Chapter 9: The Leviathan

Veda got to the stern rail before anyone else.

The sea behind the ship had gone black and flat.

Then it bulged.

A head the size of a delivery truck came up out of the water, streaming foam.

It was grey and armored, with a flat blunt snout, and jaws that opened on rows of teeth as long as her forearm.

Four small yellow eyes rolled in its skull.

Behind her, four hundred people screamed.

She had killed one of these in year two.

It had taken six men's lives to learn how.

The leviathan slammed its snout into the stern, and the whole ship shuddered.

A rail crumpled.

A woman went sliding across the deck, and a man caught her by the ankle.

"Guns!" Damon was shouting. "Everyone with a rifle, get to the rail!"

Rifles cracked.

The bullets bounced off the grey hide.

"Stop!" Veda yelled. "Stop shooting! It's wasting ammunition!"

Damon spun on her.

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Yes."

He stared at her.

Last time, he would have argued.

This time he was a man watching his ship get chewed, and he was a practical man.

"Tell me," he said.

"The soft spot is behind the jaw, on the left side." She pointed.

"There's a slit about as long as a man's arm. You hit it hard, and you hit it deep."

"With what?"

She looked up.

Above the stern, a steel crane arm stood folded against the bulkhead, holding a rescue boat on a heavy cable.

At the end of the cable hung a hook.

"The crane," she said. "Drop the boat. Swing the hook."

"That hook weighs half a ton."

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