The Curse of the Ice Serpent (9 page)

‘Well, we can’t just sit here being dragged along by it,’ he said. ‘We have to cut ourselves free somehow.’

‘We could blast the beast with a Sea Arrow,’ Borys suggested. ‘From the size of it, I doubt it would feel a thing but it may break us free.’

‘We’d blow ourselves up,’ Dakkar said, frowning. ‘We’re tied too close to the creature’s shell, remember.’

‘Could you swim out there?’ Borys said. ‘And cut the rope?’

Dakkar shuddered. ‘We’re moving too fast – I’d be ripped away from the sub and left far behind.’

‘If we can’t come up for air eventually, we’ll suffocate down here,’ Georgia said in a quiet voice.

Long minutes of silence ran on as each of them struggled to think of a way to cut free from the giant that was dragging them to their doom.

‘What if we put the
Nautilus
into reverse?’ Georgia suggested suddenly, making Dakkar jump.

‘We’d be no match for a monster like this!’ Borys snorted. ‘How could we fight its massive strength?’

‘We don’t have to!’ Dakkar grinned. ‘Georgia, you’re a wonder!’

‘I don’t understand,’ Borys said with a frown.

‘Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.’ Georgia grinned. ‘We can just snap the rope. Hold on tight!’ She slammed the drive lever to
Backwater
and the engines began to whine.

The whole sub shook as she tried to battle the relentless pull of the massive turtle but something seemed to be aiding them too.

‘The drag as we’re pulled along will be in our favour,’ Dakkar said, peering through the darkness of the water. He could just see the vague outline of the rope, taut and quivering as the
Nautilus
tried to resist the journey of the monster.

Seaweed and dead fish smacked into the portholes and against the sub as she shuddered. Her engines screamed down below as Georgia pushed the sub to her limit.

The
Nautilus
began to veer more violently from side to side as she struggled to free herself of the mooring line that linked her to the turtle’s shell. With a
twang
, the rope snapped. The sub spun sideways, sending everyone inside hurtling around the cabin. Dakkar found himself flat on his stomach, staring down the hatch into the
Nautilus
, gasping for breath.

Georgia sat in the captain’s seat, gritting her teeth and heaving at the wheel, trying to regain control as they whirled through the water like a boomerang. Planks groaned and Dakkar heard supplies clattering from their storage cupboards down below.

Gradually the
Nautilus
stopped turning and Georgia, panting, brushed the hair from her face and gave a grin.

‘Did it,’ she said.

Before Dakkar could answer, the chilling shriek of the turtle cut through the water, filling the sub.

‘It’s turning round,’ Dakkar said, staring out of the window.

The turtle’s momentum had carried it into the far distance but it still looked colossal. Dakkar could make out its spiny shell and four massive flippers that pounded the water.

‘Do we stand and fight?’ Dakkar wondered aloud.

‘With what?’ Georgia murmured. ‘Our Sea Arrows would barely scratch that thing’s armour. No, we gotta hide!’

‘Take the
Nautilus
as deep as you can,’ Borys said. ‘Try to find a reef or rocks to conceal us.’

‘But too deep and the sheer weight of the water will crush us,’ Dakkar whispered.

‘I can’t see we have much choice,’ Georgia said, pursing her lips and steering the
Nautilus
downward.

The turtle gave another shriek. It sounded louder – as if it were gaining on them. Dakkar peered out – it looked larger, closer.

The darkness of the water closed in around them as they plunged deeper.

‘We have to keep quiet,’ Borys said, his voice low. ‘Sound travels in water and I believe that our big friend’s keepers, the Qalupalik, have very keen senses!’

Once more the planks of the
Nautilus
groaned with the pressure of the water. Dakkar felt a tightness around his chest and each breath seemed to pant from his body as if squeezed out.

Rocky pillars appeared out of the gloom. Georgia steered towards them and settled the
Nautilus
between them, shutting the engine down. Slowly the sub sank to the gritty seabed, hitting the ground with a thump that echoed dully through the whole craft.

They all waited in the cabin. Sweat dripped down Dakkar’s forehead and neck as he peered out into the silty water. The heat was stifling. A huge shadow drifted above them. Dakkar pointed upward to tell the others. Georgia held her hand to her mouth.

Dakkar could hear the blood pulsing in his neck and his breath rasping in his lungs. The sea pressed in on the
Nautilus
’s timbers, making her creak. Every noise brought a wince from Dakkar. His jaw ached from gritting his teeth and he longed to scream out and send the
Nautilus
rushing to the surface.

The light from the surface above them darkened again.

The monster is circling
, Dakkar thought.
It’s searching for us like some kind of bloodhound!

The silence pressed in on them. The air became stale and Dakkar’s head pounded.

We can’t wait much longer
,
he thought.

‘What if we fire a couple of Sea Arrows,’ he whispered, ‘to create a distraction?’

‘Good idea,’ Georgia hissed back. ‘If it kicks up enough mud, we can slip away unnoticed.’

‘We could use sepia bombs too,’ Dakkar said. ‘To add to the confusion.’

In addition to the Sea Arrows, the
Nautilus
could fire globes of squid ink into the sea. These created a thick and slightly acidic fog through which the sub might be able to escape. Signalling Borys to go to the stern of the boat where the sepia bombs were kept, Dakkar climbed down the ladder and crept towards the cabin that housed the Sea Arrows. He eased the explosive missiles out of their box and slid them into the firing chambers which nestled in the walls on either side of the sub.

‘Dakkar?’ Georgia’s voice from the speaking tube made him jump. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes!’ Dakkar hissed back. ‘Keep quiet, will you?’

‘No need for that now,’ she replied. ‘It’s seen us and it’s coming our way. Get ready!’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A FROZEN WORLD

Dakkar felt the
Nautilus
lift as Georgia blew some of the ballast water from the hull. He stabbed his thumb into the firing button and then into the second one. Two missiles sprang from the front of the sub. Dakkar waited and after a count of eight was rewarded with the dull thump of an explosion, followed closely by another.

He could tell that the
Nautilus
was travelling backward and he hurried up the passage and climbed the ladder back to the tower.

A thick fog of sepia and mud blotted out the view from inside the tower. Georgia had spun the
Nautilus
around and slammed her to
Full Ahead
. The shrieks of the turtle seemed more distant now.

‘The Sea Arrows have deafened it,’ Borys said, smiling grimly. ‘I think we might have given it the slip.’

‘Let’s get to the surface,’ Dakkar said. ‘I need fresh air.’ He felt sick and his head thumped.

Slowly, they rose through the murk, glad of the weak daylight that shone at the surface of the sea. They broke the waves and Dakkar gave a sigh of relief as he felt the sub pitch and roll.

They all clambered up the tower, eager to get their lungs full of clean air. Dakkar gasped at the sharpness of the cold that hit him as he threw open the hatch. He blinked, trying to adjust to the sudden bright light.

‘What on earth?’ Georgia whispered beside him.

Towering mountains of ice surrounded them, smaller ones rising and falling with the sea. Flat ice floes, broken into chunks, clunked against the wooden hull of the
Nautilus
. A cold wind moaned over this desolate scene.

‘The beast must have dragged us further north than we thought,’ Borys said, shivering. ‘In all the excitement, I didn’t even notice.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ Georgia said, her breath clouding her face.

‘It’s too cold,’ Dakkar muttered, shaking himself.

‘Come back down into the
Nautilus
,’ Borys said, putting an arm around Georgia. ‘The cold is dangerous. You have to treat it with respect. Stay up here too long without protection and you will surely die.’

The warmth of the sub welcomed Dakkar as he slid down the ladder back inside. Borys looked grimly out of the porthole at the white crust that covered the sea’s surface.

‘This is bad,’ he said and pursed his lips.

‘But surely all we need to do is set a course further south and we can pick up our original course,’ Dakkar said.

‘It’s not that easy, Dakkar,’ Borys said. ‘The turtle brought us deep under the ice floes and we must navigate back out of them. It’s late in the year so the floes are beginning to thicken and freeze together. We might not be able to break through them.’

‘But we can go under them,’ Georgia said. ‘That’s how we got here.’

‘This is true,’ Borys agreed. ‘But what if we can’t surface because of the ice? What if we lose our way? There can be no navigation errors in the Arctic.’

They climbed down into the body of the
Nautilus
and went into the front cabin to consult the charts.

‘By my calculations we’re here,’ Borys said, stabbing the compasses into the map at a point west of Greenland.

‘How can that be?’ Dakkar wondered. ‘We weren’t dragged for that long surely?’

‘That creature is huge and powerful,’ Borys said, tracing a finger over their supposed route. ‘One stroke of its mighty flippers would be enough to propel us a great distance.’

‘We’ll make better time if we travel underwater,’ Georgia said.

‘But we must proceed with caution,’ Borys said, tapping the compasses on the table. ‘The ice floats on the surface but we could easily collide with the body of an iceberg that lies beneath the surface.’

Frost formed on the glass of the portholes, hardening into ice so that the view outside blurred and glazed. Sharp crackling sounds snapped through the hull of the sub.

‘We had better submerge,’ Borys murmured. ‘The
Nautilus
is freezing. The extremes of temperature may crack her portholes or if any leftover water in the hull freezes it may burst the planks.’

Dakkar hurried up to the captain’s seat and opened the ballast tanks. Slowly the
Nautilus
began to sink. More bumps and bangs resounded through the craft. Dakkar could just make out ice cracking from around the hull as they sub­­merged.

Another few minutes and we might have been frozen in
, he thought. The water bubbled around him and he gasped.

‘It’s so clear!’ Georgia said, appearing beside him. ‘And even in this cold, fish still swim!’

They stared out as the
Nautilus
went deeper, marvelling at the shoals of brown fish that swarmed along the bottom of the sea. Above them, the ice formed a ceiling of blue-white.

‘Look!’ Borys lamented down the speaking tube. ‘So many fat fish and we can’t catch any for our dinner!’

Dakkar allowed himself a smile, partly because the idea of Borys keeping lookout for icebergs through the portholes below reassured him.

‘Why are we going so slowly?’ Georgia said, frowning out into the water.

‘Look over there,’ Dakkar said, pointing to a distant white mass to the port side of the craft. ‘If we strike something like that, we’re done for.’

‘Or like that,’ Georgia said, pointing to another. ‘Or that!’

Dakkar felt the blood drain from his face as more and more walls of ice loomed before them. Wherever he looked, icebergs blocked their way, leaving only narrow chasms between them.

‘There are a lot of icebergs coming up,’ Borys announced from below.

‘Thanks – we’d noticed,’ Dakkar said. ‘It’s too late to go under them. I’m going to have to steer between them. Hold on.’

He slowed the
Nautilus
right down, inching towards the sheet of ice that drifted before him. He licked his lips, breathing gently as he eased the wheel slightly to port. Georgia stood perfectly still beside him. The first berg went past silently and Dakkar pushed the sub to starboard as another, smaller mass of ice sailed by on the other side.

Sweat trickled down Dakkar’s back. One wrong move and the massive chunks of ice would crush the
Nautilus
as if she were made of glass.

‘Another one coming,’ Borys said, sounding breathless down the speaking tube.

Dakkar swallowed hard and steered around a pointed fang of ice that jabbed down from the surface. Something scraped against the hull, stopping his breath for a second, then they slipped away from the obstacle.