WRATH PART 1

The salt spray felt different these last few days. 

Heavier.

The mood aboard the ship had shifted to that of mostly silence.
Every creak of the timber, every snap of the sails in the wind, felt amplified.

We were close.

The Imperial Navy's last known position was a treacherous cluster of islands and reefs known as the Serpent's Teeth as Tulote had told me, and according to Triton's charts, we would reach them by midday.

“Heads on a swivel, lads,” Triton's voice carried over the deck, “That demon scout we let run home has surely sung its song by now. They'll be expectin' company.”

Tulote stood near the bow, unmoving.
He hadn't said much since our first battle.
He performed his duties with a chilling efficiency, but the wall around him had grown thicker. 
I must've been the thought of Aquarius that haunted him, they were close, after all.
He was tense with grief and purpose, though, but I feared what would happen when he finally broke.

Cassandra, on the other hand, seemed to thrive on the tension.
She moved about the deck like a phantom, her steps barely made sound.
I'd find her perched in the rigging, then a moment later she'd be leaning against the quarterdeck rail behind me, with that wretched teasing smile.

“Nervous hero?” she'd whisper. “Don't worry, I'll be sure to leave a few for you.”

My own focus was on our people.
I drilled the marines relentlessly, and spent every spare moment with Yui.
The boy had blossomed, and his haunted look was gone. He started to look like a boy again.

He was quick, clever, and absorbed every lesson like a dry sponge.
The day before, I'd watched him expertly patch a sailor's torn trousers, using the same stitching technique I'd taught him for mending sails.
He made a name for himself among the crew, and always had our spirits up.

“You'll stay below when the fighting starts, you understand?” I had told him that morning, “Your station is with the surgeon's mates. That's an order, Yui.”

He looked up at me,

“I understand, Arda. I'll be ready. I'll protect them.” 

The dagger I'd given him was tucked neatly in his belt.

My heart ached with a terrible pride.

The call came, as we knew it would.

“SAILS! DEAD AHEAD! ERTON ABOVE... SO MANY SAILS!”

The lookout's voice cracked with disbelief.

Triton, Tulote, Cassandra, and I converged at the rail, spyglasses raised.

It was a fleet.

“Ay, it's at least fifteen of them demonic vessels.” Triton said.

He was right, their chitinous black hulls and blood-red sails were upon the blue horizon.

They were arranged in a wide, crescent formation.

In the centre, one vessel stood out.

It was a behemoth, nearly the size of a standard third-rate ship-of-the-line, its hull adorned with immense, carved spines, giving it the appearance of some monstrous sea-dragon. 

“That must be their flagship,” I said.

“So the little fish ran home and brought the whole bloody swarm,” Triton muttered, “They've blockaded the passage to the Serpent's Teeth. The Imperial Navy is trapped behind them.”

“They mean to crush us with sheer number,” Tulote said with a low growl. “A conventional cannon duel is suicide. We'd be disabled by a dozen ships while fighting a thirteenth.”

“Then we don't fight a conventional duel,” I said, “We're a single, massive blade. We don't slash at them from a distance. We plunge right through their heart.” I pointed towards the flagship. “We cripple their command structure. We board them, sow chaos, and break them from the inside out.”

Cassandra's eyes lit up. 

“Oh, now you're talking my language. A party. And I wasn't even asked to RSVP.”

Triton's feral grin returned. He slammed his spyglass shut.

"A bold plan! A stupid plan! I love it! MR. ARDA, BEAT TO QUARTERS! ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS!"

He didn't need to say it twice.

As I shouted my orders to the marines, I caught Yui's eye across the deck. 
He gave me a short, sharp nod, the one I'd taught him.
Then he turned and disappeared below deck, towards his station.

Stay safe, son, I prayed.

"Helmsman, steer for the flagship! Damn the torpedoes and damn their cursed fleet!" Triton roared. "Master Gunner, load with chain shot! I want to clip their wings before we gut them!"

The Obsidian Maw surged forward.

The world erupted.

The demon ships on the flanks opened fire, a rolling barrage of 9 and 12 pounder cannonballs that churned the water around us into a frothing cauldron.

The air filled with the shriek of incoming shot.

Our hull shuddered under dozens of impacts.

Splinters flew across the deck, but our thick oak, and Tulote's magical coating held.
We took some damage, but we were still afloat.

"They're closing the jaws!" Triton yelled over the din.

"Let them!" I shouted back. "We just need to break one tooth!"

We were close now, bearing down a demon frigate that was moving to screen its flagship

"STARBOARD BROADSIDE! FIRE AT THE RIGGING!"

The Maw unleashed hell. Not with the hull shattering devastation of round shot, but with a whistling whirling death of chain shot.

The massive iron bars, connected by a length of chain, spun through the air and scythed through the demon ship's rigging.

Masks cracked, sails shredded into ribbons and the ship was instantly crippled, losing all momentum and drifting helplessly.

"HARD TO STARBOARD!" Triton commanded.

The Maw ground against the side of the crippled vessel with a horrific, splintering shriek. "BOARDING PARTIES, AWAY!"

This was the moment.

Tulote was the first across.

He didn't wait for a plank.

He just started fighting.
A bridge of solid, dark earth erupted from the Maw's railing, slamming onto the enemy deck, it was his doing.
He charged across it.

His skin had taken on a faint, earthen sheen.

A demon warrior, twice his size and clad in jagged armour, swung a massive axe at him.

Tulote didn't even try to dodge.

He raised an arm, and a shield of solid rock materialized from his skin to intercept the blow. The axe shattered.
Tulote's other hand, now encased in jagged stone for he had left his Flamma behind, slammed into the demon's chest, the impact turning its chitinous armour to dust and sending it flying overboard.

I could tell that he was channelling his grief and rage into every attack.

At the same instant, Cassandra simply vanished from our deck.
A moment later, she reappeared on the enemy's quarterdeck, coalescing from a shadow behind a demonic captain/

"Boo," she whispered.

Her blade slid between the vertebrae of his neck before he could even turn.

The other officers stared in shock as their commander crumpled.

"Looking for me?" she chimed.

Her form dissolved into two, then three identical, laughing illusions.

As the demons swung wildly at the phantoms, the real Cassandra moved among them like the wind, her blade finding every gap in their armour.

With the Nobellus Gladius in hand, I led my marines over the side, landing on a deck already descending into chaos thanks to Tulote.

I utilized the full extent of Usasha's teachings.

I saw the flawed blueprints, corrupted glyphs pulsing with dark energy.

A warrior charged me.

I didn't parry.

I reached out with my will, found the flawed structural thread of its blade, and pulled. 

The sword dissolved into black sand mid-swing.

The demon stared at its empty hilt in disbelief for the single second it took for my Gladius Nobellus to end it.

I moved through, fixing and destroying as I went.

I mended the splintered shield of one of my marines, its wood knitting back together instantly.

I targeted the nexus point in a hulking brute's armour, causing it to collapse and crush the creature within.

We were winning.

We were clearing the ship.

.

.

.

.

But the demons were not fools.

While our attention was focused on the boarding action, a small, fast attack craft we had overlooked in the chaos had slipped alongside the Maw's port side.

Using grappling hooks, a small party of them swarmed aboard, unopposed.

We finished securing the frigate, leaving a prize crew, and disengaged, our sights set on the flagship.

The victory was swift, brutal, and heady.

But as I stepped back onto the deck of the Obsidian Maw, a marine, his face ashen, ran up to me.

"Sir! We were boarded! Port side, lower deck! They're dead, but..."

My blood ran cold. 

The lower deck.

The surgeon's station.

Yui.

I didn't run.

I moved faster than that.

I pushed past celebrating sailors, down the companionway ladder.

My heart was hammering against my ribs.

The narrow passageway near the infirmary was a scene of carnage.

Three demons lay dead, their bodies riddled with wounds.

And slumped against the bulkhead, clutching his small dagger, was Yui.

He was bleeding.

He was bleeding bad.

A deep, fatal gash was carved across his chest.

His final fight was clear.

One demon had a dozen small stab wounds in its legs and torso.

Another had its dagger buried to the hilt in its throat.

"Son, son, stay with me, I got you, I got you." I said as I raced to his side.

"Did I do good? Did I do Good Mr. Arda.... no dad."

"You," tears running down, "you did good son."

"I feel tired. I feel really tired."

"Hold on son, please. PLEASE!"

"It's okay, you've done all you can. And that's more than enough."

"No, NO i've failed you Yui, I've failed you. A father's job is to protect his sons."

"No, just to love... just to love."

He slumped down. Smiling, nothing moved.

"YUI, SON, no NO NO NO!"

He was so small. 

My world narrowed to this one, small, still form.

I reached out, my hand trembling, and touched his cheek.

It was still warm.

All my power, my ability to perceive and mend the very fabric of creation, to knit together a ship's hull or a soldier's shield, and it was useless. 

I couldn't find the thread of his life.

It wasn't flawed.

It wasn't broken. 

It was gone.

A sound escaped my throat, a ragged, broken noise that was half-sob, half-scream.

I pulled his small body into my arms, holding him tight, rocking back and forth in the bloody, narrow passage.

The hero who could restore.

The father who promised to protect.

I was a failure.

A god who couldn't save one child.

His child.

My child.

I felt rage.

An anger so pure and absolute it burned away the tears.

The world of threads resolved itself before my eyes again, but it was different now.

It was flawed.

Corrupted.

It contained a wrongness that had stolen my son.

That wrongness had a source. 

It had a face.

And it was on that demonic flagship.

.

.

.

I gently laid Yui down on the deck.

I closed his eyes with my thumb and straightened his tunic.

I took the small dagger from his grip and tucked it into my own belt, next to the Gladius Nobellus.

When I stood up, my crewmates who had gathered at the end of the hall flinched back.

They told me later my eyes were no longer human, but were glowing with the raw, white-hot light of a newborn star.

I looked past them, through the hull of the ship, towards the demonic commander I could now so clearly perceive.

"Triton. Take us alongside the flagship. Now."

I started walking towards the deck.

"Im ending this. Now."