The Devil's Tide by Matt Tomerlin

sharply arched eyebrows. Her eyes were closed. She continued her methodical descent, following the steps into the water until her head vanished beneath the surface.
    Kate scanned the water, but it was impenetrable. She was about to swim the opposite direction when two blue orbs materialized, impossibly bright, illuminating everything beneath the surface in otherworldly cerulean hues. The naked woman was crouched three feet from Kate's legs. The orbs were her eyes, blank and passionless, and they were transfixed on Kate.
    She woke with a start, twisting in her hammock. She sat up, looking around. The hold was not quite flooded, but water was streaming down the steps from the main entrance. Large puddles had collected on the floor.
    She heard men shouting at each other above, footsteps thudding rapidly along the deck. Someone loosed a high-pitched shriek, or maybe it was the wind gusting through the hold. A crash resounded from above, bowing the planking just above her head.
Ranger
shuddered violently, and Kate was nearly thrown from her hammock. Water seeped through a crevice between planks, pattering her chest. And then the water darkened. She looked down.
    Her shirt was drenched in blood.

HORNIGOLD
    "Get to safety, you fool!" Hornigold bellowed. "That man's already dead!"
    The surgeon either hadn't heard Hornigold or was deliberately ignoring him. The fool was scrambling through a wave as it cascaded over the deck, stubbornly trying to get to a deckhand that was pinned beneath a fallen yardarm. If the pool of blood that spread from the man's compressed torso was any indication, he was well beyond saving.
    In a last ditch attempt to get the surgeon's attention, Hornigold drew his pistol and aimed at the sky. In his years of captaining, he had learned that nothing commanded attention like a gunshot. He pulled the trigger, but the hammer clacked without firing. The powder was soaked through. He angrily threw the pistol at the surgeon, but he missed his mark by a few feet.
    Hornigold could only watch in horror as the surgeon's feet were swept out from under him by the wave. The current carried him screaming across the deck, legs and arms flailing. For an instant, his eyes, insane with terror, met Hornigold's. And then the surgeon was dashed against one of the starboard cannons, his head splitting like a watermelon on the cascabel knob. His limp corpse slipped through the gunport and tumbled over the side of the ship, lost to the roiling sea.
    The surgeon had been a recent addition to the crew, and Hornigold couldn't even remember the man's name. Copernicus Ryan, the boatswain, had recommended the surgeon a month ago, but Hornigold had been too busy to get to know him. He was glad he hadn't spared the time.
How many more will die,
he wondered,
without that idiot around to provide proper medical attention?
    Bastion, who had been securing the foresail, leapt from his perch and scrambled toward the cannon where the surgeon had vanished. "Back to your post, sailor!" Quartermaster Reed bellowed from the bow, his arm wrapped around a swivel gun for support. Bastion skidded to a halt just short of the cannon, staring dumbly at Reed. He started to turn back when a massive wave raised
Ranger's
bow high into the air. Bastion was lifted off his feet as the ship crested the wave and slid steeply down the backside. Bastion touched down, his ass taking the brunt of the damage. He rolled over, moaning as water splashed over him.
    The long bowsprit plunged into the black water, shuddering on impact. The jib topsail snapped free, taking a three foot long splinter of the bowsprit with it, and whipped back toward the deck. Two deckhands were quick enough to duck, but a third man never knew what hit him. The sail catapulted him over the side as it swept past.
Another man without a name lost to the sea,
thought Hornigold.
    The topsail arced on its tether, the long splinter of bowsprit still attached. Reed released the swivel gun he had been clinging