Naph's eyes darted through the wreckage of wagons. Realization of what his mistake has caused elicited no response from within.
His mind wandered through his recent late discovery, and the shapes of the new targets. The spears fell over the remaining few tentacle caestre exiting through the back opening of the cargo hold.
Sighing, Naph began walking. 'This is going to be a pain,' he echoed within.
The first tentacle caestre, after the large cleanup, he found was strangling a tire of a black wagon. Naph pitied the tentacle and so thought the word 'cata'.
No intent behind it. The tentacle caestre flinched, it was on alert.
"Huh, that's different." Naph collected the observation in a mental note. The tentacle caestre however picked up on the subtle voice.
It quickly sprang to it.
Naph dodged its strike by stepping aside. He eyed the sprawled tentacle caestre on the floor a few paces away, and the tire it was strangling.
"How were you going to even eat it?" He questioned it. The tentacle squirmed on the floor to his new location.
"Ca," he spoke out, followed by a thought of 'ta.' The tentacle's advance on the floor stopped mid crawl.
Frozen mid crawl the tentacle suddenly floated up and slammed into the metal wall. The sound of its insides crunching echoed.
Nodding to the result, Naph turned and walked to the next wagon in line.
"Time for more probing." He whistled letting it be carried over through the cargo hold's air.
Sounds of several squelching meat came as its response. Naph had got the attention he needed.
What followed after was a thorough inspection by the one and only Anaphol. His inspecting revealed to him one tentacle after another. Each occupied with strangling some part of a vehicle or wagon, while there were some who strangled with rare pipes that went along the walls upwards.
Each dealt with only two combinations by Naph. The first being thought invoked 'cata', and the second one being a spoken "Ca" followed by a thought of 'ta.'
He got similar reactions from each tentacle caestre. Every single one became hyper aware of his location and alert on the use of thought invoked 'cata'.
While all tentacles were thrown around with the combination of spoken "Ca" followed with a thought invoked 'ta'. He had cleaned up the tentacle caestres hidden behind the wagons in the cargo hold.
Beginning to walk over to the later section of the semi-open cargo hold, he felt a tiredness creeping up his legs and back. He couldn't pick out what was happening.
"Uh! Huh! Huff." Naph vented through his mouth as he took support of the metallic vehicle on his right. He had killed a tentacle caestre with a simple combination of cata.
"What? Why am I….huh, huh…tired?" He questioned his predicament to the air. A few more tentacle caestre came crawling out from under the vehicle in front.
Raising a finger to the advancing caestre, he said, "Just a minute. I'll get to helping you meet the lords of the seas….just wait." Huffing out his lungs, he glanced at his ill mannered guests.
The tentacle caestres kept advancing towards him. Seeing he had no choice, he drew a dagger from his jacket. This was his own hunting dagger.
"Well, guests are guests." Shaking his exhausted head, he dashed towards the group of tentacles. He had only guessed and saw the results of what these tentacles could do.
Avoiding a jump by one of the tentacles, he sliced at its rear end as it flew by. He stabbed down on another that had straightened itself to take a jump. It was clobbered down by the heavy dagger.
His dagger was bigger than any knives he collected from the attackers previously, and it proved its weight by pure force delivery it gave to the tentacle caestre.
"Next." His eyes shot to the caestre to his left. Avoiding a strike from the debilitating tentacle that he let pass earlier, he sliced the one on his left in two.
Rotating his dark dagger, he stabbed down in reverse grip on the mid-jump tentacle. It got skewered to the side of the grey vehicle.
"Not my ride, not my problem." Naph dragged the dagger across the length of the caestre.
Changing hands, he passed the dagger to his left hand. A tentacle caestre was split mid jump again during the pass. Catching the dagger in his left, he stabbed down on the remaining tail of the caught caestre. In the case of this tentacle caestre, it was its thickest end.
Naph's understanding of caestre anatomy was limited, but he knew one thing well. "Destroying one completely mostly renders a caestre dead." He spoke it as he glanced around the vehicle by his right.
A couple more tentacle caestre squirmed to reach Naph and the sound of the spears coming down was getting lesser. "Have the caestre been killed mostly?" He stood up and turned to meet the remaining cargo hold's unwanted guests.
His words were as much a reminder to his knowledge as was it a noise to attract any nearby. A thought came into his mind, 'what if they got to Bulwark?'
His eyes skipped to the gallery to his compartment room. A flicker of emotion passed by his face, maybe a dark sentiment. But it was gone in a moment.
"Huh, as if. Headless Bulwark is going to chew them harder than ever she could." Anaphol's quip fell flat to his own ears. He wanted to walk over to two different directions but he felt so tired and invigorating both at the same time.
A confusing state is all that he had achieved.
Hitting himself lightly with the butt of his dagger on the head, he begrudgingly walked into the caestre tentacles. He needed to clear up the mess he felt responsible for.
Slashing and stabbing on the last few tentacle caestre, his exhaustion fought against the weird invigorating effect Naph always felt when he hunted down any caestre. It was the same today with the last batch.
Glancing up he exhaled, "Huh! At least these are done. Now let's go check on her." He stood up from his kneeling position as he unhooked it from the dying caestre's grip. Naph smashed his boot on the caestre to finish it off, ending the tentacle's life.
Shaking the gooey meat off his left foot, he brisk walked to his room. Every echo of his step did not rattle some unknown hidden predator out of its hiding nest, because the only one worth was the owner of those echoes.
The gallery felt a bit constructing to Naph compared to the hallways of the lower or middle deck. His mind felt to him a bit wobbly but his body was inspired flowing with energy from the sudden use of them.
Metal groaned under the assault of froth from the cutting action that the ferry did to the strait. None were loud enough to warrant a search of the reason from the crew.
The same froth and waves swarmed melodious ringing that subdued Naph's steps sound. Each died against the rising roar of the waves.
"What's happening now outside? Are we close to Monite or not?" Naph looked up, imagining what the roars mean as he stood in front of his room's door.
Taking out his key, he keyed it in the lock. Twisting the key and unlocking it revealed his ride as safe as it ever was.
Naph's eyes glanced up at Bulwark. She was still on the upper bed wrapped in the white tarp. He hoped so that it was still her. He pushed on the door to open wide.
Stepping in he checked if Bulwark was still as headless as ever. "Damn! You should have grown a head or two, ma'am." He patted the white tarp while placing back the removed tarp.
A yawn escaped in between placing the tarp. "Should I?" He considered for couple of moments. His mind went to the detail that the ship will take 3 more hours as Chef Gusti had said, and he looked at the clock in the room it was just a few minutes past four o'clock.
"The ride will reach Monite at or around half past six, or is it six-thirty? Ahh, I don't know!" He regretted his unschooled life. Shaking himself out of his predicament of his past, he grabbed on Bulwark with the white tarp.
And put her into the ride covering her well with the tarp. Straightening up he called his thoughts out, "Bulwark, watch out for the intruders. I am going to sleep in a few minutes. I have earned that much."
His hand hovered above Bulwark's shoulders. A subtle feeling walked under his skin but he straightened his hands and himself. Going to the door, he shut it tight with the key and the bolt as well provided on it.
Turning around he looked at his room, "Time for a nap in the last leg of the easier part of the journey. Aren't I right, Bulwark?" There was no shock or jolt from her.
His room ever so silent as the roars of the waves died out of it. The ferry escaped the caestre infestation that had attacked it.