Jorvan clung to the top of the ladder, pushing against the hatch cover as they forced it closed over him. He kept yelling until Deacon kicked the latch into place, then went silent thereafter.
Torrin knew what he was feeling now. He stepped back as from below came the sound as of stones dragged across wood.
“Let me out! Please! Let me out!”
There came a whickering sucking sound followed by a hammering against the hatch. Jorvan screamed a long high-pitched scream, which terminated as something crashed hard against the hatch nearly breaking the hinges and latch. His screaming recommenced from deeper in the hold, but this time it was a deep and agonised sound.
They all heard the crunching.
Torrin wondered if there was anything worse than being eaten alive. He smiled a lopsided smile that he quickly shut off as he turned to the crew. “Right, lads, let’s get that mainsail up.”
“So, it’s decided: we’ll dock at Phaiden Island. It’s closest and none of us have any kin there,” said Torrin.
“Threw me out of the tavern there,” said Melis, and Calis grumbled agreement.
“Never gave a good price for jable,” said Deacon.
“Bloody skinflints,” Chantre added.
Torrin listened to them and tried to keep the sneer from his face. How easily they persuaded themselves that they were justified in trading their lives for the lives of hundreds of islanders. Their culpability made him sick and strangely, he no longer wanted a drink. He gazed out across the sea at the setting sun, then up at crew in the rigging.
“Best we reef for the night and get the lamps lit. We don’t want to end up ploughing another sargassum,” he said.
“We need oil for the lamps,” said Deacon.
Torrin stared at him, and the crewmen gathered around him.
“There’s nothing to fear from it now we have an agreement,” he said. “If you are so frightened then I will get oil for the lamps myself. You can clean up this deck.” He turned from them and entered the crew quarters, heading for the hatch. In here he heard movement and ducked through the door to the bunkroom.
“Ah, Cert. You can help me. They are all too frightened,” he said to the cowering cabin boy. The boy was trusting. Terminally so.
The mainsail cracked in a morning wind as Torrin and Deacon did a round of the deck, putting out the lanterns.
“As I thought,” said Torrin when they had completed their circuit. “Call them all together.”
Deacon looked askance at him but obeyed. But for Saparin, who remained at the helm, all of the crew gathered round.
“We have done some shameful things,” he said to them. “But this, I think, is a step too far. He was only a boy and who of us as boys would not have leapt at the chance to take the helm?”
They all looked confused.
“Cert?” said Deacon uncertainly.
Torrin smiled lopsidedly. “Yes, the captain’s bum-boy is no longer on this ship. One of you has done murder and will have to pay the price. Now, be about your duties. Melis, the deck needs caulking, and Chantre, that rail needs repairing.”
He walked away from them as they quickly set to their tasks. How good it was that they could so busy themselves. He could see it made them feel better. Returning to the captain’s cabin, he bolted the door and searched the place for the nth time, only this time locating the prize: a large iron key. With the key he opened the captain’s sea chest, and inside, wrapped in oily rags, he found the captain’s four-cylinder revolver, paper cartridges, and bullets made out of hard shell. Smiling to himself he loaded the weapon then hung the holster at his belt. Thus girded, he went back out on deck.
Chantre worked busily at the rail, Melis was at his caulking, and Maril was having another go at removing the bloodstains from the deck. Torrin noted that Deacon had positioned himself behind Saparin at the helm as if deck work was now beneath him. Calis was up in the rigging and Paln was sleeping as his had been the last watch of the night.
Torrin strode over to Melis and inspected the caulking. “You know, Melis, it wasn’t very good of you suggesting I negotiate,” he said.
Melis looked up into the barrel of the Captain’s gun.
Torrin continued, “I’d like to feed you to it alive, but that is not to be.”
Calis yelled from the rigging above. Melis flew at Torrin brandishing the caulking tool. The captain’s gun cracked and Melis jerked back in mid air as if he had reached the end of a tether. He hit the deck with half his head missing and one foot vibrating against the woodwork. There came a scream of rage from above, the sound of running feet from behind Torrin, and the sound of someone coming hand-over-hand down the rigging.
With his hands shaking, Torrin clicked over the lever that cleared the chamber he had just used. He turned the cylinder to line up the next cartridge and pulled back the hammer.
“Murderer!” Calis screamed as his bare feet hit the deck and he threw himself at Torrin.
Torrin shot him in the stomach, watched him stagger back then go down on his knees, then he concentrated on getting the next cartridge lined up while crew approached him from every side.
“What have you done?” said Deacon.
“Two brothers, two murderers. I saw them throw Cert over the side last night during Calis’s watch.” As Torrin spoke he kept the captain’s gun well visible.
“Liar,” managed Calis, before bowing over and clutching his guts ever tighter.
“What proof do you have?” asked Deacon.
Torrin pulled a heavy belaying pin from its holder on the rail, and stepped up to Deacon so that their noses were only inches apart. “What proof do I need, Deacon? I saw it, and I am in charge of this ship, or do you want to renegotiate with our friend below?”
Deacon went pale. “I was only asking…”
Torrin thrust the belaying pin against Deacon’s stomach. “Now let’s get this done and get on with our work.”
Deacon reluctantly clasped the belaying pin. Torrin stepped back out of his way and gestured towards Calis. After a hesitation, Deacon stepped over to Calis, who squinted up at him.
“I’m sorry,” said Deacon.
“You’re sorry?” spat Calis.
Deacon nodded once then smashed Calis’s skull.
Torrin allowed the silence that followed to draw out long and attenuated. When it seemed that something must break at any moment, he stepped up to Deacon and took the belaying pin from him. “Right, these two can go to Cerval. They’ll serve us better in death than they ever did in life.” Noting the anger in Paln’s expression, Torrin continued, “And you, Paln, better get a scrubbing brush to this mess before the stain soaks in. Maril has enough to do over there.”
Paln seemed ready to go for him, but Saparin caught his arm.
“Saparin, shouldn’t you be at the helm?” Torrin enquired.
This last comment dispersed them, because none of them dared risk the captain’s gun, and none of them wanted to negotiate with the thanapod.
Piles of eggs had been laid in every corner of the hold. The place stank like an abattoir, and pieces of ripped clothing, of human bodies, and of chewed jable skin strewed the floor. Torrin’s deck shoes made a ripping sound with each pace he took as they stuck to the pooled and drying gore. He stepped delicately over a hollowed-out skull which, by a process of elimination, he took to be Melis’s, for the thanapod now swung towards him what remained of Calis. Torrin turned to a hook in the wall, flicked something wet and fleshy from it, and hung his lamp there.
“How long?” the thanapod asked.
“Two days and we should be there,” Torrin replied. He noticed that the creature’s body had grown longer and fatter now, with fleshy areas showing between sections of hard shell. The eggs it had laid in the hold had relieved some of the pressure and the recent bodies had relieved it of some of its egg-laying hunger. But many more eggs were growing inside it, and it was still insatiable. Torrin knew that it had to feed again, and soon, if it was to be prevented from coming out on deck and killing them all. That suited him fine.