Bone Lord 4, стр. 43

The first of the tentacles crashed onto my ship, clamping around the mast and rigging and hammering the sides and the deck. The vessel rocked as if we were caught in the heaving waters of a super-hurricane. Pirates were yelling to the sea gods while they were hurled overboard from the violent rocking. I stood firm, moving the sights of the ballista to try to get my aim perfect. I only had time for one shot to kill the beast, without causing excessive damage to its body.

The whole ship lurched beneath me with a jolt that almost hurled me off my feet as the kraken started pulling the vessel toward it. Its head emerged fully from the water, and its hideous face, bigger than an entire ship, was visible in all its ugly glory. It could have blown my ship to splinters, as it had done with the dummy ship, but it didn’t. As the cause of its trouble, it wanted to eat me, and it wanted me to suffer. It started pulling my ship toward its wide-open beak, and the pirates still left on deck started howling with terror, but still I stood firm.

“Open your inner jaws, asshole, open them up nice and wide to suck me in like a little fish.” My hand was steady, resting against the trigger as I lined up the sights of the ballista.

The kraken’s beak, maybe a dozen yards from me now, parted wider, and finally, it did what I wanted; it opened its set of inner jaws. Vile, rotten-fish-smelling breath billowed out of the creature’s gaping mouth, the force and stink of it knocking me back. A tentacle slapped its sucker onto my back and curled its tip around my torso, crushing me with the force of an ogre’s closing fist. Against the pain and imminent doom, I held fast, waiting for the perfect shot. Before the kraken could rank me into the air, I caught sight of the roof of the kraken’s mouth inside its inner jaws, and I squeezed the trigger.

The ballista hurled its spear through the roof of the kraken’s mouth. With its Death-enhanced power, the projectile pierced the monster’s palate and obliterated its brain. The kraken’s entire body stiffened for a second, and the force of the tentacle tip around my torso grew so intense that my ribs protested. Any longer, and at least one would break.

But then the tentacle slackened.

The kraken’s eyes lost their bright glow and grew abruptly dull before the tentacle slipped limply off me. The monster’s other deadly appendages released the ship, and the whole gigantic carcass slid below the waves and vanished.

A great cheer erupted from my party, but we were not quite done yet.

“Get those guys out of the water!” I pointed at the floundering pirates who had been thrown overboard.

I closed my eyes and was overwhelmed by the presence of the sinking kraken corpse, so there wasn’t much “detection” needed. Sending out my spirit and drawing upon the souls within Grave Oath as well as my own life force, I traveled through the kraken’s veins. I passed the monster’s strange blue blood, now still. I’d resurrected plenty of beasts by now, but none this massive.

I located the chamber where the kraken’s heart was located, a space large enough to fit a house. The massive organ was still within the chamber, but as soon as I reached out and touched it, the energy within me fled. Immediately, the monster’s blood turned from blue to an almost fluorescent yellow-green, and the heart started to beat once more. It stopped sinking, and new power surged through its monstrous form.

It was mine now. I possessed a weapon the Transcendent Sails couldn’t hope to match. Not only was the undead kraken stronger than a living one, it was also much harder to kill.

I now experienced the world of the deep ocean through its senses. While similar to that of the whale’s, there were some distinct differences.

I felt like the king of the undersea world in the body of this monster. I could sense the presence of every other sea creature around me for miles. And, even more usefully, I could detect the presence of all the ships. Now the hunted could become the hunter. The Transcendent Sails would be sailing into battle on my terms, not theirs.

I returned to my own body and grinned as I watched the members of my party swinging from their ships to mine on their grappling hooks and ropes. Everyone was beaming.

Elyse threw her arms around me. “You did it, Vance.”

“Well done, Lord Vance, well done.” Rollar clapped his hand on my back.

“I never thought I’d see the day when a man killed a kraken.” Percy grinned. “Truly, Captain, you’ve done no what no other man could.”

“Let’s not get too crazy with the celebrations just yet,” I said. “We still have the Transcendent Sails to crush. After we’ve reduced their warships to driftwood, we can crack open the casks of rum.”

“I can’t believe you let the kraken get a hold of you before you killed it.” Anna-Lucille gazed at me in awe. “Such courage…”

“I was just doing what I had to do,” I said with a shrug. “And now that’s over, let’s make plans for the upcoming battle.”