Alfred dodged back and put a hand over his head to shelter himself as wood splinters rained down on the deck. His ship! She was wounded now — wounded and therefore less capable of making a quick getaway from this creature. Wounding it had become more important, then. If they were only limping along, they needed to make sure the monster couldn’t sprint to catch them.

Dionisia was down, he’d seen her fall, but he couldn’t stop to think about it. If he hesitated now, the whole ship might be lost. “Fire!” he yelled out to everyone in earshot. “Hit it hard and keep hitting!”

Spells blazed out left and right, from any able bodied man with a wand in hand. The sea creature reeled back, cried out in pain once again…

“Haul out to starboard,” Alfred yelled back towards the deck, towards the woman that he’d asked to repeat his command, but heard no answering cry. He glanced back and she was gone. Had she ignored him and gone belowdecks, or had the monster pulled her into the sea while he’d been too busy calculating the damage to his ship to notice? Either way, she was useless at the moment. Alfred scrambled back towards the ladderwell, hoping he could shout loud enough that his watchstanders would hear him over the pained shrieking of the beast. “Haul out to starboard! Now!”