She reached out a tentacle toward one—
A whip blasted her. The tentacle collapsed.
She stretched out a second limb—
Again.
They had half fanned out around her, partly encircling her, whipping her from all sides. As each weapon fell she jerked and glowed, pain in her face. Her amoebic self began to shrink.
No, Avery thought. Anything but this.
Her other-self grew smaller and smaller.
With a sudden growl, Janx knocked one pirate down, then a second. He started sternward, maybe meaning to take on the four with the whips and free Layanna, but there were too many enemies between here and there. The nearest one whacked Janx’s lower legs with a harpoon shaft and sent him hurtling to the deck. Janx made a motion to get up, then was struck from behind and lay still, but breathing. Avery saw his eyes roll behind closed lids.
At the stern, Layanna’s amoebic self shrank until finally she wasn’t able to sustain it at all. It collapsed into her with a wet sucking noise, and she fell in a heap to the deck, gasping and sweating, fully human once more. She eyed the four pirates warily as they closed in, unable to lift so much as a hand in protest. Avery would have tried to go to her, but one pirate had him pinned by the shoulders while another tied his wrists behind his back. Another bound the semi-conscious Janx a few feet away.
The four with the whips didn’t strike Layanna now that she was human. Two grabbed her under the armpits—she needed no environment suit—and hauled her forward, toward where the large mutant now stood on the deck of the Verignun, not far from where Avery knelt. All around, sailors and whalers knelt similarly, hands bound behind their backs. Even as the outer decks were secured, other pirates made their way indoors to make safe the interior. Already pirates were singling out the women and dragging them, screaming and fighting, indoors. Men tried to stop them, but these were quickly beaten down. Ani, Avery thought wretchedly. Oh please gods don't let them find Ani. It was obvious from the grim, drawn expression on Janx’s face—he had woken—that he was having similar thoughts about Hildra.
The pirates who’d seized Layanna brought her before the mutant who had given the order to use the whips. He was a huge creature, clam-like, sickly and glistening, seemingly largely boneless. Only one of his legs appeared to have inner support; the other had been augmented with a wooden cane securely strapped to his whitish flesh. His nose-less, almost feature-less face made no expression as Layanna was presented to him, but his watery gray eyes held some emotion Avery couldn’t identify.
Avery realized that the pirates hadn’t attacked in order to take the ship. They had come for Layanna.
“What shall we do with you?” said the pirate captain, if that’s what he was, his speech thick and watery. He ran a hand through Layanna’s hair, leaving slimy trails wherever his thick, boneless fingers went.
“Leave her alone,” Avery said, struggling to his feet and stepping forward. The pirates nearest him grabbed him and coiled their arms to beat him, but the captain waved them off.
“You’re one of her compatriots, are you?” The captain turned his gray, fishy eyes on Avery.
“Aye, and so am I, Segrul, you bastard,” came a voice behind them, and Avery turned to see Janx climb to his knees.
“Can that ... Janx, is that you?”
The two seamen stared at each other across the deck. Fragments of mist and foam blew between them.
Segrul, if that was the pirate captain’s name, stumped forward, indicating that his subordinates should let Janx stand. “This is one of the finest reavers I ever crewed with,” he told them. “One of the finest captains I ever had under me. A sad day when we lost you, Janx.”
Avery glanced to Layanna. The exchange between the two men barely even seemed to register on her.
“Had no choice,” Janx said. “The whole fleet was goin’ mutie.”
“That’s the way things are, my friend.” Segrul clapped Janx on the shoulder with one gushy gray-white hand. “The Great Ones have laid claim to us.”
Two pirates dragged a kicking and cursing figure up to them—Hildra, swearing lividly behind the glass visor of her suit.
“We found this one in the same cabin we think she occupied,” one of the pirates said, indicating Layanna. “Otherwise we’d’ve put her with the others. They’re together.” He leered.
“Fuckwads,” Hildra spat. “Get off me!”
Avery could see the relief in Janx’s face.
“You worship the R’loth?” Avery asked, turning to the pirate captain—or admiral, perhaps.
Segrul appraised him. “I praise the gods of the deep, as any sensible man of the sea should, and I’ve had the great good fortune to be allowed to spread that faith among the worthy.”
Layanna blinked, coming around. “What now?” Her voice was rough, but life had returned to her eyes. “You’ve captured me. What do you intend to do with me?”
Segrul’s face grew as grave as it could look without any visible lines or features. “The Great Ones request you. The Great Ones shall have you.”
“How?”
“I’ve pledged to take you and yours to those who know better what to do with you.” He jerked his bulbous, blubbery head at his underlings. “Take them aboard and stow them away somewhere comfortable.”
His men obeyed, and Avery and his group were marched below the decks of the Ysstral warship, leaving Segrul and his lot to relish in their victory.
“What do you bastards think you’re gonna do with us?” Janx growled as coarse hands pushed them through tight, reeking corridors. Avery wondered how secure the interior of the pirate ship was from infection. The pirates didn’t seem to fear it, after all, and indeed it seemed a prerequisite for them, as it was for all worshippers of the R’loth these days. The pirates had stripped Janx, Hildra and Avery of their environment suits, and while Avery didn’t worry much for himself—he didn’t relish further mutation, but he would likely survive it—he did fear for Janx and Hildra. Of course, at the moment it looked doubtful that any of them would live long enough to die of infection in any case.
A pirate cuffed Janx on the head. “Shut up.”
“You know who I am?”
The pirate struck him again, and blood leaked from Janx’s ear. “Shut up!”
Janx shot a murderous look at the man, marking him for future retribution, but said nothing.
Ani, Avery thought miserably. Where are you? He wanted to ask Hildra about her, but didn’t dare, not here. If Ani had miraculously not been found, talking about her would only alert the enemy to her presence.
The pirates ushered them down through the tight corridors and finally into a small dark cell without windows, directly in the middle of the ship, but low, perhaps below the waterline. Avery could feel a change in the way the ship moved around them, and it was colder. The barred metal door, crusted with age, slammed shut, and the pirates moved away. Two of the ones with the deadly whips took position at the end of the hall, not wanting to be too close to Layanna and her tentacles, whips or not.
They needn’t have worried. Exhausted and in pain, Layanna put her back against the disgusting rear bulkhead and slipped down it till she rested on her rear, eyes staring faraway but not seeming to see anything.
Hildra swore and pounded the iron bars with her one hand. Avery wondered where Hildebrand was. With Ani?
The cell was dark, and he picked his way to the back of it with care, feeling things snap and squelch beneath his feet and trying not to think about what they were. Things moved in the darkness around him; he heard scuffling, scuttling, a squeak. Finding Layanna, he sank beside her.
“Ani,” he said. “How is she?”
It was Hildra that answered. “She’s fine. I hid her in the vents while blondie was off botching your rescue attempt.”
Layanna didn’t rise to the bait.
“Will she be safe there?” Avery said.
Hildra didn’t reply, but Janx’s large head moved up and down. “They won’t look there,” he said. “I never did.”
“Thank you,” Avery told Hildra, meaning it. His eyes burned. Ani, be well.
“That’s somethin’, at least,” Janx said, and in the darkness Avery could see the big man lean his back against the bars. “Glad the little one’s alright.”
