The Blunt Reaper

The remainder of the Red Tide passed without another attack, though that did not make the crossing peaceful.

The ferryman kept their boat within the third current and guided it around every disturbance upon the surface, no matter how small. Several times, he changed direction because of ripples Mara could barely see. Once, he brought the vessel to a complete stop and waited while something enormous moved beneath them, its passage lifting the purple water into a broad ridge that continued through the fog.

Rook remained near the stern with a weapon across his lap. The wounds upon his shoulder and leg had closed, but his coat remained torn and dark with blood. Mara sat opposite him, one hand pressing against her chest whenever the memory of the blade returned. Neither of them spoke much.

The sounds of the feeding frenzy gradually faded behind them. The screams disappeared first, followed by the impacts of abilities striking flesh and water. The final sound to reach them was the distant groaning of metal, carried across the Red Tide long after the armored vessel had vanished beneath the surface. Eventually, even that ended, and the sea became silent again.

Several vessels remained close enough to see through the fog. Most had escaped the blood before the Fourth Rank fully surfaced. Their crews kept their distance from one another and followed the current without exchanging signals. Nobody attempted to count how many boats were missing.

The answer followed behind them.

First came the vessels that had escaped with little damage. Their sails remained intact, their hulls clean and their passengers largely unharmed. They had been near the front when the armored ship became trapped and possessed enough distance to flee before the feeding frenzy spread.

The damaged boats arrived next. One had lost its mast and moved only because the current carried it. Another leaned heavily to one side where several boards had been torn from its hull. The people aboard used strips of cloth, pieces of clothing and their own bodies to keep water from entering through the gaps.

After them came what barely qualified as vessels. A broad section of deck drifted through the current with seven souls crouched upon it. Two used broken planks as paddles while another held a blue lantern above the water. Farther behind, three survivors clung to an overturned hull with nothing but rope keeping them attached. A single Reaper followed them, floating upon a piece of timber.

After him, nothing came.

The empty current stretched behind the survivors until the fog swallowed everything. Mara watched that absence for a long time. The fleet had entered the Red Tide crowded closely enough for the boats to strike one another. Now, the remaining vessels travelled so far apart that some appeared to be crossing alone.

The ferryman never looked back.

The color of the water gradually changed beneath them. Purple faded into black, the bruised surface thinning until it resembled ink beneath the boat. The slow swells of the Red Tide disappeared. No pale limbs broke the surface, and no enormous backs passed beneath the lantern. The new waters were calmer, but they were also far too quiet.

Even the current made no sound as it carried them onward. The boat no longer creaked beneath the movement of the sea, and the ferryman’s pole entered the water without producing so much as a splash. Every noise aboard seemed unnaturally loud: the shift of Mara’s coat, the settling chains around Rook’s coffin and the faint scrape of wood beneath the ferryman’s boots.

Mara looked over the side. The blue lantern revealed nothing below them. Its light entered the dark water and disappeared before reaching any visible depth.

"What lives here?" she asked.

The ferryman continued steering. "Nothing that wants us to know."

Mara waited for him to elaborate, but nothing else came. She turned toward Rook instead. "Is that supposed to be reassuring?"

"No."

"Good. I would have been concerned if it was."

Rook looked toward the water. "The quiet means nothing is hunting near the surface."

"And deeper?"

"Deeper is rarely our problem while we remain above it."

Mara stared at him until Rook glanced toward the damaged side of the boat. "Remain above it."

She moved slightly closer to the center.

The crossing continued until a pale line appeared ahead. At first, Mara mistook it for another current. It stretched across the horizon, too steady to be lantern light and too bright to belong in the perpetual darkness of the Underworld. As they approached, the line widened and revealed the edge of a distant shore.

The darkness ended there, and light covered the land beyond it.

The boundary was unnaturally precise. The sea remained black beneath them, but the stone several body lengths inland shone beneath a soft white radiance. It resembled morning light without a sun to produce it. No dawn touched the sky, and no reflection spread across the water. The Bastion illuminated itself and the land surrounding it, yet for some reason, its light refused to enter the sea.

More vessels appeared as the shore became clearer. Clean ferries and well-maintained merchant boats had already reached the docks. Their passengers unloaded supplies while crews secured the hulls along the stone piers. The healthiest vessels from Mara’s fleet arrived after them, followed gradually by boats with broken masts, missing sides and blood smeared across their decks.

The drifting planks came last.

Workers upon the docks rushed toward the survivors. They threw ropes into the water, dragged the damaged vessels close and lifted those too injured to climb. One Reaper collapsed the moment his feet touched stone. Two workers caught him beneath the arms and carried him toward a low building near the edge of the port.

No one celebrated their arrival. Too many people kept looking toward the silent water, waiting for vessels that would not come.

The ferryman guided their boat between two stone piers and brought it alongside a row of wooden posts. The hull struck the dock with a dull scrape. He secured it using the remaining rope and stepped onto land without examining the damage.

Rook lifted the coffin onto his back, and Mara followed him onto the pier before looking upward.

The ferryman stepped past them with his pole resting over one shoulder. "If you intend to enter, move. The damaged boats will fill the area soon."

"You’re coming?" Rook asked.

"I have some things to do here at the port, I’ll join the bastion later."

"Sure thing then, thanks for the ride."

"I’d appreciate if you don’t ever ride my boat again."

"Hey, we survived."

"That’s the thing, we survived a catastrophe, the last time something like this happened guess who was on my boat?"

"Was it you?" Mara asked.

"I decline answering that question."

The ferryman snorted and moved toward another boat leaving the two alone.

The port had been built at the base of an enormous cliff. Its pale stone face rose almost vertically from the shore, high enough that the structures above appeared small despite their size. The entire cliffside had been carved, reinforced and covered with wooden platforms.

Massive chains descended from mechanisms hidden near the summit, carrying wooden boxes between the port and the upper cliffs. Some were large enough to transport dozens of people. Others had been reinforced for cargo and currently held barrels, timber, damaged weapons and sections of dismantled boats. Workers loaded each platform before striking a hanging bell. The chains tightened, wheels turned somewhere above and the wooden boxes began rising along the cliff.

At the summit stood the Forty-Second Bastion.

White walls extended across the upper cliffs, surrounding towers, broad buildings and a light so bright that Mara could not see its source. The radiance passed through the gates and across the nearby land, revealing roads, distant hills and patches of pale grass. After so long beneath blue lanterns, the sight almost hurt.

Mara removed the lantern from her wrist and looked around without needing its light. "Finally. We don’t need these anymore."

Rook kept his lantern attached to the coffin. "I wouldn’t be too sure about that."

"Everything is visible."

"For now."

She looked toward the clear white light surrounding the Bastion. "Do you ever accept good news without immediately ruining it?"

"I accept good news when it survives examination."

"That explains why you’re unfamiliar with it."

They joined the passengers heading toward the cliff. The port town had been constructed along several levels of stone joined by ramps and narrow stairways. Warehouses occupied the lower sections near the docks, while inns, repair shops and market stalls stood farther inland where the Bastion’s light reached them properly.

Peddlers moved among the new arrivals before they had even finished climbing from their boats. They offered replacement weapons, dry clothing, memory-stabilizing food and small packets of mineral powder at memory prices that caused several wounded travelers to swear at them. The peddlers accepted the insults as the beginning of negotiations.

Rook led Mara toward one of the larger lifts. The wooden box rested upon a reinforced platform at the base of the cliff. Its walls rose only to Mara’s waist, leaving the upper half open, and heavy chains had been fastened to all four corners, each link nearly as thick as her wrist.

A queue had formed before it. Reapers stood among ordinary souls, ferrymen, merchants and laborers transporting goods into the Bastion. Several carts occupied the front of the line. Workers rolled them into the box, locked the wheels and packed travelers around them until little space remained.

Rook stepped inside with Mara. The coffin drew several annoyed looks from the people forced to stand around it. One merchant examined the scratches and dark stains covering the wood, then moved his basket to the opposite side of the lift.

Mara leaned closer to Rook. "I think he’s afraid there’s a body inside."

"There used to be."

The merchant moved farther away.

Mara lowered her voice. "Was that true?"

"Parts of it."

The chains above them tightened, and the wooden box jerked hard enough to make several passengers grab the sides before it began rising. The port slowly fell away beneath them.

From above, the order of the arriving vessels became even clearer. Clean boats filled the nearest docks. Damaged ones were guided toward repair ramps farther along the shore. Beyond them, workers were still pulling survivors from floating wreckage, but no more shapes emerged from the dark water.

The current ended several hundred body lengths from the coast, its faint movement dissolving before reaching land. Farther beyond it, the sea remained empty and black. The Red Tide had disappeared somewhere behind the horizon, concealed by distance and the darkness refusing to surrender to the Bastion’s light.

Mara looked toward the white radiance above them. It spread across the cliff and every structure upon it, yet when she looked down, none of it reflected upon the water. The sea remained an unbroken darkness beginning at the shoreline.

"Why doesn’t the light reach it?" she asked.

Rook looked down. "It does."

"I can’t see it."

"That means the sea isn’t giving it back."

Mara decided she preferred the question unanswered.