Page 38 of Blood on the Tide

Maeve clears her throat. “In a fair fight, you could without issue. But water horses don’t fight fair. It will come over the railing and take someone below, dragging them down until they drown. It will do that enough times to get the food it requires, and then it’ll feast.”

The shiver of fear working its way through me tries to gain strength, but I muscle down the reaction. Yes, the thought of being dragged to the depths is a terrifying one and my personal nightmare. But this is just one creature, magical or not. It doesn’t even have claws and fangs. It’s a fucking horse. Granted, I’ve never seen a kelpie, because they were hunted to extinction a long time ago. I know the stories, though—my family keeps excellent records. “I’ll rip its heart out before it has a chance to.”

There’s a shout from the crow’s nest, and we all turn as something emerges from the waves behind us. It’s a black horse, just like I expected, but the closer it gets, carving through the waves to race on top of them, the more I see that the similarities are superficial at best. Four legs, a strong body, an arching neck, all a deep blue that’s nearly black. A mane and tail that stream out behind it as it closes the distance between us and it. What was I saying about fangs and claws? It has both.

Not to mention that it’s bigger than even a fucking Clydesdale, with the body type of a thoroughbred. Fighting that thing will be a godsdamn bitch. I wish I had my rifle with me. That would put an end to this with a single bullet between its eyes.

“Get everyone who’s not exclusively required off the deck.” I speak softly. Everyone is so tense, a harsh word might make them panic. Might make me panic. Damn it, no. I am a hardened killer, and I will not quail in the face of an overgrown herbivore that thinks it can be a predator. “It has to come on board in order to take a victim. When it does, I’ll deal with it.”

Alix clears their throat. “It might not be that simple. This is...”

Maeve makes a sound that is part laugh and part pure desperation. “This is what?”

“This isn’t any normal water horse.” They shudder. “It’s too big. And the color is wrong. I’ve been warned about this one, but I’d hoped to never see it in person. This motherfucker sinks ships.”

The charge seems impossible. Surely one singular creature could not sink a ship, even if this isn’t a warship like the Cwn Annwn sail. But Alix isn’t joking, and Rin’s scales have gone from a nice healthy green to something closer to yellow with zir fear.

I have to keep them talking, keep them thinking. If I don’t, at best they’re going to be useless; at worst, they’re going to get us all killed. Having to mop blood off the deck will upset Maeve, so I’d like to avoid that outcome. “You obviously know plenty about this creature. How would you have dealt with it under normal circumstances?”

“We wouldn’t be traveling this route in the first place. But if we had to, we would get our air-user to bolster the wind until we outran it. It might be a monster, but its stamina doesn’t last forever.” At my askance look, Alix shrugs. “Our captain was the air-user. You killed him. Therefore we have no air-user. This water horse is going to sink us, and then it can eat the crew at its leisure.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to work for me.” I bend over to pull off my boots. After some consideration, I don’t bother to take off the rest of my clothes. If it gets me into the water, then I’m fighting a losing battle and my clothing making it challenging to swim will be the least of my problems. “The order still stands. Clear the decks.”

“Lizzie,” Maeve says. “Don’t. We’ll find another way.”

I catch the back of Maeve’s neck and pull her into a rough kiss. “Go into the captain’s quarters. I need to be focused for this fight. I won’t be if I’m worrying about you.”

“But—”

“Please, Maeve.”

She seems shocked that I said please, and even with everything going on, it strikes me that I’ve never said that word to her before. Maeve looks back into our wake, where the water horse is closer than ever. There’s something in her expression that I don’t like, but surely she knows she can’t fight that thing. I’m the best chance of taking it down. We’re already running on a tight crew, and we can’t afford to lose any more people. Not without slowing us down.

Finally, she says, “I’ll go into the crow’s nest. That’s my only compromise.” Before I can tell her that that’s a ridiculous plan and I want her safely shut away, she rushes to the netting. She drapes her pelt over her shoulder and scales up to the crow’s nest, moving faster than she has a right to. As if she can outrun my words.

“Captain.”

It’s only been a couple days, and that title sits ill at ease on my shoulders. I take a deep breath and turn to the back of the ship. “Keep our course.”

“Yes, Captain.” Rin and Alix huddle back behind the helm. There’s little protection on either side, so I resist the urge to head toward the back of the boat to meet the water horse. It won’t attack from that direction, anyways. Not if it’s as clever as Rin and Alix seem to think. If I was hunting a ship like this, I would come over the side.

Even as the thought crosses my mind, the horse dives beneath the water. I find myself holding my breath, waiting for it to surface again, but it doesn’t. Seconds tick by, tension coiling tighter and tighter. I drag my nail along my inner arm and will the blood to cover my hands, forming claws. The sharp pain clears the rapidly circling thoughts in my head. We might be in the middle of the ocean on a ship with a predator circling, but I know this feeling. The moment before a fight for my life. Only one of us will see the sunset, and it’s damn well going to be me. I take a breath and dig my nail deeper into my forearm, forcing more blood out and lengthening the blood claws as much as I can without making them brittle. It’s a fine balance, and one I’ve spent years perfecting.

I’m a fucking killer as much as this water horse is. More, because I bet I’ve lived longer.

It still takes effort to steady my breathing, to strive for a slice of calm before the attack. Usually, I’m fighting for my life, for my family’s honor, out of sheer boredom. That’s not the case today. If I fail, over a dozen people die. If I fail, Maeve might die.

Unacceptable.

“Jugular is likely my best bet,” I murmur to myself. “Those hooves are too dangerous to fuck with.” I’ll need to find a way to flank it or come over its back. It’s been damn near fifty years since I’ve been on the back of a horse, and that one didn’t have claws and fangs. I don’t look forward to this experience.

“Lizzie! Starboard side!”

Maeve’s voice has me snapping around, and not a moment too soon. The water rises unnaturally there, up and up and up, cresting as the water horse bursts free of the surface. Water splashes over the railing in a wave that nearly takes me off my feet. I stagger and curse as it lands among us, the weight of it rattling the boards beneath my feet. I knew that it was huge, but its size is even more gargantuan than it appeared at a distance. It’s damn near twice as tall as I am, its body deceptively muscular and its claws twice the size of the blood-coated ones on my fingers.

How the fuck am I going to kill this thing?

Come on, Lizzie. You kill it the same way you kill everything else. Rip it open until it stops moving.

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