Serial Fiction: WAR FOR THE WHALE-ROAD Prologue

Private First Class Samuel Clancy narrowed his green eyes as the white fogbank shifted toward the bulky black Everetti whaling ship Stirling. He tightened his grip on his rifle. This close to Sejera, it was essential to see as far out as possible. But since 0900 there’d been a white wall of fog running parallel to the Stirling’s starboard side. And the big whaler had been sailing parallel to the Abuariki coast, albeit well out to sea.

Clancy kept his attention on the advancing fog and tightened his waist-length blue peacoat against the chill with his free hand. The fog was thick, a wall of cotton twenty-odd feet high. Anything could lurk in there. The great beasts of the sea – the whales Stirling hunted or the more dangerous beasts that also preyed on them – would only be a problem if they were desperate or had run mad. But the wild men of the Sejeran coast this far south?

They were a completely different kettle of fish.

BANG! He jerked, but mastered his movements before he could jump. That was just one of the ship’s many harpoon guns. Men shouted. The metallic scent of blood touched his nostrils. Looked like the Stirling’s hunters had gotten a whale. He kept facing forward, eyes on the water. He’d seen what would come next. A big door would open up in the ship’s rear. The dead or dying whale would be hauled up a ramp on a great iron chain, blood pouring in rivers behind it. Then the butchery would begin, blubber flensed off to be processed into oil and the meat and bone put to more conventional uses.

He sniffed. All efficient, nothing wasted. Not like the Sejer barbarians haunting these coasts where the swamps bled into the sea. Bone meal kept the little farmland on the Home Islands going generation upon generation since the Fall shattered the Old World and improved the fertility of its colonies besides. The Sejer probably kept the skeletons of the whales they’d hunted to dance around. Or even worshipped them as gods. Ignorant savages could use those bones, if they had the brains.

Something splashed in the water. His attention snapped toward the sound – off starboard, toward the stern. His rifle snapped to his shoulder. His finger touched the trigger. If Sejer pirates lurked out there, getting the first shot off would be absolutely crucial.

“Private, what’s going on?” Sergeant Nick Moore asked. He was shorter and broader than Clancy, and significantly darker of skin. Black curly hair peeked out from under his navy-blue hat.

Good. Sarge will know what to do.

“Something’s out there, sergeant,” Clancy said. “Just like that time at – ”

Moore stepped to the railing and peered into the fog. It still drew closer. “Fuck,” the sergeant swore. “Just like that time off Ironwrack. Good eyes, Clancy.” He pulled a whistle from his jacket and blew three times. Within seconds, several marines had gathered at the railing, rifles in their hands. “This fog might be hiding pirates, boys. All of us are going to – ”

The great bell on white bridge rising three stories over the ship’s center rang. Once, twice, thrice. Men began shouting as the bell kept ringing. After the seventh ring, the ship’s horn blew.

“Unidentified ships astern!” someone shouted. “Hostiles!”

“You heard the man!” Moore shouted. “Prepare to repel boarders!” The marines rushed toward the still-open ramp as the new enemies came definitively into sight.

Four low-slung, dragon-headed war-boats emerged from the fog astern of the Stirling. Their rough iron hulls had been painted white, all the better to blend in with the fog. Blue flags displaying a rampant green bear rose from a boat to the rear of the formation. Clancy’s heart sank. That was the banner of Abuarik, a Sejer realm ruled by Jarl Ragnar Crow-Feeder, an unrepentant enemy of the Republic. This wasn’t a pirate raid or some lesser jarl getting ambitious, but an act of open war. Black smoke suddenly belched from the single stacks in the rear of each vessel. Their propellors bestirred the deep blue ocean now stained with the blood of a whale that had almost certainly escaped as they lunged for the Stirling’s ramp.

Each boat brimmed with long-haired wild men in metal helmets. Cloaks of gray wolf-skin, bear furs, or the scales of the great mainland reptiles hung over green uniform jackets and white uniform pants. The warriors bore rifles, but the immediate danger stood at the head of each boat. Behind each dragon-head stood a swiveled Sawyer gun.

The marines’ rifles barked. The Sejer warriors closest to their Sawyers ducked behind the square armored gun shields flanking the multiply-barreled guns. Some were too slow, falling shouting back onto their decks or into the churning sea. But two of the big guns whirred, clearing the ramp of whalers and marines both. One whaler turning the wheel to raise the ramp went down, bullets stitching a bloody red line from ankle to the side of his head.

“Enemies starboard!” Moore shouted. Clancy turned at the sergeant’s command. A trio of Sejer dragon-ships emerged from the starboard fog a quarter mile away. They didn’t immediately go in for the kill. The men aboard – it seemed like there were fewer than the boats menacing the Stirling’s stern – milled around something large to the rear of their vessels.

“Sergeant, I think they’re calibrating mortars!”

“I think so too!” Moore grabbed another marine – Private Sydney Gwynne, a blond-haired boot who’d joined the Stirling’s complement when they’d last sailed from Everett – and pointed toward the whaler’s bridge. “Get the captain, tell him the Sejer on the starboard side have mortars. He’ll know what to do.”

“Aye-aye, sergeant!”

Gwynne rushed away. Hopefully the boot wouldn’t fuck this up. Moore turned to Clancy. “Those mortars clear our deck, those Sejer bastards will be up the ramp like it’s our ass. And then they’ll be up our ass!” His gaze briefly touched the sky. “At least they don’t have any battle bags with them.”

“Understood, sergeant.” Clancy snapped his rifle up and fired. The Sejer mortar boats were on the outer edge of his range, but the enemy warriors hunkered down behind the Sawyers’ protective shields. Sparks danced on the metal. One man toppled. Clancy grinned. These bastards wouldn’t be shelling the Stirling, not today. He ducked beneath the railing as Abuariki rifles replied. They weren’t accurate at this distance either, but there were too few Everetti to be reckless.

Engines roared astern. Clancy spun, rifle already hunting for targets. The Sejer were rushing the whaler’s still-lowered ramp, weaving to avoid presenting easy targets for the explosive harpoons. The whalers fired anyway. Pillars of water surged upward between the oncoming war-boats. Once or twice the explosions’ force sent warriors tumbling into the sea, but the civvies didn’t score the direct hits they needed. Even if they couldn’t sink a war-boat, wrecking a Sawyer gun would help a lot.

“Shit!” Clancy snarled as one war-boat burst up the ramp, bearded savages spilled onto the deck.

“HO LA OTHINN!” the Sejer roared as they rushed forward. The processing teams did not lack valor. Hose-blasts sent warriors sprawling onto their backs where they could be more easily butchered like the captured whale. Something exploded astern, followed by popping ammunition and screams. It sounded like the whalers had managed to hit something with those harpoons after all.

But the attackers’ rifles killed many more civvies. The butchers’ blood spilled down the ramp, although in close-quarters a barbarian might be contented to knock a man unconscious. A corpse couldn’t be ransomed or sold as a slave. The other marines’ fire kept the enemy from simply brushing the outnumber whalers aside, but the Abuariki kept coming, their volleys tearing marines from their feet and their barbarian chants filling the air.

The Stirling accelerated, hopefully leaving the enemy behind. More rifles fired from the bridge, sending Sejer warriors toppling down the bloody ramp into the churning red-stained water. Looks like the boot made it after all. Clancy shifted his aim to join in, but Moore pointed. The three mortar-boats were still there, and any seconds they had to calibrate...

More Sejer bullets sparked off the railing and the deck. One sliced across Moore’s left leg. Its passage cut the blue pants and dark skin beneath, but the leatherneck did no more than hiss. “Looks like someone’s a decent shot even that far out. Let’s make the savages keep their heads down and – ”

Clunk-clunk. Metal dug into metal as grappling hooks clawed onto the railing mere feet away. One of the bastards had come in under their very noses! Clancy lunged for an elaborately-carved iron hook, but something skipped across his back. He fell to his knees. Before he could fully rise, the first bearded warrior stormed over the railing.

“Skeggold!” one shouted. “Skamold!” His mouth opened to say something else, but Moore put a bullet through it. He toppled back into the sea missing most of his head. A reply shot from the sea sent the sergeant sprawling to the deck.

You fucker!

Clancy paid the man back with another bullet. He rushed over as Moore struggled to a sitting position. Then what felt like the world’s biggest fist hit him in the side. He toppled sideways and had the brief sensation of his skull ringing on metal before the darkness swallowed him.

***

Pain. That was the first thing Clancy felt as he fought his way back to consciousness. Wounds burned on his back and belly, almost parallel to each other. Red warmth surrounded his face as what had to be a broken nose bled out onto the hard, wet deck. And his head hurt like he’d had too much small beer and too little baked biscuit to balance it out.

The Stirling wasn’t moving. That was bad.

Though pain clouded his vision, Clancy saw a tall man with an impressive blond beard walking up the bloody deck. His iron helmet, slightly dented from a near miss, bore carvings of wolves and serpents. Furs taken from some great beast, edged with curving black claws, hung around his shoulders over Abuariki green-and-white more finely made than ordinary uniforms. An Old World repeating rifle, something even the Everetti that had ridden out the Fall didn’t readily risk, hung arrogantly from his shoulder.

That’s a chieftain. Or jarl, in their barbarous tongue. Clancy froze. Is that the Crow-Feeder? It would be absurd for the jarl of Abuarik, a realm as big as one of the smaller Home Islands and only somewhat less populated, to attack a whaling ship himself. Then again, their whole culture was absurd anyway.

The towering Sejer strode toward where other warriors had the tall, reedy whaler captain on his knees. Bruises were already marring his thin face.

“Commodore Fields,” the barbarian princeling said. “Yes, I know who you are. You and your fleet been plundering my waters for years now.”

“What nonsense,” the commander of Everett’s southernmost whaling fleets retorted, a broken nose rendering his voice comically high. “These seas are neutral territory. We – ”

The Sejer backhanded the captain. His men kept a tight grip, keeping him upright. “Not anymore. My writ governs Kroksey now, which means you’re in my waters.” He paused, a smile crossing his wide face. “I think this fancy ship of yours will be a fine manngjald for trespassing.” His smile grew bigger. “And I wonder what head-price Everett will pay for you? It’ll cost the white bits out of their eyes.”

It was then that Clancy spotted Moore’s body on the deck. Pools of blood were already congealing around it, thickest around where his head had been. These barbarians had chopped his fucking head off!

Clancy twitched, his anger momentarily overcoming his will to stay immobile. His stomach rose into his throat as a warrior stepped up to the chieftain and pointed right at him! His heart leaped into his throat. If they’d thought him dead, they’d get careless. That had gone straight out the window.

The chieftain laughed and raised his repeater. Before Clancy could protest, before he could make the tiniest movement toward his dropped rifle, the weapon chattered. A split-second later, the world went black.

The Republic of Everett begins plotting its retaliation in Ch. 1. If you’re liking what you’re reading, subscribe! The first few chapters will be free here or on my Patreon. The remainder will be for paying subscribers only.