The Wrath of the Lizard Lord (20 page)

‘Let’s hope you can remember the way then,’ Dakkar murmured, staring through the portholes. He thought of the whale-like creature that had nearly dragged him below the waves. ‘It could be worth travelling underwater for a while, so we can watch out for anything that might
.
.
.’

‘Want to eat us?’ Georgia finished. She looked up at him, her face pale. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve been through this sea before. I know what you mean.’

‘Did you use up all the Sea Arrows just getting here?’ Dakkar said.

Georgia nodded and turned back to the wheel.

Mary had stopped tying up the cage when Dakkar returned to the lower cabin and was looking out of the large portholes set in the walls. Dakkar watched the scene outside as a shoal of huge fish, with toothed beaks like Gweek, weaved among each other.

‘They remind me of dolphins,’ Dakkar said, pressing a hand to the glass. ‘Only their noses are longer.’

‘That’s what I found in the cliffs the other year,’ Mary said. ‘But it was a skeleton in the stone. How does something like that get to be turned to stone and stuck in the rocks up in Lyme?’

‘Some say it was to do with the great flood that the Christian God sent,’ Dakkar said slowly.

‘You don’t sound convinced,’ Mary replied.

Dakkar shook his head. ‘A natural philosopher once told me that, thousands of years ago, a great catastrophe overtook the earth,’ he said, watching the fish dart after prey. ‘He wasn’t sure what, but he said that the ground rose up and molten rock scorched the planet, turning everything into stone.’

‘I’d believe anythin’ after what I’ve seen these last few days,’ Mary said, and smiled. She sat down and continued to tie up the sticks into a square lattice wall for the cage.

‘Maybe these creatures are from another age,’ Dakkar wondered aloud. ‘Maybe that’s why they aren’t on the surface any more. Or maybe the ones on the surface met men like the count, who slaughtered them.’

They fell into silence, tying and fixing the sticks together. Before long, they had a rather rough but ser­viceable cage. Gweek protested when Dakkar tried to put it in, pecking at his fingers and screeching. Mary pushed a remaining stick across the middle of the cage as a perch and Gweek settled on to it, squeaking and grumbling as it preened itself.

The hours crawled by, inching into days. They had rewound the clock on board the
Liberty
but had no idea of the real time.

‘Having the clock makes things worse in a way.’ Dakkar sighed, staring at the hands that barely seemed to move. ‘Time goes so slowly!’

Sometimes, Dakkar watched the strange parade of undersea life with Mary, something she never seemed to tire of. At other times, he would take over the helm of the
Liberty
and steer a straight course as directed by Georgia. They ate the black pineapple fruit when they were hungry.

‘Save the dried meat in case we’re down here longer than expected,’ Georgia said.

Dakkar shuddered.

After almost a week – as far as they could tell – of travelling, Georgia began to spend more time at the helm, not trusting Dakkar.

‘We must be close,’ Georgia said, looking pale and worried. ‘What if we miss a landmark when you’re in control?’

‘But you have to rest,’ Dakkar insisted.

Finally, she agreed to take a break, but she had only the shortest of catnaps before taking over from Dakkar again.

‘This is so frustrating!’ Dakkar snapped.

‘What?’ Mary said, her face lit blue by the underwater scene outside.

‘Cryptos may well be up there now,’ Dakkar said, slapping his hand on the table. ‘And here we are, miles away beneath the ground!’

‘Grumblin’ won’t get us there any quicker,’ Mary said, turning back to the porthole. ‘Why don’t you try and get Georgia to take a rest or somethin’?’

Dakkar climbed up to the top cabin and Georgia. Her brow was knotted with worry and she scanned the seabed.

‘What’s wrong?’ Dakkar said, peering out at the sandy ocean floor. A thin veil of silt drifted across the ridged bed, giving the illusion that the ground moved.

‘It all looks the same,’ Georgia said, and bit her lip. ‘I don’t know where we’re going.’

‘We’ve kept a straight course, haven’t we?’ Dakkar said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

Georgia nodded.

‘Then that’s all we can trust in,’ he said.

‘But currents keep buffeting the
Liberty
. We could be miles away from the tunnel out of here,’ Georgia whispered. ‘Who knows how this underground sea flows?’

‘Let me take the helm for a while,’ Dakkar suggested. ‘You can rest properly this time, and then take over again.’

Georgia nodded and let Dakkar slip into the seat as she stood up. Dakkar gave a brief grin. ‘I promise not to sail into any rocks,’ he said, glancing at her.

She gave a weary smile back, then frowned as if a dark thought had just flitted across her mind.

‘Where did Mary come from, Dakkar?’ Georgia said, her voice low and confidential.

‘Come from?’ Dakkar said, frowning. ‘I met her in Lyme. I followed her down on one of Cryptos’s Ascender Cages. She sneaks down to scavenge for stones and shells to sell. Why?’

‘There’s just something about her,’ Georgia said, glan­cing down into the lower cabin.

‘Oh, this is madness!’ Dakkar said. ‘You two have been arguing and bickering ever since you met. I don’t know what you’ve got against her but we’ve got more important things to worry about.’

Georgia opened her mouth to speak but something flashed across the front of the
Liberty
. She leapt forward. ‘What was that?’ she said, craning her neck to see to the port side of the craft.

‘Something big and fast,’ Dakkar whispered. ‘Get down below and load the Sea Arrows.’

Chapter Twenty-nine

Dragged to Destruction

Dakkar strained his eyes staring into the depths of the water. Something had stirred up the silt on the seabed, making a fog of mud that shrouded everything. He slowed the
Liberty
down to a crawl, cursing under his breath. His heart thumped but a gnawing anxiety to be away also made him want to scream and ram the
Liberty
to
Full Ahead
.

‘There!’ Georgia called up from the lower cabin. ‘Did you see it then?’

‘Not from up here,’ Dakkar said. ‘What did it look like?’

‘Hard to tell,’ Georgia said, her voice strained. ‘Big though.’

‘What’re we goin’ to do?’ Mary said, her voice feeble.

Gweek gave a similarly worried croak.

‘It might be nothing,’ Dakkar said, trying to keep his voice light. ‘Maybe it’s a plant-eater like those big lumps in the jungle and it’s just trying to scare us off.’

The
Liberty
rocked and something thumped firmly against her hull. A grating sound shivered through the planks that surrounded Dakkar. He gripped the wheel tightly, staring into the mud soup that whirled around them. Slowly, something red snaked its way across the porthole in front of him. A long, rubbery tentacle lined with row upon row of suckers. Dakkar recognised it right away.

‘It’s a giant squid,’ he said, slamming the
Liberty
to
Full Ahead
. All his frustrations, all his worries evaporated. ‘That noise is the squid’s beak chewing the top of the
Liberty
. We’ve got to get it off.’

Whirling the friction-machine wheel, Dakkar counted each turn aloud. The tentacles swamped the craft now, blocking the view from the portholes and clinging to the glass.

‘Twenty!’ Dakkar shouted, and punched the red button.

The murky silt glowed blue and Dakkar felt the hairs on his arms prickle as the sea became charged with deadly electricity. The tentacles slid from the portholes and Dakkar flew back into his seat as the
Liberty
shot forward.

‘Get those Sea Arrows ready!’ Dakkar yelled, and he swung the
Liberty
into a ninety-degree turn so it faced the oncoming squid.
I only hope the ones I made actually work
, he thought.

‘Ready,’ Georgia called back to him.

Dakkar stared open-mouthed at the thing. It looked like a squid from the front but had at least ten tentacles, writhing and reaching for them. An enormous shell extended from behind its round eyes, a huge spike that disappeared off into the gloom of the sea.

‘Fire!’ Dakkar yelled. He heard the familiar
boing
of the arrow launcher and watched as the Sea Arrow hurtled towards the squid in a flurry of bubbles. ‘That’ll teach you a lesson.’

The arrow flew straight into the squid’s gaping maw and exploded in a useless puff of black smoke.

‘Oh,’ said Dakkar. ‘Try the other one!’

Georgia fired the second arrow. Dakkar bit his lip as the projectile hurtled from the
Liberty
. Once again the arrow failed to ignite.

‘Ram it!’ Mary cried, staring up from the lower hatch. ‘I bet it’s like a snail – it needs its shell to survive.’

Dakkar shrugged. He had nothing else, only one Sea Arrow that might not work. The squid hurtled towards them, ejecting water from its shell to propel it. The engines whined as Dakkar put the
Liberty
on a collision course with the creature.

Just as the squid threw open its tentacles to grab the
Liberty
, Dakkar blew some ballast and threw her up above the beast. He swerved round and sent the
Liberty
crashing against the squid’s long shell. Dark brown sepia ink filled the water and Dakkar smiled at the rewarding cracking sound that echoed through the hull.

Dragging the
Liberty
upward, he caught a glimpse of shattered fragments of shell swirling in the sea. The creature began to sink as its shell filled with water, mingling with the ink and blood that boiled out in a thick dark cloud.

‘You did it!’ Mary shouted. ‘We’re safe!’

Dakkar’s grin turned to a frown, though, as he dragged at the controls. ‘Something is pulling us backward,’ he yelled, pushing at the craft’s drive lever. The engine whined and gears clattered as the
Liberty
struggled to break away from whatever had caught her.

‘The squid!’ Georgia shouted.

Dakkar glanced up to see the squid carcass go flying past as if being sucked over a giant waterfall. Its round eye stared lifeless yet somehow accusingly as it flashed by.

‘It’s some kind of current,’ Dakkar yelled. ‘We’re being dragged along by a powerful flow of water.’

He turned the
Liberty
round, hearing Mary and Georgia gasp as he did so. The sea seemed to have come alive in front of them, fashioning itself into a huge, gaping, sucking mouth. The dirt and silt that had been washed around further away rushed into the outline of a massive vortex.

‘It’s a maelstrom!’ Dakkar yelled, slamming the
Liberty
into reverse.

‘A what?’ Mary said from below.

‘A huge whirlpool,’ Georgia shouted. ‘Pulling everything into its heart and dragging it to destruction!’

‘It’s too strong!’ Dakkar said, pushing and pulling on the drive lever. Both cabins filled with the smell of burning and hot metal as the engine tried to beat the irresistible force of the whirlpool.

‘Shut down the engine,’ Georgia shouted up. ‘It’ll catch fire. Our only hope is to try and ride it.’

‘Catch hold of something then,’ Dakkar said, shutting the engine off and gripping on to his seat.

Mud and seaweed swirled around them and then Dakkar’s stomach lifted into his throat as the
Liberty
caught the first rotation of the pool. Dakkar’s knuckles whitened as he gripped his seat. He heard a thump and a scream in the cabin below but couldn’t look down as his head was being forced back against the chair.

Another crash and Gweek’s screeches filled the cabin. The craft turned upside down, tipping Dakkar on to the upper hatch door and then dropping him through into the lower cabin as she righted again.

The lower cabin was a chaotic mess of overturned boxes, scattered fruit and barrels. Gweek screeched in protest, its cage on its side. Georgia tried to cling to the walls of the craft but staggered as the
Liberty
spun round and round. Mary lay on the floor, groaning, a large bruise blossoming on her forehead.

Dakkar retched as the
Liberty
tipped over again. A chair clipped his shoulder and black pineapple fruit bounced off the top of his head. Gweek’s protests filled the cabin as the rolling grew faster. The whole of the cabin became a blur punctuated with painful impacts with fruit, barrels, furniture, even Georgia and Mary. There was nothing Dakkar could do to save himself.

Outside the porthole the water bubbled and pressed against the glass. Dakkar glimpsed droplets of water oozing in. Slapping a hand on the lip of the hatch to the upper cabin, Dakkar dragged himself up and somehow managed to throw himself back into the captain’s seat.