As the rowboat’s crew disgorged themselves into the choppy breakers foaming up the beach, one of them, a salted dwarf with weathered skin and brilliant red hair, turned to the massive half-troll, some seven feet tall and at least four hundred pounds, who now single-handedly tugged their small craft onto the beach.

“What d’ya think happened to ‘er, bos’n?” asked the dwarf.

The boatswain cast another glance over the derelict barque, less than a hundred stride up the beach.

“Look like she’s run ‘ground ‘ere, chief. See ‘ow she lists. Keel’s still good. She mus’ be powerful well built ta ‘ave survive runnin’ up on shore like ‘at. ‘Er aft mast is wreck ta shit, an’ her deck’s all tore up. Could be salvage, but she’ll like need a yard ta get ‘er sailin’ ‘gain,” the half-troll rumbled in reply.

“Alright, Ufrim, take the boys and search ‘er from stem to stern. Yeh find any stowaways, give em a chance ta surrender. If’n they don’t take it, kill em,” the dwarf’s eyes were cold.

“Aye, chief,” the half-troll turned and pushed one of the sailors out of his way as he marched toward the grounded ship.

In the distance, a sailor on the big sloop anchored offshore signaled with a series of flag gestures. The chief mate tapped one of the sailors, a lithely built reptilian humanoid with bright aquamarine skin, and pointed at the ship. The lizardfolk hustled to the rowboat and retrieved a set of flags, giving a series of short signals indicating the ship might be salvageable and that the shore crew were to search it. The flagger aboard the sloop acknowledged the message, and the reptilian sailor returned the flags to the rowboat and joined the search party aboard the derelict.

The chief stared at the back of the massive ship, his mind turning over the great rents in her hull, every one above the waterline. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she’d been attacked by a kraken, but the titanic deep ones would never leave a ship’s rudder intact. It was nearly always the first thing to go when the tentacled monstrosities set their sights on a vessel. No, this attack was calculated. None of the damage to the big ship would’ve impeded her power to sail, save the snapped off rear mast, which was nowhere to be found.

A sharp whistle broke the chief mate’s reverie. He looked up to see the giant boatswain standing at the deck railing, gesturing for him to come aboard. The half-troll lowered a rope ladder, and the chief made his way up to the slanted deck of the boat.

“What is it, Ufrim?” the dwarf grumbled.

“Foun’ th’ cap’n log, chief. Say the old girl’s name be the Ceres. Say she were set on by a beast betwix ‘ere an’ Vall’ Corsa. Thing stalk ‘n’ et the ‘hole crew. Save the cap’n fer last, it say,” the massive sailor was visibly spooked.

“Likely she ran aground here, then, after the beast slunk back off ta the deep,” the chief smiled, profit jingling like coins in the sparkle of his eyes.

“Aye chief, is like. But… chief…” the big bosun hesitated.

“Spit it out, Uf,” the dwarf grunted.

“Nocks ‘n’ Carryl ‘re missin’,” the half-troll looked around the deck. “An’... chief…”

“Fuck’s sake, Uf, act like yeh got half the pair a nuts ah know yer hidin’ in those breeches. Spit it out,” the dwarf shouted.

“Heard singin’, down b’low, chief,” the great half-troll cast a glance over his shoulder.

Two more sailors returned from below decks, one from the foredeck and one from aft.

“Where’re Nocks an’ Carryl, you soppy fucks? An’ Migyrn too,” the dwarf snapped at them.

“Nocks an’ Carryl went down ta check the hold, chief,” one answered.

“Mig was… right behind me, chief…” the older of the two turned to look down the stairs.

“Fine then, you wet dogs. Draw steel and follow me,” the dwarf stalked down the stairs.

The decks below were peppered with shafts of evening sun, the fading light filtering through the rents in the tall ship’s hull. Though the two sailors were only months into their first trek with the Bloody Nyll, both the chief mate and the boatswain were old hands at both sailing and fighting. The dwarf had drawn a short, thick-bladed machete with a pearl handle, and the giant half-troll had activated a monstrous Skill that caused the bones in his knuckles to burst through the skin in savage spikes. His blood sizzled as it dripped on the floor, until the patter grew slower and finally stopped as the bosun’s trollish flesh knit itself back together around the barbed spikes.

“Stop. Shh. D’ya hear that?” the chief slashed the air with his free hand.

The sailors strained to make out the sound, whisper-quiet, drifting up from the hold. The sound seemed to carry unnaturally in the gloom below decks, the voice of a young girl, singing a strange shanty. The faint melody seemed to drift closer and further, coming from below, then in front, then behind, and carried with it a shiver of terror that caused their blood to run cold.

“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest, yo ho ho ho and a bottle of rum. Drink and the devil had done for the rest, yo ho ho ho and a bottle of rum…” the whispering song was behind them now, and as they turned, they found the older sailor was simply gone.

“Rolt? Now’s nae the time ta be fuckin’ about you gutless fuck,” the chief hissed.

The song returned, from below them now, drifting up through the planks beneath their feet.

“The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike, yo ho ho ho and a bottle of rum. The bosun brained with a marlinspike, yo ho ho ho and a bottle of rum…”

The dwarf turned to tell the others to retreat to above deck, but his gruff voice died in his throat as he realized the massive half-troll was gone, as though he never existed, disappeared from between himself and the young sailor.

“Chief… where’s the bos’n?” panic bloomed in the young sailor’s eyes.

The dwarf took a shuddering breath, stilling his fear. He’d seen a hundred battles. Seen men shit themselves as they died. Seen boys blown apart by langrage still calling for their mothers. He had seen the worst the seas had to offer. He blinked slowly, deliberately, a ritual to clear his mind. Once. Twice. A third.

“It’s alright lad. Head-” the sound died in his throat. The young sailor was gone.

Behind him, the song resumed.

“And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell. Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum…” came the whisper in his ear.

The chief felt the wet warmth in his breeches as terror seized him, a supernatural dread like no fear he had ever known. It stole his breath and his reason. He fell to his knees and tears began to roll down his cheeks as he bit into his tongue, a last grasp for some sliver of composure, if only so he wouldn’t begin to scream.

He knew, if that scream escaped his lips, it would never stop.

A girl’s voice, whispering in his ear.

“What shore is this, my love?”

His guts churned and his legs turned to jelly at the sweetness of that voice. The voice of a girl that might ask him for a copper, or for him to buy a sweet roll from her father’s bakery, a voice too young to sigh in the night.

A child.

A demon in the skin of a child.

“A…” he choked on the blood in his mouth, then started as a small, pale hand with clean white fingernails laid itself on his shoulder at the edge of his vision. His body heaved in great shudders.

“Au-a-a-aus-austrvost. W-w-w-west. S-s-s-south of the A-st-era,” he coughed and choked again, trying to swallow the sobs, tears cascading in a steady stream down his cheeks.

“Thank you, my love. Look at me, now,” the girl’s voice whispered.

“P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-plea-ple-sssss-s-s” he began to stutter uncontrollably.

He knew, if he turned, in the last gasps of dusk’s light, within the broken remnants of this vessel’s corpse, only damnation waited for him there.

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.”

“Wh-wha?” the dwarf began, but his voice was stolen as a fingertip, cold as death, trailed across his face.

The rest of the girl emerged at the edge of his vision. She was young, but not as young as he’d thought. Her pale breasts shone in the dying light as she walked to stand in front of him. She bent down to look into his eyes, and within those golden irises, shot through with brilliant bands of cyan and white, he saw centuries of…

Hunger.

Madness.

Resentment.

Behind her, twisted effigies of his men emerged from the cabins, pallid nightmares with skin of alabaster, laced with shining veins of sky blue and shimmering gold. Were they not so twisted of body, and their visages so devoid of mind or light, they would be beautiful.

All this flashed through the chief mate’s mind in the moment just before the girl’s fist did the same.

The echoes of his men watched as the girl’s hands flowed and stretched outward, dissolving and drinking the flesh, blood, and bones of their leader. A few moments later, the girl coughed once and vomited a fist-sized ivory sac that squelched as it landed on the planks.

The sac twisted and writhed, doubling in size every few seconds, until it burst open and a gnarled facsimile of the chief pulled itself upright, covered in viscous clear afterbirth.

The girl flicked her hand and a wave of nauseating power burst from her body, the weave of mana screaming in her head at the abuse she wreaked on its threads.

The sailors began to convulse, their skins bulging and bones cracking. A ropy tendril of flesh shot out from the chief to the bosun, where it began to reel the two together. Similar veins of writhing viscera began to erupt from the others, until the girl stepped from between the boiling creatures and watched as their flesh reweaved itself into something more suitable to her aims.

The creature twisted and shuddered as it grew into a beast with the combined mass of each sailor. Thick, powerful tentacles erupted from its flesh as segmented armor snapped into existence along its body. At the other end, a massive maw with great black shearing teeth evolved from within the armor, snapping its terrible jaws. The beast grew still.

“Van, mis hijos. Take the ship. Leave the meat inside for me.”

The creature burst from the side of the hull, slapping against the breaking waves and the sandy beach before jerking itself into the water, where it torpedoed toward the ship with unnatural speed. Alarm bells began to ring in the distance as the girl walked to the hole in the side of the Ceres, humming to herself.

“I am coming, mis queridas, swiftly now. For the dead travel fast.”