Aliénor's Song

Building A Fort

Mairi and I swam down into the belly of the ship. It was dark here and seemed to be the most protected area. It originally only had the one way in, and there were no windows down here. Of course, there was a break in the belly of the ship, which I assumed is why it went under in the first place. I had an idea about that.

"Mairi, do you think we could find some things to block off these openings? I would like to just leave ebough room near the top for us to swim through to get in or out. The door leading down here is already small and hard to find. If we could seal a bit of this off. I know I would feel safer sleeping here."

"I know I saw some tables and the desk in the captain's quarters. We could probably stack those up and brace them with the cannons. Maybe we could use some of those big chains around the cannons to tie them together."

I nodded. It was a good idea. "How wide should we make the opening?"

"I think just enough for us to swim thrpught one at a time. We dont want anything following us in."

I grimaced, anything really big would probably break down our defenses anyway, but it made me feel a bit safer. I thought of the spears in the armory. We had salvaged several. but many more were broken and weren't much good for hunting. Maybe we could use those in some way too. I would have to think more on it.

"Right. I'll gather cannons and chains, you go get as many big tables as you can find."

I swam up to the deck and located four large cannons, I also made note of the two smaller cannons as well as the chains holding them. I looked around a bit more and noticed the ship had 6 anchors, also held in place with heavy chains.

Now how was I supposed to get those down? The cannons were much too large to easily fit through the door. I decided to think ot it while I gathered the chains. I could easily swim through the door with those. As I coiled the second chain, I had an idea. The cannons roll, the hole in the ship is much larger than the door. I can roll the cannons overboard and have Mairi help me take them through the side of the ship!

I began transporting the chains down first. Once I had those, I pushed the cannons off the ship and watched them sink swiftly to the ocean floor. I wasn't sure if the cannons rolled easily or if it was a result of my new strength, but it was hardly any work at all getting all 6 cannons into a haphazard pile by the sunken ship.

I couldn't help being a little impressed with myself. If you had told me a few days ago that I could easily move even one of the small cannons, I would have thought you were mad. Yet here I had moved six of them! I wondered what other things I was capable of now.

I met Mairi on the way down with the chains. She was carrying a large table and looking rather pleased with herself.

"Ailie, look at me! Can you believe I'm carrying this thing by myself! I could hardly carry pails of water when I was back home and now look at me!"

Suddenly she stopped. "How do I get this through the door"

I laughed. The sound surprised me. I would have thought after everything that I would never laugh like that again. It felt nice.

"I had that problem too."

"What did you do?"

"Come on, I'll show you. Bring the table."

I took her to my little pile of cannons. She grinned.

"That's brilliant! I'll bring the tables here. I also found some heavy chests. I've already moved them down. We can use them to make a thicker wall."

It took us a bit of time, but we finally managed to get all of our supplies down into our sleeping quarters. I took a quick inventory in my head: four large cannons, two smaller cannons, five tables, four benches, eight chests, one wooden wardrobe, and several thick chains. It was an odd assortment, but I felt confident we could make it work.

We started by laying the largest table on its side.It was clearly some type of dining table. It was easily twice as long as I was from head to tail. This must have been where sailors sat down to have their meals. We had two tables like this, the four benches were the same length. Then we stacked the second table on top. We positioned them so that the top of the table was against the opening. Once those were in place. We pushed the wardrobe up against them to hold them in place. We continued in this fashion with the other tables until we had a respectable wall of sorts.

Then the two of us began working together to brace it with the cannons. We stacked chests and angled the cannons in place as braces. When that was done, we crisscrossed the heavy chains back and forth to hold everything steady.

When it was all said and done, we had left an opening just large enough that one of us could swim in through at a time. Also, it provided us with a nice little lookout space, and if we needed to, we could easily defend ourselves from that opening using our spears.

That however, was a thought for another day. After the rescue and the fortification, I was exhausted. It was definitely time for us to both get some sleep. I retreated to a corner of the room and laid my head down.

"Goodnight Mairi."

"Goodnight Alíenor. Hey, do you think Eóghan saw us tonight?"

"Probably"

"Do you think he's going to tell people?"

"Maybe if he's been drinking, but honestly who would believe him?"

"I wonder what he'll say."

I wondered too. I also wondered what that would mean for us if anyone believed him. With those thoughts weighing on my mind, I drifted off to sleep.