's something you need to see," Laze said. The tone and the way her voice hitched told El words wouldn't be enough, so she quickly exited the guest room and took the short hallway towards the main deck. Bright sunlight flooded through the door as she opened it, even an arm in front of her face not enough to ease the blinding light. Several blinks, a pair of sailor-like curses, and her eyes watering like she'd just been told the pork bombs had been discontinued, then El could see again. "What am I looking…?"

She didn't need to finish the sentence, the wreckage of a ship floating past just off to the side explaining everything. El quick-stepped over to the railing, Laze already coming down the stairs from the steering deck to meet her. Somehow the front half of the ship still jutted from the water, though debris and a broken mast floated nearby. Was the back half below, or was it what made up the flotsam of broken planks bobbing for a hundred feet in every direction?

"What happened to it?" El asked Laze.

"We're still not sure…"

"Should we go take a look?" El asked the question as she pondered it herself.

"That's not actually why I called you up here," Laze quickly interjected.

"Oh? What is, then?"

Laze turned and pointed across the deck, and to the sea beyond.

"Ooooooh," El said, no other words to describe what she saw. Where there'd been one destroyed ship on her side of the vessel, the other was completely littered with them. She spotted what had to be at least a dozen demolished ships, with broken boards, barrels, sails, and… other things covering almost every inch of water from about a hundred feet away to… well, as far as she could see. "Blaze…"

"We spotted the first one as the sun came up about thirty minutes ago. Captain started cursing up a storm, saying it was lucky we didn't sail right into one while it was dark," Laze said.

El scanned her eyes across the wreckage. It had to be an entire fleet of ships, and since what she could see didn't all look the same, maybe multiple fleets? There were those that resembled the front of the ship she was on now, while others looked to be much broader, with almost flat bottoms where they jutted from the water. And, was that one metal over there?

Turning more to the left—in the direction their ship was going—El's eyes settled on a large land mass stretching almost from horizon to horizon. "Is that…?"

"Wirock," Laze said. "Why don't we go back up to the where the captain is. I'm sure she'll have things you want to hear."

"Sure." El ignited her wings and hopped up to the ship's wheel in the blink of an eye, Laze trailing a second behind. "Captain," she said with a polite nod to the woman, and then a second to the man beside her. "Tas."

"Sergeant," Captain BitterCap—Bits—replied.

"El," Tas said as well.

"What happened here? Whose ships are these?"

The captain's hands noticeably squeezed tighter on the ship's wheel, and her brow furrowed like she was trying to keep her anger in. "The ship on our port—the left—be belonging ta me friend, Cap'n Hogtie. Never be getting me hat back now." She grumbled that last bit. "Ta our starboard—the right—that one you can just be seeing with the octashark on the prow, that be belonging ta me other friend, Cap'n BleakBeard. A fine man—terrible at cards—and one of me neighbours."

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"Octashark?" El asked, unable to get past that to absorb the rest of the captain's words. Why is talking to her always a mental obstacle course?

"Ain't ye never be seeing an octashark? Shark's body with tenacles ta pull food into the chompy bits?" the captain asked, and pointed with one hand toward one of the destroyed ships. Sure, maybe that piece of wooden horror hanging off the front of the ship could be…

El shook her head. "You said Captain BleakBeard was a neighbour? One of the others you share an island with?"

"Aye. Me, Cap'n Hogtie, Cap't BleakBeard, and Cap'n Cuddles, we all be sharing a spot of land a hundred miles or so from here," the captain said. "I wouldn't be being surprised if Cuddles's ship be out there somewhere too."

Through sheer force of will, El resisted asking about somebody named Captain Cuddles—barely—and instead focused on what that all meant. "I'm sorry," she said. "All your friends…"

"Aye. At least there be one silver lining, though," the captain said, then pointed towards another ship not far from BleakBeard's. "That be my husband's ship."

"The husband who asked you to come pick up Tas and the others, and bring them here…?" El asked.

"Aye, only ever be making the mistake of getting married the one time," the captain said.

"Were all of these ships carrying people from Pili?" El asked them.

"I can't be saying for sure," the captain said.

"Not unless there have been a lot more ships transporting our people," Tas added. "However, you probably recognize that ship there, and the other one… ah, there." He pointed to two metal hulls.

"Pilish warships?" she asked, and he nodded. "What were Pilish warships doing all the way over here? And what sunk them? Seawyrms?"

El thought back to the damage the single seawyrm had done in the battle yesterday. That'd been to a ship she'd already crippled, though. If it had its weapons, would it have been so thoroughly beaten? Tough to say.

"No idea why they're here," Tas said. "We don't send warships on trade jobs—it's a waste of a valuable resource. As for what sunk them, seawyrms are the only thing I can think of. Uh, other than a certain Firestorm I know, but I have it on good authority she was passed out with a bottle of rum and not flying ahead sinking ships."

El spared a moment to turn and glare at Laze beside her—though the woman just happened to be looking out to sea and… whistling?

"It wasn't me," El said flatly. "It almost looks like this was a battle. Could these other ships have sunk the two warships?"

Tas looked at the captain before answering El. "No offense," he said to Bits, "but these other ships wouldn't have stood a chance. If this was the two warships still sailing with all this wreckage around, I'd find it more believable. This, though? No."

"Okay," El said, moving on to the next thing that was bothering her—and there were a few things. "Why can I still see so many ships? I don't know much about warfare on the water, but shouldn't they have sunk to the bottom?"

"The bottom be very close over that way," the captain said. "There be a few channels of deeper water most ships be taking ta get in safely ta port. Real Wirockian ships be having flat, shallow bottoms, like that one over there, that be letting em move more freely."

"A channel, like where we are now?" El asked, looking down between her feet as if she could see the water under the ship.

"Aye."

"Then, why are the ships there instead of here?" El asked.

The captain and Tas shared a look like they'd had this discussion already. And that they didn't like the answer they'd come up with.

"Probably because something chased them there," Tas said. "They wouldn't have been able to maneuver well in the shallow waters."

"Which be why somebody—or something—would be wanting ta scurry them over that way," Bits added.

"How many ships have you counted?" El asked Captain BitterCap.

"Seventeen. Me two friends, the two Pilish, six Wirockian trade flutes, four Wirockian sloops, and three other ships I don't be recognizing, but that might be Vestish carvels. Ain't ever be seeing more than a picture of one, though, so I can't be being sure," the captain said.

"Vestish? As in Vesitis?" El asked, ears perking up at the place where she'd dropped her brother off.

"Aye. Quite a sail ta the west of here. Surprised they be making it this far," the captain said, then looked again in the direction of the wrecked ships. "Maybe it would be being better if they didn't make it."

"You think they were here for trade?"

"Can't be thinking of another reason, unless they be evacuating their people ta Wirock also," Bits said.

"Speaking of… people…" El said, going over to the railing and looking hard at the water. "Have you seen any? Alive or… not?"

"Not a soul," Bits said, and made a quick gesture with her fingers in front of her lips—like plucking her own breath out of the air—as she whispered, "Spare em the Depths."

"The depths?" El asked.

"Old coastal superstition," Tas answered. "Like a boogeyman. Gets blamed for most ships that sink, people that go missing, or even bad seasons for fishing. Most Pilish people pray to the Seven Cinders, but you still hear about a lot of people closer to the sea making offerings to the Depths for a good catch. Or, to return a lost loved one."

"Never heard of them answering back, though."

"The Depths don't be superstition," Bits said. "Any smart sailor be keeping their breath in a bottle, so the Depths can't be taking it."

"In a bottle?" Laze asked.

"Aye, so even if the ship be sinking, yer breath be safely tucked away," Bits said.

"A glass bottle? Wouldn't it just break if something sunk the ship?" Laze asked, and Bits's eyes slowly widened like she'd never considered the possibility.

"Don't use logic against superstition," Tas half-hissed through closed teeth.

"Sorry," Laze mumbled.

"Back on topic," El said, then stopped. "Uh, actually, maybe the Depths are a topic. Are they seawyrms?"

This time, it was Tas's turn to have his eyes slowly widen like the thought had never occurred to him. By the look he shared with the captain, El was half-surprised neither of them face-palmed.

"Soooo, it's possible?" El asked.

"No idea," Tas said after a moment. "But, I guess it could be. We only started seeing seawyrms recently, though. Just after the thaw. And, as soon as the first ones started appearing, we went back into the books to see if there was any record of them from before the snow started."

"Nothing there?"

"Not a single mention of a blue scale anywhere," Tas said. "Or, if there was, it's further back than the three centuries or so we checked."

"How old are the Depths?" Laze asked.

"As old as the seas," Bits said.

"Some versions of the story even say the seas—and the oceans—were birthed in the Depths," Tas added.

"Not just stories," Bits corrected. "Ye be spending enough time out here on the water, even when the snows be falling everywhere, and ye be learning ta respect the Depths. If ye don't be, well, ye be finding yerself in them."

They were still sailing during the storms? El filed that question away for later. "I guess it doesn't really matter if the seawyrms are the Depths, or where they came from. They're here now, and causing problems." She looked at the wreckage floating on top of the water all around her. "Causing problems is a bit of an understatement.

"When do you think this happened? That's what we need to worry about."

"At least within the last week," Bits said. "That was when me two-timing crab of a husband be passing along word of the work. I be sharing it with Hogtie, BleakBeard, and Cuddles at the same time, though they be getting out of port a day ahead of me. Had different docks ta aim for."

"Their ships move much faster than yours?" El asked, and the scowl that crossed the captain's face nearly triggered El's frost armor.

"Ye be having a problem with me ship?" she asked.

"What? No, no, no," El said, holding up her hands as the bigger woman took a step in her direction. "If they went to Pili from the same island you did, picked up their passengers, and got all the way here ahead of us…"

"They couldn't have been here a week," Tas finished. "It had to have happened in the last day or two."

"Which means…" El started as everybody turned their attention to the debris-covered water all around them. "The seawyrms that did this could still be here."