The shriek sounded for a third time and hadn’t finished echoing before the first drowned hit the deck.

  Kade’s cutlass snapped up into a defensive position in a blur of steel. She pivoted on the balls of her feet and backed toward the midship rail, scanning the female shape that had just hauled itself over the far side of the trawler. Pale skin bloated with seawater, arms too long, eyes white and slick like dead fish left too long in the sun. Casters are the worst, she thought.

  "I'll take the caster. Give them hell, Marines!" Kade cried as she triggered the Officer's Command ability of her cutlass.

  While the morale debuff effect of the ability didn't appear to work on undead, the attack and morale increase bonus it gave to her allies still did. Her Marines stood taller. Their movements sharpened as if the will of the Simulation was on their side.

  The Drowned Raider came at them in a rush, sword low and dragging, boots slapping the deck with grotesque urgency. Lawson stepped up to meet it, pike pole braced. His first thrust was a low jab aimed at breaking momentum, but the creature twisted with impossible reflexes. Its own blade coming up in a wide arc that clipped the shaft and sent it skittering sideways. Lawson stumbled, caught his balance, and twisted the pole hard, catching the creature under the chin with a two-handed upward shove.

  The Raider reeled but didn’t fall. It came back harder, blade slashing high, then low, forcing Lawson into a tight retreat. Sparks flew as metal rang against metal. The second Marine moved in, trying to flank, axe raised.

  The Raider adjusted fast. It reversed direction and lunged, the edge of its sword carving a shallow line along the Marine’s arm before slamming into his bracer with bone-jarring force. The Marine grunted, dropped to a knee, but held his line.

  Lawson seized the opening.

  He spun the pike pole low, hooked the creature’s ankle from behind, and yanked. The Drowned Raider dropped like a felled mast, its spine cracking against the deck with a dull thud.

  “Now!”

  The Marine at Lawson's side followed up the strike with a brutal overhead swing. The axe hit just above the collarbone, wedging in deep. A second blow followed, splitting bone and sinew in a gout of black rot. The Raider spasmed once, then went still.

  At the same time, the Siren didn’t hesitate, casting a spell at the same time the Raider had charged.

  Crackling light danced around her fingers as she raised one hand and screamed something in a language that scraped like anchors on steel. A ball of lightning formed mid-air and launched with a hiss. It struck Briggs square in the chest, arcing from his armor into the Marine beside him. Both went down hard, limbs seizing as blue fire danced across the deck.

  Kade broke into a run.

  The Siren turned, lips drawn back, long knife sweeping out as Kade closed the distance. The first slash came low, aimed at Kade’s ribs. She met it with a parry, steel clashing hard against enchanted bone.

  Kade twisted, drove the pommel of her cutlass into the Siren’s face. The creature reeled back, casting disrupted, bloodless ichor spraying from its nose.

  “That’s for the lightning, bitch.”

  To her right, Briggs was already staggering to his feet, smoke curling from his chest plate. The other Marine twitched once, then groaned. Alive, barely.

  The trawler’s deck had turned into a kill box.

  From the schooner’s rear netting, two more drowned had clambered up and over, trapping the squad between two fronts. Briggs bellowed something unintelligible and leapt the short gap between ships, axe already swinging. A second Marine followed, blades out, teeth gritted. The deck beneath them shuddered with impact.

  Lawson stayed low, pike cutting tight arcs as he blocked a second charging drowned that had come from the towed ship, this one foaming at the mouth with strands of seaweed caught in its teeth. He jabbed, sidestepped, barked another order.

  “Told you we had a knack for springing traps,” he shouted.

  Kade ducked a blast of raw electricity that cracked the air above her shoulder. “and I told you we didn't want to make a habit of it!”

  Having completing her spell, the Siren lunged again, her long knife flashing toward Kade’s throat. Kade met it, steel on steel, then stepped inside the arc and triggered Riposte of the Kraken.

  The retaliatory strike landed hard, delivering a deep cut across the Siren's chest. Causing the Siren staggered back, screeching, arcs of wild energy leaking from her fingertips and scorching the deck. But she didn’t fall.

  Somewhere through the fog, another battle had begun. From the Horizon Talon, Kade could hear shouts and the clang of steel. She didn’t have time to process it. The Siren was already raising her hands again, magic crackling with lethal intent.

  Lightning crackled between the Siren’s fingertips as she shrieked and lunged again, raw magic bleeding off her like smoke from a burning wire. Kade shifted and stepped inside the strike, feeling the heat as the creature’s knife skimmed past her ribs. Kade’s cutlass caught the next thrust and shoved it wide, then reversed the edge in a tight arc meant to slice deep, but the Siren twisted, her soaked hair whipping in Kade’s face as she ducked away.

  Behind her, the clash of steel on the schooner deck intensified. Briggs roared something that got drowned out by a wet, crunching impact and a gurgled snarl. Kade didn’t dare look, not even for Briggs, because if he was down, she couldn't afford to flinch. The Sergeant would handle it, or he’d die trying.

  The Siren hissed again, bloodless lips peeled back over blackened teeth. She danced to the side, hand flicking out, and a bolt of lightning snapped from her palm, burning a jagged line through the mist. Kade threw herself flat as it tore past overhead, the thunderclap trailing it like a war drum. Her back hit the slick planks hard, ribs jolting. She rolled to her feet before the Siren could cast again.

  Briggs’ voice cut through the chaos, clear and savage. “Down goes your friend, ugly!”

  A second voice, younger, breathless, followed. “Two down! We're clear over here!”

  Kade couldn’t afford a response. The Siren was already closing, magic abandoned now in favor of raw speed. Her blade came fast, low to high, a slash meant to open Kade’s belly to the air. Kade turned her shoulder, let it glance off the reinforced leather patches of her Naval Greatcoat, then brought her cutlass down in a short, brutal chop that the Siren barely blocked. Steel sparked again. The creature moved with twitchy, unnatural grace, all whipcord tension and fury.

  “Almost done, Lawson?” Kade growled, forcing the Siren back a half step with another slash.

  “I'll be done with this one in a moment,” came Lawson's reply. “She giving you trouble?”

  “Just enough to keep it interesting.”

  Then a new sound tore through the fog.

  A hatch banged open on the trawler’s main deck. Hinges shrieked. Something heavy climbed into the daylight with a sound like sodden canvas tearing loose. Wood groaned under the weight.

  “Lieutenant!” Briggs yelled. “We got a fresh problem!”

  Kade’s eyes stayed locked on the Siren, who hissed and flicked her blade again, feinting low, then striking high. Kade blocked, twisted under the follow-up, and reversed her momentum. Her cutlass swept up in a rising arc, and this time the edge caught clean. A pulse shuddered through the blade as Gale Strike activated.

  The impact landed with a sudden, unnatural force, a burst of air cracking outward like a ship’s mainsail snapping full. With a spasm of stolen momentum, the Siren’s head jerked sideways and her body twitched. The blade's edge carried through bone with a wet crack, and for half a second the creature’s body stood headless, twitching, before crumpling in on itself.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The head hit the deck with a hollow, final thud. Lightning flickered out around it like a dying storm.

  Kade took a breath she certainly earned, then booted the twitching Siren's hand away from the fallen blade, and turned.

  At the hatch stood something worse.

  It was another drowned, but a head taller than the others, and built like it had been carved from wreck timber and spite. Its armor looked grafted on, a patchwork of rusted iron and shattered plating half-swallowed by barnacles and coral, as if it had risen from the seabed wearing the ruins of a sunken warship. Slung across one shoulder was a massive two-handed sword that looked as if it came from the broken shaft of an anchor and serrated along the edges like jagged reef. Faint seafoam-green sigils pulsed along the blade’s surface, casting a sickly light with every movement. White, lidless eyes locked onto hers as it stepped forward, and the deck groaned beneath its weight.

  [Analyze] Varnhald the Anchor | Level 10 Elite Rare | Status: Hostile | Class: Dark Paladin

  For a moment, nothing moved on the deck. Then, Briggs broke the standoff as he moved to the flank. “That one’s gonna take some effort.”

  Varnhald surged forward, one lumbering step at a time, each plank beneath its boots groaning under the weight. The anchor-blade came around in a wide arc, not for precision, but to clear space through brute force.

  “Brace!” Lawson barked, already shifting sideways to angle his pike for reach.

  Kade saw it coming and threw herself low and wide, boots scraping the wet deck as the wind of the strike howled past. The rest of the Marines scattered, boots slamming against wood as they retreated a full pace, two of them nearly colliding in the tight maneuver.

  The second swing came faster.

  Varnhald lifted the weapon high and brought it down like it was trying to cleave the ship in half. The impact rang out like a cannon report. Deck boards cracked. The anchor-sword embedded deep, splinters flying outward. Shockwaves rolled through the wood underfoot, and half the squad dropped where they stood.

  Not Kade.

  Her Deck Fighter ability caught the subtle shift in pressure, the vibration along her spine. She widened her stance and rode the blast like a breaking wave, knees bent, shoulders square. Her balance held even as the Marine beside her tumbled into a roll.

  Briggs wasn’t so lucky.

  He hit the deck hard, one leg caught underneath him. Before he could rise, Varnhald stepped forward and brought its full weight down on him with a crunch. The iron-shod boot slammed into Briggs’ thigh, and the sound that followed wasn’t steel.

  It was bone.

  Briggs howled, in a mixture of rage and pain. The axe he’d refused to let go of flashed sideways in a sweeping arc, low and dirty. It found its mark just behind Varnhald’s knee, carving a trench through corrupted flesh and barnacle-bound sinew. The creature staggered, only slightly, but it was enough.

  Kade was already moving.

  She surged in under the Champion’s left side, blade tight to her hip. Her cutlass struck high and angled down, driving straight through the ruined armor plates and deep into Varnhald’s chest. The impact sent a shudder up her arm. The sigils along the monster’s sword flared brighter in response, casting flashes across her face like strobe fire from a deep-sea warning light. But it didn’t fall.

  Varnhald twisted with a burning fury, but Kade was already inside his swing arc, too close for the massive blade to be brought to bear. Instead, he snapped his arm around and backhanded her with a single, brutal sweep. It wasn’t a killing blow, just a violent rejection meant to clear his space.

  Kade’s feet left the deck. She barely had time to register the sensation before her back hit open air. Cold spray slammed into her face as she cleared the railing and crashed into the sea.

  The water didn’t take her under, not fully. She hit hard and flat, her armor dragging her down just enough to blur the sky. But her head broke the surface almost instantly, stinging salt in her eyes as she twisted to keep sight of the deck.

  Lawson came in low from the right, pike pole braced tight against his side. The tip plunged into Varnhald’s gut just below the ruined ribcage. Lawson drove it deep, full weight behind the thrust, then twisted hard.

  Rotten guts spilled out like a ruptured net full of baitfish. Varnhald reeled but didn’t fall. One knee hit the deck with a heavy crack, and the Champion’s free hand lifted, fingers clawing through the air as sea-green light began to pulse from the spell forming in its hand.

  Lawson saw it. He didn’t wait. He stepped in and swung the butt of the pike pole in a tight arc, the iron-shod end smashing into the side of Varnhald’s skull with a sickening crunch. The glow in its hand stuttered, then blinked out entirely.

  Varnhald collapsed like a cut line, slamming to the deck in a heap of torn armor and leaking rot. The sigils along its blade flickered once more, then died altogether.

  The fight was over.

  Two Marines were already on the railing, ropes uncoiling as they scanned the churning water.

  “There!” one shouted. “Port side!”

  They hauled Kade back aboard, coughing, soaked, and spitting salt. Her lower lip was split and bleeding, but she waved off their concern with a scowl.

  “Get the wounded first,” she said, teeth red, before turning to the body of Varnhald and giving it a rude gesture. "Suck it!"

  On the far side of the deck, Lawson was crouched beside the Sergeant and the other Marine who had fallen. Briggs was pale, his leg twisted at an angle no joint should allow, but he was still conscious, still pissed. The Marine who had fallen early had already been stabilized but was unconscious and needed to get back to the Talon as quickly as possible.

  "Davis is stable, but we need to wrap this up quickly and get him back to the Talon," Lawson called out to no one specific.

  “Briggs' break is clean,” Lawson said, glancing up as Kade limped over. “But he’s going to need help to the longboat.”

  “I don't need help,” Briggs grumbled.

  “Save it,” Kade said. “You’re not hopping back to the Talon on one leg.”

  Behind them, the fog was thinning. The sound of battle still echoed from the Horizon Talon, but it was fading now. Steel against steel growing sporadic, then muffled, then silent. A moment later, a signal lamp pulsed from the Talon’s top deck. Short-long-short. The blink of a practiced hand.

  SHIP SECURED. RETURN AT HASTE.

  Kade wiped the blood from her mouth and exhaled slow. Then she looked back down at the corpse of Varnhald the Anchor.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, “we’re coming.”

  "Lawson, sweep below deck on the trawler and schooner. Quickly, please. We haven't gotten a quest update yet, so there is still something here to find."

  Kade’s shoulders ached, her lip still leaking blood, but she pushed through it, tucking herself under Briggs’ arm as they made their way to the longboat. His weight was staggering, more stubborn than heavy, and every step brought a fresh string of obscenities under his breath. His right leg hung useless, the boot twisted at an ugly angle.

  “Easy,” she said. “You make us fall, and I’m leaving you for the fish.”

  Briggs grunted. “You’d miss me.”

  “Maybe. But not the attitude,” Kade replied with a smirk.

  Both decks were battlefields of broken bodies and splintered planks. Lawson had already split the Marines into three groups. One was carrying the Marine that had fallen in the opening moments of the battle back to the longboat ahead of Briggs and Kade. Two headed for the far side of the trawler to secure the gear cache Kade had spotted earlier. The rest swept across the schooner and back into the towed fishing boat. It wasn’t just about loot. It was about making sure nothing else had crawled up from the bilge.

  She let Briggs settle against a support beam near the longboat and tapped the lens of her eyepatch. The filter flared to life, and several spots on the deck lit up with faint outlines. Muted hues of violet and green mark enchanted items. Three distinct signatures lit up against the decking.

  The first shimmered along the anchor-sword, still clutched in Varnhald’s twitchless grip. Another beside the Siren’s corpse, the long knife it had used, burned with a weak aura. The third came from a torn leather chest piece half-buried under one of the drowned raiders, its aura flickering as if trying not to be noticed.

  A hatch clanged open as the fire team from the trawler emerged.

  “Clear below,” one of them called. “No movement, no second level. Just flooded stores and some nasty rot.”

  Kade didn’t look back. “Copy that. We’re moving out, but grab a few things first.”

  She pointed her cutlass toward the center of the deck. “Take that blade off the big one. That long knife near the Siren too. And there’s a leather chest piece. To the back left, under the Raider with half a face. Pull that out and pack it.”

  "Yes, Ma'am," the Marine called back.

  No one else could see what she had. They’d sort out what was worth keeping once they were back aboard the Talon and out of range of anything that still might be listening.

  Across the deck, Lawson climbed back up from the schooner, one hand wrapped around the collar of a filthy, half-drenched man who looked like he hadn’t slept in days. The man was shouting something incoherent, arms flailing until Lawson shoved him forward and gave him a shove toward the center deck.

  “Found him locked in a dry store behind a wall of spare nets,” Lawson said. “Had to pull him out like a feral cat.”

  “I heard you scream like one,” Briggs muttered.

  The man was in his forties, maybe older. He wore the shredded remnants of dockworker overalls and had the look of someone who’d watched too many friends die too fast. His eyes landed on Varnhald’s corpse, and he went pale.

  “Tho…” He pointed, chest heaving. “Those things killed everyone!”

  “No kidding,” Kade said. “Got anything useful to go with the shouting?”

  The man rubbed his eyes and nodded too fast. “We’re with the Tidebound Front. Out of Portland. We’re... we were salvaging the trawler. Contract job for the Ebonwake Conclave.”

  “Tidebound Front? Conclave?” Kade tilted her head.

  “Conclave are university types. Profesors. Mages. Researchers. They sent us out here to pull some research gear from the trawler. We’d just started a hold sweep when those drowned things came outta nowhere. Ripped through half the crew before anyone could scream.”

  He wiped at his face. “I ran. I ran and locked the door and didn’t look back.”

  Kade watched him for a beat longer. “Well, you’re not dead. That puts you ahead of most of your crew.”

  She gave Lawson a look. “Get him secured in the longboat. Strap him down if he starts up again. We're out of time here.”

  By the time the last sweep wrapped, the Marines had recovered half a dozen weapons, three pieces of armor, and enough rations to resupply the Talon’s mess for another two days. Someone had already tagged the enchanted gear for inventory. The rest got bundled into crates and roped into the longboat’s stowage.

  Kade took one last look at the deck before stepping down. Varnhald’s body hadn’t moved. She didn’t feel triumph. Not exactly. But there was a thread of satisfaction there, running just under the fatigue.

  As the longboat shoved off from the side of the trawler, Kade leaned back slightly, watching the fog roll behind them.

  The Horizon Talon loomed ahead, signal lamp steady now, casting its coded beacon across the water.

  RETURN AT HASTE

  We’re ten chapters ahead on Patreon, so if you want to keep sailing forward, you can speed ahead in Book Two early. Not to mention read ten chapters ahead on the other Surviving the Simulation series, The Grand Crusade. Not to mention several in universe short stories and side quest exclusives. Every bit of support there goes straight back into covering ongoing writing expenses and keeping Surviving the Simulation growing strong.