The collision of the two ships was a deafening cacophony of splintering wood and screaming men. As the Viper's Fang ground against the hull of the Ocean Snake's Bane, Lutz's enhanced senses, still sharpened by Creed, took in the scene with terrifying clarity. The deck of the merchantman was a sudden, violent tableau.
And at its center stood the two men who commanded it.
The Captain was a bear of a man, broad-shouldered and thick-chested, built for stormy seas and hard command. His face was weathered by sun and salt, yet he had a pale look to him, framed by a thick, dark beard streaked with gunmetal gray. He wore a heavy, blue officer's coat, its brass buttons gleaming, but his eyes held no naval decorum. They were chips of ice, cold and furious, fixed on Karl with the unwavering focus of a man who had just been assassinated and found himself inexplicably alive. He held no visible weapon, but his mere presence was a bastion, the epicenter of the unnatural frost.
Beside him, slightly behind and to his left, stood a man who was his physical opposite. The Vice-Captain was slender, almost delicate, with sensitive hands and a face that seemed too young and unlined for the harsh life at sea. His hair was a shock of unruly chestnut curls, and his eyes, a soft hazel, held a distant, dreamy quality that was utterly incongruous with the battle erupting around them. He was dressed in a simple, dark coat and trousers, looking more like a scholar than a mariner.
Then the Vipers were among them, a wave of howling violence crashing onto the merchantman's deck. Steel rang against steel as the ship's armed guards—big men with cutlasses and pistols—met the charge. The air filled with the guttural shouts of combat, the sharp crack of pistol shots, and the sickening wet thuds of blades finding flesh. The civilian sailors—the cooks, the riggers, the boys—scrambled for cover, their screams of terror adding a shrill counterpoint to the battle's bass roar, fleeing below decks into the relative safety of the ship's dark belly.
Karl didn't hesitate. He surged forward, a conduit of elemental fury. With a sweeping gesture, he conjured not a single spear, but a flock of half a dozen blazing fire ravens. They screeched with the sound of tearing flame, streaking through the chaotic melee on wings of incandescent heat, weaving around fighting men to converge on the unyielding Captain from all sides.
It was then that the spirit fully revealed itself.
The air around the Captain dropped to a killing frost. The spectral entity Lutz had sensed with Umbra materialized in a whirl of coalescing ice crystals. It was a tall, gaunt figure clad in ornate, translucent armor that seemed carved from glacial ice. In its skeletal hands, it wielded a massive scythe whose blade was a shard of absolute zero, smoking with a cold that burned the very air. It moved with a ghostly, fluid grace.
With impossible speed, the frost spirit interposed itself between the Captain and the fire ravens. Its scythe became a blur of frozen light. It bisected one raven mid-flight, the creature exploding into a puff of steam. A second was caught by the flat of the blade and shattered into embers. The Captain, moving with a similar speed, ducked and weaved, effortlessly avoiding the two remaining ravens that slipped past the spirit's guard. They struck the deck behind him, setting the wood ablaze, but he was untouched.
"Annoying insects," the Captain growled, his voice like grinding glaciers.
Karl snarled, his composure cracking under the strain of this unforeseen defense. He abandoned finesse, hurling concentrated fireballs the size of a man's head. They roared towards the Captain, but the frost spirit was an implacable shield. Its scythe whirled, each impact against a fireball resulting in a concussive blast of superheated steam and freezing mist, scalding nearby fighters and coating the deck in a slick, treacherous rime. Karl was being neutralized, his powerful attacks systematically dismantled by a supernatural guardian.
Lutz was about to move, to flank the Captain and try to find an opening past the spirit, when he heard it.
It started as a low, melodic murmur, a sound that should have been swallowed by the battle's din but instead cut through it with unnatural clarity. It was the Vice-Captain.
"The waves do sigh, a lullaby,
Beneath the moon's watchful eye.
Let heavy limbs and weary soul,
Surrender to the ocean's roll.
Let dreams take flight, on wings of night,
And grant the gift of slumber's light..."
The effect was instantaneous and devastating. A profound, soul-deep weariness washed over Lutz. His grip on Creed felt like he was holding an anvil. His eyelids became leaden weights. The shouts of battle, the clash of steel, it all seemed to recede, muffled by a thick, comforting blanket of fog. He saw a Viper, mid-swing, stumble as if drunk, his cutlass dropping from nerveless fingers before a merchant guard cut him down. Another simply slumped against the railing, sliding into a deep, unnatural sleep as a pistol ball meant for his head whizzed harmlessly past.
Karl, focused on his duel, staggered. The rhythm of his fireball conjuration faltered for a split second. It was all the opening the frost spirit needed. The glacial scythe whistled through the air, aiming for Karl's neck. Only his Hunter-enhanced reflexes saved him; he threw himself backward, the scythe's frozen edge slicing through the fabric of his coat and drawing a thin line of frozen blood across his chest. The near-miss shocked him fully awake, his eyes wide with a mix of pain and fury.
Lutz fought the lethargy, shaking his head violently. This wasn't normal exhaustion. This was an attack. A direct, psychic assault on their will to fight. His eyes, blurred with forced sleep, snapped to the source of the poem. The slender, unassuming Vice-Captain stood calmly amidst the chaos, his voice a weapon more effective than any blade.
The strategic calculation in Lutz's mind was cold and instantaneous. The Captain and his spirit were a formidable defensive bulwark, a problem for Karl. But this... this poet was a force multiplier. He was systematically dismantling their entire assault, turning the tide of the battle without lifting a sword. He was the true priority.
Know Your Prey, Not Just Its Lair. The prey was the poet. The lair was this ship of sleep and steel.
"Karl! The singer!" Lutz yelled, his voice raspy with the effort of fighting off the magical drowsiness. "I'll handle him!"
Without waiting for a response, he turned his back on the epicenter of the elemental duel and plunged into the chaotic scrum of the main deck. He moved with purpose, his agility allowing him to duck under a wild swing from a panicked sailor and sidestep a clashing pair of fighters. The Vice-Captain's lullaby was a constant, insidious pressure in his mind, a siren song begging him to lay down his arms and rest. But Lutz had made a vow in a blood-soaked warehouse. He had principles now. And one of them was to never, ever fall.
He fixed his gray-blue eyes on the dreamy-eyed young man, the weight of Creed in his hand a promise of violent wakefulness. The poet had just declared war on consciousness itself. Lutz was on his way to deliver the rebuttal.
The deck of the Ocean Snake's Bane was a maelstrom of clashing steel, gunpowder smoke, and screaming men. Lutz moved through it like a ghost, his focus narrowed to the slender figure of the Vice-Captain. The poet's lullaby was a tangible force, a thick syrup of sleep trying to clog his muscles and still his thoughts. Every step was a battle against the overwhelming urge to simply lie down and let the ocean's imaginary roll claim him.
He saw an opening. A Viper locked in combat with a sailor created a momentary lane. Lutz didn't hesitate. His right hand flashed, a throwing knife leaving his bandolier in a blur of motion aimed straight for the poet's throat.
But the Vice-Captain was not just a singer. As the knife flew, he moved with a sudden, startling burst of speed that belied his delicate appearance. He flowed to the side, the blade whistling past his ear to thud into the mainmast behind him. His hazel eyes, now sharp and focused, locked onto Lutz. A faint, moon-pale aura seemed to cling to him—the Sleepless pathway's blessing, enhancing his physique under the cover of night. He was as fast as Lutz, even with Creed's augmentation.
"A restless soul," the poet murmured, his voice still holding a melodic lilt even as he discarded all pretense of helplessness. "The night demands your surrender."
Lutz closed the distance, the rose-tinted stiletto a lethal extension of his will. He lunged, a classic feint followed by a true, killing thrust aimed for the heart. The poet danced back again, his movements unnervingly fluid. As he evaded, his free hand went to his belt and came up holding a heavy, navy-issue revolver.
The world seemed to slow. Lutz saw the hammer cock, the cylinder rotate. He threw himself sideways as the gun roared, the bullet tearing through the air where his chest had been and splintering the deck railing behind him. The shock of the near-miss burned away the last vestiges of sleep, replacing it with a cold, sharp adrenaline.
But in that dodge, he'd created his own opening. As the poet recovered from the recoil, Lutz's left hand was already in motion. Another throwing knife flew, not aimed to kill, but to wound. It sliced across the poet's gun arm, drawing a bright line of blood. The man hissed in pain and surprise, his grip on the revolver faltering for a critical second.
He brought the gun up again, his eyes blazing with fury. Another shot. This time, Lutz was ready. He brought his broader knife up in a desperate, sweeping parry. The bullet sparked off the thick blade with a deafening clang, the impact numbing Lutz's entire arm, but he'd deflected the shot.
He surged forward, Creed poised for the final, fatal strike.
It never came.
A burly sailor, seeing his officer in danger, bellowed and charged Lutz from the blind side, a boarding axe held high. Lutz sensed the movement at the last second, twisting his body and bringing his broad knife up in a clumsy, desperate block. The axehead slammed into his blade with brutal force, nearly wrenching it from his grasp. Grunting with effort, Lutz used the momentum of the block to pivot, and in the same motion, drove Creed up and perfectly under the sailor's ribcage, finding his heart thanks to his newly acquired biology knowledge. The man died with a gurgle, his charge ending abruptly.
But the distraction had cost Lutz everything. As he pulled Creed free, he saw the Vice-Captain had used those precious seconds to regain his distance and his composure. The revolver was aimed, steady once more. And the poet's lips were moving again.
This new poem was different. It wasn't a gentle lullaby; it was a command.
"The weight of ages, dust and stone,
Upon your flesh, upon your bone.
Your limbs are lead, your thoughts are slow,
There is no fight, just endless woe.
So close your eyes, and cease to be,
And find your peace, eternally…"
The effect was catastrophic. It was as if the very air had turned to iron, pressing down on him. His muscles screamed in protest, refusing to obey. His thoughts became thick, syrupy, mired in a despairing certainty that all struggle was futile. He was a statue, a monument to exhaustion, standing frozen before his own executioner. He saw the poet's finger tighten on the trigger. The dark eye of the revolver's barrel was the only thing in the world.
In that absolute, frozen moment, a single, insane idea flashed in the last functioning part of his mind. A paradox. A counter-intuitive truth.
If silence brings sleep, then noise brings wakefulness.
With a Herculean effort that felt like tearing his own soul in two, his left hand—moving through the psychic molasses—jerked to his pocket. His numb fingers closing around the cold, scarlet metal of Umbra. He shoved it onto his finger.
The world exploded.
The gentle, insidious poem was drowned out, utterly annihilated by a shrieking cacophony of the damned. A dozen alien voices, a hundred, screamed directly into the fabric of his consciousness. They were voices of rage, of sorrow, of mad hunger and cosmic spite. It was a psychic firestorm, a sensory assault so violent it was physically painful.
The magical lethargy shattered like glass. The leaden weight vanished, replaced by the raw, electric jolt of survival terror. His body was his own again, screaming with adrenaline and the ring's maddening chorus.
The poet's eyes widened in shock. His spell was broken. He saw Lutz, no longer a frozen target, but a blur of motion, closing the distance with terrifying speed.
Lutz didn't charge straight at him. That's what the poet would expect. Instead, he feinted left, and as the poet adjusted his aim, Lutz hurled his broad knife. It spun end over end, a whirling distraction, and bit into the deck planks near the poet's feet, the impact and spray of wood chips forcing him to flinch back to the right.
Perfect.
As the poet sidestepped the heavy knife, Lutz's left hand plucked another throwing knife. This one flew higher, forcing the poet to duck under the railing of the raised aft deck, further corralling him, herding him like an animal. The poet was now backed into a corner formed by the ship's wheel and the starboard railing, his movement options rapidly vanishing.
He was panting, his dreamy composure gone, replaced by the wild-eyed look of cornered prey. He saw Lutz's right hand now empty, saw the rose-tinted stiletto that had been such a threat was gone.
A mistake. A fatal error.
With a final, desperate shout of defiance, Lutz drew his arm back and threw Creed.
It was a perfect throw, fast and true, aimed for the poet's center mass. The Vice-Captain, his enhanced reflexes pushed to their limit, contorted his body, pressing himself hard against the ship's wheel. The deadly stiletto missed him by inches, sinking deep into the wooden mast behind him with a solid thwack, its hilt quivering.
The poet let out a gasp of relief, a triumphant, ragged smile twisting his lips. The Marauder was disarmed. The relentless attacker was finally vulnerable. He began to raise his revolver, the barrel steadying on Lutz's chest. The battle was won.
He never saw it coming.
The moment Lutz had released Creed, his left hand was already moving, a motion he had practiced a hundred times in the solitude of his room. It crossed his body, swept back the fold of his Viper's Hide vest, and closed around the checkered grip of Henrik's revolver. The draw was not a fluid, gunman's motion; it was a brutal, efficient yank of pure survival.
As the poet's smile began to form, as his finger found the trigger, Lutz was already extending his arm, the beautiful, silver-and-brass weapon a stark contrast to the brutal scene.
The poet's eyes darted down. The triumph in them died, replaced by dawning, absolute horror. He was trapped. He had dodged exactly where Lutz had forced him to go, into a position with no room to maneuver. He was a perfect, stationary target.
Lutz didn't speak. He didn't gloat. There was only the cold, final application of a principle: The Take is Never Worth the Fall. He would not fall here.
He pulled the trigger.
The roar of the revolver was the loudest sound on the deck. A single, precise, and utterly final shot. The poet's head snapped back. The poet's revolver fell from his fingers, fluttering to the blood-slicked deck. The magical pressure of his poems vanished instantly, the sudden silence as shocking as the gunshot.
Lutz stood, arm extended, smoke curling from the barrel. The maddening whispers of Umbra still clawed at his mind, but they were a manageable hell compared to the eternal sleep he had just escaped. He had taken the poet's life, his wakefulness, his victory. He had used every tool, every deception, every ounce of his will.
He lowered the revolver, the scent of gunpowder thick in his nose. The pendant of Henrik and Annelise felt like a block of ice against his sweating chest. Another death. Another step deeper into the darkness. But he was alive.
"I've always hated long haired, poet-looking shitheads like you."