The Wrath of the Lizard Lord

by Jon Mayhew

  ‘If we ever get topside again,’ Dakkar murmured, mulling over the past few days. After Napoleon had died and the last of the Cryptos Guard had fled, somehow Dakkar had imagined a hurried chase to the surface. ‘I thought we’d be there by now.’

  Reality had been a little different. The giants had laid out their dead along the shore for the Gacheela to take and spent a long time pulling bodies from the rubble. The bodies of Cryptos guards were treated with customary disrespect and thrown into the bushes for the Saranda. When Dakkar had asked for a cairn of stones over Napoleon’s corpse, the giants had looked at him uncomprehendingly. Without Gog to translate, communication had become more difficult even though Dakkar had begun to pick up some key words of their language.

  He didn’t need a translator to tell him that Gog’s son was unhappy. His dark eyes scowled at Dakkar every time their paths crossed.

  ‘He blames you for Gog’s death,’ Mary said one night as they all sat round a tribal fire eating scavenged fruit from the ruined storehouses.

  ‘There was nothing Dax could do,’ Georgia said, leaping to her feet.

  Dakkar stayed silent, staring at the ground.

  A few of Gog’s original tribesmen had survived and they greeted Dakkar with smiles and even offerings of food. Dakkar got the distinct impression that they were watching out for him at least.

  The giants’ funeral rites took days. Some tribesmen found feathers and the bones of fallen reptiles. They paced the ruins, shaking the feathers and chanting.

  ‘I think they’re purifying the area,’ Dakkar said.

  ‘It needs it,’ Georgia replied, wrinkling her nose at the stink of decay.

  The rotting carcasses of reptiles littered the site, attracting small scavenger lizards and some strange flying creatures too. Gweek would flutter off from time to time and Dakkar tried not to think about what it was eating.

  ‘Couldn’t we just go and find a way home?’ Mary said, as they watched the dancing shaman.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to venture out into that jungle alone,’ Georgia muttered, shading her eyes and staring across at the distant line of trees. ‘There’s all kinds of beasties who’ve run off there recently – not to mention a few Cryptos guards.’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ Mary said, folding her arms at Georgia.

  ‘We’re better off moving in a group,’ Dakkar agreed, ‘frustrating as it is. I’m sure we’ll find a way out of here, Mary, but we’ve got to stick together.’

  Dakkar, Georgia and Mary spent their time scaven­ging what they could. They found rifles, powder and ammunition, knives and swords. Mary found supplies of dried meat and tarpaulin covers. She also found some fascinating samples of fossil which Georgia wouldn’t allow on the sub ‘because of their weight’. Dakkar managed to make some new Sea Arrows using bits and pieces from the arsenal.

  Finally, after several days, the giants were ready to move. Although they were from different tribes, they appeared to accept Gog’s son as leader. Their numbers had dwindled and while Gog had mentioned at least three tribes to Dakkar, here there barely looked enough for one. Dakkar bade a sad farewell to Napoleon’s grave and followed the giants as they strode across the dead plain that surrounded the now ruined tower.

  Their journey back to Gog’s riverbank camp had proved tense but uneventful. The majority of the giants hadn’t seen anything like the Liberty before, and when Dakkar and Georgia uncovered it from the bushes and reeds at the side of the river, some were scared. Gog’s son scowled the deepest.

  Although time was hard to measure in this night-less world, Dakkar guessed that over a week had passed since the battle at the tower.

  ‘But we’re ready to leave tomorrow, aren’t we?’ Mary said, pulling Dakkar from his thoughts.

  ‘It isn’t just a question of jumping in the Liberty and speeding off, you know,’ Georgia snapped. ‘We need food – enough for three of us for at least several weeks. We need water. We need to know where we’re going!’

  ‘That’s not my fault,’ Mary said, shrugging. ‘If Dakkar hadn’t smashed up the nearest Ascender Cage, I’d be back in Lyme now.’

  ‘How did you get down here, Georgia?’ Dakkar said, ignoring Mary’s jibe.

  ‘Through a sea tunnel,’ Georgia said. ‘The beasts I tracked from Nova Scotia brought me to an island off the coast of Africa. They swam into a cave which became a tunnel. The current was strong and it sucked me right down. I thought I was going to die.’

  ‘Oh well, never mind,’ Mary muttered just loud enough for Georgia to hear. ‘Better luck next time.’

  Georgia jumped up. ‘You button your lip,’ she snarled, ‘or I’ll do it for you!’

  ‘Will you two stop?’ Dakkar said, sighing. ‘We’ve got enough on our plate trying to get home.’ He looked up at the boiling clouds.

  But what will I find when I get up there? he thought. Oginski dead? The count marshalling his reptile cavalry?

  The time eventually came for them to depart. Two of Gog’s old warriors accompanied them through the jungle to the river where the Liberty lay moored. They had packed her with the black fruit, some dried meat and the craft’s water barrels were full. Dakkar’s Sea Arrows were stowed and ready to use.

  Now Dakkar stood on the mossy riverbank, his cheeks flushed, unsure what to say. The two giants waited, giving toothy grins and nodding. Then Gog’s son appeared from the undergrowth. He stared at Dakkar then nodded.

  ‘You save my father’s life,’ Gog’s son said hesitantly. ‘He gave his for you.’

  Dakkar shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He gave it for you.’

  Gog’s son stood deep in thought then nodded solemnly. He extended a hand and Dakkar took it. For the first time, Dakkar saw Gog’s son smile.

  ‘Are you goin’ to hold hands all day?’ Mary called from the hatch of the Liberty. ‘Only, I want to be gettin’ home.’

  Dakkar shook his head and climbed on board, giving a final wave to Gog’s son and the giant warriors.

  The Liberty felt warm inside and the engines pulsed. Georgia sat in the captain’s seat and looked up. ‘Ready, Dax?’ she said.

  ‘It’s Dakkar,’ Dakkar said.

  ‘Dax.’ Georgia grinned. ‘Kinda fancy name, I reckon.’

  Dakkar shook his head and Georgia pushed the drive lever to Full Ahead.

  Dakkar sat on the lip of the hatch and waved to the giants as they shrank into the distance to become shrouded by trees along the riverbank. The jungle closed in around them once more.

  ‘It’s really quiet,’ Dakkar said, scanning the bushes and undergrowth. ‘It’s as if when the tower blew up the wildlife fled from this whole area.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Mary. ‘Or perhaps when all them reptiles went back into the woods they ate everything in sight.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Dakkar murmured. Gweek glided down from the trees, a dragonfly caught in its toothy beak. It crunched at the insect, gulping it down. Dakkar grimaced. ‘And what am I to do with you, little Gweek?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to keep it?’ Mary asked.

  ‘And how would I explain it to everyone on the surface world?’ Dakkar said, running a finger along the top of the creature’s scaly head.

  ‘A bald parrot?’ Mary smirked.

  ‘It’ll take us weeks to get to England,’ Georgia called from the captain’s seat. ‘If you think I’m having that thing flying around and pooping on my head for all that time, you can think again.’

  ‘I could make a cage,’ Dakkar said, his heart sinking at the thought of leaving the little creature. Ugly as Gweek was, with its vicious rows of teeth, its leathery wings and scaly skin, he’d grown quite attached to it.

  ‘If it’s bonded with you,’ Mary said, ‘it’ll follow you. What if it just flies and flies after you across the sea until it dies of exhaustion?’

  ‘Kill it now then!’ Georgia yelled.

  ‘Georgia!’ Dakkar snapped. ‘That settles it – I’ll make a cage.’

  After much grumbling, G
eorgia beached the Liberty close to the ruins of the tower while Dakkar and Mary searched for suitable branches and sapling shoots to fashion a cage.

  ‘Don’t go too far into the forest,’ Mary said, staring at the shadows.

  Dakkar nodded, staring around at the silent ruins. The heap of rocks still smouldered; a few tiny lizards scampered about in the wreckage. Some distance away, a dark patch in the sand indicated where the bodies of the fallen giants had been. The Gacheela had taken every scrap and, so the giants believed, taken their souls into the skies.

  Dumping an armful of green sticks into the lower cabin of the Liberty, Dakkar grinned at Georgia, who rolled her eyes.

  ‘Couldn’t we just make the cage and then leave Gweek here?’ she said. ‘It would escape eventually but we’d be long gone by then.’

  Georgia popped her head out of the top of the Liberty. ‘If that stupid bird thing of yours so much as farts in here, you’ll wake up to find it roasted on a spit and served up for breakfast!’

  Gweek landed on Dakkar’s shoulder, gave a shriek and pecked his earlobe. ‘Ow!’ Dakkar said, rubbing his ear. ‘You know I wouldn’t let her do that! Just keep your head down, that’s all.’

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Out on the Ocean

  They clambered into the Liberty and Georgia set her to Full Ahead.

  Dakkar climbed down into the lower cabin of the craft, with Gweek sitting on his shoulder. He picked up the sticks and began to tie them together to form a cage. Mary came down and sat with him, tying some more sticks together. Soon they had two sides of a cube. The Liberty bounced and skipped across the waves.

  ‘The sea tunnel is a good few days’ sail from here,’ Georgia called down from the upper cabin. ‘The compass is hopeless so I’ll have to try and remember the way.’

  ‘Hopeless?’ Dakkar repeated, putting down the cage and climbing up. The compass sat in a binnacle close to the Liberty’s wheel. It whirled around, never settling. ‘Why is it doing that?’

  Georgia shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s because we’re deep beneath the earth’s surface,’ she suggested. ‘North might be there.’ She pointed upward. ‘Or there.’ she pointed at her feet.

  ‘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. ‘Ge
t 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.