"What's going on why did the song change all of a sudden?!" Kaido frowned. Under that blazing, warlike rhythm, his body flooded with adrenaline. The rush made his fists itch. He wanted to fight.
Silver Axe's face tightened. "A sudden shift like that… never a good sign."
The jinx landed instantly.
The pirate ship lurched so hard the deck pitched. Ripples pocked the sea then colossal Sea Kings broke the surface one after another, encircling the ship.
A vessel tens of meters long wasn't small by any measure, but beside those giants it was a football beside a footballer's boot. The smallest of the beasts dwarfed them several times over.
Dozens of burning eyes fixed on the ship warfire kindled in every gaze.
A quick glance was enough: at least several dozen already.
Cold sweat beaded on Silver Axe's brow. He swallowed. "This is bad. We're surrounded."
Sea Kings were what pirates feared most. And these weren't the tame denizens of the Four Seas they were deep-sea colossi, hundreds, even thousands of meters long, some the size of islands. Long-lived, cunning as men, and monstrously strong.
"Captain Silver Axe what do we do?" Kaido craned up at the towering shapes. He was used to others looking up at him; now it was his turn. Compared to them, his frame was a mouse before a man. How much power did those bodies hold?
"Run."
"As far and as fast as we can."
If it were one or two, Silver Axe would have drawn steel with a grin. But the herd was still thickening from a couple dozen to sixty, seventy… and climbing.
And who knew how many more would come?
Panic scratched at his ribs.
He lunged to the helm, shouldering aside the glass-eyed helmsman who still turned the wheel in a trance. "Kaido! Get those sails! If we don't break out, we're lunch!"
Kaido snapped into motion, seized the sheets, muscles bulging as he hauled. "Can we really outrun them?!"
"Try. If we can't, we scatter and pray." Silver Axe clearly didn't have much hope. He picked a gap between scaled mountains and forced the ship toward it.
It was a dice roll.
The deck had already devolved into chaos.
Under the spell of the song, crewmen were brawling like puppets, clawing and throttling one another. Minds hijacked, they had forgotten even pain.
A shiver ran up Kaido's spine. For a heartbeat he pictured bodies swarming over him, fists hammering, fingers clawing especially in places no man wanted clawed.
"That voice… it's steering the men. And those Sea Kings bet they're here because of it." He cupped his hands. "Silver Axe! If we find the singer, we might break out!"
"Right." The reminder gave Silver Axe a handhold in the panic, like a drowning man feeling straw. His eyes flashed. "Find the woman singing!"
"Cut the voice, and the Sea Kings will dive."
He tilted his head, trying to triangulate through the din.
A mountain of surf crashed. Deafening roars shook the ribs of the ship. Blood-red eyes ringed them. Each idle sweep of a tail made the hull seesaw, roller-coaster wild, as if flipping were a matter of whim.
Suddenly a tentacle like a ridge of living stone swept down at the ship.
Silver Axe dropped the wheel, vaulted high with his great war-axe in both hands, and roared, "Drive Straight for the Dragon's Den!"
A crescent of silver flashed.
A spray of scarlet burst from the sucker-studded limb. The tentacle writhed, then slammed back into the sea with a cannon-crack.
"These deep-sea brutes are nightmares… and I still didn't sever it." He landed light on the seesawing planks and swayed with the lurch.
He grimaced. A stroke that could cleave a ship hadn't chopped through living flesh. Years in the abyss had turned these bodies into iron.
The blood hit the water and the scent hit the herd.
Already rabid, the Sea Kings snapped. The sea turned to a melee of monsters: mountains colliding, shockwaves thundering as they tore into one another. In heartbeats the water blushed red, and the frenzy climbed higher.
The pirate ship tossed like a leaf in a typhoon, utterly at the mercy of the brawl.
"Kaido! Be ready to abandon ship!" A tail the size of a tower clipped Silver Axe mid-shout. His organs felt rearranged. Blood slicked his lip.
The ship wouldn't last.
"No give it a little longer! The ship's our lifeline!" Kaido, drenched to the bone, clung to the mast with one arm while his other fought knots and lines, doing everything he could to keep canvas and spar from tearing loose.
"The helm won't save us I'm going after the singer!" Silver Axe bellowed. Surf, roars, and the crack of bodies made a single monstrous roar; there was no time to check if Kaido heard.
He gathered himself and leapt landing on the ridgeback of a Sea King.
To the titan, he was less than spray.
Silver Axe sprinted up and along the shifting, slick expanse, dancing between thrashing fins and flukes, using every rise to claw a bit more height, to find even a sliver of clear view.
"I have to find her or we die here." He set his jaw. This was the only way to break the trap: make the woman stop singing, no matter what it cost.
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