Page 1 of Valka

Chapter 1

“Shoot them! Take the creatures down! Maneuver us away from the shoreline!”

“We’re trying, Captain! They’re relentless, and with the storm battering us we can’t tell if we’re shooting the birds or the sails! It’s all we can do to avoid getting washed onto the rocks, we can’t maneuver!

The captain lifted his pistol and fired at one of the huge raptors standing on the open edge of the hatch as it peered down inside through the storm. The creature shrieked in pain, but rather than fall dead, it flapped its large wings and lifted into the sky.

“You’d better figure it out, or we’re done for! Move! Now!” the captain bellowed. “And close the hatch!”

“We can’t do that! The women are down there! They’ll die for sure!”

“At least they won’t be food for the beasts! We’re all going to die if we don’t fight our way out of this! Close the fucking hatch and fight these things, now!” the captain bellowed.

As another wave swept across the ship’s deck, all activity stopped for several seconds while the crew held fast to anything secured in place to keep from being swept overboard. The moment the immediate threat of being taken with the wave passed, activity jump-started again. Several of the crew took aim at yet another convocation of the winged creatures as they swooped down to attack the mast and sails, firing their weapons at them. The creatures rose back up into the sky, dancing easily away from the musket balls fired at them. As they lifted higher into the storm, the wind and rain offering no resistance to their large sleek bodies, another bevy of them moved in to take theirplaces, the peal of their cries a harbinger of doom to all aboard the sailing vessel.

Ridley hurried to carryout his captain’s orders, throwing the heavy wooden hatches closed and locking them in place despite the begging and screaming of the women below deck. Once accomplished, he scurried across the deck to where the captain stood stock still, shouting orders, demanding results. His men, not sure if they were more afraid of him, the storm, or the raptors picking them off one by one, struggled to comply.

“It’s done, Captain! The women are locked below!” Ridley reported.

The captain faced Ridley, and for a second the captain saw Ridley as he truly was… just barely a man, once hopeful that his efforts would make a difference in his world at least, completely oblivious to the type of crew he’d joined until it had been too late.

The screech of another attacking flying beast tore his momentary reflection from Ridley and back to the here and now. Frustration and desperation rode the captain hard as he watched his crew, half-blind from the driving rain, tearing apart as much of the ship as the winged predators, as they tried in vain to fight them off and withstand the storm all at once.

“They’re your responsibility until this is over, and they’d better still be alive! I’ll not have to pay for delivering a bunch of dead bodies to their buyers!” the captain said, tossing the ring of keys to Ridley before he turned to address another whose cry for help at being lifted from the deck by an attacking raptor demanded his attention.

“It’s like they’re one and the same. The storm lashes us, then when it steps back, the creatures do!” another man shouted as he aimed at one of the raptors diving a little closer than the rest, then ducked at the last moment instead of shooting the beast.

“You’re worthless! The lot of you worthless! They’ll take us all down!” the captain declared as he strode angrily across the deck and snatched the long-gun from the first man he saw taking aim at the newest round of the vicious winged beasts and lifted the firearm to rest against his shoulder. As he lined up the shot, he snarled as what appeared to be the same flying beast he’d just shot focused on him from thirty feet above, flapping its great wings against the winds, holding steady as it seemed to fly up the barrel of the long-gun, one of its razor-sharp talons extended as it approached, the other tucked up near its belly, injured by the captain when he’d shot it only moments before. The creature opened its sharp beak and emitted an ear-splitting screech. But the captain didn’t flinch. Instead he held strong, pulling the trigger — but just a second too late — as the beast shrieked again, skillfully maneuvering its large, but sleek body on a path that took it in just above the captain’s weapon. Its talon pierced the captain’s chest as it flapped its great wings once again, lifting the captain from the deck, the long-gun clattering to fall where the captain once stood.

Tortured screams were the only indication the crew had that the captain was not quite dead when the beast that carried him away began feasting on strips of the captain’s flesh it tore away and tossed into the air to catch and swallow down as it flew away with its prize.

The remaining crew, shaken to their souls, lost only a few seconds standing spellbound watching as their captain died a heinous death, before staring at one another in shock. The peal of another cluster of murderous, flying beasts heralded another attack, snapping the crew out of their semi-frozen state to scatter across the ship in search of any weapon at all with which to protect themselves.

“Secure and strike sail!” one of the men shouted as rain and wind pelted them all, and another wave swept across the deck, threatening to take all of them with it.

“What’s left of it is flapping in the wind! It can’t be secured!” Ridley yelled back.

“Find a way! Secure it! If we don’t make an effort, we die! Secure it, and secure it now!”

Ridley looked up at the highest part of the mast. Being the youngest and newest of the crew, it was his job to scale the shroud and carryout whatever assistance the sail needed and to man the crow’s nest when necessary. The sail he watched flapping only reached halfway up the mast, its shredded top half flapping in the whipping winds of the storm. The idea of scaling the shrouds in the storm, with the carnivorous beasts swirling overhead was enough to convince him that nothing would make him offer himself up as a meal to the hellish creatures.

“Move, do something to save your weak hide!” another shouted, shoving him out of the way as he ran toward the mast, jumped up and grabbed hold of the lowest part of the shroud to hoist himself up.

“They’ll pick you off! Don’t go up there!”

“The sail has to be reattached or none of us will make it!” the man shouted back as he gripped the next part of the shroud and began climbing.

Another ran past and grabbed up the long-gun that had just been washed across the deck by the last wave to bombard them. He tossed it to Ridley, still standing in place watching the next of them to surely die as he scaled the shroud moving ever closer to the tattered sail. “Here! At least you can use it as a club, I doubt it will fire.”

Another pair of waves washed across the deck, and the ship lurched as its stern became lodged on something beneath the water’s surface.

“We’re going over, lads! Take hold of something and make a jump for it!”

“The women! They’ll drown sealed in the hold!” Ridley yelled.

“And so will you! Leave them, jump or be trapped with them when the ship goes down!”

“It’s not right!” Ridley shouted.

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