#4: Shore Leave

“Call me Spurdog.”

He couldn’t help but be the centre of attention – a steampunk shark built from bronze and bone, with the soul of a wandering knight. Once upon a time he would’ve glistened, but his armour (or his skin?) was dull and rusty. But the intelligence in his eyes was sharper and brighter than anyone else in the sub. He stood on a few support legs springing from his tail – a bizarre sight.

Clapperclaw slowly clacked his claw, as he did when he was thinking long and hard about how he could best verbalise his contempt in the most denigrating and loquacious way. At this point, the others had grown to expect and be entertained by it.

“…You don’t look like a dog, and you don’t have spurs either.”

Slick sighed – yeah, he could’ve done better.

Spurdog took it in his stride – a relief, considering how much of him ended in sharp edges. “I confess, I do not remember where such a moniker came from. All I know is that it’s mine.”

Adriana was at the helm, facing forward at the ocean ahead – probably for the best, as she couldn’t help rolling her eyes. She was too only-just-recently-back-from-near-death to find the energy for soulful samurai sharks. Slick was utterly fascinated, and Cage…again, no face so who could tell.

“You’ll have to forgive me for prying – but, and with respect, what in Neptune’s beard were you all doing at crush depth in a trench, all the way out here and beyond, dancing around a razor rorqual? If I may be so poetic.”

Adriana scoffed. What a wordsmith.

“Treasure there, now treasure here. Savvy?” Clapperclaw was gifted with brevity, they could all admit that much. Spurdog nodded his head, understanding. “Suppose one couldn’t argue with that.”

“Definitely don’t argue with that, or him, because you’ll lose.” Cage had piped up for that one – were they all slowly starting to put up with each other?

“Shut up, Cage.”

Nope.

Slick attempted to salvage the train of thought. “We all heard the rumours, and…let’s be honest, all got lost enough to find it.”

“Rumours?” Spurdog cocked his head like a normal dog, inquisitive. “I have travelled far and wide, and yet I heard no such word of such a shipwreck and such a cargo.”

At the helm, Adriana’s grip loosened on the controls as her mind wandered, unmoored from the present.

Cage shuffled slightly in his seat, adjusting and readjusting his trenchcoat. Clapperclaw’s clacking of his claw grew faster, like a broken metronome. Slick nervously looked around for any sort of reassurance.

Spurdog raised two fins – “I sense I’ve alarmed you.”

Clapperclaw was the first to pipe up, of course. “Well, you know, just almost died for something we heard which it turns out we actually didn’t hear! So what the hell got us out there in the first place?!”

Adriana slapped the autopilot button, hoping it wasn’t the self-destruct as she spun the chair around to face Spurdog at the other end.

“Tell me something, speedy – if I say ‘Kurogane’, do your gears turn, stick, freeze or pop off their axles?” Everyone else tensed up – she audibly groaned to such a degree Clapperclaw would be proud. “Oh fuck off, he’s only a man.”

“With --"

“Slick, I swear I will --”

Spurdog leant forward. “Let’s all…” Four sharp stares --

“…Hang on a moment, and not let the tides of fear carry us out to the riptide of rage.”

Adriana had never heard such crap in her life. She was becoming more and more awake now, vitality returning and drowning disappearing – and she wasn’t a ray of sunshine when awake, as the others were discovering. *** Spurdog was reading the room faster than a drowning sailor reads the instructions on a lifejacket. He was smart indeed. “I know not this name. But I presuppose he’s a problem.”

Slick’s voice dropped, quieter than ever before – “He put me in this --" He cut himself off immediately, like the vulnerability had been a high-pressure leak and he’d slapped a seal over it a second later. They weren’t a compassionate bunch, but they didn’t press him on it.

It was Cage who broke the silence. “Captain Kurogane is cruel.” He searched for more words…

“That’s all you need to know.” Adriana got up, boots pounding loudly across the short distance to the helm. She smacked off the autopilot, the engines thrumming and revving as she kicked it up a few gears. “Where are we going?” Slick’s voice was quiet, but everyone else was silent so it came out loudly.

She took a deep breath – “To see Kurogane.”

Everyone almost panicked --

 He owes me.” Panic was swiftly thrown overboard by utter confusion. Spurdog piped up, curious – “For blood?”

Her gaze fixed on the abyss ahead. “For money.”

“A deal with the devil?” “Do you presuppose such a thing?” The shark was definitely not the apex here. She turned back to face him one last time – “So how about it? Are you a Megalodon or a Megalo-don’t?” He said nothing, but she’d clearly bewildered him so. He’d stick around. Not like anyone felt like opening the hatch underwater.

“Raise your fin – or whatever appendage you prefer – if you absolutely hate it here.”

Clapperclaw surprised absolutely no one with that. But, everyone raised an appendage.

“We’re not even in the goddamn port yet.” Adriana would be happier once she wasn’t stuck inside a tin can with these four for hours on end.

They’d broken the surface, slowly chugging towards Freeport. The city on the waves, a hive of activity, a maritime maze, an absolute shithole.

Spurdog squinted. “I haven’t been here in a few years…but evidently they still haven’t found any other colour that isn’t grey.” Oh great, yet another joker…

Countless ships of every size littered the area all around – made it look like the city expanded out much further than it actually did. In a way, a second city existed outside the land it was built on – all the ships that came and went, trading and occasionally raiding.

But hey, it had its charms. The sheer volume of the population argued so.

Their sub was a pinprick compared to some of the manmade leviathans surrounding the city, built for every possible purpose. It was downright impressive how much the residents of this blue marble had accomplished in the past 12,000 years (give or take).

Adriana docked the sub at a wharf that had become easily lost and overlooked between all the ships and the city itself. All came pouring out of the hatch, desperate for some fresh air and stretching room – the harbourmaster took one look, and decided it wasn’t worth fleecing this peculiar posse for parking tickets.

They made Cage heave all the gold – Adriana had done all the navigation, Clapperclaw was too small, Slick was too weak, and Spurdog didn’t have opposable thumbs. At the end of the pier was an anti-gravity, levitating baggage carrier. Pretty much a glorified wheelbarrow, but that was also exactly what they were looking for. They dumped the gold, Adriana pushed a few holographic buttons (a strange lack of sensation no one ever really got used to), and it followed her at walking pace.

It was a long way to where they were going, all the way along the waterfront and inward a few blocks, and good lord did Clapperclaw let them know it. Adriana didn’t hear a word of it, over the constant, deafening thump-thump of her heartbeat in her ears. She didn’t like any of this.

She was somewhat receptive to welcome distractions – namely, Slick being mesmerised by an alleyway market. Even Clapperclaw had to admit the rows upon rows of locals selling salvage, coral jewellery, seaweed ales, more salvage, the occasional knife-seller, and all the different kinds of mutant animals and humans wandering about was quite the sight. Slick went, and they naturally followed.

Spurdog was ambling along on stilts, eying up a few anti-gravity boosters that a dolphin in a duster was selling. Cage was browsing over fishbowls. Clapperclaw was haggling over something that looked sharp and dangerous. Meanwhile, Slick was bouncing from stall to stall.

Adriana nearly found herself happily lost – until she saw it across the alley.

It was a simple sign, a few slashes of graffiti – but unmistakable. A wave rising, and a sword stabbing through it.

Just a reminder of whose currents they were all swimming in.

Adriana turned tail and powered through the crowds, back to the main street. One-by-one, as she passed them, the others rejoined her.

“You’re really going down there?” Slick’s hope couldn’t be more misplaced. “Yes – I…made a deal, and it doesn’t end until I get this crap to his door.”

She stopped walking, a sigh escaping her. She looked up at the sky, down at her feet, anywhere other than the blank face of this hanger-on she’d been stuck with (and was slowly, slowly tolerating). “That’s what all this has been about. I stole from him, I stole from him, and I have to pay it all back. I don’t know what sort of scheme he’s put together that got us all in the same place, but…”

Dammit.

“Let me get this over with.” Her heavy diving boots glided across the ground, buoyed by resigned determination.

The more she walked, the more the others fell in lockstep. She didn’t bother pushing them away. If they wanted to waltz into the jaws of death too…well, they could find their own dance partners.

Technically the entire city was Kurogane’s territory – but down between the shipyards and the power plant, every other sinister presence hanging off corners or alleyways was a reminder of who was in charge.

Adriana wiped her brow – it was a cold day, grey above, but this part of the city was downright tropical and beyond. She hated it most of all.

A ship was docked – a strange sight this far in, but he’d found a way. Likely had a union dig a new canal, then used their bodies to patch up any holes in the walls.

No one came down here without reason, desperation, or a death wish. All five of them could tick one of those off.

They’d barely made it up the gangplank when the unmistakable thud of a body hitting the floor rang through every plank and rivet. All five stopped, Adriana and Spurdog the only ones not jumping out of their skin. Cage almost knocked the treasure off the platform.

A burly man was using a chipped shark’s tooth to cut his fingernails into sharp points at the main door. No one dared breathe wrong. He opened the door after sizing them up, immediately returning to his nail sharpening.

Blood pooled around their boots immediately, as another body hit the floor – and Captain Helvig Kurogane cleaned off his sword, kicking the body away. Once the sword was clean – and he took his sweet time – he held it up, admiring his own reflection…and that of Adriana’s gang.

“It’s disappointing, isn’t it?” His smooth tones spoke not of seduction or calmness, but of restraint and menace. He was as much a sight as any of the crew – sharp features of the face, piercing green eyes that were a little bit too bright, dressed in second-hundred-hand…Viking gear? It was hard to tell, but it was certainly closer to Leif Ericsson than Blackbeard. An interesting wardrobe for such an intimidating man.

“To not get that thrill, that rush, that sweet vindication…” He sheathed his sword slowly, with a grating SHIIIIIINK that not a single soul in the room liked hearing. “It was disappointing, wasn’t it, Adriana?”

She glowered, but her eyes weren’t as unnatural so the effect got a bit lost. “I have what you want.”

Kurogane snickered, enjoying this. “I’d always find that hard to believe.”

Cage, in spite of himself, found his hand floating like driftwood towards his holster. Clapperclaw was sizing up the nearest henchman, eyes wandering, looking for any weak spots a nasty claw could reach. Spurdog had already canvassed the room a hundred times over, but nothing showed on his metallic features – he was forged for stoicism. Slick was seriously worried he’d simply disintegrate in his suit before the nearest ugly bastard even drew his sword.

“What I do believe, however…is that you’ve all done me wrong --” He caught a glimpse of Spurdog, causing him to stop the next sentence in its tracks – “…And you too, if you’re affiliated with them.”

Whatever disappointment looked like on a shark’s face, that was exactly what Spurdog looked like. Kurogane cocked his head, looking him over – “Even a blind man could see your body is not your own. Who were you before this, I wonder? Where is the key that could change two fins into two legs?” All the others couldn’t help but look to Spurdog, whose face revealed absolutely nothing. That would be a conversation for another time.

Kurogane continued on – not like anyone was going to stop him anyway…

“And you all know it.” All found themselves struggling to maintain eye contact with him – something about those goddamn eyes. Like being under the sun with a magnifying glass above – god, they all hated him. He wandered over, circling like the shark he thought he was. His theatricality would make him only insufferable if he wasn’t so fearsome.

“So you must understand why --” SHINK – he sprung forth, sword out in a second, slashing through Slick’s chest --

The crew all sprang back in shock – the rest of Kurogane’s men moved in to hold them down. Adriana kicked and bit and struggled, but a brutal kick to the back of the knees sent her to the floor in a growling heap --

Kurogane’s sword found Cage a second later, gouging out a fibreglass ball from his chest – a ball that contained a small, hapless, goldfish. The ball rolled across the floor among the chaos, until one of Kurogane’s thugs got it under his boot like a pro baller. He aimed a pistol at it for good measure too.

Slick’s suit fell to the floor in a heartbeat, deflating and gushing with water – and out of the gash came…an octopus. Smaller than Clapperclaw, but big enough to perch on Adriana’s shoulder as the water carried him over. A small belt was looped around each tentacle, with a red light that blinked whenever he spoke – “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I --" Adriana clapped her free hand over his face.

Clapperclaw was cutting every tendon he could get his claw on, until he too ended up under foot.

If he wasn’t one shark against twenty men, Spurdog would’ve filleted them all and rescued the others with ease – but he was only one shark, and even someone as sharp as him could be sheathed in shame and defeat.

Kurogane kneeled down to Adriana. “You never get it, do you? You’ll never be free, of me or yourself. Consider me the more merciful of the two.”

He looked to his men – “Take them to the brig!”

TO BE CONTINUED…