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Chapter 9

Spears

“Hunting spiders is a lot like hunting boars.” I said, trying not to wave the spear around theatrically. “You don’t want to get injured, at all. That’s why your weapons of choice are bow, crossbow, and spear.”

“Unlike boar, spiders can climb trees.” Kismet said.

“Right. So, they’ll go up walls, over obstacles, and they WILL try to drop on you from above.”

“Question!” Kismet sang out.

.....

“Right. Now, we ARE going to have potions in case we get bit?”

“If the natives don’t have them, I know how to make those.”

Which didn’t mean the natives had animals to make them from. But not all truths need to be spoken, and Kismet decided not to throw in any demoralizing facts.

“It’s also why, next week, instead of just spear exercises, we’re going into formations. Torchbearers, get your lessons from Kismet. Fire reveals. If we do any hunting at night or in caves, that ability to see saves lives.”

You may wonder what I was thinking, trying to teach people with a Charisma of only one.

[Charisma/Empathy/Teaching/Teach Fighting Style: 1]

Also, Pankratios isn’t known for fighting with spears.

Well, tough. System acknowledgement or no, I knew a bit about fighting spiders. And, since the crew was all fired up about eating spider meat (and possibly free shore leave), there were more candidates for the hunting parties than normal.

I don’t understand why that is; we called it hunting, but it was still combat. It was risky and done wrong would get men and women killed.

Still, we were doing it during the day, when not so many spiders should be active, and the crews would sleep and rest on the ship.

And it wasn’t as though manual work on a ship had left them without Might, the statistic that determined health.

Oh, and although they may not be a match for mermaids in single combat, several of them were Archers or had a proficiency with harpoon, bident, or trident. And they were used to working as a crew, one man pulling the foe, another falling on the flank.

Still, every little bit of training helped.

Kismet had already decided to teach the crew using their hunting formations as a base. Trying to teach them to fight as Guild infantry wasn’t going to work – we had to use something familiar, something they wanted to do anyway.

The doctor and Surgeon Madra were reviewing the basics of hunting wounds with the people who would be our medics.

My greatest concern was the lack of armor. Most of the crew had none; and onboard the ship, that was fine.

If the spiders got to the ship, something would have gone seriously wrong. Besides, would spider sailors need one eye patch, or four?

Anyway, the crew already knew most of what I learned from Geralt the Blade about fighting without armor. Just don’t get hit. Fight defensively, keep mobile.

They seemed to have everything in hand.

And that worried me, that was always when things went wrong.

#

“Uh, no! No more teas! Grog or ale, or even boiled water, please.” Said the castaway.

“Told you to start with boiled water.” Madra said.

“You did, surgeon. My apologies.”

Doctor Craster applied pressure to his chest, forced him back onto the bed. “Don’t get my patient excited, or I’ll ask you to leave.”

“I tell you, I’m fine. Weak, but fine.”

I remember such discussions with Sandru, the healer at the Guild. “It is the way of medics. They genuinely want you strong enough to walk before letting you try it.”

“Such is the way of things. At least send by someone to talk to me.”

“Oh! Me! I’ll talk to him!” Kismet pointed her head around the door-frame.

Well, she had more charisma than I did...

“I’ll leave the two of you to talk, then.”

“What? You bring me foul weed-water for days, only to leave before learning my name?”

“I need to help prepare the mid-day snacks.” I said.

“It’s Elkenmoor.”

“Rhishisikk. And now, I must go.”

Kismet almost bounced up to her captive. “Your ears are so much like mine without the fur! Tell me about them.”

In her own way, she was curious.

I tried to be envious, but that was just Kismet.

Snacks were crackers, with a fish-bone paste (not as grainy as it sounds) securing olive rings to them. Originally, it was to have been pickle slices, but someone had gained access to the pickle barrel and eaten over half of them.

It wasn’t me! Not that I would have minded an extra pickle, but there was too little food to be feeding myself just to get extra evolutions.

When we’d seen to the crew, I made sure that Kismet and Elkenmoor got their shares.

“I wasn’t sure if you were hungry...” I started.

They vanished as though I were eating them.

“Here.” Kismet said. “You can have mine, too.”

“Are you certain?”

She shivered. “Ick. Olives.”

So hers vanished, too.

“Eat slowly.” Craster said. “I don’t want you getting sick from overeating.”

Elkenmoor swallowed. “Yes, doctor.”

“And start him slow. Broth, not soup, this evening.”

Neither Elkenmoor nor I especially liked that order, but ... never upset the man who may someday be setting your leg.

“So. The crew is curious, what may we tell them of you?” I asked.

“Oh, I’ve given that to Kismet.”

Elkenmoor’s story was simple; he was a boat-fisher, attached to the Gurschtaffel III, a Malosian vessel. He would fish with harpoon from behind the ship, preying on the sharks that followed it.

“The trick,” he said, “is to get the shark out of the water quickly. If there’s too much blood in the water, the sharks will attack your boat, and each other.”

When the dandan fish swallowed his ship, it upended his boat.

“I think it must have eaten the boat as well, I never saw it again.”

“Oh, that’s horrible.” Kismet said.

And it was – but the acting behind the story was first class.

#

I was able to convince the doctor to let Elkenmoor take a walk, below deck, to reduce the risk of falls.

“Might I have a harpoon, to keep myself upright?”

I handed him my short spear. “Be careful not to scar the deck, or yourself.”

We both, for our own reasons, wanted to be away from the crew.

He pretended to stumble, lowering the spear point to thrust it at my lower jaw.

I tried to put him into a hold, but he proved surprisingly flexible, a trait I should have expected.

“I know what you are.” He hissed in my ear.

“I know what you are.” I replied. “Selkie.”

“I prefer the term selch. How did you know?”

“I tasted your blood.”

“What? Are you some kind of draughr?”

“Titanspawn. Protean formshifter.”

.....

“Wait, you’re NOT wynkelwyr?”

“What are those?”

“Fish-shifters, able to assume human form and eat ship crews one at a time.”

“Good to know those exist.” I waited for three heartbeats. “Why is the spear point still at my neck?”

“I’m still not certain whether I need to kill you or not.”

“Okay, I have a question while you wait. If you were sneaking out of the hospital every night, why eat the pickles?”

“Sneaking out? I’m barely able to move.”

So... someone else was stealing pickles. I wondered if it was Clemson. His curse hadn’t gone away, but rather into hibernation. Maybe gluttony was a sin he developed, and the curse was feeding off of it?

Oh, right. I should probably focus on the fact that someone was holding a spear-tip to my throat.

“You can’t tell them. Not until I’m well enough to resume my natural form and return to the sea.”

“Your people. Your ... tribe?”

“Pod.” He said. “A group of seals is called a pod.”

“The dandan fish?”

The speartip vanished from my neck. “I don’t know, they went low, I went high. I think... I think the dandan got them, but I do not know.”

“You went high... the Gurschtaffel?”

“I don’t know it’s name. I tried to warn them, but...”

“It’s a miracle you survived.” I said. I’d had a few of those, myself.

He began crying. “I don’t know if my pod is even alive.”

“You went high, so did the dandan. Your people went low.”

“Then why – why didn’t they find me?”

I shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? Dandan fish, they probably fled to somewhere they’d feel safe.”

“Nurk-nug atoll.” He said.

We began walking back toward the hospital.

“I don’t recall that, but I haven’t memorized...”

“It’s not on your maps. Bring me a map, I can point it out for you.”

“The captaine keeps the maps in her quarters. You’ll need to grow stronger.”

“If you can bring me fish...”

“As the ocean provides.” I said.

“Just... no more of that foul tea.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“It is that bad.” Said Madra. “And you are taking too long for a short jaunt.”

“We went to the aft wall.” Elkenmoor said.

Craster looked up from his book, Parasites of Sea and Stream. “Still, you took a while.”

“I’ll get stronger.” Elkenmoor promised.

“Good, you need a bath.” Madra said.

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