Rise, Forgotten Son
The following short story has been inspired by the weekly Iron Age Media literature prompt "The Inferno" for Wednesday, May 10, 2023
The bridge of the Valor shook as the advancing enemy cruiser blasted the armored hull once more. Admiral Morrison almost lost his footing, but managed to regain his balance with his free hand. The combat information center where he stood was abuzz with activity, as the pitched naval battle raged on around him.
“Damn those crazy bastards!”, he cursed, raising his binoculars once more to look at the suicidal rush of the heavy cruiser that had broken the Pelwati fleet’s line. “Battery released, bring it down!”.
His experienced eyes scanned the waters. The enemy’s mad charge had cost his fleet a frigate, and caused some moderate damage to a number of other ships, but couldn’t possibly pose a threat to the Valor. The flagship was well armored, and its position precluded the Pelwati ships from any significant attacks. Still, the enemy warship had sped straight for Morrison’s line, and now it paid the price.
The Valor’s guns roared as the admiral’s orders were followed with efficiency. The ordnance joined in on the other warships’ as they rained deafening fire and fury down on the Pelwati cruiser. Explosions littered the deck of the enemy vessel, heavy artillery shells exacting a heavy price for that desperate attack. The bodies of crewmen rained down with each hit, being swallowed by the sea as the ship was torn to shreds.
“Report casualties!”, Morrison barked. His men were well trained, and promptly provided him with a clear picture of the attack’s aftermath. Shaking his head impatiently, he assessed the situation, planning a counter offensive and hoping to soon bring an end to that long war.
The Pelwati were not your typical enemy force. For one, they seemed to disregard their own losses in almost every engagement. Theirs was a culture of suicidal zealotry. Deciphering their intentions and motivations was often difficult, not only because of their strange language, but because their actions didn’t seem to follow normal logic. They had always been an occasional nuisance, waylaying trade vessels and conducting other such small attacks. Morrison had heard the horrific reports of what they did to the crews of those captured ships. Tales of mutilations and torture, of barbaric bloody sacrifices at sea. The admiral had tried to steer the brass to take more definitive action, but the cost to attack the treacherous reefs and myriad islands of the Pelwati archipelago had been deemed too high. Until the fanatics went into all-out war.
Spewing forth from their archipelago like a swarm of locusts, the Pelwati fleet had attacked and razed everything in its path. Advancing relentlessly, their savage assault dug deep, like a red-hot knife driven deep into the heart of an unsuspecting victim. They descended upon both small coastal towns and targets of strategic importance, indiscriminately spreading death and destruction, committing every kind of war crime imaginable as they subjected their captives to unspeakable horrors.
Finally spurred to action in the face of such barbaric zealotry, the navy assembled the fleets to face the attackers. Rallying around figures such as Admiral Morrison, fierce naval battles slowly pushed the enemy from the afflicted shores. The Pelwati favored fast, lightly armored but very well armed ships. Every confrontation ended with bodies riddling the waters, but the tides began to turn. Against determined resistance, the fanatics were driven back to open sea, and finally back to their own territory. Hoping to deliver the finishing blow and crush the threat once and for all, Morrison’s fleet now faced the remainder Pelwatis over the Neraka Trenches, with the enemy’s archipelago already visible in the distance.
“I want coordinated torpedo strikes on those destroyers”, the admiral ordered. The blasted husk of the Pelwati heavy cruiser staggered slowly on, beginning to capsize. Morrison didn’t want to give the enemy another shot at his flagship. “Inform the submarines, let’s bring the hammer down on these savages”.
“Sir! They’re ramming!”, cried an officer at the bridge, with a note of incredulity.
Somehow, the severely damaged Pelwati heavy cruiser had kept on going. Turning slightly, it pointed its ravaged bow towards one of Morrison’s destroyers. It was a horrid sight. The cruiser’s hull and deck were a twisted metal mess, blackened by the impact of heavy munitions. Like a dying animal, it sped up with the clear intent of slamming the smaller vessel in its death throes, bringing a bounty of death to the ocean even in its own last moments.
“Action starboard!”, the admiral shouted into the radio, bringing the Valor’s guns to bear. But it was too late. With the ear-splitting crash of metal against metal, the moribund cruiser rammed the destroyer, sending men over the side to be taken screaming by the restless sea.
While the thunderous noise from the collision still echoed in the air, another sound of rasping metal came from the cruiser’s stern. A section of the hull opened up, revealing a flooded well deck. From that dark opening to the twisted entrails of the Pelwati ship, half a dozen speedboats spilled forth, each carrying a large bulbous shape.
Morrison’s eyes widened at that sight. “Barrage fire!”, he shouted. “Don’t let those sons of bitches near our ships!”
The speedboats scattered as the point defense machine guns of the Valor and the nearby ships opened fire. A maddening game of tag started, as large caliber bullets crisscrossed the air and sprayed water in the attempt to sink the small enemy crafts before they could bring their explosive payload to bear in their continued suicidal attack.
One of the speedboats was caught in a torrent of gunfire, its crew turned into a bloody mist as the quick vessel was brought to a halt and sunk, taking its deadly cargo with it. A lucky shot from one of Morrison’s frigates hit the mine carried by another boat, sending water, metal shreds and bloody chunks flying everywhere.
Maneuvering through the storm of bullets, two of the boats came close to a destroyer. The bigger ship’s gunnery crew worked desperately to shoot them down, but the small vessels were too fast. As the first boat neared the destroyer’s hull, the Pelwatis aboard raised their voices in one of their strange chants. Then, one of them pressed the detonator, and all was chaos.
With a booming impact, the explosion opened a hole both in the ocean and in the destroyer’s hull. The sea filled its opening with a spray of water rising high into the air, but the destroyer’s own wound was fatal. The ship rocked from the impact, causing even more waves in the wake of the blast, but its crew didn’t even have time to process the damage. The second speedboat rammed into the hull, causing a second terrible explosion that sealed the fate of the destroyer. Water rushed in to sink the warship, claiming another prize for the Neraka Trenches.
The remaining two speedboats still raced through the water, dodging gunfire as they searched for prey of their own. The concentrated fire of the defending ships overwhelmed one of them, and as it made a sharp turn to avoid a volley, another two ripped it in half.
Defying the rounds that rained around it, the last of the suicidal boats turned, bobbed and weaved, crossing the deadly waters as it made straight for the Valor. The heavy cruiser’s previous attack had caused little damage to Morrison’s flagship, but the menace of the fast-moving ship and its explosive contents promised to be more dangerous.
The combat information center at the ship’s bridge was a blur of movement and a cacophony of voices, as the admiral and his officers relayed orders on the radio. Lead rained heavy upon the Pelwati speedboat, but the slippery ship refused to be hit. Closer and closer it came, the mine it carried glistening evilly as the sharp turns sprayed water onto the small deck.
When it was but a few seconds away from the Valor’s hull, a round finally found its mark. The heavy caliber bullet tore through the front of the boat, shredding its way past the pilot, leaving a fist sized exit wound where his back used to be. This fortuitous shot was soon followed by others, mincing up the Pelwati crew while punching holes into the boat, which was soon swallowed up by the sea, where it joined the other sunk vessels and their offering of men to the depths.
With a collective sigh of relief, the crew of the Valor celebrated briefly, before being whipped back into focus by the admiral. He pointed to the enemy ships on the horizon.
“We take the fight to them, now!”, came his rallying cry. “Target the destroyers, let’s put an end to these damn zealots.”
No sooner had he spoken than an explosion of titanic proportions obliterated a frigate close to the Valor. The sound of the blast dwarfed all others that had echoed over the sea that day. The sheer force of the shockwave sent the nearby ships careening about, then shaking wildly as the displaced mass of water formed into tremendous waves.
Every man at the flagship’s combat information center stumbled to the floor. Dumbstruck by the magnitude of that explosion, they staggered back into their stations, as their rigid training took over and set their bodies into motion while their minds recovered.
Admiral Morrison was one of the first to recover. “What the hell was that?!”, he demanded angrily. A massive plume of black smoke rose from where his frigate had been a moment earlier. Fire still raged within it, a burning wound on the surface of the ocean. “Depth charges? Situation report on the submarines, now!”
He glared at his officers, waiting for an answer. While they were more than capable men, whose skill and nerves the admiral knew he could count on after countless battles fought together, this time they had nothing. The explosion had come out of nowhere, as if the ocean itself had erupted into fire. An uncharacteristic silence fell over the bridge, as seasoned sailors reeled from the shock and felt the unfamiliar unease of doubt touch their hearts.
“Sir?”, came the small voice of a comms officer, breaking the silence. “It's the Pelwatis, sir. I think you should listen to this.” Sitting at his station on the radio, the officer pushed a button, and the transmission blared from the combat center’s loudspeakers.
An eerie chant in the Pelwati language filled the bridge. Few men spoke their strange tongue, as the Pelwati were usually very insular. The study of the language was just now becoming common, a necessity of the war effort. Still, even if the words could not be understood, the unholy adoration and sinister undertones caused the hairs at the back of the sailor’s necks to stand up.
“They’re broadcasting on an open frequency, sir”, explained the comms officer, his eyes wide. “I think this is one of their rituals.”
“What are they saying, son?”, asked Morrison, somber. Even his temper had been subdued by that unnatural singing.
The officer at the radio struggled to translate, looking for the right words to convey the otherworldly subtext of the chant.
“Rise, forgotten son…”, he formed the words slowly, each syllable solidifying the silence on the bridge into an almost palpable sense of dread. “With blood both ours and theirs… We sow the seas with red… Rise, forgotten son… We give our flesh and offer theirs… Feast on this banquet of death… Rise, forgotten son… From the dark pits of Neraka… Rise forgotten son…”
No one dared speak a word while the comms officer translated the singing. His voice slowly died down, but the Pelwati kept going, their chanting spilling from the loudspeakers and laying heavy on the sailor’s souls. Crossing the thick silence, Admiral Morrison made his way to the radio and pressed a button, silencing the transmission and cutting short that evil influence on his men.
“Alright, people.” he pulled them from that well of despair. But even his voice felt somewhat shaken. The water still smoldered where the nearby frigate had blown up, and the admiral fought to encourage his men at the sight of the pillar of smoke. “We all know the twisted crap these Pelwati do in the name of whatever it is they believe in. Let them chant and shout all they want. They’ve started this war, but we’re sure as hell going to end it! If they want death so much, I say we give them some!”
His words seemed to help break the dark spell that the chant had cast, and slowly the men regained their composure. They assumed their stations, ready to follow their leader’s orders and bring the vengeful wrath of a nation down on those warmongering zealots.
Then, the gates of Hell were opened.
It started as a tremor, slight at first. It could have been chalked up to the movement of waves, but the more seasoned sailors in the fleet subconsciously noticed something was amiss. It didn’t feel like the water was moving as it should, displaced by the movement of the ships. It felt like it was coming from below.
From deep, deep down the Neraka Trenches it came. In the dark depths, rock that had endured for eons the crushing pressure of untold quantities of water suddenly cracked and crumbled. The unholy force that sundered them brought light to the abyss, but it was the reddish glow of fire and destruction, as a dark shape emerged from the molten bedrock of the world.
The two submarines that were part of the fleet were the first to succumb. Their sonar and communications still disabled by the aftershock of the enormous explosion that had claimed the frigate above, they were blessedly blinded to the horror that crushed and dragged them to their watery graves. Those were the lucky men, dying with their souls intact, as their eyes had not beheld the unnatural form that rose from the deep, making its way to the surface.
As it rose, its presence began to be noticed by the hapless men above the waves. First through instruments, that went wild as they captured a shape of leviathanic proportions coming from below. Soon, the naked eye could notice the vast shadow that grew underwater, swelling to proportions that should not be possible. Not in this world, at least.
Then, like an abominable birth, the shape gained the surface amid the fleet. It broke through the ocean with ease, as if the water itself parted to give it passage, fleeing from the blasphemous touch of that body of colossal proportions. As it fled in the form of massive waves, the sea swallowed another warship, drowning a multitude of men who joined the sunken graveyard underneath.
In the distance, the Pelwati’s chanting reached a feverish climax, almost being heard across the sea. “Rise, Forgotten Son, rise!”
The entity’s shape could not be coalesced in the minds of simple mortals. It was a thing from beyond, a force of blackest evil brought forth from a dark dimension through the bountiful offering of bodies the Pelwati had given it over the course of that senseless war. Admiral Morrison, his officers and every last man in that fleet felt its dark presence gnaw at their very beings, their spirits corroded by the mere sight of that thing. To those that now cowered under its shadow, it was simply doom, formless, unknowable, but as certain and inevitable as death itself.
As it emerged from the waters, the abomination ignited into flames, boiling the ocean around it. A blistering wave of heat burst into all directions, searing the flesh of exposed sailors and scorching the armored hulls of the ships that danced wildly on the bubbling, raging waters. The thousands of tons of steel floating in that sea of fury were as children’s toys next to the towering figure that loomed over them. With a movement of its titanic form, the thing caused ship after ship to erupt into a blazing inferno, laying waste to the fleet.
At the bridge of the Valor, the glass windows cracked before the heat emanating from the thing. All hope of victory had evaporated. Taken by the unendurable perspective of their own insignificance in the face of such a terrible presence, some men had simply stopped living, their bodies falling lifeless to the floor where they stood. Those cursed to remain among the living could not tolerate the sight of that being. The ones that did not avert their gaze were taken to extremes to stop the unholy vision from insinuating itself into their brains, and tore at their own eyes with their fingers, oblivious to the pain as the merciful darkness of blindness obscured that sight from them.
Admiral Morrison was not so lucky. His eyes remained drawn to the abomination, wide open while he sobbed uncontrollably, tears streaking through his face as the reality of that profane creature’s existence washed over him. His fractured mind reeled and recoiled, futilely trying to assimilate the fruit of the Pelwati’s wanton destruction that now stood before him. Before the Valor was consumed in the conflagration, the admiral’s lips tossed a worthless prayer to the wind.
“May God help us all…”