Chapter One: The Black
The boy ran along the docks as fast as his short legs could carry him, running up the stony quay past the old men that spent their mornings fishing with long bamboo rods. Running past the wives and daughters as they gutted the early morning catch, hair tied up beneath scarves to keep the sweat from their eyes and the blood from their hair. Some watched him run, pausing in the early morning work with large knives still in their hands. They'd take the time to wipe the sweat from their foreheads, a small respite from gruelling and repetitive work.
But the boy paid them no mind as he ran past, his feet pounding across the stone. Soon he crossed on to the pier, stone giving way to wet wooden planks that clattered beneath his feet. Almost there, down at the end of the long pier he could see a crowd thick with excitement. A boat was moored, one of the old wooden slopes used by the poor fishermen. It shouldn't be back yet, usually they came in only at sundown or even late evening, never this early. It was his father's boat and Uncle Hiro was standing there on the deck of the ship with his cap in his hands, a nervous expression on his face. When he saw his young nephew come running it changed to panic.
The boy pushed through the crowd, a mix of townsfolk with nothing better to do and his father's crew. They gave way grudgingly to the child, so keen were they to find out what was going on. The crew made more than enough space for him, one even going so far as to haul a man out of his path. Once the boy was there, once he was by the ship he could only stare.
The men had patched up his father best they could, binding his wounds with strips of sail cloth, but his right arm was all in tatters. By rights it could no longer be called an arm so badly was it eviscerated. The binding across the old sailor's chest was stained dark then the rest of the brown cloth, so dark and wet. The old man's eyes were closed, his face drawn and grey. Jee had seen a dead man once, when he had been six. A beggar that had died in one bad winter, his body found in the street. The old man, his father, looked much like that beggar now save he still drew laboured breaths.
Uncle Hiro leapt over from the boat to the pier, landing beside his nephew in a crouch. Doffing his cap he placed a hand to the boy's shoulder and directed his eyes upward. Hanging from the mast was a net, and within that net was a long serpentine figure. All coiled up as it was it filled out the net impressively, its head hanging out from its side, a thick tongue lolling from its draconic jaws. A sea serpent, a young one, its dead yellow eyes glared down at the boy filling him with a quiet dread.
"Your father killed it when it killed him," his uncle said, not bothering to blunt his words. Drawing something from behind his back he pressed the hilt of a dagger into the boy's hand. "This is the knife he did it with, cut it open at the soft bit beneath its jaw," pushing the boy away he pointed to his brother, "Go say farewell now, he doesn't have long."
Nodding nervously the boy tucked the knife into the rope he wore around his waist. Walking cautiously over to his father the men that carried him settled him down and stepped away. A little privacy at this time, they became a small island in a sea of people, just him and his dad. Kneeling down the boy clutched the man's only remaining hand. Big, calloused and scarred, he thought about the night before when those hands had smoothed his hair right as he drifted off to sleep, right before his father had left with his crew. Strong hands, it now lay limp in his smaller, soft hands.
Tears welled in his eyes as his father's breathing began to slow. He hoped that he might awaken, just for a moment. To say something now, something reassuring, a tale or proverb to give him comfort. But he said nothing. He didn't wake. Instead his ragged breathing slowed until it stopped, and his face slackened a little. He was dead.
It was like hot claws tearing at the boy's stomach. Hot, angry and confused. It was a little beast eating him from within. Standing, he wobbled uncertainly. The planks felt unsteady, or maybe it was just him. Walking a little, past his uncle, Jee jumped head long into the ocean, his plummet accompanied by the cries of onlookers. But he didn't care, couldn't, he just wanted to put out that hot fire burning in his stomach. He drifted in the sea face down, drifted in the black.
Drifting in the black, he looked about him. There was nothing to be seen, nothing but the inky darkness and strange pale shapes drifting like he was in the distance. Twirling slowly, limply, the pale faces shone in the darkness. He couldn't be sure if they were drifting up or down, he couldn't tell which way was up or down, but they moved slowly in every direction, without purpose. He recognized some faces faintly, men he had drunk with, laughed with, fought with.
They stared at him with large dead eyes, faces slack. Slowly he remembered where he was, the northern ocean, with Zhao's fleet. For a moment he had been elsewhere. Drifting as he was Jee gave a kick, pushing upward. It was useless, he was being pulled downward by the ocean itself, pulled down deeper into the black with the dead. It was his armour. Heavy plate, it was a boon on the battlefield but in the water it meant his death. Reaching for his belt Jee drew a dagger and cut at the straps that secured the heavy armour to his body. It was slow going and he hadn't the time. Holding his breath as best he could he sawed through the leather until it sprang free. One strap, but there were three more for the chest plate.
A new shape was in the water, weaving through the bodies, a long, serpentine shape. It ignored the dead as it moved, like a snake weaving its way across a rock. Its head was as large as his chest, its body as long as a ship, but it was thin, it was young. It saw Jee thrashing in the water, desperately trying to gain freedom from the armour that weighed him. Moving with a predatory swiftness it came upon him, large jaws opening to seize him.
Jee looked into those golden eyes and terror seized him.