In the Lair of the She-Beast (A Cerce Stormbringer Story) Part 2

Part 1

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Chapter 2

Three days aboard a ship was intimidating, but would at least be comparatively relaxing, Cerce had thought. Her usual fare was days of travel by road, aching legs, tortured feet, chapped arses, and chafed thighs.

Turns out the sea wasn't too much more comfortable. The 'cabin' Red Tom had promised her proved to be a corner of the central hold sequestered off by a curtain hung from a rope, creating a private area just about large enough to curl behind in a makeshift cot while sweaty pirates snored and farted two feet away on the other side of it.

Breakfast was usually cold meat and boiled beans that Cerce ate cheerfully on the deck, looking out at the blue waves with endless wind chapped lips and watery eyes. The Foul Mouth was far beyond sight anymore, and only the vague shadow of the southern coast of Cornubia still visible on the horizon as they traveled east along it. The sky was bright, with patches of sunlight peeking down through the white clouds, and Cerce's skin began to darken slightly as she spent afternoons basking on deck.

Red Tom was occupied completely for the first few hours of every day, surprising Cerce with his activity and the amount of energy at which he threw himself around the ship. The Captain had an eye on everything, and while she'd known Tom a few years, Cerce had never before seen him in his natural habitat.

When the sun was at its apex the crew settled somewhat, and took time to entertain themselves. For the first day or two the crew were standoffish and Cerce found herself excluded. She'd pass time watching the men work, trying to figure out the intricacies of the rigging. Occasionally she'd flick through the little book that Adam had given her when she'd told him she was taking a trip, but had trouble making much sense of the flowery prose. Something about horses and pretty girls in dresses, but Cerce had never been much of a reader.

She'd find moments to chat with Tom and watch the waves go by in the evening, and he reminded her that the crew may be a surly lot, but they were his boys and soon they'd come around. He assured Cerce that though they might have not shown it, they were likely thankful to have a woman on board to spice up the usual scenery a little.

After a couple of days the men of Adamus did indeed warm up a to the presence of the Nadyr. Cerce found herself playing card games with cards so rat eared that the crew knew almost every one from the tears and folds alone. This led to arguments over who'd won a round pretty much every round, with handfuls of coins being tossed back and forth moment by moment. Occasionally something comparatively worthwhile like a shiny apple or a measure of rum was tossed into the winner's pot and everyone would get quiet and pretend to know what they were doing for a round or two. Cerce lost a  bone necklace she'd made in her days on the road, but won a hammered copper ring she'd taken a shine to and, out of jewelry, anted up a show of her tits instead. Cerce had also found an appreciation for the filthy jokes that seemed to make up a lot of the banter during the ship's work hours, and if nothing else, learned a thing or two about the acts a Penryan girl would allegedly perform given the right circumstances. There were the inevitable contests of strength and other manly prowess, and Cerce almost got her shoulder dislocated arm wrestling Ben the Black. Later, some of the crew took turns trying to lift Cerce's halberd, and then it was her turn to giggle as half failed to lift it at all, and the ones that did stumbled around trying to wield it like a toddler with a broadsword.

It was after a game of cards one night, when Cerce was stretching by the bow that Red Tom approached her and handed over a cup of the rich, sweet mead he kept in the cabin.
"Oh, the good stuff is it?" Cerce asked. Taking a sip. It was thick like honey and went immediately to her head.
"Wanted to see how you were coming along. Taking a liking to the sea life, Stormbringer?"
Cerce shrugged, leaning over the deck to peer down into the water. The water this far from shore was darker than Cerce had ever known it to be, a blackness so complete it looked almost solid.
"Still get shivers down my spine sometimes, but it's not too bad. Ship's cosy."
"Isn't she?" Red Tom grinned, clearly a few cups into his mead himself, "Nothing like it really, being out here. I see you been getting on with the lads."
Cerce nodded and smiled,
"Yeah actually, for a bunch of crazed known thieves and murderers, they're pretty good to know."
"Only the best on this ship, greenie."
"So tell me about the Merrow, what do you know?" Cerce asked, sipping from her cup.

Tom drank liberally from his own and blew noisily out of pursed lips.
"Well, I know they aren't usually anywhere near the west, for a start. Come in all shapes and sizes. Most about the size of a man, or smaller. Up north in Dumnonia they say there's huge Merrow, big as ships. Sounds like sailor talk to me though."
"Like Shakka?" Cerce asked, "I heard a lot of stories in the bar."
"The She-Beast of the South? Yeah, she's meant to be big. I know people who say they've seen her. Queen of the Merrow. Mostly rumour though, still. Most of the ones I've seen have usually been out near the east island. You ever been to Exenar?"
Cerce shook her head, her white hair flying in the sea wind.
"This is the furthest I've been from Cornubia, right now."
Tom shrugged, "It's nice out there if you like the heat. Good food. But yeah, they got Merrow all over the waters out there. Locals been fighting with them over patches of coast all along the island for years, way back since the bloody shattering. Adamas been in a couple scraps with them over there, paid work. Always trying to find a way to get rid of them. Even poisoning their own waters to try and drive them out, everything. Probably why the Merrow fight so nasty."
"Who fights nice, Tom? Tell me that." Cerce smiled.
"You know what I mean, you go into a fight ready for a fist in the gut or a nutting, don't you? Merrow, it's claws, teeth, they make weapons out of coral, oof, gets caught up in your guts, shatters to pieces inside you. Proper nasty stuff. Why do you think I dragged you along on this?"
"Because you want to see me locked in a vicious fight to the death with some bare breasted Merrow right?"
"Partially, but mainly because you're bloody nasty yourself in a fight, Stormbringer, and I like that in my friends."
"Thanks Tom, that's sweet of you."

They both finished off the mead that remained in their cups, and Cerce gave Red Tom a nudge.
"Speaking of friends...tell me about Captain Revan. How do you even know him?"
Tom tipped his head back and gave a bark of a laugh. Cerce pushed on.
"I wanna know! How does the most respected guard captain on the south coast get on so well with...well, you! Revan's almost put a rope around my neck about three times, why isn't he firing burning arrows at your ship any time you're in sight?"
Tom clapped Cerce on the shoulder.
"Wib wasn't always such an uptight sod, is why. Before someone rammed that stick right up his arse, Wib Revan was quite the adventurer. Back in the day we were something of a team."
"You and Wib? Side by side?" Cerce asked incredulously.
"And a few others. Barr of the Isles, biggest bastard I ever met, bigger than most orcs. Lady Crayne, finest knight for leagues, blonde hair like sunlight. Couple other comers and goers over the years. We were quite the party back then."
Cerce was shaking her head in disbelief. Tom nodded, his eyes a little lost in the memory.
"There was a lot to do after the war. We needed heroes then. Soldiers gone wild, bands of brigands, rogue orcs who'd ignored the treaty. We chased one or the other across the island for years. Bloody good days, them."
"So what happened?"
"Ah, everyone gets old don't they? Can't live the adventuring life forever. Work slowed down. Wib settled, found his little Elven bride, got himself straight. Barr died from an arrow wound gone bad. Crayne and I rumbled pirates in the Foul Mouth for a few years and...well...one of the ships just looked real good one day. Rest just came with the territory."

Tom looked about his crew, and gave a smile. There was a rustle of commotion going on, and a few of the men had produced instruments.
It wasn't practiced, it seemed to come naturally, reedy whistles placed to chapped lips, a rickety little fiddle, and a plain little drum beat with a calloused hand. It started to echo out over the waters around the ship. Clinging to the rigging by the mizzen, a tall deck hand with long brown hair was the first to raise his voice and start singing.

Now when I was a young man
We lived near the sea strand
And my folks kept a tavern called the Admiral's head
And old salts by the fireside would tell of the sea's wide
The far foreign shores
And the lives that they'd led

After that, it filled the ship. Every voice suddenly raised as one, and Cerce jumped in surprise as Tom joined in at full volume, a song every one of them clearly knew by heart. The ship seemed to swell with it, voices raised, arms swaying.

And it's up and away in the mornin'
O' the tears my poor mother has cried
But the sea it had called me
And you may say I'm balmy
But I went to her just like a bride
And it's up and away in the mornin'

Cerce was smiling, watching the musicians play, the bodies standing upon the deck, swaying in the rigging or emerging out from the cabins below to join in. Tom gave a gesture to them proudly. He leaned in closer to her to speak as his crew continued their song.
"Friends are what you make of them, Cerce. First time I met Ben the Black, we were hunting brigands terrorizing a town. Ben had been burning whole buildings for a handful of coin. He almost put his axe into my head. That big scar on his chest? Wib gave him that. Damn fine with a blade, Wib."
Ben was among those hanging from the rigging, his mouth open wide, roaring along with the rest of the crew.

And it's up and away in the mornin'
And though we may never come home
We'll think of it often
Til' the day that our lead weighted coffins
Get tossed in the foam
And it's up and away in the mornin'

"Where'd you see yourself in another ten summers? Twenty? You and your friends. Shacked up with true love, raising a little one?" Tom asked.
Cerce thought of her group of friends. The little party they'd become. The thief, Adam, the mercenary, Carnaby, the bartender, Jiera. Where they might be headed.
"Maybe, I can see it for one or two of us. Happy ending. Or maybe in the dirt, or disappeared without trace."
Tom gave Cerce another clap on the back.
"You want my advice, be the one who sails off into the seas at the end. Not the one left behind."
Tom finished up his drink and began to walk to his cabin, over his shoulder he said to Cerce as he left.
"Sleep if you can. Not long after dawn we reach the waters where it happened."

Cerce watched the men partying well into the night. Some of the songs she knew, and she joined in whenever she could. Her voice carried across the sea along with the light from the lanterns, making the ship seem a strange little pedestal of brightness in the middle of endless night.

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Part 3

'Up and Away' lyrics by The Poxy Boggards!

In the Lair of the She-Beast (A Cerce Stormbringer Story) Part 1

Prologue

The night breeze moved across the wide wooden deck, strong enough to add a chill to the air but not to steal the words from Reyes and Obie's mouths as they sat overlooking the passing water.
Obie passed the little flask back to Reyes, and the elderly sailor took another quick sip of the rum before he continued.

"I mean, it all depends where you been in the past really, doesn't it? I got the job 'cause I sailed with old captain Hereford for twenty years, up and down the coast. I knew every port, every customs man, every old inn that welcomes sailors, and I got that job 'cause I'd been part of the rigging crew on the state ship as a young man, doin' the circle past Zenance and back every week. You ask me, when we get back to the Foul Mouth, go talk to the lads up at customs. You make friends there, it'll get you places."

Obie nodded solemnly. 'Decades of back-breaking hard work' hadn't been the advice he'd been hoping for. He scratched his hair, unwashed and matted with weeks of seawater.

"Yeah... I mean, just want to see something new I guess. Always wanted to see the south isles."

Reyes was staring off into the dark seas stretching out before them. Black waves were slapping quietly past the side of the ship, the horizon clear and empty.

"You want adventure, you'd be better off on a pleasure ship, boy. You want to see beautiful sights or do you want to get paid?"

"Well, both; don't I?" Obie shrugged.

"Then you should get yerself on a pirate ship boy," he gave a snarky laugh, "Riches an' the women of the southern islands. You know, I hear one of those islands down there, fruit trees everywhere, an' all the women wear nothin' but as a hat to shade their eyes, all year round."

Obie snorted, not half as outrageous as most of what Reyes had told him though. Obie reached back for the flask. As he turned his gaze out to the sea, a face stared back at him from the water.

Wide eyes, black. Glistening skin. A wave crested over the face, and it was gone.

"Reyes, you...you see that?"

"See what, kid? Beaches of beautiful women? Lots... I once found myself on..."

Obie cut him off, pointing into the sea.

"No, there was a girl, in the sea there."

Reyes nudged him,

"It's been a while, I know, believe you me you get to the point where you'll be able to find a nice pair of tits in the knots in the planks above yer bunk."

Obie stared into the black waves. He wasn't the type to have his eyes play tricks on him.

"Let me guess, big blue eyes like that girl in the bakery shop you're always talking about?"

"No, black eyes, black and horrible."

Reyes went silent. He found his feet and leaned over the deck, peering down into the ocean. His old eyes darted left and right suspiciously.

"Couldn't be, not 'ere. We're too far west."

Obie tugged at the old man's ragged shirt.

"Too far west for what?"

"Never you mind, stay 'ere, keep an eye out. I'm going to knock on the captain. You see anythin' else you scream," Reyes said as he turned and began striding across the deck, "an' I mean you scream like a bloody banshee, you hear?"

"Reyes, what are you doing? Captain'll go radge if you wake him up now; it's not dawn for hours..."

Obie shook his head, watching the old sailor go. He turned the flask in his hand, only a drop left. He tilted the thing back the whole way and felt the last sliver of rum snake down his throat.

When he turned his eyes back to the black seas, the faces were watching him. Black glossy eyes staring back at him, glistening faces, scales, teeth.

He thought he saw three at first, then five, then he couldn't count anymore.

Obie screamed.

Chapter 1

Cerce stood peering out into the gray fog that was sweeping in over the sea. Mornings in the Foul Mouth were always drenched in mist and fog, slowly boiling off throughout the morning as the sun rose drearily behind the perpetual clouds.

She'd arrived at the docks early, and had been watching the many jobs unfolding around the galleon. Adamas wasn't the biggest ship in the bay, but it was well known. Most of the other ships around had probably chased it at some point.

She swallowed, trying to unseat the deep feeling of dread that was gripping onto her guts with tight little claws, and continued what she had been saying.

"I mean I like the sea, don't get me wrong. Grew up in Belerion. Used to sit for hours down by the coast, watching it, when I was little. Just don't much like being at sea. As soon as I can't see the ground beneath my feet. Something about that feeling..."

Cerce gave a roll of her shoulders and cringed.

"Fear of the unknown, greenie," said Red Tom Flint as he came clomping over the gangplank to grab another sack of provisions. His long black hair jingled and glittered with the dozens of assorted coins, bones, and bits of junk woven or matted into it. Tom's white shirt was open to bare a lean, hairy chest and the edges of various tattoos.

He stopped before Cerce, and spread his hands wide, red painted nails miming claws.

"The feeling that, just out of sight, in the inky depths, there's eyes and teeth and gaping, stretching maws waiting for you. Waiting for some unseen horror of the deep to engulf you whole like so much shrimp."

Cerce inclined her head. Her thick white hair was blowing in the sea breeze, and although most of her frame was strapped in leather armor, goosebumps rose on her bare arms.

"Well, yeah. Pretty much. No one likes the idea of getting eaten."

Red Tom gave a smirk and slapped her on the side.

"'Course we don't. That's why every sailor has those fears, and we all get over them. For the most part."

Cerce followed Red Tom up the plank, her heavy halberd resting over her shoulders. Red Tom tossed his hair and looked back at her as he went on.

"When you're actually out there, you mostly forget about the existential dread of the great black unknown when you start dealing with all the other shit. Like dying of thirst, mold, getting sick all the time, losing a hand to a rope burn gone nasty, some nutter castaway leaping aboard in the night to steal your salvage and cut your nuts off while you sleep, you know."

Cerce nodded, "...I guess."

Red Tom's crew were making the final checks before they set sail. A hardy dozen, bare chests and sun ruddied skin to a man. Cerce didn't know any of them personally apart from their Captain.

As she walked, her boots stomping on the gnarled wooden deck, she strode by Red Tom's first mate. Ben the Black was sitting on the deck cross legged. His whole body was practically a knot of muscle, and he whistled to himself as he ran a whetstone over the blade of a little handaxe.
Cerce let her gaze stay on him for a while. Ben bore a freshly shaven head, a ragged blonde beard, and a chest that was a patchwork of scar tissue. From what she'd heard, not so long ago being anywhere near a port would have got Ben a good hanging. Ben looked up suddenly, the whites of his eyes a rheumy yellow, and gave a toothy smile to that set the back of Cerce's neck to tingling.

Red Tom gave her a nudge, and pointed off down the jetty where silver guard armour glistened as a tall figure made his way towards the ship.

"Our charming benefactor arrives." Red Tom yelled, loud enough for Wib Revan to hear as he came to a halt before the ship.

The Captain of the Guard put a hand to his brow to shield his eyes from the emerging sun.

"Captain Flint." Revan acknowledged.

"Red Tom, Wib. It's Red Tom. Going to be joining us on our merry way?"

"Afraid not, Tom, no time for sailing. The Foul Mouth needs me here."

"That is a damn shame, we could always use another one to mop the deck."

Revan didn't smile, but he didn't grimace either. He strode up to the side of the ship and placed his hand upon it.

Looking up, he met the gaze of Red Tom and Cerce.

"I have missed your wit, Tom." Revan said.

"You too Wib, whatever happened to us?"

"I grew up, Tom, and you became a professional pain in my arse."

Red Tom put his hand to his chest,

"I'm glad I still have a special place with you, me old mate."

Revan pulled a rolled up paper from his jacket, and waved it towards the pirate Captain.

"The map you asked our friend to draw. He managed it, but it is a bit shaky."

Red Tom dropped from the ship down to the pontoon, and the whole thing rocked under his weight, nearly sending a deck hand staggering into the drink. Revan didn't so much as wobble.

Red Tom took a glance at the map, squinting up his big brown eyes a moment, before turning the thing on its side and tilting his head the other way.

"You really think it was Merrow done this?" Red Tom asked, "You don't see them out this far. They stick to the eastern islands. I'd bet money it was a ship that put the blades to them. Been a while since we seen the Boneshaker, might be back in business."

"I'm well aware of the proclivities of local pirates, Tom, I chased one in particular for eight years."

"I always could run faster than you, family man. How's the wife by the way?"

"Regardless," said Revan immediately, "the bodies we pulled out of the ship were torn apart. No human did this."

Red Tom folded the map and stashed it somewhere in his spacious trousers.

"Well, that's why they, and by they I mean you, pay us the good money. If it's pirates, we know how to deal with 'em. If it really is a rogue pod of Merrow. Well, we know how to deal with them too."

 "You're my best man on the job, Tom. Don't mess it up."

Red Tom have a chuckle as he climbed back aboard and sent his crew swarming for their posts with a wave of his hand.

"Wib, you of all people should know how hard Red Tom Flint is to kill. And thanks to your far reaching connections, we have the Stormbringer."

Red tom gave Cerce a hearty clap on back that had her grabbing for rigging to steady herself.

"And if all the stories are true she single-handedly smashes mountains in half and blasts lightening from her eyes. Isn't that right?"

Cerce gave a shrug and nodded down to Revan.

"Thanks for this, Wib."

"Captain Revan." The Guard Captain corrected, and gave Cerce the slightest of nods.

"Alright you hairy bastards! Time to get sailing!" Yelled Red Tom, raising an arm in the air. The crew sprang to it.

Red Tom noticed Cerce's clear apprehension, and gave her a nudge.

"Come on Stormbringer. What you worrying about? Worst things happen at sea don't they?"

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Part 2