the Makara would miss its target? As his mind struggled to choose, he felt a terrible pain cut through his head. Niall’s song, resounding right beside him, was beginning to hurt him too. It was as if two blades had been inserted in his ears and they were twisting painfully, cutting him inside. He pressed his hands against his ears, and he was not surprised when he saw that his fingers were covered in blood.
Mike was determined to stand firm in spite of the pain, ready to help Niall if he needed it. There was no way he could interrupt him again. The Makara went to lower its beak to attack, desperate to put an end to the terrible sound that was ripping it apart – but its movements were slow and jerky now, and its huge body fell sideways, in a splash of foamy water and black blood.
Mike felt Niall swaying. “It’s nearly finished. Niall, do you hear me? You can do this!” he whispered in Niall’s ear. Niall seemed to hear, because his song rose even higher, roaring like the sea and the wind. Mike moaned in agony and fell on his knees, holding his bleeding ears, while the Makara thrashed and flailed and flung itself from side to side, until finally its movements juddered to a halt and the huge body was still.
And just in time, because Niall was spent. He doubled over and fell soaked and trembling onto the deck.
Mike shook his head, trying to get rid of the high-pitched sound that still resounded in his ears. He stood up slowly, slipping once on the wet deck and rising again, head spinning and every bone sore. He looked around him. Niall, drained but alive; Captain Young, standing frozen, leaning against the cargo; one, two …five men lying broken, senseless. The others had disappeared.
Mike forced his shaking limbs towards the parapet, panting in fear. He wasn’t convinced that the Makara was dead, he expected a tentacle to rise from the waters at any second – followed by that bony beak, ready to take his head off as it had Anders’.
Step after step, in the surreal silence, Mike reached the rail and wrapped his shaking hands around it. He looked at the waters, now calm and black, with patches of red. The crewmen’s blood.
And then the eye appeared above the waves, and the mound of its enormous, battered body. Mike let out a gasp and fell backwards, then scrambled to his feet quickly, sliding on the wet deck as he tried to make his way back to Niall as quickly as he could. He had to protect him at all costs.
“It’s dead!” called a voice. It was Captain Young.
Mike stopped for a tenth of a second, but he still made his way to Niall, throwing himself over him, ready to take the coming blow.
“It’s dead!” The captain repeated.
The blow wasn’t coming. Mike let himself rise slowly and crawled to the rail again. His heartbeat was hammering in his ears.
The eye was still there – Mike breathed in sharply as he saw it, but stayed where he was. He noticed the white film over it, and how the grey mass rolled and floated, carried by the ebb and flow of the waves.
Captain Young was right. The Makara was dead.
And so were most of the crew.
Even without a crew, the cargo ship was still afloat, together with the giant squid’s body. The waves, gentler again, cradled them both. Mike would have felt compassion, had he not just seen fourteen men being dragged down to their deaths, cut in two by the Makara’s beak, or strangled by its tentacles. Quickly he and Captain Young checked the men lying on the deck, looking for a pulse. Only one was still alive. Captain Young shook uncontrollably, his teeth chattering and his hands covered in the blood of his men.
He turned to Mike. “Why are you alive?” he whispered in the ghostly silence.
“You’re in shock,” said Mike kindly, but urgently. “You need to get this boat back to harbour. Any harbour. Now.”
“I said, why are you – and your friend – still alive?”
“We have no time for this, understand me? Snap out of it, man! Take us ashore!”
“We need to get out of here,” Niall reiterated. He was slumped against one of the doors, still white and weak, but recovering. Next to him was the only surviving crewman. A pained moan came from him.
“Did you hear that, Captain? Your man needs a doctor. Get