10. Dark ships of Krake
Urst Arlson was quite a young man but despite that he had risen quite far in the ranks, although that can't be put down entirely to him or his skill. He currently oversaw the heavy cruiser, Wave breaker, as part of a patrol detachment of a much larger fleet, his ship was accompanied by 4 destroyers that were currently somewhere beyond the horizon. The fleet his ships were attached to were tasked with patrolling the furthest extremes of the pirate lords' Atris and Asla's territory and his detachment had been tasked with patrolling the waters around the furthest flung islands the pirates controlled. They were about two days sail from the small cluster of islands and they hadn't spotted anything, no rival pirates or merchant ships ripe for plunder, all was quiet on the bridge.
Urst sat in the captain's chair. It was big, much too big for him since it wasn't made for him, like a lot of the things on this particular ship. Wave breaker had been refitted when Urst had join its command crew, the captain's quarters and the bridge had been made much larger to accommodate the ship's captain, the man who had personally picked Urst to be his first mate, the eldest son of the pirate lord and lady and possibly the greatest military mind on their world, Ovis Nelson.
Urst was the son of one of Atris' admirals and had been friends with Ovis for years, the two had often gotten in to trouble together and Ovis had pulled Urst up the ranks with him. With nothing to do Ovis had retired to his quarters and left Urst to tend to the bridge. The second yawned as he looked off in to the empty horizon.
"Are we still on course?" he turned to the navigation officer, who checks a few maps and made some calculation
"Yes" was his unenthusiastic answer
"This is so boring" the bridge engineering officer complained, "I became a pirate for an exciting life, for the money and the women and the raiding"
"You only get one of those and it's not the money or the women" the navigation officer commented as the bridge burst in to laughter
"I wish there were some women on this ship right now" the radar officer turned in his chair, only taking quick glances at his station
"I know where you can probably find some" the communications officer joined in
"Don't even suggest it" Urst warned, "You do wanna continue to live"
"Not like this" the engineering officer laughed along with the rest of the bridge
The bridge crew continued to talk and trade jokes, laughing until suddenly the communications officer stopped dead, his face became serious as he listened in to his head set, he soon turned pale and his panic was clear, the entire bridge silently waited for him to report.
"Darist, what is it?" Urst demanded to know
Darist, the communications officer, ignored him and turned dials on his radio set up, "Destroyer vengeance confirm your sighting and repeat your message"
"What is it man?" Urst only waited a few more seconds before demanding again
The communications officer listened to the repeated message, he looked the first mate in the eyes, his fear clear, "The destroyer vengeance has confirmed the sighting of at least 3 dark ships"
The bridge went up in shock as everyone was struck by the news but Urst kept his composure and whipped the bridge to action, he turned to the navigation officer, "Get us on an intercept course now" he then turned back to Darist, "Contact the Vengeance and tell them to shadow the dark ships and get an estimate on their classification, contact the other destroyers and get them on a heading for those ships and contact the admiral to inform her of what is going on"
Urst stood from the captain's chair and made his way out of the bridge, after a short walk he stood outside a large door that was twice his hight, he didn't waste any time and quickly knocked the door, only one man could lead them through this.
The door opened and a wall of muscle blocked the way. The primarch stood over 12-foot-tall with almost pitch black skin and long midnight black hair, apart from his hight his appearance wouldn't be out of place on Krake except for his eyes that shone like silver coins.
Ovis stood in the door way without a shirt allowing Urst to see how large and defined his muscles were, and he had seen first hand how powerful they were, the primarch was so large that he could barely see in to the captain's quarters.
"What is it?" Ovis asked, his voice deep and commanding
"The Vengeance has spotted 3 dark ships and we're heading on an intercept course" Urst informed
"Good" Ovis grabbed a shirt and pulled it on, he didn't have time to put on his jacket
As the primarch stepped from his quarters Urst managed to catch a glimpse of two women on his bunk but the door was quickly close and the two made for the bridge.
"You know the admiral doesn't like stowaways on her ships" Urst commented
"This is my ship so they aren't stowaways"
Ovis was a genius and a commander like no other but he could be described as hard to get along with, especially at first, he was stubborn to a fault and regularly refused to listen to his superiors, in fact to the only people capable of getting him to listen to anyone were his parents, and he seemed to have inherited his father's love of women and his mother's love of drink but his results can't be argued with and no pirate on Krake had the skill he does.
"She'll berate you for wasting your money" Urst commented as the two made their way back to the bridge
"I didn't pay them, they're the daughters of the governor of Porsain"
Porsain was the name for the islands they had left two days ago and Urst remembers seeing the appointed governor and his family seeing their ships off from the harbour, including his daughters. The first mate tried to think of how they could've got on the ship, any ship fast enough would have been spotted a mile off and where was the ship that bought them.
"They saw us off, how?"
"I swam back after sunset and picked them up, got back well before sunrise" Ovis told him nonchalantly
Urst looked at him surprised by such a feat but he soon got over it, he had learned over the years not to question what Ovis could do, he had seen him push battleships that had run aground back in to deeper water and he even saw him swim after and catch a fleeing ship, there were many reasons to question Ovis but they were all simply answered by him being Ovis.
Ovis and Urst entered the bridge and all the officers snapped to attention as Darist reported to his captain.
"Admiral Kitla has been informed and has dispatched the cruiser Alliea and her escorts to aid us, Vengeance is still shadowing the dark ship and Captain Galason has reason to believe they are heading for Porsain, the other three destroyers are all on intercept courses"
Ovis sat in his chair as he stroked the stubble on his chin, "Those heretics want to raid Porsain, at least they were nice enough to head somewhere I was going anyway"
The dark ships of Krake were the greatest threat on the seas of the world, a threat that even the worst of enemies have a sacred duty to ally against. The people of Krake worship a pantheon of Gods based around the sea and the sky but their oldest legends tell of dark gods that once held sway over the world and its people. They toyed with the people of Krake; giving them riches only to take them away the next second, demanding the people commit sick and debaucherous actions for their entertainment, forcing them to endure painful plagues with no release or simply forcing them to spill each other's blood for no reason. But the dark gods were driven from Krake by Ortris and Zortris and the followers of the true gods had hunted and killed many of the dark god's followers but some still existed on hidden islands or wandering fleets. It was the sacred duty of every pious man to kill these heretics where ever they're found, even pirates in the middle of a battle will abandon it to hunt down a dark ship.
"What is our ETA and do we have a classification yet?"
"We're 3 hours out from our estimated intercept point and we expect the other destroyers to meet up with the Vengeance well before then" the navigation officer reported
Darist listened in to reports from the shadowing ship, "Vengeance reports one battleship sized vessel and two escort sized, they were seen flying the colours of Tinch"
There were four dark gods each with their own twisted authority but Tinch was the god of magic and tricks, a dubious master who would simultaneously support you and orchestrate your downfall. The followers of Tinch were madmen who would kidnap people to perform sick experiments on them and try to turn them to the worship of their god. They were known to invoke their god to obtain supernatural powers but at the cost of their humanity, slowly all followers of Tinch would mutate in to horrific monstrosities.
Ovis sat in the captain's chair with his eyes closed as his ship sped north towards their enemy, he considered the ships his enemy had and how they would be deployed, Tinch followers were unpredictable but they would have to deploy in a certain way if they wanted to survive, Ovis considered this and all the ways he could counter it. The primarch played the battle over in his mind before opening his eyes again.
"Radar contact!" the radar officer reported, "The Vengeance seems to still be shadowing, heading south-west. Contact! The Vulis and Vain are speeding in from the east"
"Where is the Valkor?" Ovis asked about the last of the destroyers in his detachment
"It has been cut off by the dark ships" the communication officer reported the position of the last destroyer
"No trouble" Ovis quickly readjusted his plan, "Tell them to engage at as long a range as they can, try to draw them west"
"Are the boarding parties armed?" Ovis looked over at Urst
"Yes sir"
"Then get me my sword"
It wasn't long before the radar registered the dark ships and the Wave breaker met up with the Vengeance and the other two destroyers and headed west, trailing behind the dark fleet that was now chasing the Valkor. Soon enough the aft ends of the dark ships appeared over the horizon. The heretical ships seemed to have noticed the ships gaining on their rear and attempted to pull around to engage but Ovis acted quickly, the Wave break and her escorts fired off a torpedo barrage. The 10 torpedoes cut through the water at break neck speed, reaching their target, 4 missed as they spiralled in to the ocean and of the 6 that hit 2 failed to detonate but one of them struck one of the dark battleship's propellers and disabled it. Of the 4 torpedoes that exploded; 2 hit one of the dark frigates in the aft section and completely destroyed the ships back end, leaving it as a sitting duck as it quickly took on water, another hit the other frigate's mid-section and blew a hole in it and the last torpedo hit the battleship's mid-section but its belt armour held.
The Wave breaker and her escorts sped forward to close the distance, the cruiser firing her two forward 12 inch guns and the destroyers firing their 7 inch main guns, as they approached. The heretics scrambled around the dark ships' decks as water and splinters were thrown up around them. Ovis watched as the heretical battleship attempted to turn all its guns on him but its disabled propeller made it difficult to manoeuvre and only its forward turrets could get a shot, they fired one volley that over shot his closing ships and the heretics attempted to reload but a lucky shell hit one of the forward turrets, detonating the magazine and throwing it in to the air and on top of the second forward turret, many heretics were incinerated or thrown overboard and the ship was lucky not to have been ripped in half.
The dark ships were now nothing more than floating hulks, unable to move or fire; one dark frigate sat with its bow raised as the aft section took on water, the other listed to starboard as its bridge burned and the battleship floated along as its main deck burned and the remaining heretical crew attempted to get it under control. Ovis laughed as he watched the blasphemers scramble around their ships in panic and the bodies of their dead and dying floated around them.
"Launch the boarding parties" Ovis ordered as a young officer presented him a massive sabre
Ovis marched along the deck as the boarding parties chanted his name and rattled their swords and guns in anticipation of the slaughter, every one of them eager to kill the enemies of all true men of Krake. The boarding boats approached without issue, there weren't many heretics left to defend their ships and none to man the side mounted machine guns to stop them. Ovis jumped off his boat and on to the ship's deck, the heretics had managed to put together a hurried defence, hiding behind any cover to be found, they focused their fire on the primarch but to Ovis their bullets moved in slow motion and he simply dodged them or swatted them aside with his blade. The panicked heretics called out invocations to their god as they watched the pirate casually approach, from their point of view their bullets simply not reaching him and their dark magics simply failing in the face of his and his men's advance.
Ovis reached the first line and before they could call out for mercy or pray to their god the primarch bisected them, the rest of Ovis' crew had scrambled over the edge and join their captain in battle as the heretics were pushed back in to their doomed ship.
"We only seek to help, you are unclean, you can not hear to voice of the true god" A raving heretic launched himself at Ovis as his eyes glowed an unnatural colour and he spit a torrent of blue flames
Ovis didn't move as the flames washed over him, not even touching his clothes, he reached through the sorcery and grabbed the heretic by his throat, "UNCLEAN UNCLEAN, ANTITHESIS TO ALL THAT IS GREAT AND GOOD, SHROUDED AND HIDDEN, LOCKED AWAY, THE WEAVER….." the madman screamed as he thrashed in Ovis' giant hand before his neck and torso were crushed with little effort on the primarch's part
Ovis kicked the bulkhead leading in to the ship off its hinges, he squeezed his bulk through, ripping apart the interior as he forced his way in. Bullets were stopped dead by Ovis' gene enhanced skin, barely leaving bruises that would heal in a couple of minutes, as his men came up behind him and fired back. The pirates swarmed the innards of the battleship and slaughtered every heretic they found; the men, the women and the children, they were all executed.
Ovis pushed his way in to a large room in the centre of the ship. It was dark, the only light coming from glowing runes carved in to the floor, robed figures stood in a circle surrounded by the glowing letters with the bodies of several people piled in the centre as they chanted in a strange language. Ovis strode forward to destroy the taint they were obviously seeking to summon.
"Stop them!" a strangled voice came from under one of the dark hoods as the heretic pointed a twisted and gnarled hand at the pirates invading their dark sanctum
Several of the figures broke from the circle and charged the pirates, screeching as they leapt at their enemy. The pirates fired on the attacking heretics but, unlike the ordinary crewmen of the dark ship, the hooded ones didn't seem bothered by the bullets. The hooded heretics tackled the pirates and held them down as they scratched at them, screeching as if it pained them to touch those that were pious. The pinned pirates fought back, punching and kicking to be free, one of the heretic's hoods fell back and revealed his mutated features, shrunken is some places and bloated in others as horns and eyes grew from several places, it was more monster than human.
A crewman pinned under the mutant monster gritted his teeth as he prayed and called forth the protection of his gods, the heretic fell back and scratched at its ruined face as it let out a scream of pure agony, the golden protection of the gods causing it untold pain. The crewman picked up his rifle and bludgeoned the dark thing to death.
Ovis ignored the charging monsters. They fell before him without the primarch having to exert any effort, the holy protection afforded him greater than a normal mans, their mutated features seemed to burn away as they neared him and they returned to their human form for an instant before Ovis batted them out of his path. The heretics remaining in the circle hastened their chanting as something started to take shape over the body pile.
"You are too late, the death of the unclean and of the true believers will fuel his coming, the emissary of the great one shall aid us!" the hooded ones fell to their knees as limbs and some semblance of a form began to come from the ethereal haze floating in the circle
Ovis didn't waste any time, he grabbed a piece of steel that had been dislodged by the torpedo strike and threw it at the heretics, it sailed through the summoned thing but struck the summoners and crushed them under its weight. The light seemed to dim with the death of the last heretics and Ovis was about to turn and leave the half-summoned creature to fade back to whence it came, but it spoke.
"Ovis, the hidden son" its voice was a collection of a million, it sounded as if it came from the other side of a great wall and the words barely reached his ears, "Blocked from the sight of the gods and his father, untouched, unlike your brothers"
Ovis turned to look at the shimmering thing, "DO NOT SPEAK OF MY BROTHER!" Ovis was before the thing in an instant, his anger radiating as he sought a way to destroy this thing, "I will expel you and your gods from this world"
"We already are expelled" the thing reached forward to touch Ovis but its unformed hand seemed to burn away before it could reach him, "You rejected the gods wholly, will you do it again? Will fate play out or will you choose a different thread, will your will remain unbreakable" the thing faded and the room grew dark as the fighting drew to an end
Ovis turned and walked out of the dark ship, moving back to his own as quickly as he could and putting his encounter with the summoned thing from his mind as he put his men to work.
Ovis and his crew were in the middle of tying lines to the dark ships when ships were spotted coming over the horizon from the north-east, it was the cruiser Alliea and her escorts coming to aid them in their fight against the dark ships. The Alliea dropped anchor alongside the Wave breaker and a bridge was placed between the two ships.
The captain of the Alliea was Commodore Latris Aldy, a middle-aged man who, in his own opinion, was aging much too quickly and should retire from piracy although he never took any steps to. Latris limped across the bridge supported by finely crafted wooden cane, he had lost his left leg nearly 20 years before when a shell hit the deck of a ship he was manning and he had been thrown off it without his leg.
"Ovis!" Latris smiled as the primarch greeted him on the Wave breaker wearing the jacket that identified him as the commanding officer of the ship, "Look at you, a giant of a man, you could walk the oceans of Krake without getting your chin wet"
He laughed and slapped Ovis on his arm as he looked up at him, "Commodore Aldy, I did consider leaving you some heretics but I just couldn't help myself"
"Yes" the aging pirate looked at the barely floating dark ships, "Seems like your ships got away unscathed"
"Not a single shell hit us" Ovis walked with Latris along the deck of his ship, "I suppose the admiral wants you to take over our duties while we take these things off to be disposed of"
"I actually talked to her and convinced the old hag to relive you of duty for the rest of our deployment" Latris stroked his slightly greying beard, "You'll need to leave right away by the time you haul these off and return to the fleet, you'll be returning home to celebrate….. How old are you now?"
"I'll be 18 soon"
"Yes I forget, you look much older"
"I'm told that, will you be joining the celebrations?"
"I would but Kitla will still be running us like dogs"
"I guess I'm lucky then" the two laughed together as they reached the bow of the ship and saw approaching storm clouds
Latris sighed, "You really are leaving at the right time, that looks big" he looked up at Ovis
Latris had lost his leg in the battle against Amason, he had been an officer on the frigate Razor and a shell from one of the mercenary cruisers had struck the deck while he was on it, he remembers watching the shell fall on to the deck and smash through it, igniting the batteries magazine and reducing the ship down to its skeleton in seconds. He doesn't remember much after that, he was fished from the sea by the Heart ripper after the battle and woke up a few hours later with burns and a missing leg, he had made his way on to the deck with the help of some men to join the victory celebrations and that was when he saw it. A star appeared in the sky and shone brighter than any other and it continued to grow brighter and brighter until it was almost like the sun, in a roaring ball of flame the star smashed in to one of the cargo ships, sending shockwaves through the water and rocking all the ships anchored around it, he managed to get to the side of the ship in time to watch the blazing wreck sink and he saw it. In the centre of the carnage was an untouched capsule, not scratched or burnt or bent in anyway, and inside he saw him and he felt as if the fate of his world had shifted.
"Well I should be on my way soon" Ovis pat Latris on his back and brought the old sailor back to reality, "Good luck old man"
"And good luck to you, I don't envy you where you're going"
A slight scowl came across Ovis' face for a second it was replaced by a look of realisation, "Oh sorry to put this on you but the daughters of the governor of Porsain are onboard, could you take them back home, I'm sure their father has noticed already and isn't happy"
Latris chuckled, "You know what the admiral is like but I remember what it's like to be young so I'll cover for you boy, may Ortris keep your way calm"
Latris made the sign of the wave over his heart, making a circle with his thumb and index finger and placing each successive finger slightly higher, like a cresting wave.
"And may Kalsist keep your ship strong" Ovis returned the sacred salute
Latris returned to his ship and Ovis set about to getting his ships ready to tow the dark ships away, they could not be allowed to sink and take the bodies of those heretics with them, the ships had to be scrapped and purified and the heretic's bodies disposed of properly and there were only a few places on Krake that could be done because for a ship or a body to be reclaimed by the seas was an honourable end and not one heretics deserved.
Ovis and his ships towed the ship south-east for 3 weeks, even passing Kasain, the islands Atris and Asla based their fleets out of and where Ovis called home. The ship eventually caught sight of a lone island in the still ocean, it was an active volcano rising high out of waves with rivers of lava flowing from its peak. This was one of the many purifying isles on Krake.
Ovis and a few men took a boat to the island as his ships manoeuvred the dark wrecks close enough to be beached. The black sand beach was filled with the skeletons of previously destroyed dark ships, robed men and women meticulously dismantling them and taking the scrap up the volcano to be melted down in its fires to be cleansed of its taint and under the sands were the rotting bodies of hundreds of thousands of heretics.
A man wearing hooded brown robes like the others on the island approached Ovis, the primarch looked down at the man with visible disgust as he hobbled over, he was very old and had bandages wrapped around his eyes but the primarch knew there wasn't anything medically wrong with his eyes. The man was the high repenter of the isle and like every other person on the isle he was a dark eye.
A dark eye, sometime called mud eye, was someone who was a born sinner, on many islands on Krake babies born as a dark eye were killed or sometimes even blinded by their own mothers so no one finds out, they were people who were not afforded the holy protection against the dark gods and this was shown by them having brown eyes instead of the golden eyes of most people, hence the name dark eye or mud eye. They were the ones who crewed the dark ships and were the only ones who ever fell for the lies of the dark gods. They are hated and ostracised, their very presence a revulsion and a stain on any family's good name, so those that wish to fight against their heretical nature would travel to a purifying isle and take up a life of repentance with other dark eyes. They spend their days praying to keep the whispers of the dark gods at bay, purifying the tainted steel of dark ships in the volcano every purifying isle has or burying the bodies of a dark ships heretical crew. They were still reviled and hated but at least this way they were pious as well.
"I am the high repenter" the dark eye spoke in a small hoarse voice, "You bring more ships to be purified?"
"Yes" Ovis answered clearly unhappy to be talking to the old man, "A battleship and two frigates"
Ovis grabbed the handle of his sabre as he prepared to ask the next question, "Will you carry out your sacred duty and repentance?"
The old man kneeled down, "I will, I swear in the name of Zortris and Ortris and all their children and if I lie may the waves and the flames reject my body on my death"
Ovis released his sabre, "Then do so and find forgiveness in the eyes of the gods" with the ceremony over Ovis turned and headed back to his boat, eager to leave the isle and return home.
Next time: Home port