Merchants doom part 2

In part 1 we learned of the merchant and how an evil fetish/idol came into his possesion, the tale of its aquisition.1

MERCHANTS DOOM PART 22

It was two months to the day from our meal in the compound when, during the usual security meeting between the watch, the militia, trade representatives and the town council that a discovery was made. Unsolved deaths were discussed and decisions were made as to whether to investigate or close the file. Four watchmen had died at various times along with several visiting sailors and merchant employees. The main discussion centred on the death of two clerics. One would be unusual but two did require investigation. After a short while it was realised that both clerics had been on the raiding party that destroyed the cult. The inspector then studied the militia deaths and found that they too had been on that expedition. This was too much of a coincidence to be ignored so investigations were stepped up. The inquiries led by convoluted routes to an old abandoned farmstead about a mile to the North East of the port and a raid was duly planned. It was led by the sergeant and executed at dawn by twenty fully armed watchmen. The farmstead was occupied by some fifteen persons who put up a surprising amount of resistance but were quickly subdued for no loss of life on the part of the police. When a search was carried out a find of the most hideous nature occurred. In the upper rooms of the house were the squalid sleeping arrangements of the dwellers while below on the ground floor crude paintings of horrible rites and ceremonies covered the walls. In the cellar many signs pointed to this as being used as a prison but the worst find was in the barn. Inside the door was a huge wall of hay bales so it was assumed that it was full but on a whim the sergeant pulled and pushed at them and found that there was a frame hidden within and when a few bales were pulled out a tunnel some ten feet in length was revealed. This in turn led to the inner part of the barn which, on entering nearly made him feint dead away for there, on top of a brick built plinth was a crude clay image identical to that which had been found in the swamp while on each of the four compass points around the base was a ritually slaughtered human being. The four dwellers who were captured were taken for interrogation while the homestead and barn were burnt to the ground and the bodies taken for the proper rites to be observed. The only worthwhile information that was gleaned from the prisoners who all seemed to be slightly odd in some way was that someone or something was coming; that a lost desert city was involved and that this was part of something on an unprecedented scale. The thing most often said was that:3

“The Old Ones would return and have their way”. 4

When, over the next month two more were found dead (of apparently natural diseases) it was considered prudent to evacuate the surviving members of the group. To this end a message was sent (by secret and magical means) to GHQ in the capital and the troops, watchmen and clerics were booked on a ship travelling North at the months end. A week before the departure date a strange rhythmic drumming was reported by the militia lookouts on the defensive wall to the landward side of the port. When the inspector heard this he came past our enclave to ask if I wished to join him in his investigation into the report and to ask me how my own researches were going. As we made our way to the wall I told him that I had precious little to go on but I would gain more information once I got back to civilisation. We arrived at the wall and began, with permission, to move along the wall and chat to the guards. Most knew nothing but a couple of them said that they had heard drumming and that it had started about ten days ago. We were not a little unnerved to learn that it had been going on for so long. Of its rhythm or cadence no one could give us a clear description. Suddenly however, a booming throb began to echo over the savannah outside and I was shocked to see the inspector’s colour become almost ashen. He drew a shaking breath and informed me that it was the self same abominable beat he had heard issuing forth from that noisome swamp. The guard was doubled and we all retired to our respective domiciles. 5

The next night the drums came from within the walls! Groups of militia, watch and merchant security men moved out into the streets and slowly zeroed in on the poorer end of the waterfront district. The drumming stopped just as my men and the other groups arrived at a high walled stock pen. It was surrounded and all the possible egress points were forced on a signal call on a watch alarm horn. It had taken us about ten minutes to surround the pens and force entry but when we got in it was empty except for four drums and a juju totem made of alternate human heads and hearts. Of the perpetrators of this heinous crime there was no sign save a feint but foul odour. These items of evil were immediately burned and arrangements were made for priests to bless the place the following day. We returned to our homes very disquieted at what had occurred. Now our departure could not come quick enough.6

Those last few days passed with interminable lassitude. Minutes seemed like hours; hours like days and days like a lifetime. When the ship finally arrived it brought the inspector’s replacement and a fresh detachment of militia from the capital and took on board those who were leaving. The vessel had to leave within two hours because of the tide and the draft of the ship so everyone apart from myself, or so I thought, hurried aboard. The inspector and the sergeant should have been going with them but due to a delay in the processing of the paperwork for their replacements they missed the tide and so had to make quick, alternative arrangements to travel. As I had already made up my mind to depart separately I gladly welcomed their company.7

We set out only two hours behind the original ship under a leaden sky that became more oppressive with each passing moment. Our captain had the crew make doubly sure that everything was well battened down as he predicted a storm of some vigour, indeed had I not expressly ordered him to set forth he would have waited for the weather to either pass over or break and then set sail. My own ship was lighter and faster than the other and so we sailed closer to the coast where we could more easily find shelter if required. We had a man aloft who kept an eye not only on the weather but also on any other vessels abroad upon the ocean. He soon reported the other ship away to our starboard and ahead in much deeper waters. The wind lessened until we were moving only slowly while our sea going neighbour seemed to be becalmed over the deeps. The air became hotter and the skies even more brooding, if that were possible. The wind died totally and the sea became as glass. Our captain ordered an anchor dropped less we drift to shore and become grounded on the many shoals that bedevil that region. 8

We heard drums before we saw the ship. It was a fast, light cruiser type with black sides and black sails and it moved as if it had it’s own private wind. It seemed to come to a halt about half a mile in front of the other ship (about a mile and a half from us). That drum beat, similar to that which we heard in the city but subtly different, rolled continuously across the flat waters causing everyone on board to arm themselves because of an unidentifiable fear that swept in with that blasphemous throbbing. We did not need the lookouts inarticulate cry of alarm to startle us when the sea seemed to explode around our sister ship. Writhing from the depths came huge, long sinuous strands, thicker than a mans chest and reaching many tens of feet into the air. Some seemed to probe the ships deck while others tried to wrap themselves around anything upon which they could gain a purchase. Now, mixed with that infernal drum beat came the cries of those aboard that stricken vessel as they fought savagely for their very lives. Some crew were swept into the now violent maelstrom, which was the water about the ship. Others were lifted high by a tentacle and crushed or flung away or just pulled into the depths but still they battled on. More than one mighty appendage was severed to fall writhing to the deck or the waters below but slowly and inevitably with an almost deliberate slowness the ship began to list and as it did so a colossal shadow appeared near the surface and even more smaller tentacles joined the attack. No ship, however mighty could withstand an onslaught of such a beast for very long and soon the retorts of overstressed timbers finally giving in to the inevitable and snapping joined the cacophony of battle sounds. The sides of the ship broke asunder and crew and goods were scattered far and wide. With the demise of the ship that huge spawn of the nether world sank slowly to return to whatever purgatory that had given it birth. That was not the end however as many people from that ship had not died and even now were striking out to swim to us either under their own power or using bits of flotsam as aids.9

Still the drums rolled on and that black ship, aboard which no crew were visible and which stayed motionless and brooding like a giant carrion bird waiting for its victims final demise. Our ship quickly broke out the lifeboats and put them over the side while scramble nets were also lowered.10

But then the sharks came. Normally they would turn up in ones or twos and only from one general direction but now they came from all sides and there were all types, even hammerheads, which are never found in those waters at that time of year. Panic ensued among those in the water as they tried to make their way over to us. Our rowers set out with all alacrity with four rowing and two in the prow armed with spear, gaff or harpoon. On board our ship we could only watch in horrified fascination. The sea turned red as that orgy of feasting continued. At least one shark was of huge size, the same length no less than one of our lifeboats and as they drew near the foremost swimmers it rammed the boat. Luckily the crew saw it coming and were not thrown into the water and so battle was joined. The monstrous shark would have prevailed if it were not for the intervention of two other boats, risking life and limb to quell the beast. They did not kill it but they inflicted sufficient pain and discomfort to drive it away. It did not go far however and as the survivors made for the three craft the beast would come up from below them with gaping maw and catching its victim lifting it aloft, shaking it so parts of the body, be it a limb or head, were flung in all directions. Indeed no survivor made to those three haunted craft what so ever. They began a slow retreat back to our ship with that ferocious spawn of nightmares always shadowing them just out of range of the crew’s weapons. Soon the other three joined them once it became obvious that there was no one left living within the feeding frenzy of that hell-born gathering. We hauled in the boats with the crews still on board rather than risking the nets and found that out of a compliment of two hundred and thirty passengers and crew we had saved a mere twelve all of which were ordinary seamen. Even after the lifeboats had been made secure and the survivors taken below for treatment the fury of that diabolic feast remained unabated and those accursed drums thundered on and no wind blew to take us away from that place. After what seemed an age but was probably no more than twenty minutes, the drums suddenly ceased and within five more the sea was again calm and flat with not a shark in sight and only some floating debris to show where the other vessel had been. The black ship slowly turned about and then the wind, unnaturally absent for so long sprang up again fresh and strong and it was away with an amazing turn of speed. We could see figures move aloft into its rigging with obvious expertise but of their nationality or race we could not discern over the distance. We ourselves had men go aloft but we did not put up full sail for neither the captain or the inspector or myself had any desire to catch up with that stygian vessel and its crew of unknown origin. We hove to in a cove early and set off later than we needed to the following day. As we were heading in the same general direction as our enemy we kept a full lookout but saw neither hide nor hair of it again.11

We hugged the coast as near as was prudent and did not stop again for darkness or weather. We arrived in the capital’s port eighteen days later and each went our own way after our reluctant farewells.