Capítulo 65: Arthur XXVI
293AC
The air was still as the grave, broken only by the sound of the bells ringing an alarm to the rest of the fleet. Aurane barked frantic orders, and I could see he had a death grip on the ship's wheel, turning us into the wind. We would need to keep moving for this.
I was little help, in all honesty, too small to be truly useful with the men stowing the sails above my head in the towering rafters, I tied ropes to the masts, moving from man to man on the deck and tying off the ropes to their waists. It might well save their lives in the times to come.
Asha was livid that she wouldn't be returning to the Black Wind, but the fleet needed to scatter a bit, we couldn't afford to be ramming into each other in the waves to come. The Topsails had just been stowed when I spotted the thing in the distance. She was fair drunk though, and it took only a couple moments to convince her to go to bunk.
Even at a glance, it looked unnatural, less a storm-cloud and more a wall of white that ran from above the sea all the way up to the stars themselves like the bulwark and firmament of Heaven itself laid before my eyes in a grand panoply. Lightning crackled within its swirling core, and it's sides stretched from horizon to horizon, moving towards us like an implacable giant, it's footsteps written in the thunder that seemed closer with every moment.
"Prince Arthur." I felt a hand come down on my shoulder as I stared at the awesome and terrifying sight.
Turning I saw Jaerys, who had silently helped me through the whole affair. "You should get below deck now, you won't be much help up here, and I cannot guarantee your safety." His purple eyes bore into mine, and I realized it wasn't a suggestion.
I nodded grimly. "I know," I said, stepping towards the quarterdeck. "Best keep lady Asha company I suppose."
I stepped into my familiar cabin, though it stood differently from its usual decor, every tool, map, gizmo, and utensil was locked into place in their cabinets. The table was flipped over and bolted down, and the banners which weren't nailed to the walls were rolled into their places, and Lady Asha's armor had been hastily locked into a wall closet along with my own clothing, though it would probably get blood all over my whites. The windows were shuttered on both sides, and the only light which entered the room was coming in through a small slit on the door, and I would be closing even that as the storm hit, the battens were secured, and the chamber was watertight to the extent which it could be.
The lack of hanging decor or mess left the entire chamber feeling unnatural empty, even with lady Asha present, if now already snoring in my bed, which was built into the floor itself, and mercifully unlikely to move. The Sword, Thank god, and even the cutters to a lesser extent, had decent ballast on them, but I had no idea what if any her Longboat had, and I gave it poor odds of making it through the storm intact. In a way, it was probably good that the Greyjoy was here. We should, for all intents and purposes, be as safe as we could be.
'Still,' I shivered at the memory of the storm wall, and at the sound of the oncoming thunder, which even now would soon be on top of us. 'I'm not sure I can make any guarantees.'
I glanced at the sleeping woman across from where I had placed myself, bracing my shoulders against the walls in a cubby. In sleep, she looked far less aggravating, but the memory of her rudeness brought a bitter laugh to my mouth, exposing thoughts I would never share in public for the risk of offending her. "Lucky bitch, you're going to get to sleep through this."
Then the thunder boomed overhead, and I could feel the ship shake as the rain began to come down. It started with a pitter patter but grew torrential and brutal within moments.
The first waves hit like the hammer of an angry god, Aurane, or whoever held the helm, carrying us into the crash of water, which came through the slot, prompting me to seal it, pushing it closed with the extent of my reach and casting me into pitched black darkness, even as the vessel bucked and broke through the Great Wall of water, and then dove into the valley before the next one.
I had largely abandoned my religion, when I was born into this new world, seemingly devoid of the God and savior I had once believed in. Even if I had remained faithful, what was a Christian to do in a world where Christ had not yet died? But, I would be lying if I claimed that the darkness did not find me grasping for a cross which I hadn't worn in this life, half-remembered words of Isaiah that came to me as if through the fog of the rain which even now threatened to drown me here with all I cared for.
It was better than praying to the Seven at least, they had little to promise of salvation, much less forgiveness, and none of them even dealt with the ocean, I knew, I had read their whole damned book.
Yet despite the comfort of my prayer, the storm only grew fiercer, throwing the ship about like a rubber-ducky in the hands of a particularly vicious toddler, sending us rocking too and for without care or reason.
When the continued memory of Isaiah failed me, I moved on to poems, half a dozen dealing with the sea and its cruelties, but none worth saying. The thundering darkness above wasn't worth discussing while you experienced it. I grappled with my mind until I finally landed on Invictus, simple, sweet, and at the very least defiant of this fresh hell which Euron had unleashed onto us in his death.
"Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever Gods may be
for my unconquerable soul."
The words were hard to bite out between the tossing of the waves, but like the prayer before them, or perhaps as half a prayer themselves, they calmed me. There was dignity wrapped into them, even should I fail and die here and all my efforts turn to ash.
"In the Fell Clutch of circumstance
I have not winced, nor cried aloud,
Under the Bludgeoning of Chance,
My head is bloodied, but unbowed."
The ship shuddered as it crashed through another wave, like an old man driving himself on through a winter gale, as we sank into the crashing valley before the next, I continued my speech, emboldened by my own denial of the storm as much as by my survival.
"Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the Shade
And yet the Menace of th-
*Crack*"
The harsh bucking of the ship threw me into the wall behind me, head first, and I felt dizziness overtake me, though I thankfully felt no blood as a reached back to check, my stiffened shoulders starting to slump. Pain shooting through my mind as I struggled to stay awake under the stress of the moment.
"Oh good, jus… a… concussssshhhh'
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