Bone Lord 4, стр. 29

“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, Vance?” Elyse said, the color draining from her beautiful face.

“If you think I’m suggesting that we all jump overboard, climb into the whale’s mouth, and go hang out in its lungs while I drive it like an underwater ship to the enemy fleet, which we then board and take over in a surprise attack, after much of the crew has been decimated by the hurricane of acid rain and my Plague Storm magic, then, yes, I’m suggesting what you think I’m suggesting.”

The shocked silence that ensued was shattered by Percy’s joyous, cackling laughter.

“That’s the craziest, most audacious plan I’ve ever heard in all my years at sea!” he roared, grinning like a madman. “And them scurvy dogs in the enemy ships will never see it coming. If I had a whale I could control like a puppet, I’d do exactly the same thing. Your plan’s bloody brilliant, Captain Chauzec!”

“I can’t guarantee that it’ll smell too good,” I said cheerfully, “but don’t worry; a quick swim will clean off whatever slime and muck we get on our clothes. As for breathing, this plan would obviously be suicidal in a live whale, but our ride doesn’t need to breathe. I’ll fill his lungs up with fresh air and leave them full.”

“How will you know when we’re close enough to the enemy ships?” Elyse asked, still incredulous.

“The whale is just like Talon. I’ll be ‘driving’ the whale as if I was the whale.”

“Yes!” Drok roared, jumping up and down with excitement. “Vance plan will work, and Drok can throw people to sharks!”

“All right, are you all as ready as Drok?”

“Hell yes!” they all yelled, even Elyse.

“Good luck, Captain Chauzec,” Percy said.

“I don’t need luck, Percy,” I said. “I’ve got Death on my side; what else is there to fear?”

Then I turned and dashed over to the side of the ship and hurled myself into a running leap. For a few thrilling seconds, I was airborne before I plummeted toward the blue expanse of waves below. A shock of cold hit me as I plunged into the icy water, surrounded by my undead sea creatures. I treaded water and immediately threw my mind into that of my whale.

As if the huge leviathan’s lungs were my own, I breathed in deeply through the creature’s blowhole, filling those cavernous lungs to their maximum capacity with fresh air. Then, with the whale bobbing on the surface, I opened its jaws wide. I pulled my mind back into my own body and swam over to the whale’s mouth. As I’d suspected it would, the undead whale’s massive mouth stank to high heaven, with its gigantic rotting tongue, half eaten by sharks, and other slimy pockets of decay. Still, stench aside, it was the perfect vehicle for a sneak marine attack; no vessel existed that could travel under the waves, but with my zombie whale, I’d just invented one.

I gripped one of the whale’s huge teeth and pulled myself into its open mouth. Just like Percy had said, it would have been possible to drive a wagon—a small one, but a wagon nonetheless—down its throat.

When I looked up from the whale’s jaws, I saw the first of my party leaping off the ship into the frigid ocean. Elyse hesitated, waiting until everyone else had jumped overboard, but finally, she too vaulted over the edge of the ship and plummeted downward. She resurfaced after having disappeared underwater for a few seconds. She moved with beautiful grace in the water; all she would have needed was a fish tail, and she would have been a mermaid.

“By the Lord of Light, how I’ve missed this,” she exclaimed as she swam toward the whale’s jaws. “The thrill of the cold, the sensation of gliding through the water... it’s utterly invigorating!”

“All right, gang, join me in the whale’s mouth.”

“That’s not a sentence you hear every day,” Elyse said, smiling as I helped her out of the water and into the whale’s gaping mouth.

Instantly, her expression changed from one of delight to one of revulsion. She gagged and covered her mouth and nose.

“The smell!” she gasped, retching.

“What smell?” Drok asked with a shrug.

“There is a kind of fish some old folks like to pickle back in our village,” Friya remarked, also holding her hand over her nose and looking as if she was on the verge of blowing chunks. “They leave it to ferment in clay jars for six months. I always thought six-month-old rotting fish would be the worst thing I’d ever smell. Then, I stepped into this cursed place.”

“All right, you whiners, get down into the lungs,” I said.

“Ugh, I can’t wait to get out of this revolting place,” Layna muttered as she walked off down the whale’s throat.

“Elyse,” I said, “I hope your light is ready, because I’m about to close the beast’s jaws and dive.”

With one hand still clamped over her face, she nodded and held up her mace. The flanged head started glowing with enough light to illuminate the entirety of the whale’s mouth and the throat beyond it.

The shadows in the cavity of this place became thicker and darker as I closed the whale’s jaws, and the already rancid stench became a whole lot more potent. Even Drok started to notice it now.

“Someone step in shit?” he asked, checking the undersides of his boots with a puzzled look on his face.

“Go to the lungs with everyone else, Drok,” I said. “Follow the light. I don’t need light for what I’m about to do, but I do need some peace and quiet.”

Drok followed the others out of the whale’s mouth down its throat, and as Elyse led them toward the lungs, the light faded in the mouth, quickly dissolving into an inky blackness.

“All right, whale,” I said, controlling the creature’s will, but only with a fraction of my concentration and mental powers. “Time to dive. Let’s go!”

Through the portion of myself connected to the whale’s senses, I felt the