Forged in Sea and Smoke

The waves above Adriell were thrashing terribly, the current causing her front lines to move with it, together and then apart. She loved storms like this, loved the wild feeling it induced in her as if the storm electrified her, woke her up, and made her crave blood.

The storm, growing larger and more violent by the hour and blocking out even the sun, had brought the human’s war boats to them. Tangling the ships as they tried to tame the waves, which only proved their ignorance.

They did not know what each mermaid was born knowing; there was no taming a storm, instead you must let it consume you, become a part of the tempest, or it will destroy you.

The thunder that crashed could be heard even in the depths where the mer waited and watched as the lightning became the only light in the sky to outline the shape of the warships. Though she tried to see through the darkness she could not make out the outline of any men on board. Adriell grinned as another loud clap of thunder echoed. This was a sign from Tempestus, that the god of storms was behind them. Some of her people feared his great power, feared his anger and rage, but to her, he had always been her favorite of the gods. She saw the balance in his storm, the need for such destruction, and even the justice in his fury. Oftentimes before a battle she found herself praying out a simple prayer to him to guide her in her vengeance and that her fury would not be wasted. In her twenty-five years, he had always answered her prayers. And even though she had no reason to believe so, she had begun to feel as if this storm had been for her. A small gift from the God of vengeance. She smiled in thanks.

The mer were experienced storm chasers, following and learning from the changing tides. They trained for storms and even worshiped them. As far as they could tell the land dwellers hid from or never sailed in tempests or even the lightest rain, fearing the power of such storms. Maybe they knew a god was blowing them about in the crashing waves. Maybe they feared him, as they should. Or perhaps they knew her people were here waiting underneath the waves, to pull them under, to steal their breath.

She smiled at the knowledge that the land walkers would be nervous aboard their ships. Off balance even. These men would be easy targets. They feared death was coming for them but she knew death had already arrived.

A late-night council meeting had been called last night by her father, the King of Athalanta, informing the council that a patrol had spotted these ships and was monitoring their progress. As his heir, she was tasked with leading this offensive and stopping the ships before they entered too deeply into their lands. So before dawn, she and her generals had gathered a small force to meet them here in the open ocean. She knew why these men had come here, for the same reason they always did, to find Mer and to kill them. They preferred to work at night when their ships and hooks were harder to spot. Fishing they called it, she preferred the term invade, slaughter, or murder.

The land dwellers had come to kill them. To kill her people.

And she planned to return the favor.

Tenfold.

She planned to flood the sea in their blood and burn their boats as an offering to Aquanaria, the goddess of the deep. Adriell had visited the people’s wise woman before she had set off with the army and had asked for a blessing as her mother had taught her to. Though her blessing was given the wise woman had also spoken to me of peace and balance, and for the great goddesses’ wish for the world to be back in order, as it once had been. Adriell had listened, had sat quietly as the wise woman spoke, but when she was done Adriell said not a word but had grabbed her trident as a way of farewell and left.

The wise woman never saw the bodies and she was not tasked with telling the family members of their loved ones’ deaths. In this way she was spared from the violence of war and in this way peace seemed the simplest choice. But Adriell saw it all, she had heard all the tales, been raised in a time of war, and grew up with a trident in her hands. She heard the screams, saw the blood, and held the crying widows. Adreill had watched as her people died at the hands of these invaders.

Peace was never an option.

War and death were the only truths she knew.

Adreill closed her eyes as she waited for them to come into range. She stretched out her hand and felt the tide as it thrashed, measured the strength, the force in the tug and pull of the waves. She felt her hair as it floated along with it. Felt the world as it seemed to push her. Pull her. Even the ocean was restless tonight.

Go, go, go, it whispered to her.

Her eyes flashed open, a smile showing all her teeth matched them. She turned to her second in command, Florina, a woman with hair as dark as the night sky who she called a friend though in truth she was more, they had been raised together, had been trained together, and when it had been time for her to pick a second in command many were put before her, others who her father and mother preferred but the choice had been hers, and the choice had been easy to make. There was no one she trusted more.

With one nod the command was given and the battle began.

The battle had raged for hours now, bloody and violent. The land dwellers put up a fight worthy of applause and had not made their defeat easy, much to her annoyance. However, she had to admit that an easy victory was nothing to praise.

It was now well into the night. Not even the moon chose to appear, choosing to instead hide behind the thick layer of clouds. Only the brief lightning told her the state of their ships. A fire had been set upon two ships that the land walkers had yet to put out, though the panic she saw in their hurried men told her of the seriousness of them. She smiled again at the sight, her face alight by the flame’s glow.

Though she believed victory was within their grasp, this battle had taken its toll on her ranks, and the death toll only grew. She dreaded this part, dreaded that she was the one to give the order, to send them to what would become their deaths. Hated how the silence afterwards would echo. And this battle had raged longer than she had planned. The storm and the rushing waves had made it difficult to maneuver the sea’s surface, and even more challenging to aim their weapons while being tossed in the waves. Although the men aboard the ships too were being rocked as well they had not found it difficult to aim their weapons, for the mer were everywhere they looked.

She watched as bodies of men who had been dragged overboard and drowned, and mer with arrows piercing them, sank into the darkness. She watched as spears and arrows from the ship rained down from the surface. The sea was soaked with blood, both mer and men. She could smell it on the tides, as the blood mixed in the water. No longer salt but copper.

“Hold the lines,” Adriell shouted over the rush and roar of war, as she saw two soldiers behind her get pushed out of formation due to the rushing sea. She couldn’t tolerate it. Couldn’t afford for others to get out of formation. Mistakes meant more death, that was an early lesson she had learned well.

She and her battalion had just returned from their offensive and were now waiting once more for their turn to attack once again. That was how the Athalanta’s army was formed, in groups of battalions who would move forward and switch out with tired battalions on the front line, so there was always a fresh line of fighters and a constant push.

Scanning the fighters behind her she saw warriors she had fought and trained with for years, some of them since she too was a footsoldier. It struck her when some faces were missing from the formation. Some men and women who had been there before the last assault now no longer remained. She stilled her face to show no emotion and turned to face forward, she could not afford to show the wreckoning she felt. She knew each of them by name, but would have to wait until this battle was done to say them in a prayer. She would have to wait until she was alone with that gods forsaken silence to account for them all. Each one added to an ever growing list.

She prayed they were only injured. Injuries could be healed but dead men never rose again. Her eyes drifted down to the darkness beneath them once again, and she wondered where their bodies were. Would they find them on the seafloor or would the land dwellers take them as trophies today?

Hearing the call of the battalion before them she knew it was almost their turn. The battalion’s leader, an older man named Bastian, who had been her teacher, and a family friend who she had known since birth. The man had fought alongside her father in their adolescence and since then they had practically been brothers. Both men were raised together and inseparable throughout their childhood. They had both joined the army as young men, as was expected, and from what she could tell from their story telling had spent those years trying to one up one another in valor and prestige, taking turns saving the other from near death only to never let them forget it.

When her father had taken the throne he had brought Bastian along with him and trusted him with his armies as a general. And when it was time to find Adriell a mentor, he had been chosen to train her personally. She had spent years under his tutelage, working her way up his ranks, earning her scars and skills, one battle at a time. He had taught her everything she knew, every strategy, every maneuver, he had instructed and taught her meticulously until she had mastered it all. And though it had been her mother, the Queen, who had first put a trident in her hands, he had been the one to train her how to use it.

She watched as Bastian’s battalion sprinted to the surface, expertly led, not a mer out of line. Their configuration was perfect, a well-trained machine. He would tolerate nothing less.

Bastian had made a bet with her before the battle had begun that he would have more kills than her by the end of this. And oh how she hated to lose.

She watched the battle, anxious for another chance at the surface. She watched as a sector of them broke off to begin attacking the hull of one of the ships instead of its sailors. Groups of other mer soldiers defended them as they worked. It had been a goal of many soldiers before them but land dwellers had not made it easy for them. The hull of these ships were crafted with overlapping sheets of metal, making it much harder to destroy but not entirely impossible if given time. But that was something they did not have, for the men knew this and defended their ship with their lives knowing that if it went down their lives would be forfeited. Razor sharp blades ran across the bottom being moved by leavers underneath making it a very dangerous place to be while the waves pushed and pulled. And if a mer was lucky enough to avoid the blades affixed to the bottom of the ship, they would be an open target for the men to pick off with spears of hooks.

She watched as a young girl, new enough that Adriell had not yet learned her name, swam along the ship’s hall. She could tell the girl was new because she had been watching the blades along the belly of the ship cautiously instead of keeping one eye on the surface. How had someone so young been put on this detail? It all happened so fast that Adriell didn’t have time to react, to call out to anyone. She heard the screams first, then watched in horror as this young girl, this child, was hooked through the middle portion of her tale. Watched in horror as the girl panicked trying to free herself, trying to get her fin out without damage. But the damage had been done. In her hurry to get herself free, she had struggled so much that the men aboard knew that they had hooked something and had begun to pull in the hook. The girl was frantic now as the rope began to pull her upwards towards the surface. She began tugging and swimming down, hoping to rip herself free, no matter the damage it would do. A torn tale was better than death at their hands.

The screams of the girl were what had set Adreill off. She needed to help her. Needed to do something besides watch. It was not yet her battalion’s turn to charge, and if she gave the order the timing would be off, and chaos would break out in the confusion. The line had to be held. But she could go. She could try to save this forgotten soldier. She knew it was against all of her training but she could not stand back and watch as this young girl slowly got pulled up to her death. Not when she knew she could help.

So she gripped her trident tightly and turned to Florina, who evident by the horrified look on her face, had also watched the girl, and told her shapely, no room for argument, “Hold the line until it is our turn. You are in charge until I return. Consider it a promotion.” Florina turned abruptly, confusion lit her eyes but Adriell knew she understood. The two girls had fought together their whole lives. Adriell knew the same guilt that filled her at the sight also filled her. She did not have to ask, she knew.

A nod was all Florina gave her in reply. Confusion changed to something close to pride. Adriell did not have time to think about it. Did not have the time to give it a name.

She charged forward without her men to cover her. Her trident in one hand and knife in the other. Racing for one lone mer.

This was a horrible plan, that she knew for certain. A reckless plan her mother would say. Selfish, her father would call it. Leaving her men and risking her life and the battle for one girl, one soldier. This was not a decision a general could make, nor a Queen. But she was not a general nor a Queen yet, and while she could still live with the decision she would make it and tolerate the consequences later. Adriell couldn’t leave her. Could not watch as one more mer was slaughtered. She had done the right thing all day. She had done what a leader was meant to do for years and this was where it had gotten her, in a sea of blood. She could not watch as one more of her people was slaughtered while she stood back and watched.

The closer she got to the surface the more she could hear the yelling from both sides, the chaos evident as clouds of blood hovered everywhere, the water thick with it. This made it hard to see what was in front of her or how close she was. But there was no going back now.

When Adriell reached the girl she was ten feet from the surface. The girl reached out and grabbed her arm, as if she were an anchor, hoping it would keep her here. Adriell saw the panic and pleading in her eyes, begging her not to leave.

“Please. Please get it out.” the girl pleaded. “Get it out!”

“I’m trying. Hold still.” Adriell grunted and began to cut with her knife. The girl began screaming anew but did not push her away. The girl knew this would not be pretty nor precise. The hook was embedded deep into her fin, it could not be pulled out, it had to be cut. Adriell would have to cut and chop to get this hook out, a surgeon taking the limb to save the body.

Adriell knew this would be painful but more importantly, she knew it would take time. Time she did not have. Gathering her surroundings she saw that they were still being pulled towards the surface. She cut as fast as she could, not caring about beauty or precision as she sliced. It had to come out now.

Seven feet. The arrows could reach them now, and they were a non-moving target, a sailor’s dream.

The rope jostled and moved as the men tried to pull them up, making it harder for her to cut where she needed to.

Five feet. Glancing up she could now make out the shape of the man’s face who was pulling the rope. They needed time. She looked down, desperate for a plan besides this, seeing her trident and knife, dearly wishing she had brought her own arrows.

“Hold this,” she told the girl, handing the knife over. “And swim down as hard as you can.” The girl looked confused but didn’t ask questions, the same as Adriell didn’t wait for them. She did not have time to explain.

Without another second she charged the surface, ready for her kill.

Before she even crested the surface she had her target locked, knowing exactly what angle she would need to aim her trident. She threw her trident as hard as she could, knowing it would find its home in that sailor’s heart the moment it left her fingers. She saw it, saw the horror, the terror in his eyes as he too saw it coming. Oh, what a masterpiece.

When she returned to the girl, Adriell saw that she had followed her instructions and swam down no matter how badly it must have hurt. In her state, she had not been able to swim far but with the added depth and the man’s death it was enough, it would have to be enough. She had lost her trident, they would not get another shot.

Adriell began cutting again, slicing away trying to get to the base of the hook, hoping she could cut the hook free. The girl began to lose consciousness from the pain as an explosion went off near the surface. There was no warning given or time to brace herself as Adriell and the girl were thrown into the metal siding of the ship. The world around her suddenly was silent, with no screaming, yelling, or crying. All the sound, all the chaos had … disappeared with that blast. As she looked around she saw chaos as others raised around her, fear evident.

But then suddenly a black ring began closing in on her vision, and all light disappeared along with the sound. The world around her began to blacken as she felt herself sink lower and lower into the sea and deeper into the storm.