The Tunnels of Woe
Book 1: A Bounty Like No Other
Chapter 4 Part 2: The Song of the Damned Mariners
A grimace came over Uncle Curroz face, but Tirro saw no more weakness in his grizzled visage. Once more the stalwart Veni Captain sailed his craft against the horrors of creation.
“Well said boy,” the skiff captain said before spitting through the gaelish winds in the general direction of the hag. Soon the denizens of this damned cursed lagoon would overcome their fury and fear to strike, and overwhelm them. Tirro passed his gaze over their rock rimmed prison looking for an unexpected means of escape. He was surprised when he discovered a gap in the stone ring covered by half the husk of a galley covered in raging undead tangled in the rotting lines and debris.
This could have given a chance for escape if the skull and black tower weren’t directly behind the supposed gap. No escape could be gained passing so close to that seahag. Not even the generators of the deep could pass through the veil of reality, and into the tunnels before the seahag crushed their skiff. Their only path was to ram right into the mouth of the Devil, and break as many fangs as feasible till dragged asunder.
Even as Tirro planned for his first and last charge against the minions of darkness the deckhand felt his attention drawn to the cages on the black rocks along the tower. There high on the tallest stack was a stockade within a massive cage covered in ruins. Inside was what could’ve only been a young merwoman with long flowing scarlet hair, sharp fins on her forearms and ankles, and a crown of black stained bones on her head that had a pair of rubies inlaid into a skull which glowed an unsettling scarlet out over the world like a haunted lighthouse leering out over the sea.
He felt the voice and pull of his creator on that cursed glowing crown. Tirro knew he was being called to shatter that talisman of evil even if this was the final defiant act of a warrior in Christ. So be it. At this moment of decision where Tirro felt the weight of the strange bowless crossbow of the metal undead machinations on his belt. Remembering the blast of the sonic magical energies, and the destructive power at the contraption’s disposal gave Tirro inspiration.
“Uncle! Send us full drive down the hag’s throat! We take as many curs with us.” Tirro pushed his uncle back toward the wheel as he spoke and the Hag started screeching, sending the Sirens into a frenzy.
“We will strike upon yonder doomed galley.”
“We will not Uncle! Trust me,” Curroz grunted, and scrambled back to the wheel swaying with the waves and just avoiding slipping on the torrent wracked deck.Their plan had been concocted none too soon since first one then all of the monsters swarmed over the boulders toward the floundering skiff. Uncle Curroz slammed full power launching their boat right for the wrecked galley swarming with the dead, their wailing deafening and maddening to ponder.
The screeching chorus rose into a clamor of battling sounds both out of rhythm and yet in sync speaking of horrid fates and blackness beneath the waves. A call to the aquatic underworld where the mariners and lost captains cry in expectation of the new souls trapped in their void. The taste of the young. The claiming of what is good and sharing of the misery. Alluring, and terrifying was the sound of their voices. Though their languages were of strange make, and jumbled like a port filled with sailors of distant lands screaming all at once, the meaning came through the mind with alarming clarity.
A voice filtered through the clamor. The unmistakable familiarity of a Veni man’s tongue came to them as the skiff raced for the galley, and time seemed to slow around them. A shiver touched Tirro’s spine at the alien sound of his mother’s tongue passing through gurgling lungs as if a man was trapped in an endless torment of drowning while speaking into his mind.
“Come. Ye can’t escape. Below the waves we have made a bed for ye amongst the reefs and bones of the damned. Here ye will stay with yonder brethren. Think ye a wiser and stronger sailor or tunnel rat than your ancestors? Come. We have made a bed for ye in endless waves after flesh has been picked by sirens and fish of the deep where you will be swallowed in decay and sea maggots will be your covering.” Tirro knew he would hear that voice in his dreams from then on. He could sense the call of the damned.
Those sentenced to the underworld of the deep waters till the end of days. But the good priests had always preached that a Veni man under protection of the Father had no need to fear the dead and lost. And though horrific, these creatures of Hell were as harmless babes compared to the monster in the tunnels they had fled.
“I may not be the ancestors of old who plied the waters and settled in the godtree’s primordial branches, but I will not forget my faith unlike you thy traitorous worms!” Tirro felt his voice growl as he shouted. He could feel the strain on his throat, and knew he would feel the pain of a lost voice if they survived this day. Small price to pay to pronounce the Lord’s judgment on the unfaithful. Whether his ancestors were the more skilled seamen or of even greater faith was immaterial. None of them had a magical undead machination sound cannon in their belt.
Tirro drew his spoils of war from his hip, and felt the trigger mechanism against his flesh. Not half as heavy as a bolts hinge. Remembering what the undead machinations of the flashing dark city did when employing their weapons the deckhand aimed his hand cannon toward the wooden galley crawling with the decaying remains of sailors, pirates, mariners, and more than one creeping shadowy horror staying just out of what light escaped the storm.
There were gapping skeletons covered in barnacles with nothing but their rusted weapons left to mark their previous lives. Mariners seemingly freshly torn asunder with flush hanging from bones where the sirens and fish had feasted. All had glowing pale moonlight colored eyes that sickened with a look driving men mad with their continuous gaze. There were some with rotting beards and flowing hair while others had small crustaceans or possessed eels wrapped around their bodies. Orbs flew amongst the skeletal crew shaping and shifting one or another vomiting forth rotting squids, sharks, and other undead sea creatures and hybrids. All this terror rose against Tirro and his Uncle, and in less than an instant they were shattered.
Whatever was done to make such a wondrous weapon Tirro had no concept, but he wondered what could be done to obtain more. The results were mesmerizing. Out from the toothy fish styled maw spewed the concentrated energetic sound that blasted the rotting wood in a chaotic burning line of destruction as Tirro depressed the trigger, and drew the path of destruction across the rotting wood and undead ranks.
Soon the fifty foot long chunk of ship was shattered and broken. Releasing the trigger and firing in bursts into the wreckage Tirro soon had even the larger chunks reduced to splinters. Thrashing undead filled the waves as the pieces of the monstrosities attempted to swim. The bones sank and the undead decay was washed away blasted by Tirro’s merciless aim.
A shadow passed between the tower and the skiff drawing the deckhand’s eyes above their heads. Long thick tentacles covered in horrible suckers and fangs were coming to envelop them from the hag on her perch above the tower. Falling back on instinct to avoid being plucked off the ship, Tirro fired in desperation, slicing and churning through the thick flesh all around in the deadly sonic waves. Screams of pain rang out from the hag who retreated farther up the tower while spitting rage and curses in many different tongues in their general direction.
Before Tirro could enjoy his success a strange rhythmic sound came from his pillaged cannon. A symbol like that of a red lightning bolt began to throb on a display that the deckhand had ignored due to the odd characters and language the bowless crossbow used. The weapon was hot and smoking, but most concerning of all would not respond to further attempts to fire. Tirro had been around enough generators deprived of their fuel to recognize when a device had lost power. He should’ve guessed this one was finite as well. The sound cannon was drained of all energy, and would aid their task no longer.
The Story Will Continue Every Wednesday.
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