I looked at the sky, finding the stars spread out vast and beautiful. It was peaceful amidst the splashing of the sharks and the cursing and irreverent shanties of my sailors as they flensed the whale.
“Captain!”
I groaned. If there was one more thing we needed to deal with today, someone would get hurt. It was a young sailor, one who had joined our crew recently, if I remembered correctly.
“There’s a calf swimming around the ship. It’s probably looking for its mother.”
The mother…
We killed her.
That was her mass floating in the water as the men finished flensing. If we left the calfalone, it would die a slow, miserable death. Starvation. Slowly nipped to pieces by sharks.
“Kill it,” I said.
The boy visibly shrank. I handed him a harpoon. “Youkill it.”
And I followed him.
His fingers shook. He didn’t aim properly.
Miss.
The calf swam in circles, dazed and shocked, wailing for its mother.
The boy braced for punishment.
I picked up a bloody harpoon, guiding the boy to finish the job.
“Steady,” I said.
I’d done this thousands of times. Trained thousands of men. Killed thousands of whales.
The harpoon let out a soft airy noise as it launched through the air.
The calf struggled.
Then floated.
I turned to the boy. “You miss again, I’ll leave you in the water. Understand?”
I didn’t even know his name.
He just shuddered. “Aye aye captain.”
I returned to the helm and rubbed my temple. The men drew in the dead calf, their harpoons shooting at the sharks before they took all our kill.
The boy looked over the side, his face pale, and he puked.
I closed my eyes, imagining our target destination, Corallure Kingdom. Thinking about the destination always distracted me.
The goal distracted me.
But my thoughts betrayed me.
He’s too young for this.
They say the sea is cruel. But cruelty wasn’t the hardest part.
