“This fog looks pretty unnatural,” I said. “Might be there’s pirates on the hunt.”

“Sky and sea, Idiot,” said Erid, leaning on the railing next to me. “What is it with you and pirates? You’ve talked about nothing else for three days.”

Paradoxically, pulling a knife on her seemed to have made her more fond of me than when she thought I was just some spoiled merchant, but the price I paid was my new nickname, Idiot.

“They’re a concern, okay?” I said. “They could pop out at any moment.”

I turned and looked expectantly at the fog, as though the Sons of Horcutio might come splashing out of the water at any moment. They did not, however, oblige me.

“Lilith, could you try to be a little less subtle?” Markus subvocalized, giving me a look. “This is incredibly suspicious.”

“And that’s another thing,” said Erid. “You keep looking off at the horizon every time you say something like that. Is this some kind of play for you? I’ve siding that needs maintenance if you’ve got the time for fantasies.”

“Okay, she thinks it’s a sexual fantasy,” said the commander. “Sell her on that and then stop bringing it up.”

“What?!” I said. “No!” I wasn’t sure who I was responding to, but it was the same answer for all of them.

Erid cackled. “We’ve all been there, Idiot. But shut your trap, alright? It’s bad luck to keep talking about it.”

I couldn’t help it. I looked off for the inevitable pirate attack.

“You really are one of Kives’s lot,” Erid said. “Nutters, the lot of you.”

I bristled internally at the implication that I was religious before remembering I was playing a role here. I could inhabit a character flawlessly for short spurts, but never breaking character is way harder when it’s a full-time job. It didn’t help that the character of Danou had drifted toward something more like my natural behavior: it was easy to forget things when I wasn’t focusing all the time. Fortunately, in this case, I had an entirely natural response.

“You’ve never seen her work,” I said with a harrowed expression. “She could do anything.”

Erid patted me on the shoulder.

“Sounds like there’s a story there,” she said. “If that’s the case, I’ll thank you to stop talking about pirates on my ship, ye daft gull! Now get out of my sight, Idiot!”

“Godsmile,” I said, rubbing my aching ear. “I’ll just get belowdecks, then?”

Erid’s glare followed me down.

That, of course, is when the pirates attacked.

*

Our first warning was a deafening bellow of some great sea creature that sounded like a cow who just figured out you stole his wallet. I pumped my fist with a quiet “yes!” and then ran back up the stairs to see what we were in for.

The yells were louder and closer when I surfaced as the pilgrims discovered why Kives had warned them all not to go on this journey in the first place. Sucks to suck. The fog had dispersed somewhat, allowing us a glimpse of a dark shape moving across the water. The affronted cow noise echoed across the water again, only this time it was joined by a second. I glanced toward the rear of the ship, but couldn’t see anything.

Captain Erid was snapping orders as her sailors rushed about. Pilgrims, at least those fit for physical labor, were getting press-ganged to man the oars. A couple of men brought out spears from belowdecks; others were stringing bows. I saw one of them with a crossbow and immediately called it in to the team. Theria was definitely more advanced than we were giving it credit for, and that was worrying.

“You!” Erid snarled, grabbing my arm. It was the arm with access to my combat knife; she hadn’t forgotten. Her knife was wavering furiously in front of my eye. “You knew about this! Are you working with them? The hell are you two planning?”

“Please don’t stab me,” I said. “I’m your only hope of getting out of here.”

“That’s impossible,” said Erid, looking up at me. “Answer me or I’ll slice your skull open like a coconut.”

Wasn’t that a pleasant image.

“We’re here to kill the pirates,” I said, staring at her evenly. “Your ship will be okay. You can pray to Kives if you need more assurances.”

“Idiot girl,” said Erid, violently sheathing her knife. “Why’d you have to get my ship involved in all this?”

“Time pressure, mostly,” I said. “Our lead had a limited window of success.”

“Fuck you to the depths of the ocean,” she said. “If I didn’t need every hand I could get to fight off these upstart, dick-waving thieves, I’d stick you now and feed you to the crabs.”

“Not the sharks?” I said.

“What the fuck is a shark?”

“That’s actually really disappointing,” I said. Suddenly pain overwhelmed the side of my face and I fell to the deck.

“This isn’t a play!” Erid yelled. “Now grab a weapon or man the oars, and if I see you again I’ll disembowel you with a krilhook!”

I didn’t ask her what a krilhook was as she stomped off. I have some preservation instincts.

“Lilith, you need to focus,” said the commander. “We’ve got a huge uptick of marine life heading for the Friend of Heaven. Our demigod might have inherited the ability to commune with sea creatures.”

“Oh, really?” said Markus. “I thought they just wanted to join the party.”

“That’s so dumb,” I said. “Weather gods don’t even do that. Horcutio must have given him that blessing on purpose just so he’d be a bigger ass to everyone.”

“Val,” said Markus, “ETA on the angels?”

“No sign of them,” said Val. “It’s possible Kives is holding them back to mitigate the political fallout with the rest of the pantheon. She’ll have to commit them, however. It’s mathematically necessary given her profile.”

“Grabbing equipment,” I said. “Wait, what kind of sea creatures are we talking about?”

“They appear to be mostly carnivorous,” said Val. “Some herbivores. The common denominator appears to be killing ability.”

“Of course,” I said. “Shit, this is going to mess with the plan.”

“You’ll be fine,” said the commander. “It’s Markus I’m worried about.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Markus. “Not my first time wrestling with sharks.”

“They don’t have sharks here,” I said, pushing some frightened pilgrims out of the way. “That’s just wrong. You can’t do a proper pirate bit without sharks.”

“You know none of us have the cultural reference to understand what you’re talking about, right?” said Val.

“Come on, I made you all watch Pirates of the Caribbean,” I said. Ah, here we go, this was the crate I needed. There were more people huddled in front of it. “Move, people! Kives won’t protect you down here! Get the fuck out of the way!”

That scattered them. I heard footsteps approaching behind me, glanced back, ignored them. Markus walked up next to me. “Need a hand?”

“I’m good,” I said, levering off the top with my knife. Markus watched me for a second, then kicked the top off with a massive splintering noise. Inside there was a black, waterproof case five feet long and about three feet wide.

“Fuck, man!” I shouted. “My face was, like, right there!”

“We don’t have time,” said Markus. “Alright, change of clothes, transmitter, waterjets, rebreathers—Lilith, did you really?”

“What?” I said, fixing a tricorn hat on my head.

“The commander specifically told you not to bring that hat,” said Markus.

“Lilith, did you really?”

“I had to,” I said, giggling a little. “Because now we’re… Pirates of the Theribbean.”

Markus was unimpressed. “That was a lot of work for a bit in the middle of a combat situation.”

“Whatever,” I said. “It was awesome.”

“Lilith, ditch the damn hat. I’m not asking you again.”

Markus knocked it off my head. “Lilith, there are consequences to this sort of thing. Never forget that.”

“Fiiiine,” I said. “Alright, turn around, I’m not getting changed in front of you.”

“Suit yourself,” said Markus. I snorted at the pun, which wasn’t actually a pun in Velean, so Markus looked confused for a moment before shrugging and starting to strip. I looked away, grabbing my own clothes.

I took off Danou’s dress, quickly replacing it with an armored wetsuit produced with state-of-the-art Eifni materials science and hoping like mad that no one came through the door. The clinging, rubbery fabric was warm against my skin, terminating at my ankles and wrists. The transmitter, attached to a sparkling synthetic necklace, got tucked inside. Next, I strapped on a waterproof pouch with my disruptor pistol.

Over that, I threw a skirt and a wrap, which we’d given hooks to keep them attached to pre-installed loops on the wetsuit. The Therian clothing was more or less to preserve plausible deniability, and also to help hide the next part. Markus and I levered sleek, black tubes out of the crate and strapped them to each other’s backs. Finally, a shawl each mostly hid the waterjets from view. Markus handed me a clear, plastic mask.

“Ten minutes of air,” he said. “We should need way less than that.”

“Aye aye, captain,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We barreled through the ship’s corridors, Markus with the supply case over his arm. We’d pitch it overboard the first chance we got—leave no evidence behind. “Move!” he bellowed as we went. People moved. We emerged into the fog-drench noon sunlight, boggling at the dark shape emerging from the fog.

“Commander, we have contact,” said Markus. “Damn, he’s got style.”

The shape in the fog resolved itself into a great ship, easily twice the size of the Friend of Heaven, on a direct collision course with us. Before it, two sinuous, beshelled forms arced through the water, occasionally mooing or bellowing or whatever the fuck they were doing. They were yoked to the fucking ship. Kulades or whatever his name was had a friggin’ sea chariot.

In the waters on either side of the ship I saw the Sons of Horcutio arranged on hippocampi, looking comically like cavalry who’d somehow taken a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of the ocean. The image was belied by the large, horizontal tails flipping behind each of them. Each of them had a long spear whose butt was trailing in the water, leaving its own little wake. I presumed they’d go in for the stab if they had to do a charge; that seemed like the kind of thing that would throw off their mounts’ steering.

Shouts of fear came up from the civilians on the deck, including those hastily conscripted against the imminent attack. One man panicked and jumped overboard. The sea thrashed with activity as creatures converged on his location; the water turned red shortly after. Man, this was going to suck.

“I said I didn’t want to see you again,” said Erid, brandishing a sword as she stomped towards us.

“You also said you needed us defending the ship, so it was a little ambiguous,” I said, backing up toward the railing.

“Took the chance to change clothes, did you?” she snarled. “Couldn’t find a better use of your time?”

The railing was getting awful close.

“Why, captain,” I said in my most theatrical tone. “This is the day you will always remember as the day—”

Markus picked me up and threw me screaming off the side of the ship. I barely had enough presence of mind to shove my rebreather onto my face before I hit the water. The seal wasn’t perfect—the strap wasn’t around the back of my head—so a bit of water leaked in before I got it tight. It was pinching my ear pretty bad. I didn’t have time to worry about that, though, because there were an awful lot of claws and teeth heading at me.

“Val!” I screamed. “Start the fucking jet!”

The waterjet on my back kicked and suddenly I was corkscrewing through the water, dodging all sorts of sea gribblies as they came to eat me. I was screaming the whole time. One claw scraped my arm, but the wetsuit held and I didn’t get more than a bruise.

“If you could quiet down, I’ve almost got you there,” said Val. “This isn’t as easy as it looks.”

“All I’m looking at is sea monsters!” I screamed. “Fuck fuck fuck get me out of here!”

“Predictable,” Val sighed. My momentum shifted and I was going—deeper?! Fuck fuck fuck no, Val, you idiot, the surface is the other way—

I swerved again, I was heading upward, toward freedom, building up speed, and oh god that was a lot of scaly clawed angry fish, and here we go—

I rocketed out of the water, screaming and flailing, arcing gracelessly until I collapsed on top of the rear deck. A second or two later, Markus fell next to me with a clunk as his jet collided with the deck.

“Never doing that again,” I groaned. Markus made a nonverbal noise of agreement as I pulled off my rebreather and chucked it overboard. A tug on the release strap dropped my jet onto the deck. I levered it off into the ocean. Markus did the same. We looked at each other, nodded, and stumbled over to where some actual, real-life pirates had rushed to see what was making all the noise.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said as they approached. “Greetings! We have been sent from the deeps by Lord Horcutio himself!”

I grinned.

“Need some help raiding the trade ship?”