AN: As much as I'd like to claim ownership of the Spyro series, I can't. Nor, actually, can I even claim ownership of the events shown in this short story. A while ago I got permission from DragonMaster000 to write a fanfic of his fanfic, The Broken Line. Down With the Ship is my take on a scene from that much larger work, just from a different perspective. While reading his entire story isn't necessary to understand this one, I'd highly recommend going and reading it if you haven't already, and re-reading it if you have. Seriously. The Broken Line is easily one of the best Spyro fanfics you'll find and it's just the first part of a trilogy the author is currently in the middle of.
With all that said, enjoy.
Down With the Ship
"And don't ye even think about cutting corners, soft-pelt!"
Gids flinched away as the bucket was dropped in front of him. Water splashed him, soaking his fur as he avoided eye contact with the hulking pirate above him. Said pirate spat on the planks directly before him before turning to amble off back to whatever hole in this ship he was stationed in. Gids picked a rag out of the bucket and set to scrubbing even with the accusing presence gone, knowing all too well the price for disobeying or slacking. Even thinking about it caused the long scar across his back to twinge with phantom pain.
No more men than were necessary were on the main deck at the time, keeping out of the sun's bright rays now that the day was slowly transitioning to its hotter hours. It was uncomfortable, scrubbing the deck with the sun beating down from on high, but it usually meant that he could avoid the abuse that the rest of the crew directed his way. It seemed that it wasn't so today, unfortunately.
The young otter wasn't looking his best, fur matted and unkempt and brown eyes dull. The rags that served him for clothes would have hung loose and tattered on him, had they not grown so crusted and stiff with dried salt spray that they seemed more leather than fabric. His tiny but versatile paws were heavy with calluses, signs of hard labor and a harder life. Perhaps he could have looked sleek and trim if given a chance to properly groom and dress, but this otter wouldn't be mistaken for anything but a poor wretch as he was.
This hadn't been the life he'd looked forward to living. He'd been born in a shady port town to the far northeast, just him and his mum trying to make a living off of whatever work they could find. Mum would take jobs cleaning or cooking or sewing; he'd take jobs lifting or carting. Together, they'd managed to only go hungry every now and again, and been able to pay off the rent on their dirty one-room shack.
Then mum had gotten sick, and he'd needed a job that paid better. A Skavenger ship had flown in to dock and had been in need of a new cabin boy, and he had fit the job description. One short month-long voyage would have been all it would take to pay for a doctor to look at mum, to possibly give her some medicine. Even though the dogs were infamous for their brutality and barbaric nature, it had been the only chance for his mum. The Skavenger that had hired him had just given the boy one short look and a grunt before tossing him a filthy uniform and a berth. He later discovered that it didn't matter who he was, he was disposable.
Gids had never been one for keeping track of the date, just knowing that it got cold when it got cold and warmer when it got warmer. Mum had tried to keep up with his birthday at the beginning, but their attempts at a 'celebration' had just made their lack of food more evident, and she had stopped. Still, he knew his numbers all the way to one-hundred, and he knew that a month was around thirty days.
He'd been on this ship for fifty-seven.
"Mum is probably dead by now," he actually said out loud, albeit softly and while still scrubbing the deck vigorously. "Neighbors said her cough weren't never gonna clear up, even with medicine." He felt vaguely numb, surprisingly unaffected. It didn't come as too much of a surprise, really, not with the amount of time he'd spent trying to survive as the lowest rung of the food chain aboard a Skavenger ship. He'd probably recognized the fact weeks ago, when he'd counted over a month of time on ship and the Captain hadn't shown any signs of heading back to the port where he'd come from. In fact, he was pretty sure they had flown in the exact opposite direction for the better half of the voyage so far.
"I'm never seeing home again," he said as the second realization hit him, then winced in sharp pain as something a lot more physical did the same.
"Quit yer jabberin' an' get back to work!" the pirate that had cuffed him snarled, fixing a glare on the otter before continuing on his way. Gids swore silently at himself for choosing the middle of the crowded main deck to have an epiphany, and set back to sloshing water around the planks with his worn rag. Daily survival should be enough to keep him occupied without any of this useless-
"Ship sighted off the port bow Cap'n!" the lookout called, startling Gids out of his thoughts and causing him to look up, blinking, through the rails. After a brief moment of searching, he was peering at a speck of white sail in the distance. A scowl immediately darkened his features as he looked back down at the deck, knowing full well what would soon follow. Almost two months aboard a pirate ship had robbed him of what little innocence he had left, but that didn't make watching a boarding any easier.
So busy was he scowling at his work that he almost missed the captain and his first mate coming to stand near him at the railing. It wasn't until the two began talking that he was really startled out of his obliviousness. The pair didn't even seem to notice him, the cabin boy just so much scenery and background.
"What say you, Gnarl? Look like a trade ship to you?" the captain asked, passing over a spyglass to the other pirate as they both gazed out at the distant ship.
"Aye, I'd say it's a merchant ship Cap'n, fast but unarmed," the first mate did some scowling of his own as he handed back over the spyglass and turned to face starboard, squinting into the distance. "Migh'y close to Warfang though, Cap'n."
"It hardly matters, we'll scuttle and board them before the city even knows we're near," the captain said as Gids realized that off the opposite side of the deck and in the distance were the massive stone walls of a city. How long had those been looming on the horizon without his noticing? "Git the crew belowdecks in order. Looks like we'll intercept 'er long afore she reaches the safety o' the city's vision."
With that, the dogs separated and strode away. The first mate immediately headed for a hatch leading belowdecks, pulling a few Skavengers with him as he went. The Captain made for the helm, bellowing out orders for full sail and battle stations. Gids was left to tow his bucket somewhere out of the way and make himself scarce, seeing as how he was still confined to the deck day and night after a small accident in the rigging. His scarred back twitched again in response at the memory and he made his way over to a piece of port railing that wasn't occupied. All around him the ship was exploding with action, pirates shifting coils of rope, climbing up and down the rigging, and heading below to the cannons. Gids surreptitiously uncoiled and started recoiling a rope; knowing that as long as he could make himself look busy, no one would bother him. The pirates were too preoccupied staring at the ship in the distance to notice, anyway.
Minutes went by as the ship slowly began quieting down. All eyes were turned towards the vessel in the distance, growing slowly larger in its unchanging course towards the city on the horizon. The pirate ship would obviously intercept it well before it reached the city the Captain had called Warfang, but the merchant ship showed no signs of slowing or turning. Not that it could have outrun a Skavenger skyship; the airborne pirate vessels had a great speed advantage over ships that were confined to the sea. Time dragged on as the air became charged with anticipation and tension.
"We're in range, Cap'n!" the gunnery chief's voice broke the silence, causing the anticipation to increase by measurable degrees. The captain left the helmsman to steer as he moved over to the upper gun-deck railing to leer at the now clearly visible prize. The captain just stood there for a moment, teeth bared to the wind as he gazed out.
"Fire at will!" he shouted, the muffled echoing of the order immediately able to be heard from belowdecks. As the first dull boom of a cannon firing filled the air, Gids couldn't help but think that a single salvo would have done the trick much more effectively. The captain obviously didn't expect the ship to put up any kind of fight, which was when he most often gave the crew their target practice. The men seemed happier when they got to unleash their bloodlust at their own pace. Unfortunately for the pirates, this strategy was proven inefficient when the cannonball just barely missed the ship and splashed into the sea.
Two more dull booms reverberated through the ship as a pair of cannons went off, and as these two shots also by just barely missed their target angry and loud cursing could be heard from below. However, the next two independent shots also missed, and then a small salvo of three followed by a fourth all likewise seemed to just barely avoid clipping the hull. The cursing from below started to come from multiple sources and increased in color. Abovedecks, muttering started up among the ranks of crew. The muttering reached a crescendo when a shot that should have plowed straight through the merchant's hull suddenly and violently jerked to one side. A brief glance in the direction of the quarterdeck brought the thunderous expression of the captain into view. The man seemed to be grinding his teeth together, hands clutching the rail with a grip that looked in danger of splintering the wood.
Suddenly, an orange streak shot from the merchant vessel towards their ship. Gids had all of two seconds to realize that something was very, very wrong before the whole world shook.
He found himself looking up at the sky, which was strangely two-toned. Half of it in his vision was blue, the other half was a roiling black. After a moment or two of just gazing upward, he realized that it was because a massive plume of smoke was rising into the air. A high-pitched ringing was the only sound he could hear, the creaks of the hull and the dull roar of the ship's engines suddenly silenced. Sitting up, he discovered a world in chaos. Pirates were picking themselves off the deck as others were scrambling around, and still more were simply staring out in shock, silent and gaping or gesticulating without noise, as though miming.
The dogs had just begun to react to the situation when another orange streak flew from the merchant ship towards them. He had moments to clutch the railing before the ship rocked violently again, a mute explosion setting the vessel rocking. This time he was able to see the orange flames flare outwards from the hull before a second cloud of smoke joined the first. He was staggered even with the death grip he had on the railing, eyes huge as he tried to make sense of what was happening.
Pirates were now frantically running about, doing all sorts of various things that he had no clue about but didn't really seem to be helping. A few were running towards the hatches with buckets of water with more purpose than the others, though. He briefly and detachedly thought of his own bucket before he realized that they were running belowdecks because it was on fire. Also, belowdecks was probably the only place he could stand that was more dangerous than where he was currently standing right now. Self preservation instinct had him backing away from the port railing and over to the starboard side of the deck, his mind screaming at him to get as far away from that weapon as he could.
And what weapon did they have? Even though he had to stare at the merchant vessel through a haze of smoke, he could still very clearly tell that it had not brought either of its sides to bear on them, meaning that the devastating weapon was likely placed on the deck somewhere. That theory was very obviously proven correct as another orange streak rocketed from a hazy mass on the merchant ship's deck and a third hit struck the ship. Staggering once more as the vessel rocked mutely beneath him, he could now see several retaliatory cannonballs being fired at the smaller ship, even if he couldn't hear them. He didn't see any of them hit, though, and dread began to set in past the shock.
His gaze was caught by the captain, who was violently swinging his arms and gesturing from amidship. His muzzle was moving and he was obviously bellowing at the top of his lungs, but no sound was forthcoming. Neither could he hear the cannons below firing, even if he could feel them through the deck. It felt like he was watching from a distance, strangely removed from everything that was happening before him.
The ship lurched for a fourth time and he stumbled, catching himself on a crate securely fastened to the deck. Before his very eyes a section of the port railing exploded, two pirates instantly falling as foot-long splinters of wood were thrown towards the panicking crew. Another was frantically trying to beat the flames off of his jacket, dancing and flailing. It hit Gids that if he had stayed where he had been originally standing, he would be dead now. Watching the pirate on fire desperately trying to remove his jacket before being doused by another dog, he had another realization.
Everyone on this ship was going to die.
The sight of flames curling up from the side of the ship set fear coiling hard and nauseous in his stomach. That was too much fire to be put out in the middle of a battle in the first place, and many more dogs seemed concerned with running around aimlessly than with grabbing buckets of water. He had seen ships caught alight in the midst of battle, before. The ship that was on fire had always lost, consumed and ravaged by flames if the pirates didn't manage to scuttle her before the the battle could escalate. Though, it was also true that every ship the pirates had fought while Gids watched had lost. Only now, for the first time, it was the ship that he was on that was actively and passionately burning.
Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to let this revelation sink in before a panicking pirate succeeded where the past few explosions had failed, knocking Gids to the ground in his frantic running across the deck. Suddenly caught up to reality, the cabin boy stared wide-eyed at the sky for a few seconds before springing to life. Quickly gaining his feet, he staggered towards one of the hatches leading to the gundeck, desperately trying to keep his footing amidst the violent swaying of the ship.
Leaping down the stairs after a Skavenger, his mind was consumed by a single thought: his mum's necklace. A gift from his father was all she had told him it was, the only piece of jewelry she owned. When he had approached her bedside and told her that he had finally found a half-decent paying job, but that it meant he'd be gone for a while, she had removed the necklace from around her neck with a trembling paw and given it to him, smiling weakly as she wished her son good luck. Gids had ferreted it away in the pile of cloth scraps that had served him as a bed before he had been confined to abovedecks, rightly terrified that any pirate who saw it on him would swipe it faster than he could blink.
In the back of his head he realized that it probably didn't matter whether he got the necklace or not since the odds of him surviving were tiny and dwindling, but nonetheless he found himself scurrying past a large amount of pirates both firing cannons and moving their mouths with nothing but the faint ringing in his ears to be heard. However, the gundeck wasn't his destination. He didn't even have enough time to register how many dogs were on this deck, the whole area a madhouse of flailing limbs and hazy outlines, before immediately stumbling down the stairs into the hold.
The port side of the hull was, predictably, on fire, and it was that flickering orange light that provided the only illumination in what was usually darkness. Firelight flickered over a veritable maze of stacked and securely fastened crates that filled the hull, occasionally highlighting the figure of a pirate. Fewer mutts were down here trying to fight the flames, the majority concentrated on the gundeck and the valuable cannons. He hit the ground and immediately opted to vault over a low crate than to go around, startling a Skavenger with an empty pail who had just been about to move in front of him. As Gids wove among the pieces of cargo, his hearing suddenly returned with an almost audible 'pop'.
He was briefly stunned by the force of sound which suddenly assaulted him. And it wasn't like anything he was hearing was really useful, anyway, since the only thing he could really hear right now was screaming and burning. Another ship-wide shudder had him amending that: screaming, burning, and the ominous low bass of a ship with heavy damage slowly breaking apart.
He careened around a tall crate to see the small pile of rags, tucked out of the way in a small alcove towards the bow end of the hold. He fell to his knees as he started frantically sifting through it, looking for the slightest hint of-
There! He snatched the golden necklace up in his paws, taking all of one brief moment to look at the chain and locket, the jewelry glowing as it reflected the flickering light of nearby flames. Nearby flames that quickly grew to a roaring blaze as the pirate ship was hit again.
Gids was thrown backwards as a bright blossom of flame consumed a nearby portion of the port hull. He was dashed against a very securely lashed crate, his head impacting the wood and making his vision go dim and hazy as the rest of his body caught up and the breath was knocked out of him as well. Stunned, he sucked in a few ragged gasps of air before clumsily trying to regain his feet. He could feel warm blood trickling through the fur on the back of his head, but that was nothing compared to the heat radiating from the flaming hull several yards away. Fire had lept to the crates nearby, greedily consuming both the wood and its contents as it spread its way further into the hold. Gids lurched in the opposite direction, necklace clutched in one paw held to his heart as he made his way back towards the stairwell. Most of the smoke in the hold seemed to be seeping up towards the gundeck, but his vision still seemed hazy and tilted as he reached the steps.
Climbing the steps as quickly as he could with his head feeling like it was being split in two and his balance less than perfect, he could still clearly feel the motion of the ship turning beneath him, pushing him and his unsteady footing towards the starboard side of the stairs as the pirate vessel turned hard to port. Emerging onto the gundeck, he could make out the smoking ruins of all the cannons on the port side, and now could clearly hear the canines priming a starboard broadside.
They were going to turn and fire on the vessel again.
They didn't even seem to notice the gray wisps curling up through the same stairs Gids himself had just mounted, didn't seem to care that the wood beneath their feet was growing warmer; they were oblivious to everything but their all-consuming desire to destroy their adversaries. Gids continued towards the hatch through which light was shining, stepping over an unmoving Skavenger lying unmoving on the deck in his haste. He emerged abovedeck, blinking at the sudden sunlight stabbing in his eyes just as they had become used to the shadows of belowdeck. Everywhere he could see, pirates were howling and yelling as they shifted over towards the cannons that would unleash a new broadside. Could they not hear the creaking of the ship as she slowly broke in the sky? Did they not understand the damage that had been done below?
He staggered over to the severely mangled port railing as the ship turned in the sky. The captain was bellowing out orders and violently gesturing still, but even though he had his hearing back Gids couldn't understand the roaring orders that the Skavenger was giving, too lost were they in the sounds of fire and terror.
As the ship finally finished its about-face and the cannons roared to life in a full on broadside, Gids could still see the small merchant vessel that they had cut off. It seemed tiny and insignificant in the face of the whistling curtain of iron headed towards it. The last tiny spark of hope he had that his ship might live was doused as all but three of the shots splashed into the water on either side, jerked off course like a great hand had reached down and swatted them aside. And, to his eyes, none of the ones that did hit looked like they posed a threat of sinking the ship.
More orders were yelled and more frantic running was done around him as he tried desperately to think up a plan. Turning from the sight of the other vessel, he looked at the broken and splintered railing beside him. Suddenly, he realized that another Skavenger was face-down on the deck nearby, a large pike of wood jutting out of the back of his coat. Gids stared at the corpse for several moments before quickly turning away, bile rising in his throat. His turn of the head nearly impaled his eye on another of the giant splinters, the twisted railing jagged where sections of it had been ripped away by explosions.
This also brought into view the walls of the nearby city, standing tall and proud in the distance in all of their stone glory, and the stretch of calm blue between them and the ship. He fancied he could see a system of docks with various ships cluttering the piers, distant stretches of white against the stone of the walls. The details were fuzzy even to his sharp, young eyes, and became lost altogether when the smoke from below caught up with the ship's sharp turn and made the sight hazy once more.
Standing there by the broken railing, he made a decision.
Hands fumbled around and finally pressed upon the catch of the necklace, freeing the piece of jewelry to be hastily clasped about his throat as his stiff and confused fingers tried to comply with his wishes. He took a few steps to the side, standing where once there had been wooden poles guarding against the unwary falling over the side, mere inches from the drop. His shaking hands lifted the necklace to his gaze once more, his eyes running over the small circular golden pendant on its chain for what may be the last time.
There was a voice behind him, growing louder as it drew closer. Gids closed his eyes and ignored it. It wasn't like it mattered anyway, because he knew now exactly what he was going to do. A single sob escaped him and he was so sorry that he had never gotten to see mum again and so sad that this was where it ended and so scared that that end wouldn't be quick.
He stepped off the side of the ship, and it was the longest step of his life. With his eyes closed he was unable to see the emptiness of the space before him, and it felt just like he was going to be stepping onto solid ground right up until he didn't. Smoke enveloped him momentarily, a gasped intake of breath rewarding him with only ash in his lungs.
And then he was falling, tumbling, one hand clasped about his necklace in a death-grip and the other digging painfully into his thigh as his leather-stiff clothes suddenly caught the air and flapped uproariously as he fell. The sound of wind roared in his ears and he could only barely manage to squint one eye open against the pressure. He could see the city in the distance with its high stone walls, keeping his watery and squinting gaze on it even as the deep blue of the ocean loomed closer in the bottom of his vision. He still had his eye on it when his feet hit the water.
He was underwater when the ship he had just jumped from exploded, purple energy flaring around it in an explosion so powerful and devastating the the vessel actually cracked in two, the hull splintering as the massive halves followed various raining debris down to the sea. There was a sound like god's slap as the first of the halves struck the water, the resulting roar of a splash drowning out a similar sound as the second hit. Unmoving bodies were scattered across the water, bobbing as the splintered and flaming remains of the ship began the arduous process of sinking beneath the waves.
Almost a full day later, the first of the debris began washing ashore near Warfang, spread thinly all up and down the coast for a mile in each direction. Along with the random assortment of ship pieces that found their way ashore, the occasional body was deposited onto the sand, most fish-eaten beyond hope of recognition.
It was another several hours before the tide started coming back in again, reclaiming several bodies and pieces of debris even as it deposited others in their place. The waves also slowly washed over an indent in the sand, filling in and smoothing over the imprint left behind by one of the bodies that had lain on the shoreline.
It would be some time later before the wind finished covering the unsteady paw prints in the fine sand, leading from the beach to the trees.