Chapter 10: The Whirlpool
Morning came grey and quiet. The ship rolled on a gentle swell with no wind to fill her sails, and the smell of porridge drifted up from the galley hatch in thick, starchy waves. Nell stood at the rail with a cup of tea, watching the horizon for the dark shape of Lefty's back that had become as familiar as the ship's own rigging.
The sea was empty.
She set the cup down and walked the rail, port side to starboard, scanning every patch of water within sight. Nothing. No tentacle, no humped shadow gliding beneath the surface, no spray from a breath. The Kraken had been with them for days. It had never gone missing before.
"Brutehilde!" Nell called. "Polly!"
The two women appeared from different directions, Brutehilde from the forecastle with a length of rope over her shoulder, Polly from the cargo hatch, yawning and scratching her green mohawk.
"Where's Lefty?" Nell asked.
Brutehilde blinked. She walked to the rail and peered down at the water as if expecting the beast to be hiding in the shadow of the hull. "He was there last night. I saw him myself, circling us at dusk."
"Those ghosts," Polly said darkly. "He probably got distracted. You know what these creatures are like."
"He's a Kraken, not a tomcat," Nell said.
"Not the Kraken. The ghosts." Polly swept her hand at the empty sea. "This whole stretch of water's got the feel of the supernatural about it. Fog one day, ghost ships the next, now our guide goes missing."
Brutehilde grunted. "He'll be back. He always comes back when Greta cooks."
"Greta's cooking porridge," Polly pointed out. "Lefty likes it but he ain't gonna smell it across the whole ocean."
Nell chewed her lip. Without Lefty to guide them through the shallows and the odd currents, they would have to rely on charts and luck. She was about to say so when a small blur of wings descended from the crow's nest and Honeymuff landed on the rail beside her, breathless.
"Captain!" the Pixie squeaked. "Captain, you need to look. You need to look now."
"What is it?"
"The water. The water's doing something strange. It's all spinning out there, big as anything, spinning and spinning and pulling us in."
Nell's blood went cold. She vaulted onto the quarterdeck and climbed the ratlines with her boots slipping on the dew-slick rope. Polly and Brutehilde followed, heavy below her, making the shrouds creak.
At the top Honeymuff pointed east. Nell looked.
The horizon was a whirlpool. It was impossibly huge, a churning dish of water a mile or more across, its rim set with standing waves and its centre a smooth, dark hole that fell away into nothing. Even as she watched, the whole sea seemed to tilt toward it, and the Sea-Nymph's Revenge, idle and unsailed, was already being drawn in.
"Hard to starboard!" Nell bellowed. "All hands! Every sail! We're going into the drink if we don't move now!"
There was a scramble below. Men and women poured up from the cabins, gripping lines, hauling canvas. Brutehilde raced to the mainmast and began pulling on the halyard with arms like hawsers. Polly grabbed the wheel and wrenched it hard over.
The ship shuddered. The sails bellied out, then cracked flat again as the wind died and the pull of the whirlpool overcame it. They were drifting sideways now, sideways and inward, the deck tilting underfoot.
Nell slid down the ratline and landed on the quarterdeck. "Scruffulus! Where's the bloody wizard?"
Scruffulus stumbled up from below, stuffing his shirt into his trousers. "Whirlpool," he said, his eyes wide. "That is very bad."
"Yes," Nell said. "Yes it is. Can you do anything about it?"
Scruffulus looked at the churning abyss, at the ship, at the crew streaming about the decks. "I can try," he said, with the fatalistic calm of a man who knew exactly what a whirlpool would do to a wooden ship. "But I'll need time."
"You've got maybe ten minutes," Polly snapped from the wheel.
Scruffulus produced his wand and began muttering. The air around him shimmered, and the water ahead of the bow flattened briefly, still spinning, but the pull did not stop.
Brutehilde came down from the mainmast, rope still in her hands, her expression grim. "Now we know why Lefty cleared off," she said. "We should have been watching him, we became too complacent. Too easily distracted by trivia like stew and porridge. And now we're going to pay the price."
"Then we bloody well should have been on watch," Brutehilde growled, coiling the rope with hard, angry jerks. "Instead of squabbling over breakfast like a pack of children."
The ship tipped again, a few degrees steeper. Somewhere below, a pot clattered and a woman swore.
"Save the blame for later," Nell said. "Scruffulus, how's it looking?"
The wizard had sweat on his forehead. His wand trembled in his fist, and the air around the bow shimmered with a faint green light. "I'm holding us, just barely, but the current's stronger than I thought. I need more power."
Tulip emerged from below decks, a thin shawl over her nightgown, her pale hair loose. She took one look at the whirlpool, another at Scruffulus, and walked straight to the rail.
"Move over," she said.
Scruffulus blinked. "You're a healer, not a mage."
"I'm a daughter of the earth, you smug prick." Tulip raised her hands and the sea in front of her flattened. The waves stopped, as if held by a giant hand. The ship shuddered, then steadied, still turning but slower. "There. Hold that thought."
She turned to Nell. "We've bought ourselves an hour, maybe less. I've got us into a decaying spiral. We'll circle closer with every turn, and once we get within a certain point, no amount of magic is going to hold us."
"An hour," Nell repeated.
"At most." Tulip lowered her hands, and the shuddering resumed, though gentler now. "The problem is the power source. Elemental magic runs on life force, and the strongest reservoir a person has is arousal. Scruffulus here has spent his entire reserve on Elophelia."
Scruffulus flushed. "I didn't know there was a test."
"Well, now you do." Tulip wiped her hands on her nightgown. "I have maybe a third of mine, and I'll need to keep that for the end, when the pull strengthens. If we want to get out of this, we need someone with a full tank and a lot of stamina - or one fucking monumental plan that defies all the laws of nature."
Nell's jaw tightened. "Captain's cabin. Now."
Brutehilde, Polly, and Ulrika followed her below. The cabin was small and neat, and Nell shut the door behind them with a click. The ship creaked around them, turning, always turning.
"Sit," Nell said, and dropped into her chair. "Tulip says an hour. What do we do?"
"Use another mage," Polly said. "Someone with a full reserve. Scruffulus is spent, but there's Ulrika here. She's got all kinds of power pent up."
Ulrika Grimquim raised an eyebrow. "I have discipline, not lust. My magic runs on control, not desire. It's not what she needs And I'm not a proper sorcerer, I'm a warrior first and foremost."
"Then we find someone else," Brutehilde said. "We've got a ship full of folk. Someone's got a full tank."
Polly snorted. "Elophelia's been draining Scruffulus for weeks. Scoffer's always horny but he's not a mage. Dravion's a poet, what would he know?"
Nell leaned forward. "The point isn't that they're mages. It's that we have to transfer libido to someone who can channel it. Tulip can take it, if she's got a source."
Ulrika smiled, thin and cold. "Then the question is who gives the gift, and how. And given the company we keep, I suspect the how is not in question."
Brutehilde frowned. "You mean we need to fuck someone to power the spell?"
"That is precisely what I mean." Ulrika folded her arms. "The question is who. And since the captain here gave the order, I should think it belongs to her to see it done."
The cabin's porthole creaked open, and Honeymuff strutted through the gap like she owned the place. She landed on the map table, folded her wings, and stuck her hands on her hips.
"Good news!" she chirped. "I've got a plan."
Brutehilde stared. "Were you listening at the window?"
"Of course I was. The captain's cabin has the best acoustics on the ship. You can hear everything through the glass." Honeymuff beamed. "And I was in the rigging when the whirlpool started, so I've had longer to think about this than any of you."
Nell pinched the bridge of her nose. "Honeymuff, this is a command meeting."
"And I'm saving the day. That counts as command." The pixie hopped off the table and hovered at eye level, a shimmer of wings and insufferable confidence. "I can add my pixie dust to Tulip's spell. Boost her power. Give her the juice she needs to hold us out of the drink."
The room went quiet.
Brutehilde's eyes narrowed. "Is that safe?"
"No idea," Honeymuff said cheerfully. "Pixie magic is chaotic. It might boost Tulip's spell. It might boost the whirlpool instead. There's no telling until it's going off."
"Out of the question," Nell said, flat. "We don't risk making things worse. If your dust backfires, the whirlpool grows, and we're all at the bottom feeding the fish. Is that what you want?"
"Of course not. I'm pregnant, I'm not suicidal." Honeymuff folded her arms and frowned up at her. "But it's still up to me to save the day. I can fly, for one thing. I've been above this mess for the last quarter hour, and I've seen how it works."
Nell raised an eyebrow. "Enlighten us."
"The whirlpool is dragging us in a clockwise circle. A big one. We're getting pulled closer with every turn, but we're not just being sucked straight in. We're circling. Like a corkscrew going down."
Polly scratched her head. "So?"
"So," Honeymuff said, with the exaggerated patience of someone explaining something obvious to a three-year-old, "we stop fighting it. We stop trying to escape in a direct line, all sails into the wind like an idiot. Instead, we reverse the direction of rotation. We sail with the current, against the spin, and we corkscrew our way out. Moving further from the centre every turn, without ever having to cross the current."
Silence.
Ulrika's face shifted into something that might have been approval. "The sprite has a brain."
"It's not a bad plan," Brutehilde admitted. "Going full-tilt against the pull is suicide. Adjusting our course to follow the curve, and hoping the current spits us out sideways... that could work."
Nell looked at the map on the table, then at the porthole, through which the ocean was visibly tilting. "It's a good plan," she said slowly. "It's a very good plan. But it increases the distance we need to travel. We need to turn faster than the current pulls, and we need to hold that turn for a long time. We don't have the power for that."
"I could still add my dust," Honeymuff said, brightening.
"No."
"A little dust. A little kick."
"No."
"Then we get more power." Nell looked at Ulrika, at Brutehilde, at Polly. "The question was who gives the gift. Tulip's spell runs on arousal. If we want more of it, we need to find someone with a full tank and a strong heart, and we need to get them burning."
Brutehilde's brow furrowed. "What exactly are you proposing, Captain?"
Nell met her eyes, and the ship tilted beneath them, closer to the abyss with every slow, dreadful turn. "I'm proposing we ask the crew who loves this ship enough to give their all for it. And then we put them to work."
"Get the bell," Nell said.
Brutehilde stepped out of the cabin and hauled on the bell rope with both hands. The bronze note cut through the creak of the turning ship, three long peals that brought every head on deck swinging. The crew came up from the galley, from the cargo hold, from the cabins, gathering in a loose knot below the quarterdeck. Some still had porridge bowls in their hands. Dravion had his notebook. Sindy had a saw, which she set down with visible reluctance.
Nell stood at the rail and looked down at them. The deck tilted underfoot, a degree more than it had a minute ago. The whirlpool's roar was a low, constant pressure at the edge of hearing.
"All right," she said. "You all know where we are. We're caught in a whirlpool that's dragging us in with every turn. I won't lie to you; we're in a bad spot. But we have a way out." She glanced at the porthole behind her, where Tulip stood with her hands pressed to the glass and a sheen of sweat on her forehead. "Tulip's magic can hold us long enough to ride the current free, but her power is running dry. It needs fuel."
A murmur ran through the crew.
"What kind of fuel?" Sindy called out.
Nell straightened her coat. "Arousal. Her magic runs on life force, and life force is strongest in passion. We need someone with a full tank and a strong heart, and we need them burning hot. The plan is to pick volunteers by lot, to keep it fair, and put them to work in pairs on deck where Tulip can draw from them."
The murmur got louder. Scoffer's hand shot up. "I'll do it. I'm always ready for a good shag."
"Noted," Nell said. "Who else? Who on this ship is willing to give their all for our survival?"
Silence. Then a dozen voices at once.
"What, you had to ask?" Polly said, grinning. "You've got a ship full of degenerates and you're asking if anyone wants to fuck? Put my name in the hat, Captain."
"Me too," Scathach said, cracking her knuckles.
"Absolutely not leaving this to the orcs and the pirates," Dravion declared, snapping his notebook shut. "I shall serve my ship with my cock as surely as with my pen."
"I'll do it," Scoffer rumbled. "With anyone you pair me with. Even the captain."
"Thank you, Scoffer." Nell's tone made it clear the offer was declined.
One by one the hands went up. Scathach. Dravion. Scoffer. Brutehilde, after a moment's hesitation and a pointed look from Polly. Sindy, who had picked her saw back up and was now looking thoughtful. Tulip called out from the window that she'd already be part of it, being both anchor and conduit. Even Wee Minnie raised her tea-stained hand.
"Good," Nell said. "Then partners by lot. Everyone who volunteered, step forward."
They did so, forming a ragged line along the rail. Ulrika procured a hat and tore a page from Dravion's notebook into slips. She wrote names one at a time, folded each slip tight, and dropped them into the brim. It was the most organised thing she had done all voyage, and the crew watched with the nervous attentiveness of gamblers before the dice land.
"Wait," Elophelia said. She had come up from the hold and was looking at Scruffulus' straining face as he assisted Tulip, her red dress a slash of colour against the grey sky. "What about me? Am I in the draw?"
Nell considered her. Scruffulus stood behind Tulip with a look of horrified fascination, the kind a man wears when he understands what is about to happen to his girlfriend and cannot decide if he wants to stop it or watch very closely.
"You're in," Nell said. "If you're willing."
"Willing?" Elophelia laughed. "Darling, I've been stuck with the same two hands and the same wizard for three weeks. I did not come on this voyage to be faithful. Put me in the hat."
Scruffulus's mouth opened and closed. "Elophelia, I don't think... she can't..."
"She can, and she will," Elophelia said sweetly. "You'll watch, and you'll like it. Generous of you to share, I think."
The line of volunteers shifted nervously. Brutehilde looked at Nell, then at Scruffulus, then at Elophelia, and pulled a face that said this was not her idea and she wanted that on record.
Nell ignored her. "Partners by lot. It's the only fair way. The pull of the draw decides, and nobody complains, because it's fate and not favour."
"And what happens if somebody draws the same partner twice in a row?" Sindy asked, twirling her saw.
"Then fate is a bastard and we draw again." Polly took the hat from Ulrika and shook it. "Right, Captain. Order of the day?"
"Draw."
Polly reached in, pulled the first two slips, and read them out. "Brutehilde and It."
The cosmic horror's oilskinned tentacular mass swivelled toward Brutehilde. Its expression was unreadable, curious and tentative. Brutehilde cracked her knuckles. "Fine. As long as you don't drip slime on my clogs."
"Next." Polly pulled again. "Scoffer and Scathach."
"Oh, wonderful," Scathach said, baring her teeth. "Him again."
"Fate loves you," Scoffer said, and grinned.
"Elophelia and Dravion."
The deck went very quiet. Dravion turned a pale shade of ash and looked at his notebook as if it might save him. Elophelia clapped her hands in delight and winked at Scruffulus, who had gone alarmingly red.
"That's a fantastic draw," she announced. "I've never had a dark elf before. Do you have any poetry about your technique, or are you all talk?"
"It's all talk," Scoffer muttered, and Dravion shot him a venomous look.
Polly pulled two more and squinted at them. "Sindy and Polly herself. Well, well. Looks like I'm getting my hands on that saw after all."
"I'll be careful with it," Sindy promised.
"Nell and Ulrika."
Nell's mouth went dry. Ulrika looked at her with slow, clinical interest and said nothing at all. The captain and the warrior, paired by fate. The ship tilted again, a few more degrees, and the pull of the current pressed against the hull like a hand closing on a throat.
"Anyone left?" Polly asked.
"Me." Tulip pushed off from the window and stood on the deck with a wobble. "But I'm the conduit. I need to be up where the magic flows, and I can't be distracted. I'll be at the mast." She paused and looked at the sliding deck. "So I need someone who can hold me steady while I concentrate."
"Then mark me as your steady hand," Minnie said brightly, in a voice like warm biscuits being dunked. She stepped forward and laid a plump hand on Tulip's back. "I can hold you upright, hen, and gi'e ye a wee sip o' tea when ye're feelin' weak."."
The crew looked at Minnie. Nobody had any objections.
"Fine," Nell said. "Then you're partnered. Everyone else, the lot is drawn. We have maybe twenty minutes before Tulip's stamina gives out. Get ready."
There was a scramble. Sindy disappeared below and emerged thirty seconds later with her arms full of leather and brass, a collection of strap-ons, harnesses, and belts she had evidently been hoarding since the voyage began. She laid them out on a barrel like a city merchant displaying wares. Lube came from the galley, a jar of rendered fat that Greta had been saving for frying, now requisitioned with a warning that it was not to be wasted.
"Everyone gets one, or everyone gets one who wants one," Sindy announced. "The ones who don't need can stand back and watch. Actually, no. There's no tourists on this deck today. If you're not fucking, you're cheering. The louder the better, for the spell."
She pulled a heavy leather harness from the pile and held it out to Brutehilde. "You first, chief. You've got the biggest thighs on this ship, and I've only got so many straps."
Brutehilde took the harness with the grim, resigned dignity of a woman accepting a fate she had hoped to avoid. She stepped into it and cinched it tight around her hips, the leather creaking under her hands. A thick, curved shaft of polished wood rose from her crotch like an accusation.
It, watching her, let out a low, slurping sound that might have been approval.
At the mast, Tulip braced herself against the wood and went still. Minnie wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her steady against the tilt of the deck, her other hand steadying her tea trolley. The air around them shimmered green with power..
"Honeymuff," Nell called up into the rigging. "I need you in the crow's nest. Eyes on the water. Tell me if the pull slackens or if we're starting to fall faster. I need you watching the edge of the whirlpool. Can you do that?"
Honeymuff zipped down to hover at Nell's eyeline, wings a furious blur, her tiny face a picture of indignation. "And who exactly is going to be giving me a good hard screwing while everyone else gets their rocks off? You?"
"You'll be on watch," Nell said flatly.
"Watch! I'm the horniest creature on this ship and you want me to keep watch? Do you have any idea what it's like to watch a dozen people shagging while you hover up there like an obedient little ornament?"
"Yes," Nell said. "That's exactly why I'm assigning you. You're the only one I trust to give an accurate report of the current's behaviour from the air, and you can't do that with a cock up your cunt. Up you go."
Honeymuff put her hands on her hips. "I could have a cock up my cunt and still report the current's behaviour. I am remarkably skilled at multitasking."
"What if I fall overboard? What if you're distracted and I'm at the bottom of the whirlpool?"
"You'd fly down and catch me."
"With my dust? With a tentacle up my arse? With my cunt full of."
"Go," Nell said. "That's an order."
Honeymuff let out a sound like a boiling kettle, a noise of pure, righteous fury. For a moment Nell thought she would fly into the whirlpool out of spite. Instead the pixie shot upward, wings whipping through the rigging, and landed on the edge of the crow's nest with her legs dangling over the side and her arms folded.
"I'll be up here, if anyone needs me," she called down, "keeping watch, as ordered, while all of you get your rocks off. I hope you all get chafed."
"Point taken," Nell said. "Now, crew. Tulip needs us burning. Pair up by lot, and let's see how much life force we can pour into her spell."
Brutehilde turned to It. The creature stood nearly twice her own massive height, a wall of slippery black ooze and curling tentacles. She looked up at him, then down at the leather cock she wore, and shrugged.
"Right," she said. "How do you want this?"
It slurped something unintelligible, gestured vaguely, and then bent down and grasped Brutehilde around the waist with two huge tentacles. She weighed a ton, maybe more, but he hoisted her up like she was a sack of flour and set her on the barrel. Her thighs parted, and the polished wood shaft stood between them, ready.
Brutehilde sat on the barrel, leather shaft standing proud between her thighs. It bent over her, two tentacles wrapped around her waist, a third sliding up her calf. The creature's form shimmered as it began to work its particular magic on her. What happened next would have broken a lesser woman. By the roaring guttural sounds that tore from Brutehilde's throat, and the way her thighs clamped around the creature's mass, the encounter was frankly inexplicable to mortal understanding. Her knuckles went white on the edge of the barrel. Her clogs kicked at the air. Then she simply disappeared beneath a curling, oily wave of tentacles, and the only sign of her was a series of shuddering, wholly inhuman noises.
Scoffer and Scathach needed no instruction. They had already found each other. Scoffer tore his shirt off, chest hair matted with sweat, and Scathach let out a battle cry that made three nearby hands flinch. She launched herself at him. No finesse, no foreplay, just her teeth on his shoulder and her legs locking around his waist.
"You've been asking for this," she snarled, grinding her crotch against his.
"We've been doing this for weeks," Scoffer grunted.
"Not like this we haven't."
He lowered her onto a coiled rope and yanked her breeches down her thighs. Her cunt was already slick, glistening in the grey light. He shoved his trousers down, cock springing free, thick and already leaking. No preamble. He drove into her in one stroke, and she screamed and clawed at his back as he began to pound into her with the rhythm of a battering ram. The deck shook around them. The ship tilted. Scoffer didn't care.
"Yes," she roared. "Yes, yes, yes, fill me, you great bloody ox, fuck me till I can't walk."
He grabbed her ankles and lifted them over his shoulders, driving deeper. Every thrust slammed her arse against the deck. Her head cracked against the planking and she laughed, red-eyed, wild. She bit his wrist when it came near her face. He pinched her nipple hard enough to make her arch her back. They rutted like beasts, like wolves, and at the top of the deck the shimmer of green light around Tulip's mast brightened.
Polly watched them with a grin and turned to Sindy. "Reckon we can match that?"
Sindy had a scalpel in her hand. "I reckon we can do better."
She led Polly to the barrel where the strap-ons lay, cleared a space, and told her to lie back. Polly dropped to the deck with her spine against the planking and her legs spread. Sindy knelt between them, holding the scalpel up to the light.
"You're a mess," she said. "I'll fix that."
"Feel free to take your time."
Sindy's hands were steady as she unbuttoned Polly's skirt. The fishnets came next, rolled down over her thighs. Then the blade touched skin, cool and sharp, and the first stroke swept a line of dyed green hair off Polly's mound. Polly let out a soft, surprised breath.
"How long you been thinking about this?"
"Since the shaving soap came out last night," Sindy said. "I heard all about the captain's smooth cunt. It didn't seem fair to leave you shaggy."
She worked in short, delicate strokes. The pile of hair grew beside Polly's hip. Her skin emerged pink and raw and naked, goosebumps rising from the cold. A final pass parted her outer lips, and she tilted the scalpel to trim the edges.
"Hold still."
Polly watched the blade come close to her clit and held her breath. Sindy took her time, her tongue between her teeth, her eyes keen. When she finished she set the scalpel down, wiped the skin clean, and sat back to admire the result.
"Perfect."
Polly looked down at her bare cunt, wet and open. Then she sat up and looked at Sindy. "Now empty your arse and face the barrel."
Sindy's eyes glinted. She had been waiting for this. She bent over the barrel, braced her hands at the edges, and spread her legs. Her arse was smooth, pale, presented like a gift. Polly picked up the speculum from the pile of leather and brass. It was cold, heavy, a brass duckbill on a set of gears. She clicked it open and shut once, testing the range.
"You sure about this?"
"Just do it."
Polly pressed the tips of the speculum against Sindy's arsehole. Sindy took a deep breath. The cool metal slid against her rim, teasing the muscle. Then pressure, a slow steady push, and the duckbill parted her and slid inside. Sindy's back arched. Her fingers dug into the barrel's edge.
Polly turned the screw. The gears clicked, the duckbill opened, stretching Sindy's hole from a tight, compliant ring into a wide, hollow opening. Sindy whimpered. She was shivering, her thighs trembling, sweat glistening on her spine.
"How's that?" Polly asked.
"Keep going. I want to feel the whole thing pop."
Polly kept turning. The duckbill's wings spread wider. Sindy let out a long, keening sound, half pain, half ecstasy, her body locked rigid. Her cunt was dripping. She was utterly open, breached and held at maximum. Her hips pushed back against the speculum, taking more, always more.
Behind them, by the mast, the green light around Tulip swelled another notch.
Nell watched the deck for another moment, and then turned to Ulrika.
They did not speak. They did not need to. Ulrika put a hand on Nell's chest and walked her backwards until her spine hit the mast. Ulrika's face was unreadable, dark eyes fixed on hers.
"Captain," Ulrika said. "You know what comes next."
"I was hoping you would show me."
Ulrika took hold of Nell's coat collar and ripped it open. Buttons pattered across the deck. She tore the shirt underneath, exposing white, bare skin, the beginning of her ribcage. Ulrika's mouth made a thin line.
"Bend."
Nell bent, hands on her knees. Her breeches came down around her thighs. Her bare arse rose, smooth and pale and her quim newly shaved. Ulrika crossed her hands once, twice, stretching her fingers.
The first blow landed with a sound like canvas ripping. Nell's whole body jolted. Crimson bloomed across her left arsecheek. She did not make a sound.
Another blow. The right cheek matched the left. Ulrika worked with the same mechanical precision she brought to sword drill, finding her rhythm, each slap landing with a distinct, orchestrated crack that echoed across the quarterdeck. Nell's head bowed lower with every strike, her knuckles white, but her knees stayed straight.
"That's your arousal talking," Ulrika said. "Does it hurt?"
"Yes," Nell breathed.
"Good. Then it's working."
She finished with a sequence of six, faster and harder, her palm landing flat on the bright, crimson burns she had raised. Nell let out a shuddering breath. Her cunt was slick now, dripping down the inside of her thighs.
Ulrika stepped back. "Your turn."
Nell straightened, opened the leather harness, and pulled it on. She cinched the straps tight over her hips. A thick, dark shaft of tapered thestral horn rose from her pelvis. She did not check Ulrika's face as she bent her over the rail. Ulrika was always in control, but her fingers gripped the railing hard, and the muscles in her shoulders were tense and alive.
Nell slid the tip of the horn through Ulrika's slick folds, teasing her clit, pressing in but not entering. Ulrika shuddered.
"Take what you want," Ulrika said. "That's an order."
Nell slid the horn into her in one stroke. Ulrika grunted. Nell did not stop. She set a rhythm, long and deep, each thrust driving her into the rail. Ulrika's hands white-knuckled on the wood. The horn was thick, the flare at the base pressing against her cunt with every stroke. Ulrika pushed back against her, riding the invasion, taking what she wanted.
Nell leaned over her, her mouth at her ear. The green light around Tulip pulsed brighter, a great swelling of force that made the hair on their arms stand up.
"We're burning through it," Tulip called from the mast. "Keep going. All of you."
Elophelia had taken Dravion below the quarterdeck, out of the direct sight of the mast. She had him pressed against the cabin wall, her hands running over his lean chest. His dark skin was smooth, cool to the touch, and he trembled under her palms.
"This is new," she said. "I've had enough hairy bellies for one voyage. You hunt, don't you? There's nothing soft about you."
Dravion said nothing. His jaw was tight, his pale navy eyes fixed on some point beyond her shoulder.
"Don't be nervous," Elophelia purred. She undid her dress and let it fall from her shoulders. The red fabric pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it, naked, and let him look at the pretty yellow curls framing her pink cunt. "I don't bite. Well. Not unless I'm asked."
She got him out of his trousers. His cock was long and slender, and when she took it in her hand it surprised her by hardening instantly. She lowered herself onto him with a gasp, her thighs wrapped around his waist. He was lean, angular, dark. He felt nothing like the hairy, scrawny scarecrow she was used to. She drove down on him and began a fast, trembling rhythm, and she found his dark, lean frame fascinating in a way that made her dizzy.
It was nothing like sex with Scruffulus. It was sharp and quick, hitting angles her wizard never did. A series of small, bright orgasms rolled through her in quick succession, like stones skipping across water. She shook and bit her lip and came once, twice, three times in the space of a minute, with her whole body clamped on his cock.
Dravion let out a strangled sound of surprise and pleasure, trembling under her.
Behind them, by the mast, Scruffulus had turned green in a completely different way. His wand shook. His jaw was set. But as he watched Elophelia ride the dark elf, something broke inside of him. A raw, wounded power surged from his chest, and he raised both hands and slammed them against Tulip's glowing barrier. The green light flared white and then deep, blazing red, the whole ship shaking with the force of his jealousy.
"Blast it all," he growled. "She's mine."
The spell caught. Tulip gasped as the influx of power hit her, her hands pressed to the glass, her body illuminated from within. The Sea-Nymph's Revenge shuddered along her whole length. And against the pull of the whirlpool, the ship began, slowly, painfully, to turn.
Honeymuff zipped down out of the crow's nest like a falling star and landed on the masthead, wings aflutter, her tiny voice cutting through the groans and the slap of flesh.
"It's working!" she shrieked. "You're all magnificent, it's working! The ship's turning anti-clockwise now, see? Every circle takes us further out, not in!"
Nell looked up from where she was pounding Ulrika against the rail. The sea beyond the bow was still a churning ring of white, but the arc of it had shifted. They were riding the current wide, cutting across the spiral like a thread drawn through a cork. She had seen it with her own eyes, the angle of the wake, the way the deck tilted less each breath.
"One last effort!" Honeymuff flew to the centre of the deck, hovering at the base of the mast where the green glow thrummed like a second heartbeat. "One enormous, simultaneous orgasm from every one of you at the mast, circling anti-clockwise, all together, and the spell will blow the current wide open. You'll pop out of the whirlpool like a pimple!"
"A gyre," Polly shouted from where she knelt over Sindy's spread arse. "She wants us to form a shagging circle around the mast!"
"Is that going to work?" Nell called.
"Who cares?" Scoffer roared. "It's the best idea I've heard all voyage!"
They moved. No one gave the order. The crew simply shifted, positioning themselves around the mast in a ring, faces all turned the same way, all moving anti-clockwise. Brutehilde and It took their place on the starboard side, Scoffer and Scathach just past them, Sindy and Polly after that, Elophelia and Dravion opposite, Nell and Ulrika on the port side, Scruffulus at Tulip's back with his hands flattened on her spine, and Minnie steadying them all with a cup of tea that nobody had time to drink.
"Everyone at once!" Honeymuff hovered above them, turning the same direction, frigging herself like a maniac. "I'll count us in when I see the glow peak! Don't come early, or it won't work, and I'll be very disappointed!"
Brutehilde grunted. "How do you tell a crowd of pricks like us not to come early?"
"Simple," Honeymuff said sweetly. "Think of the stew faction. Think of Sly's bandaged face. Think of anything that's not a wet cunt. If you can last, we all live."
The ring reshaped itself. Tulip leaned back against the mast, her legs spread, and Scruffulus knelt between them with his mouth already working at her bare, glistening cunt. She moaned and gripped the wood behind her. The green light flared.
"Anti-clockwise," Nell said, positioning Ulrika against the hull. "Everyone, one direction. Chase each other's arses. Move as one."
They began to move. Each couple thrust and ground in the same turning order. The ring of bodies circled the mast slowly, a carousel of flesh, pistoning together. Scoffer's cock slammed into Scathach with a wet, rhythmic smack. Polly shoved her fist into Sindy's speculum-stretched hole, twisting as she pushed. Elophelia rode Dravion backwards now, her spine against his chest, watching the mast as she bounced on his cock, and Dravion's dark hands held her hips and drove her down.
It had set Brutehilde on the barrel, the polished wooden shaft riding deep inside, and worked her with a tentacle curled around her clit at the same pace. Brutehilde's thighs shook. Her moans had gone low and guttural, a deep rumble that matched the groan of the hull.
Nell drove thestral horn into Ulrika, heavy and slow, each stroke timed to her own breathing, so all of them moved together in a wave around the mast. The glow from Tulip's belly pulsed in time with their rhythm.
"Saw it," Honeymuff called, checking the horizon with a twist of her tiny body. "Still anti-clockwise. We're losing less ground each turn. Keep going. It's nearly there."
"Nearly where?" Brutehilde snarled.
"Breakout. The pull's about to let go. I can feel it in the air. One push, one snapped chain, and we're free."
The groans rose. The ring tightened. Crew rounded the mast, turning the same way, the whole ship rotating a circle against the whirlpool. Tulip came with a long cry that turned into a sob, and the green flash went white, then gold, and the ring of them all felt it, the crest of the wave, the peak building in each body at once.
"Now!" Honeymuff screamed. "Now, now, now!"
They came. Not one after another, but all together, a single wave of release rolling around the mast like a crack running through ice. Scoffer roared into Scathach's neck as she clamped down on him. Sindy convulsed around Polly's fist. Elophelia's whole body seized, her teeth buried in Dravion's shoulder, and Dravion followed with a strangled cry. Brutehilde grabbed a tentacle and came with her head thrown back. Ulrika never made a sound, only shuddered hard and white, gripping the rail so tight her knuckles split.
Nell collapsed against Ulrika's back, her cunt swollen and ringing, the horn still buried to the hilt.
And Tulip screamed. The golden light surged through her, through Minnie, through Scruffulus, into the mast, into the keel, into the sea. The whirlpool howled, a sound like the world tearing open. The ship lurched, heeled hard, and then the current simply let them go, like a fist unclenching.
The Sea-Nymph's Revenge shot free of the spiral and across the open water, sails snapping full in the wind for the first time in hours.
The deck levelled. The roaring fell behind them.
Nell slid off the rail and found her breeches. The sea was calm and grey and empty, and the horizon was a flat line all the way around. She turned. The whirlpool was a distant smudge of white, already fading.
"Ahoy there!"
The cry came from the water ahead. Everyone looked. A great flat head broke the surface, followed by a coil of dark tentacle, and Lefty surfaced twenty yards off the bow, spouting a plume of seawater into the air like a whale greeting an old friend.
"You absolute bastard," Polly said, and laughed.
Greta appeared at the rail with a bucket of fish guts in her hands. "Where have you been, you great wally?" she called and pitched the bucket. Lefty caught it in midair, swallowed it whole, and let out a low, happy rumble.
Nell sagged against the rail. Her thighs were raw. Her back ached. Ulrika was already walking away without a word, and Nell let her go.
"That," Nell said, to nobody in particular, "is how we do not arrive at a capital."
Honeymuff zipped down and landed on the rail beside her, beaming. "You're welcome."
"You tried to take over my command."
"And it worked. You're welcome."
Nell looked at the pixie. For a long moment she said nothing. Then she reached out and touched Honeymuff's tiny shoulder with one finger, a soft, gentle touch, full of an affection that surprised them both.
"Thank you," Nell said. "You saved us."
Honeymuff's smile went a little wide, a little soft. "I know."