You are ready for this. By Tartarus, you were ready yesterday. You were ready ten years ago. Show this unfortunate creature what you're made of.
You look around, at your crew. All of them depend on you to take them home safely. You are responsible for them.
It is quiet right now, but the quiet won't last long. You have to act fast and give this your best shot.
You know what you're good at.
Before anyone has a chance to move, you run, grab the gunwale and throw yourself overboard.
The water grips your body in its cold fist, but, instead of slowing you down, the cold reinvigorates you. Every muscle in your body is alert and ready for action.
With your eyes adjusting to the dark, you can see the leviathan swimming toward you at high speed. An average human being would turn around and try to save themself, but not you. You swim toward the snake head-on. When it's so close you can count every scale on its ugly mouth, it spots you. It trains its yellow eyes on you, and, in the soulless depths of that gaze you find a glimpse of surprise.
The moment before you collide, the snake turns its head away. You grab one of its horns and use it as a lever to propel your body and find yourself on its head.
The snake breaks the surface of the water and you are riding it like a horse. Your crew are shouting inarticulately, cheering, gasping.
You take in a deep breath–you almost forgot that at least part of you is human, and humans have to breathe–and then you plunge your spear right through the soft membrane at the base of the snake's skull, piercing its brain.
A violent shudder runs the entire length of the snake's body, raising waves as tall as the tallest walls of Ilium. Then, the snake's eyes grow dim, and it sinks under the surface of the sea. You watch it disappear slowly, and the deeper it sinks, the paler it becomes, as if the terrible magic that bore it has now come loose, and the snake has been undone, its scales flaking, its flesh melting, until it is nothing but foam.
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