dismissed.
“Are you drunk?” the captain growled, turning to face his visitor.
“No. You must call your men—” Mike couldn’t finish the sentence. The boat made a sudden jump, as if something had hit it, and then kept rolling on the crest of subsequent waves.
“What was that?” yelled the captain. He moved across to hang onto the brass rail that ran along the inside of his cabin.
“It’s a sea creature. A big one.” Mike swallowed. He knew it must sound like something out of a children’s fantasy novel.
Captain Young’s eyes widened. “I knew you were trouble,” he whispered, but as the ship pitched and rolled, he realized that whatever his feelings about the boy, the ship was in trouble. He strode towards a low cupboard. Inside were several guns. He threw one to Mike and kept one for himself. They made their way downstairs, struggling to stay upright on the swaying boat.
There was an eerie silence on deck, men standing in clusters, some of them armed, holding onto the rails and waiting for orders. And then Niall started singing, his head to the sky, his eyes closed, the words of his ancient song sounding soft and sweet like a lullaby. Mike blinked – was that a song of war? Because it didn’t sound like it.
The boat was still undulating violently, but there was nothing to be seen, nothing emerging from the waves. The men were staring at Niall – what was the daft Irishman doing? Singing? At a time like this?
Suddenly something grey and vast burst out of the water, soaking them all. “Shoot!” screamed the captain and his men let rip with a volley of bullets.
Niall opened his eyes at once, and the song nearly choked him. He had been trying to soothe and stun the Makara until they were ready, but the men had started shooting too soon. Now the Makara’s tentacles, thick as cables and covered in suction pads, were flailing around in a terrible dance, as the Surari was hit over and over again. Sprays of seawater were everywhere, and screams echoed across the vessel – then those tentacles hit the boat blindly, smashing skulls and breaking bones. Crewmen were falling all around, and the guns were ripped out of their hands, rolling down the deck as the ship tossed in the water and then overboard into the sea.
Mike watched in horror as a man fell just beside him, hitting his head on the deck with such violence that something white and sticky began pouring out of his ears, immediately washed away by a spray of frothing seawater.
Mike was thrown backwards against the metal cargo containers piled up in the middle of the deck, his breath knocked out of him. Slowly, he dragged himself back onto his feet, holding onto the handle of a container, trying to remain upright in the chaos. A shout resounded in his ears, above the screams and moans of the hurt crewmen. “Help!”
It was Anders. He had fallen overboard and was desperately holding onto the handrail, his legs thrashing above the frozen waters – above the mass of tentacles. Mike let go of the handle and made his way, wavering and slipping, towards the rail. He knelt before it, holding onto the bars, and looked into Anders’ terrified face. Mike tried to reach him with the hand that wasn’t holding the gun, but he was just out of reach. Mike attempted once more to take hold of Anders’ hand, as the crewman’s body was thrown around by the roaring sea, but it was no use. In a split second, he made a decision: he let go of the gun.
The ship undulated again, hit by the waves born under the Makara’s enormous flailing body, and Mike watched the weapon slipping away across the wet deck, away from his grasp and into the sea. Anders’face was contorted with terror.
“Don’t let me go,” he mouthed.
“Grab my hands!”
“I can’t!”
“You have to!” Mike implored, desperately trying to close his freezing fingers around Anders’ wrists. All around them there was panic, men shouting and bodies falling, but Mike couldn’t hear a thing, he couldn’t see a thing; he was hypnotized by Anders’ frightened eyes, and he couldn’t look away.
What happened next seemed surreal, like a bad horror film. In a massive effort the Makara lifted itself above the surface of the water and opened its body up in a fan, its tentacles like a huge, dripping crown around the black centre. In the middle of its body, just above