Arr, Ye Rough an' Rowdy Sea

[Plink]

There was a whistling sound that came in the wake of those thunderous booms and, though she had no clue what it meant, that noise made the fur on Plink's spine stand up in a way that the sight of a glowing blue ghost ship had not. Then the explosion hurled her and a dozen other beasts across the deck like so many teeth punched out of a mouth. The young rat slammed into a hare who had just staggered back against the port rail, and they both pitched overboard with her momentum.

Dazed, and with her ears ringing and oddly quiet, Plink would have fallen straight into the sea had it not been for her desperate grip on the hare. Apparently having weathered the blast better than she had, he managed to catch a pawhold on one of the ropes hanging off the bow of The Zephyr. Plink clung to the front of his uniform jacket like an oversized medal. He scowled down at her, whiskers bristling.

"Unhand me, ya bally flyin' scoundrel!"

"Wait!" Plink struggled as he kicked at her. "I can't sw-"

His footclaws caught on her sash and ripped her paws from his jacket, sending her plummeting into the water. She hit with a slap of impact and silence pressed in against her at once, strange and arresting. Plink floated there beneath the surface for a moment, then opened her eyes to the burning saltwater.

All around her, dark shapes floated just as she did. Bodies. Hares, rats, weasels. Some struggled feebly toward the dampened flicker of the blazing sails, but most were still, faintly dappled in green-gold light. Something brushed Plink's tail and she twisted to find it was that mouse she'd seen on the night watch. Marcus. He stared straight ahead and his frozen expression bespoke the mildest concern, as if death did not quite fit into his plan.

Plink clawed at the water and bodies and debris, surging toward the surface with wild desperation. She burst out of the silence and into the screams and cracks coming from the burning ship. Blinded by salt and sucking in one huge breath after another, Plink flailed toward the light and noise. She choked on seawater and smoke but finally managed to scrabble on top of the broken end of an oar that jutted from the hull.

The Zephyr had disengaged from the pirate ship and was ponderously turning toward open water. As her eyes streamed and her vision cleared, Plink could see woodlanders leaning over the rail high above, helping their comrades climb aboard from their ropes and pointing over the pirate vessel toward the ghost ship. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but the anxious tones of their shouts reached her.

"You lot are running away?" Plink croaked, then coughed and spat as she clambered to her footpaws, barely balancing on the oar with one paw braced on the hull behind her. All her fear from the battle faded, but her voice still broke as she shouted and her words were lost beneath the din of flames and waves. "Avast ye cowards! This be why ye call yerselves Waverunners?"

The Zephyr's sails filled and fluttered with the light wind, propelling it along its course. The hulking vessel glided off into the fog, indifferent to the shouts of those just realizing they'd been left behind, much less the squeaky challenges of one small rat.

Sea water surged up to her ankles and Plink looked again at the ship that bore her. The oars to the stern were still well above the level of the water, but with each wave more poured through the oar holes at the bow. There were noises seeping out from inside, too. Beasts were crying out in there.

Feeling sick, Plink set her jaw and began climbing toward the deck. The sail was all but consumed now, shedding ash like fall leaves, but Plink laid her ears back so no wisps would float in and kept on climbing.

A mighty crack sounded from above, and the ship shuddered as one of the spars came smashing down on the deck. Plink lost her grip on the hull and clawed and scrambled as she half-fell and half-slid back down to the oars - and up to her knees in the ocean.

There was a great commotion on deck, but it sounded different from the battle. No weapons clanged, nobeast shouted war cries. Maybe now they were rushing to make repairs. Plink dug her claws in and clambered back up the side of the ship. Whatever the job, she would help. She was a part of this crew, now.

And so was Scully - despite that rat who'd tried to cut his throat first thing when they boarded. Plink had had to bite the pirate to loosen his grip on the hare. When there was time, she'd explain the situation. Until then, though-

A blast sounded behind her and Plink turned, but there was nothing to see. The clouds blocked out the moon and stars and the light of the fire cast the waves and roiling fog in a sickly yellow. Then, in the distance, the smokey blue lights winked to life once more and the ghost ship's thunder sounded.

Plink flinched against the side of the galley, but the fire of the explosion cast a tall, blocky silhouette - The Zephyr, gone again in a flash. The ghost ship had cut off the Waverunners' escape and was about to finish them off. Transfixed, Plink watched the blue lights wink out, then blaze again in a new position as the ghost ship vanished and reappeared. Four times the lights shone, but the thunder did not come again. Then, there was nothing but the fog.

Plink tried to peer through the vapor for a moment longer, listening, but no sounds reached her. In fact, even the activity on deck had diminished. And below, the water level had risen above all of the oars.

Plink scrambled up and over the railing to find the ship listing hard and waves already lapping onto the deck toward the bow. Few beasts remained aboard, among them a weasel who called out the same name over and over as he scanned the bits of wood and bodies bobbing in the surrounding water. He sounded scared, terrified for Daggle - whoever Daggle was.

The weasel's calls mingled with other shouts and cries of pain, and Plink realized that the rowboats were gone. She forgot all about the voices behind the oar holes and the crew she was supposed to be a part of now. Even the sinking ship seemed unimportant.

"Scully!" Plink rushed across the deck, checking the faces of one dead hare after another. Her footpads skidded across wide slicks of blood. Everything reeked of smoke and death. She leapt over the fallen spar that bisected the deck, now just a long burning log. The mast gave an ominous creak that made the entire ship tremble. "Scully!"

Finally, Plink hesitated over the pile of bodies - a hare and two stoats - near the longboat pulleys where she had left him. One of the stoats gaped at the sky, a big dark hole yawning in the blood-matted fur of his throat. Plink swallowed hard and gritted her teeth, but her paws shook as she rolled the hare over.

Wait here, matey, she'd said, tugging the cover off one of the rowboats to indicate the space beneath. Better if you stay out o' sight until we can convince everybeast you're on our side.

He'd had a stricken look about him after the attack, and he clambered into the rowboat with a little urging. Um... okay but, like-

I gotta go help, Scully. Just stay out o' sight an' I'll come back for you soon as I can. And then she'd flipped the cover back in place and left him there.

Now, Plink gripped the still-warm shoulder of the hare and shuddered when she saw its face. It wasn't Scully. This hare was much older, with a scar down one side of her muzzle, and as Plink rolled her, she grunted. There was a big lump rising on her brow.

Not that Plink cared about some Waverunner. She peered franticly around the deck, then at the rising water. The weasel had jumped ship and was paddling toward the dark mass of the island, gripping a chunk of the ship's thick railing to stay afloat. Several other beasts were doing the same, all indistinct masses splashing by the flickering remnants of the sail. Plink couldn't tell if any of them were Scully, but when she called his name again, nobeast answered.

A big, horrible feeling was swelling in her chest. Anything could have happened to him. He might have been taken prisoner by the Waverunners for helping her escape... And the pirates weren't likely to accept a puffy-cheeked hare cabin boy without somebeast to vouch for him. He needed Plink.

Nobeast had needed Plink since her ma died, but Scully did. He'd kept her secret. He'd come to help her escape the brig. He was a part of her crew. And now he was gone - because Plink had left him, thinking he'd be safe. The young rat scrubbed at her eyes and went on scanning the field of debris until the timbers of the mast squealed and splintered and the last remnants of the rigging slapped down into the sea.

The clouds were beginning to split and break, and faint beams of moonlight cut pale swaths across the thinning fog. Far off from the sinking ship, the light hit a rowboat, shrinking in the distance. Plink couldn't pick out much, but she thought she saw the tall ears of a hare.

Yes, she decided. They were a hare's ears. They were Scully's ears, and wherever he was going, Plink would find him. She'd find him and she'd rescue him, one way or another. A pirate looked out for her crew.

Waves reached up the deck and hissed and spat when they lapped at the burning spar. Plink retreated from them. There were no more boats to take her to the island. She would have to swim that long stretch herself. It seemed impossible, it was so far. But Plink straightened up and began looking around for something to hold onto, something to help her float.

Her heel bumped a soft weight and, when she looked back, she saw she'd kicked one of the dead stoats. Plink snatched the dirk out of his limp paw and her eye caught on the unconscious hare.

The dirk was long and wickedly sharp. Maybe, if she'd had a weapon like this during the battle, Plink would have really fought a beast instead of just tripping Waverunners with a broken pike and dodging out of the way. She wiped a smear of blood off the blade and swallowed hard against the memory of hot gore on her footpaws, then watched the hare's soft throat bob with her pulse. With a weapon like this?

A wave flushed up around the young rat's ankles. The hare's eyelids fluttered. Plink hesitated, then turned away, securing the dirk through her sash.

She found an empty spirits cask and began the long swim to shore, maneuvering slowly through the field of wreckage as the ship submerged behind her. The lingering flames cut out with a vicious hiss. Most of the other survivors were far ahead of her now, dots she occasionally glimpsed in the distance when the waves bore her up just right, so when a voice came to her from what she had taken for a heap of wreckage, Plink flinched and gulped a mouthful of seawater.

"Hello there, young lass," the hedgehog said. He was kicking along at a sedate pace, comfortably resting his arms and belly on what appeared to be the door from the pirate ship's kitchen. There was a weary hunch to his big shoulders, but his smile was kind. "Sorry - didn't mean to startle you."

"I ain't startled!" Plink had to stop and cough and spit before she could go on. "I saw ye lurkin' over there! Just lost me grip fer a second."

"O' course," he said pleasantly. "Ain't an easy thing to keep afloat when your buoy's tryin' to roll off on you like that. There's plenty room here on the door, if'n you don't mind sharin'."

The small cask certainly was not ideal. It floated a bit more than half out of the water and, whenever Plink tried to rest her weight on top of it, it rolled out from under her. She'd considered swapping it out for some other piece of wood, but now she dug her claws into it and kicked harder to put distance between the Waverunner and herself.

That hare with the scar had been unfamiliar, but Plink remembered this hedgehog. He'd been on deck when Stormstripe was closing in on her. Her memory was very much dominated by that one bloody eye and the sheer mass of the beast about to end her, but Plink remembered the silence of all those Waverunners, too.

"I don't need yer stupid door, hedgepig. Gerraway from me."

"Alright, lass," he said, a hint more somber. "Ain't no prickles off me back, heh heh heh."

Plink pressed hard for the island and the hedgehog fell behind, but she could hear him still every time she paused to catch her breath. The slow rhythm of his kicks made little noise but he seemed to have no trouble keeping up. Plink clenched her jaw and ignored him, fixing her eyes on the dark shape of the island ahead. It cut up against the night sky, a fatal wound on the horizon.