The Golden Anchor

by Cameron Stelzer

  The Black Shadow appeared to be deserted, and yet Whisker felt strangely anxious.

  Why would the fox and his crew flee so quickly, leaving the ship and its cargo to a small band of invaders? he asked himself.

  His gaze shifted from the Black Shadow to the island beyond. His vision of the rocky slope was partly obscured by the starboard bulwark but he could still see where the jumble of boulders and rocks met the adjoining clifftop. In the lantern light, he glimpsed a line of grey shapes bounding up the rocks and disappearing beyond the cliff.

  The wolves are running for their lives, he thought perplexed. But why?

  As if in answer, he felt something vibrating beneath his feet. He looked down. The deck he was standing on was shuddering slightly.

  ‘What on earth …?’ he gasped.

  He dropped to his knees, pressing his ear against the deck boards. Muffled voices echoed from below, along with the clinking of chains. But he could hear something else – something louder; a gurgling, splashing sound.

  The hull’s sprung a leak, he thought in horror. The ship’s taking in water.

  Without warning, the ship lurched suddenly and the entire vessel rotated to its port side, slipping further towards the ocean. Whisker was thrown off his feet and crashed against the bulwark.

  He grabbed hold of the rail, pulling himself upright as the ship came to a halt.

  ‘Whisker!’ called the Captain from the ocean below. ‘Whisker, what’s happening up there? Are you alright?’

  ‘I’m –’ he began, but he cut himself short in horror at what he saw. At the front of the ship, the thick, wooden bowsprit lay embedded in the face of the cliff. As the hull of the Black Shadow had shifted, her bowsprit had also shifted, boring into the loose rock like a drill bit. Small rocks were now falling from the cliff face and splashing into the water below.

  There was another jolting movement and Whisker felt the deck tilting even further to its port side. This time it was followed by a loud CRACK from the centre of the cliff face.

  Ratbeard have mercy, he gasped.

  He threw his arm over the bulwark and frantically tried to wave the Golden Anchor away. ‘Get out of here!’ he yelled. ‘The cliff’s about to collapse!’

  Fred was the first to react. He dropped the rope, picked up the closest oar and thrust the end of it against the shuddering hull. With a mighty push, he sent the Golden Anchor hurtling back from the stricken vessel. The Captain grabbed the second oar and the two of them began paddling the boat, gondola-style, away from the ship.

  With a mighty rumble, the first of the boulders came plummeting down, scouring the cliff face and flinging shards of rock in all directions. Whisker lost sight of his companions in the cloud of dust and dirt that followed.

  Shielding his eyes, he scrambled across the deck, searching for a stable object to hold onto. He’d only just stumbled upon the mainmast and wrapped his arms and tail around its base when the cliff above the bowsprit gave way and the entire rock face slid towards the ocean.

  The rocks thundered down like a stampede of cattle, tearing the bowsprit from its mount and destroying much of the forecastle. The avalanche of rocks and debris hit the water with shocking intensity, creating a wave so powerful that it raised the ship from its resting place and then dumped it back down again with a mighty CRUNCH! Muddy fountains of sea water sprayed into the air as the final sections of the cliff face disappeared beneath the waves.

  Whisker raised his head and peered through the settling dust. He could make out the shape of the foremast, towering above the ruined forecastle and surrounded by a blazing orange glow. But the light wasn’t coming from a lantern. It was coming from the deck itself.

  And as the first plumes of wood smoke reached Whisker’s nostrils, there was no doubting the new threat he faced.

  ‘Fire,’ he gasped, releasing his grip on the mainmast. ‘The ship is on fire.’

  His first thought was for his parents. Could they be trapped below with the rest of the slaves? He knew that if the rising water didn’t kill them, the fire undoubtedly would.

  Find that hatch! his mind screamed. Go! Hurry!

  He staggered in the direction of the bow, knowing that the only doors he had seen at the stern of the ship led to cabins, not slave cells.

  Grabbing hold of the rigging to steady himself, he looked ahead to see a row of shattered oil lanterns along the port and starboard bulwarks. The wood surrounding the lanterns was ablaze, the flaming liquid slowly seeping across the deck boards.

  He pulled his hood over his head, raised his arm to protect his face and plunged into the inferno.

  The fire raged on either side of him, working its way towards the centre of the deck.

  Eyes half-shut and bent over like a hunchback, he moved closer to the forecastle, steam rising from his wet clothes.

  He’d almost reached the elevated platform when he noticed a square section of wood set into the main deck. It was hinged on one side and fastened shut with an enormous padlock.

  His heart began to race.

  This must be it!

  He knelt down and reached out for the padlock. No sooner had he touched the warm metal than a loud thumping sound echoed through the wood and the trapdoor shook violently.

  He pulled away in fright. Someone was in there – someone was in there and they were trying to escape.

  He opened his mouth to shout, but the words came out as a dry cough. Abandoning his attempts to speak, he rapped on the wood three times and then grabbed the padlock in both paws, giving it a hard tug. It was enormous – easily as thick as his wrist – and he knew that without a key or Benny’s lock picking tools, he would never open it.

  He glanced down at his scissor sword, hanging from his belt.

  What if …? he pondered.

  No. He dismissed the thought instantly. His sword was slender and lightweight – hardly the weapon to shear through iron. What he needed was something solid and sharp, with weight behind it, like a mining pick, or an axe …

  The battle axe!

  He had glimpsed the weapon only moments before, hanging near the poop deck stairs – a two-bladed battle axe, forged from solid steel.

  He leapt to his feet and, ignoring the searing heat, dashed back through the converging lines of flames.

  Nearing the mainmast, he raised his eyes and stared across the smoky deck.

  He saw the stairs leading to the poop deck.

  He glimpsed the door to the captain’s cabin, hanging wide open.

  But where the weapon had hung only moments before, the wall was completely bare.

  The battle axe was gone.

  Inferno

  As Whisker stared in shock at the empty wall, he glimpsed a sudden flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. His eyes darted left to see a sharp, curving blade hurtling towards him. Firelight reflected off its polished surface as it sliced through the air like a guillotine.

  Whisker threw himself sideways as the monstrous head of the battle axe came rocketing down, shaving fibres from the back of his tunic. He rolled once and then sprang to his feet, drawing his scissor sword in the same motion. Breathing hard, he spun to face his attacker.

  A black-clad figure was emerging from behind the mainmast, his orange eyes blazing like coals. A diamond-hilted walking cane hung by his side, the battle axe clutched tightly in his paws.

  ‘Well now,’ he whispered menacingly, fixing his eyes on the young apprentice. ‘You are a hard rat to kill.’

  Whisker stared back at the imposing figure of the fox, fighting the urge to run.

  The fox’s eyes remained locked on Whisker, cold, cunning and cruel. There was no sign of emotion on his face – no anger or rage. But his lack of expression made him all the more terrifying. He was dangerous, unpredictable.

  ‘I’m here for my parents,’ Whisker said, his fingers trembling on the handle of his sword.

  ‘And what makes you think I’d hand them over to you?’ the fox asked flatly.

 
‘I don’t,’ Whisker replied honestly. ‘But what good are slaves to you now your secret diamond mine has been discovered?’

  The fox studied Whisker for a moment, and then said abruptly, ‘You poor fool. Do you honestly believe your parents’ capture had anything to do with the diamond mine?’

  Whisker was momentarily confused. ‘But I thought –’

  ‘Oh, it’s true that I promised the governor a shipment of mine workers,’ the fox continued, ‘but your parents are – how do I put this simply – special.’ He let the last word linger on his tongue.

  Whisker raised his sword protectively, as if to ward off some unseen evil. ‘What do you mean?’

  The fox’s mouth curved into a wicked grin. ‘Have you ever asked yourself how your father’s boat simply vanished into that cyclone? I mean, it stands to reason that a sailor as accomplished as Robert Winterbottom would have found his way back to a lantern-lit ship, even through a veil of rain.’

  Whisker was silent, his mind replaying the events of that terrifying night. He had always believed there had been only two vessels on the Cyclone Sea, the Apple Pie and his father’s boat. But, on hearing the fox’s words, he was beginning to wonder if there in fact had been three. None of the Pie Rats had noticed a ghostly black ship racing through the cyclone. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  And if it was there, Whisker considered, reading between the lines, then it must have been there for a reason …

  ‘You were following us,’ he said, starting to understand. ‘You were hunting my parents. But-but why?’

  The fox spoke slowly, the battle axe poised in mid-air, as if he was deciding whether to strike or to continue speaking. ‘I had hoped your father could interpret a certain riddle in my possession.’

  A cold shiver ran through Whisker’s tail. ‘Riddle?’

  ‘Oh, this was no ordinary riddle,’ the fox said, taking a step towards the apprentice. ‘It was spoken by a famous explorer on his death bed.’ He paused, allowing the words to sink in. ‘The nurse with him at the time, a young beaver from Elderhorne – I believe her name was Gertrude – used the explorer’s own inkwell and paper to write down the words in a letter to her sister. But when the letter arrived, the words had mysteriously disappeared and all that remained was a watermark in the centre of the page – a watermark in the shape of an anchor.’

  Whisker felt his heart skip a beat.

  The fox took another step forward, forcing Whisker back a pace. ‘The nurse’s sister held onto the letter for many years, before selling it to an antiques dealer in Port Abalilly. Needless to say, the letter finally found its way into my paws.’

  Whisker listened, entranced, barely able to believe what he was hearing. Gertrude, the very same beaver who had betrayed him on Cloud Mountain, had overheard something in her younger years – a riddle of great importance, spoken by a famous explorer and then written in vanishing ink. Whisker knew of only one explorer who used such an ink.

  Surely not, he thought in disbelief.

  The fox continued his slow advance, speaking as he walked. ‘It’s amazing what can be revealed in the light of day,’ he said cryptically. ‘But even words on a page are useless without their true meaning. I was saddened to discover that your father knew nothing about the mysterious riddle – and he was the explorer’s sole heir.’

  Whisker resisted the sudden urge to look down at his anchor pendant. The fox had to be talking about Anso Winterbottom. But that would make the riddle …

  The fox’s next words confirmed his fears. ‘In darkness deep where anchors lie, a treasure hides from searching eyes …’ He studied Whisker’s face as he spoke, looking for a reaction.

  Whisker stared back, stone faced, giving nothing away.

  ‘Six hundred stairs, a mighty hall. My hope, a key revealing all …’ The fox finished the riddle and there was a long silence, broken only by the crackling of flames and the soft pad of his footfall. ‘Now tell me,’ he pressed, ‘what do you suppose those words mean?’

  Whisker held his tongue. Two days previously he might have had an answer, but not now – not after Anna had returned empty-handed, and not after everything he had just heard. Right now, his safest answer was to give no answer at all.

  The fox’s eyes remained locked on the tight-lipped apprentice and he spoke in a spiteful tone, ‘Your father swore he’d never heard those words, and he maintained his position even after I sent his beloved daughter to the birds of Cloud Mountain.’

  Whisker felt a surge of anger rise inside him, but he maintained his calm demeanour and said defiantly, ‘Anna’s still alive, you know. She’s alive and she’s safe.’

  A look of irritation flashed across the fox’s face. Tongues of fire reflected in his orange eyes – the same flames rapidly spreading across the deck behind Whisker.

  And it was then that Whisker understood the fox’s true motives for revealing the riddle. He had used it as a distraction to draw his attention away from the real danger at hand – the fire. One subtle step at a time, the fox had forced the unsuspecting apprentice to the very edge of the flames. Whisker was trapped between a savage fire and an equally savage fox, with nothing but a piece of broken stationery as his defence.

  ‘You’re a tenacious little rat, I’ll give you that,’ the fox sneered. ‘And perhaps my greatest mistake was allowing you to leave the high rollers’ room alive.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But know this, apprentice, for all your heroic and valent deeds, your sister will still wake up tomorrow as an orphan whose family tragically perished in a fire.’

  And with that, he leapt forward, striking out at Whisker with menacing fury.

  The battle axe whistled through the air in an underhand arc, heading for Whisker’s waist. Unable to lower his sword in time, the agile circus rat did the only thing he could think of. He hurled himself off the ground and somersaulted backwards over the blade, landing unsteadily on his feet.

  The fox hissed in frustration and followed through with an overhead shot. This time, Whisker attempted to parry the stroke with a back-handed thrust of his sword. The two blades met with a resounding CLANG, forcing the fox’s shot wide. The sheer impact of the collision threw Whisker off his feet and he hit the deck hard, re-opening his shoulder wound.

  The fox advanced towards him with powerful strides, a vicious grin etched across his face.

  Whisker scrambled back on his elbows, struggling to maintain his sword grip with flames scorching his fur and blood flowing freely down his arm.

  The fox’s next attack came straight and hard, a killer blow intended to sever Whisker in two. Whisker threw himself to one side, narrowly rolling clear as the axe slammed into the burning deck, sending flaming splinters exploding into the air.

  In the time it took the fox to remove his axe from the deck, Whisker had dragged himself to a standing position at the edge of the flames.

  He felt the searing heat of the fire behind him, smelt the pungent aroma of burning deck varnish and knew the hatch would soon be unreachable.

  The ship lurched suddenly and both combatants teetered awkwardly on their feet.

  For a split second, Whisker had the terrifying feeling that the Black Shadow was about to roll completely, taking her hapless passengers with her. Then the vibrations ceased and Whisker regained his balance.

  The fox crept closer, raising his heavy weapon for another strike, knowing he had the young rat cornered.

  Whisker simply stood there, fire lapping at his heels, blood dripping onto the deck – the picture of defeat.

  Yet for Whisker, defeat was never an option.

  Think like a Pie Rat, act like a Pie Rat.

  As the fox sent the axe hurtling towards him in a monstrous, curving arc, Whisker did the one thing his larger, stronger opponent had not anticipated – he threw himself forward.

  Whisker was nimble and he leapt off the mark like a sprinter, head down, legs pumping. By the time the heavy battle axe had drawn level with him, Whisker was safely within the blade’s ar
c, slamming his left shoulder into the fox’s stomach.

  He hit with full force, driving the air from the fox’s lungs. The black-clad captain staggered back, winded, losing his grip on the battle axe. The axe continued its trajectory, spinning uncontrollably towards the flaming bulwark.

  In desperation, Whisker flicked his tail after the weapon as it disappeared over the side of the ship.

  There was a sudden jolt as the end of Whisker’s tail coiled around the wooden handle, and the axe crashed to the foot of the bulwark.

  Ignoring the flames that were now singeing his tail, Whisker turned and ran.

  The axe thudded behind him as he raced towards the hatch, flames scorching his body from both sides. White-hot nails blistered his feet. Suffocating plumes of black smoke filled his throat. The heat was almost unbearable. Only his tunic, soaked with blood and sea water, stopped Whisker from bursting into flames himself.

  The hatch grew closer among the cinders and the smoke – a doorway to some forsaken underworld. The mere sight of it kept Whisker running – kept him from succumbing to the urge to turn back.

  You’re going to make it, he told himself. You have to make it.

  As he neared his destination, he reigned in the axe and thrust his sword through a loop in his belt.

  Above him, the flames had joined to form an arch of fire, threatening to consume all within. Beneath him, padlocked shut and blackened with ash, lay the hatch.

  Taking the handle of the battle axe in both paws, Whisker raised the weapon into the hellish blaze. Then, using every ounce of his strength, he swung it down with a resounding CRACK! shearing the iron padlock in two.

  The lock dropped away, useless and broken, and a second later the hatch was thrown open from within.

  Whisker was met by a sea of faces – prairie dogs, wombats and moles. Half-starved and shackled in chains, they stood with buckets in their paws, as the seawater swirled around them.