"Ever since that moment," he continued, "the Dreadknot has snatched any piece of man swabbing decks or watching the horizon. Its hunger grows insatiable — no longer satisfying its thirst with blood but taking its bread for all crust and bone, and ever bolder in the doing of it."
Harmony frightfully jumped side me as a knock arrived on the cabin door. John Hallet opened it and showed in a confused looking Kat and Eddinray.
"All okay?" asked the knight, his greedy eye drawn to the loot. "My moons and my stars! Did you get me some meat Harmony?"
"You don't want what they're eating Godwin."
"That will be all Mr. Hallet,” said Christian, so obediently, the young Midshipman closed the door and left us to it.
The captain's macabre appearance startled our friends. Kat refused his peace offering drink, but Eddinray helped himself. "About time too!" he said, snatching a goblet and filling it to the brim. "I say, have you any peanuts?"
"Never have I seen the like,” muttered Christian, shaking his head as he slumbered to his cabinet for another pour, the decanter trembling in his grip as he filled the cup.
Eddinray joined Harmony and I on a lush sofa whilst Kat remained standing; the samurai was tetchy, missing a part of him he could not live without. "Where are our weapons?" he asked the captain. "My sword? Give it to me!"
Christian observed Kat, lacking the will to argue or even stand up straight. "Your weapons will," he exhaled, "if I am impressed, be in your possession directly. Mr. Fox is it? You talk of killing my creature — tell me how ye free a captain of his burden?"
Kat and Eddinray looked suitably bemused, so my explanation would be to their benefit; but a revolted knight interrupted the mood by spitting his liquor to the rug. "What vile fluid is this?" he baulked. "My tongue rejects it!"
Harmony prudently shushed him, and I stood to address my unusual audience in this rocking pirate ship.
"The Dreadknot…are a race of reptiles found in the waters here and the Distinct Earth. Alien in origin, they are stalkers who snatch their prey from the shadows; they are smart, determined, and needless to say, extremely dangerous. You don't see these things coming, in-fact you don't see them at all. Dreadknots are, by all accounts, the perfect predator. They are killing machines and one appears to be using your ship as its feeding ground captain. It's got a taste of something it likes."
Christian caressed a palm over his bleeding bandages as I concluded. "It's no doubt watching the Bounty as we speak. Behind us, in front — who knows."
The captain returned his eye to the window, scrutinizing the void of nothingness beyond. "If ye can't see it," he hissed, "how do we kill it? How? Tell me how!"
"Fire!" I answered. "Fire, pure and simple…I have a plan."
33. Enter The Dreadknot
Alone I stood, drenched on a deck dimpled by the downpour, wearing nothing but jeans. This was a hellish night; a ferocious wind howled through torn sails, and at the helm, thick rope knotted around the wheel to hold us on an unstable blaze over the ocean.
Fire would kill a Dreadknot. "Predators of the Under Realms" told me as much; but this creature needed a drink to entice it, so I would be its vendor. Holding arms outward, I slashed cuts down my forearms to release the flow of blood — time would tell if I was to the creatures liking. "Where are you?" I said, squinting at Bounty's stern and feeling the rain pelt on my head.
At my flanks would appear to be plain wooded casks, but examining the left side closer you would spot a crouched knight and the clamped wings of an angel, doing her best to keep out of sight. Huddling tight, Eddinray used his body to conceal the heat and light of a lantern, whilst Harmony, still nursing a pain in her arm, held the longbow with a ready arrow — its tip wrapped in an oily rag and aimed at my back. Concerned, Eddinray pestered Harmony with worry, and she repeatedly reassured him. Hunched against a stout cask to my right was my second surprise for the Dreadknot — Kat, reunited with his swords.
Here I stood and here I would wait, the blood congealing over the cuts I had made, mind not on the wet or the cold — but on the ridiculous task of slaying a carnivorous, and invisible dinosaur.
Out of the weather below, Christian and his crew loitered at steps leading to the upper deck. All of them armed with antique muskets, they were a jammed group of steaming sweat and paranoia.
"We will hear him scream an' beg,” whispered McCoy. "Scream and beg I tell ye. Any minute now."
"He is not afraid," replied Hallet, "and he is no fool."
"Pipe down!" Christian hissed. "The devil is out there…"
***
Three hours later, and with no change in my aching stance or the diabolical weather, my head drooped to my chest and my arms felt like saturated tree trucks. Although my short sword and dagger hung ready from my belt, I couldn't draw either if I tried. Yet I focused for my friend's sake, observing rain swept canvas, the black night and shimmering wood for any sign, hint of the hunter killer. I didn't have to wonder if Kat was still alert and fresh at his barrel, with him that was guaranteed; Harmony and Eddinray on the other hand, would be struggling alongside me.
Throughout this patient torture, certain sounds became all too familiar: rain droplets tapping the deck like falling pennies, the creaking joints of old wood and the shattering crash of the bow as it ploughed a route through the sea. I listened then for the unfamiliar, and when one distinctive sound came to my ears, my senses honed in. It was a thumping on Oak ten feet in front of me — something substantial had just dropped onto Bounty's deck. The wait was over, the Dreadknot was with us, and the smell of my blood and fear immediately caught its attention. Its steps were clumsy, not attempting to conceal its sound under the cloak of invisibility.
Thunk — Thunk.
Its kills had come too easy. Far too easy. The creature was careless now, expecting its meat with little or no effort.
Thunk — Thunk.
"Not yet!" I whispered, flapping two fingers to Eddinray at the corner of my eye. And at his barrel, I could sense the eagerness of Kat and his katana. Although there was no denying the Dreadknot's presence, I could see nothing on the deck but the showery stray and the Thunk — Thunk of advancing footsteps. I inhaled in a breath and the smell of fresh fish shot up my nostrils. Gingerly, Eddinray elevated the golden lantern nearer Harmony's arrow then waited for my signal.
Thunk — Thunk…
The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight when I noticed its husky breath now a visible gas coming closer, till finally, the lashing rain revealed hints of its muscle-bound outline. Standing over fourteen feet tall, its face was difficult to distinguish, but the protruding snout was unmistakable. It came to stop at my face, and I expected my exhausted heart to burst from my chest as that large nose began to smear over my hair, its breath like rotten eggs. This greedy thing did not feast on me right away, but examined me, perhaps wondering why its dinner wasn't fleeing or screaming like the rest. My signal confounded it even further. Leaping back, I clapped as hard as I could, prompting Eddinray to light Harmony's arrowhead with the lantern. The pair worked fast, but not before the Dreadknot came forward to sink its incisors into my neck. I roared spasmodic as the angel loomed brightly over the cask, directing her flaming arrow at me.
"Fire!" I screamed, pushing and ripping my flesh free of it.
On my ass, I watched the blood leak from my neck, and forcing myself to remain conscious; I suddenly heard the savage cry of the Dreadknot as Kat sliced its arm off at the elbow, causing a fountain of curdled green gush to spout from the wound.
"Fire!" I bawled again, forcing pressure onto my neck. "Kill it Harmony! Kill it!"
Harmony drew back the burning arrow and experienced an immediate and excruciating twist of bone in her arm. The bowstring snapped from her fingers and the arrow left the longbow at speed, swooping over Kat's head and piercing Bounty's main sail, engulfing the canvas in sunshine.
Inspired, Captain Christian and his crew ran up the steps. The captain ordered his men in sear
ch of water buckets; meanwhile Kat pulled me from the Dreadknot's proximity as it bit off the head off McCoy, spat it overboard then drank the blood from his lacerated neck. With lantern still alight in his hand, a hasty Eddinray sprinted for the monsters back while it punched the lungs out of another seaman.
"All hands! Ordered Christian, incensed. "Muskets!"
Christian prepared a line of guns with John Hallet and two others. Aiming rifles, they held fire for Eddinray, whose lantern burst glass and flames over the Dreadknot's shoulder. The beast moaned furiously, then swivelled around to pulverize its forearm under Eddinray's chin, launching the knight skyward and gone.
"Fire at will!" cried Christian, and mates and Midshipmen blasted the Dreadknot's flaming body with bullets; it's flesh frittering away like tissue paper and its alien screech like nothing I've ever heard before.
Kat, Harmony and I scurried from danger as mutineers reloaded their muskets — but the Dreadknot retreated into waves before they could finish it off. "Coward!" bellowed Christian, with an insane chuckle. "Look at him run from us! It will be back lads! No mistake it will be back! Get these fires out! Get them all out! Hallet?"
Seeing the corrosive flames eat away at Bounty, Midshipman Hallet leant defeated against the side rail, smeared his white face clean with water as Christian arrived to pull on his collar.
"Wake up your head! Snap out of it man!"
"Not enough men, captain!" the boy replied, taking his own handful of the captain's coat. "Our ship is lost! We are doomed! Look at those flames! Don't you see now? Don't you understand it? This is our doing captain and God's redress! We cast his word adrift and he will see us under sea for it! Launch the boat! Abandon ship! Abandon — "
"No!" Christian roared, his eyes gone mad. "This is my ship boy! Mine! I will not let her go now or ever! Follow out my orders Hallet! Follow or — "
The bow hit a wall of immovable water, throwing us all to our backs and fronts. Harmony spilled her wings into me; Christian caught Kat, and one unfortunate soul joined the Dreadknot in the water.
"Where's Godwin?" cried Harmony in my ear. "I can't see him Daniel!"
I directed my finger up the imposing centre mast to a rippling confusion of burning ropes and sails, and the crow’s nest Eddinray dangled from. "I'll get him Harmony! Get yourself to the boat! Go! Go!"
Gales fed the fire which devoured the ship. The masts were ready to snap when I began my ascent up the rope ladders, with sails gloriously lighting my way aloft.
"There!" yelled Christian, witnessing the Dreadknot's splashing return to Bounty's deck. "There! Over there!"
The creatures' camouflage was gone now; the lantern scorched its body a burnt crisp color it could not disguise. Unaware of the danger, John Hallet assisted Harmony and another in launching the open boat, but on loosening knots, the young man's face was drained of all color and sense, as the Dreadknot pilfered through his spine. Blood spattered generously over Harmony, who shrieked and scuttled toward the security of Kat's sword arm.
"Have mercy!" exclaimed Christian, his musket refusing to fire. "Forgive us!" he announced, throwing the rifle aside and falling to his knees. "Forgive me!"
The Dreadknot dug its snout deep into the guts of the still-twitching Hallet, then sucked out intestines like spaghetti bolognaise.
"Assist me!" Kat yelled at anyone within earshot. The captain and last of his crew came to joined Kat at the launch, and after righting the tangled ropes, they lowered the little vessel to touch down on the churning waves.
"All of you in!" ordered Christian, face never leaving the predator. "All but me!"
"You cannot destroy that monster!" cried Kat, snatching his wrist. "There is only death for you here!"
"And I am tired of running from it!" he bawled back, slapping off Kat's hold and charging for the creature. The Dreadknot saw Christian coming, so dropped its food and opened its arms to the arriving captain. The pair thumped chests in a bear hug, and under raining fire and water they wrestled over the deck, man and monster embracing until the wood underneath surrendered to their weight; and gravity dragged both to the incinerating depths of the Bounty
***
Like the stuffed guy atop a bonfire, I reached the nest to discover Eddinray sitting dazed at this frail lookout post — the height nauseating and heat too intense to bare.
Harmony yelled for us a long way down, and worryingly, the fire had now singed away the ladders I'd ascended; the canvas under me was also a searing sheet of white heat.
"Eddinray!" I chocked. "Up!"
The knight murmured back, and weak from blood-loss myself, I slumped over his face and nearly toppled from our perilous periscope. Flames were like an axe chopping into all three masts, and ours suddenly tipped to one side, bringing us closer to the sea and snapping me out of my mental slur. I ignored the increasing pain and smoke tempting me to sleep — I focused the strength back into my muscles, then regained that all important balance.
"Eddinray!"
***
Captain Christian and the Dreadknot crept eye on eye in a roasting vat of yellows, whites and oranges. Clutching a hand over his heart, a repentant Christian spoke from it. "Our Father — who art in heaven — hallowed be thy name."
The crisping creature thud toward his toes, the insane captain luring the thing deeper into the inferno.
"Thy Kingdom come — thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!"
Further he retreated, and closer the Dreadknot followed. Christian's blood came like stress through his facial bandages — he wanted the predator and the predator wanted its prey. Clumsily, the captain stumbled backward and fell down the hold steps, snatching a hanging lantern on his way
***
I slapped Eddinray's cheeks raw until he opened his eyes and came to his wits.
"What," he asked, blurry, "where's the fire?"
"We're in it! Get up!"
The mast keen to break off into the sea, I heard our friends calling from the drifting boat, encouraging and inspiring bravery. "Eddinray…we have to jump! Can you do that?"
"Do what?"
"That's right,” I grunted, wrapping his arm over my shoulder. "Just a nice dive to a warm pool. Harmony's waiting to towel you down."
Eddinray's flustered face looked happy to be coaxed, so I guided us to the edge of the breaking nest and examined the dive to choppy waters. It was a daunting drop to swirling seas, but with the fire toasting my legs, it was now or never.
***
Christian backed off as far as possible into the hold, our vacant chains dangling on a wall near the scattered casks of black powder and white canvas. He squashed a rat under his boot then teased the lantern in-front of the Dreadknot‘s snout; the wailing, ash ridden beast still thirsty. "Forgive us our trespasses — as we forgive those who trespass against us! Lead us not into temptation — but deliver us from evil!"
The Dreadknot sprang forward and picked up the flailing captain, but before Christian could be eaten or broken, he tossed the hot lantern over a punctured sack of black powder. "For thine is the Kingdom — the power and the glory — for ever and ever!"
Bounty exploded…into a hundred thousand smithereens.
34. Reflection
Kat laid me flat on that open boat to recover myself. An ashy fire came down with the rain and the last traces of Bounty burned like a Viking funeral over the choppy water.
"Godwin?!" wailed Harmony, over the sides. "Godwin?! I can't see him Kat! The smoke…it's too thick!"
Drifting between the bobbing shrapnel, she and Kat searched for Eddinray. Nauseous, I sat up to gasp at the dead mutineer beside me, his face riddled with splinters. Without warning, our lifeboat tipped to one side, and Eddinray climbed on-board. "Can't hear a thing!" he yelled, spluttering. The knight fell over me like a wet fish, and Harmony embraced his sopping shambles, while our open boat sailed free from the wreckage…
***
The last of the well water was gone, some used on the bite at my neck, the res
t used to heal burns and burst eardrums. Those disappearing drops of precious gold unnerved us all — our security blanket was gone.
Most of my clothes had gone up with Bounty, I claimed the dead man's moth-eaten blazer before Kat threw his corpse overboard. Drying out was impossible in this permanently wet environment, and floating aimlessly in the dead of night, it was hard to be optimistic about our chances.
"A watchful eye on stirring waters people!" said Eddinray, taking prominent position at the bow to observe one of many developing whirlpools. "I will guide us through this minefield!"
With no moon to light the way, Kat sat in the centre of the boat and pulled on two oars; meanwhile Harmony, focused her eyes over the horizon. "How to get out of this one?" she pondered.
"We don't." I answered, body wasted.
"Resignation?" she said, surprised. "Doors do not appear as such here, Daniel. Open your mind. There will be a way!"
Kat's grunt seemed to agree, but he gave no opinion as to what this magical door may look like.
"My hearing is improving!" announced Eddinray, louder than necessary. "Yes it is! And I couldn't possibly assist you with the rowing samurai; alas my strength is weak still."
Kat expressed only contempt for Eddinray, to which the knight remained oblivious.
"During his time here," said Harmony, thinking aloud, "Captain Christian said he came across no land whatsoever, therefore our door must be in the sky, or on the water itself."
"But where?" cried Eddirnay, slapping a fist into his palm, "Perhaps underwater?"
"Of course!" Harmony exclaimed, suddenly. "There! Look there!"
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