By Owen Button, Year 11
It was still before dawn when the Cloverfish departed the port, still shrouded in early-morning mist. It was a cool and damp morning, two feelings that permeated the ship as it steamed its way through the shadows of the colossal towers lining the sides of the bay. They had long since been abandoned, relics of an earlier civilization and now only serving as nests for the lizards and weavers that terrorized the outskirts of the port city. The sailors stared at the massive citadels as they passed, each relieved to leave them behind, yet wondering when they would see them again.
The Cloverfish was a whaler, an antiquated term from when whales were abundant in the great oceans. Now the great unknown was inhabited by deadly, slow-moving titans known as leviathans, colossal in size and rich in resources. It was the role of whaling ships to hunt them down. The Cloverfish was a decade-old vessel, robustly-built and with the massive amount of weaponry deemed necessary to bring down the aquatic giants. Her crew was a varied mix of veterans and younger sailors, each drawn to the turmoiled seas for a reason that none of them could explain. Each bore the same contrasting feelings of pride and nervousness synonymous with the start of every great undertaking. Their last sight of land was the towers of the agricultural arrays on the west bank, a collection of massive farms now only inhabited by jackalopes that rivalled the structures in size. They wouldn’t see it again for another two years. Two days away from the coast, it began to rain.
The rain didn’t relent, instead flexing its strength over the following week until, eventually, it became the bone-crushing downpour that the Cloverfish had been specifically built to bear. Nonetheless, the interior of the vessel was subjected to a brutal crescendo of sound as the water rattled against the ship’s armor like gunfire. Younger sailors were at first fascinated by the storm, then quickly grew to dread it as the repetitive nature of it began to set in. The older men endured it with an air of normalcy, though each refused to admit the frustration it caused them. Oblivious of the climatic maelstrom around her, the Cloverfish drove west through the storm in a race towards the outer islands.
Two weeks later, the rain began to abate, bringing with it unusual surprises. An observer on the bow of the vessel spotted a strange light in the water and shouted a warning. The rest of the crew burst into action, each ignoring their own rush of emotions as they went to battle stations. It took two minutes for the creature to be identified.
It wasn’t a leviathan, it was a sea serpent, several times smaller than its more infamous cousin. Nonetheless, it was a rich food source and a decent catch, and the crew made preparations to bring it aboard. It was no easy feat. Everything about the serpent was built for speed; the second the creature caught sight of the ship, it shot across the surface of the water in an effort to escape. The Cloverfish advanced to flank speed and shot after her quarry. With a four knot speed advantage, she closed the distance gradually. Once in range, two men on the bow volleyed a pair of harpoons at the serpent. The first missed by a meter. The second connected with the monster’s back and refused to let go. Over the course of an hour, the serpent was hauled in, each painstaking minute at a time, until, eventually, the monster’s body was firmly planted on the ship’s aft deck. The younger sailors were ecstatic at this first success, but the older veterans were more wary. In the ship’s wake was a slick of the serpent’s blood, a rainbow, iridescent beacon on the oceanic expanse. And in the sky above, they knew, eyes were watching.
The vulture came at dusk, when the last of the sun’s rays tainted the mist with a baleful omen of blood. The only warning to the sailors aboard the Cloverfish was a distant flapping of wings and a shadow that blocked out the fading signs of day. With a rushing of wind, the massive, steam-powered creature dropped from the night sky, spreading its jagged wings to arrest its fall before alighting atop the superstructure with the grace of an anvil. Its skin a mess of twisted metal and mechanical disfigurement, the half-animal would have never been called a raptor if not for its predatory nature. Surveying the ensuing panic upon the deck with a masked face, the vulture dropped its head to the deck and let loose a deafening howl.
The ship collapsed into chaos. Younger sailors stood paralyzed in the presence of the greater being while older veterans, many having seen one to several throughout their life, responded with whatever weapons they could find. Harpoons and bullets did nothing but aggravate the vulture. The raptor let loose another roar before tearing across the deck and crushing an unfortunate sailor in its beak. Satisfied by its catch, the massive bird leaped into the night sky, rising away on its steam-powered jets to enjoy its meal. The surviving members of the ship didn’t have long to enjoy relief. The vulture reappeared later that night, nothing more than a shimmering green light in the starless sky. All throughout the twilight hours it stalked the ship west, terrorizing it with distant howls and hourly attacks. At midnight, a man standing watch suddenly found himself in the grip of the creature’s talons and was gone before anyone else heard his screams. It didn’t strike again until it was nearly dawn. This time, it landed on the Cloverfish’s stern, and, ignoring the desperate efforts of the ship’s crew, tore open the deck doors and seized what it had been searching for, the carcasse of the sea serpent. Satisfied by this final prize, the vulture rose with a screech into the night sky and vanished beyond the horizon, leaving the Cloverfish and her crew shaken and with a wounded pride. Two days later, however, a distant pulsing on the western horizon drew again the attention of the ship. By nightfall, the threatening sound was clear, and a glowing light began to shimmer across the sky. Older sailors identified the sound first, and, as it always did, word began to spread throughout the ship like lightning. The Hunt was on.
