by Lorna Reid
When they emerged on deck, into the gloom, at first Katrina thought there was something wrong with the ship; everything was covered in small black flames – the masts, the deck, everything. It puddled around their feet making them shuffle back in surprise, yet it was burning nothing. No one was alarmed, or even noticed.
‘Patches said that they set magic to keep the ship warm – this must be it,’ said Poppy, crouching down and running her hand through the flickering flame.
‘It’s not that warm, though,’ said Danny, joining her.
‘Enough so we can avoid trouble. Too much heat brings up the Razorpods and attracts all sorts, otherwise,’ said Kneazel, who had followed them out and was peering nervously over the side into the inky blackness. ‘Heat and light. Lethal down here.’
Great, thought Katrina. She peered overboard. The water was barely visible, let alone any walls, rocks, or the roof of wherever they were. The darkness made her eyes ache if she tried to stare too much. Aside from the magical flames, the shaded lanterns along the deck and masts were the only light sources. It was still breakfast time, but in the Black Pass it was permanently night.
How they ever navigated here was a mystery, and she craned her neck to look up into the darkness, her gaze following the ropes of flame until she saw several lookouts perched high amid the rigging and sails. They had some sort of flat goggles on. Sod that job, she thought. As good a climber as she was, it was like being the piece of chicken on the top of the buffet tray.
‘We keep strict watches.’ Kneazel had followed her gaze. ‘Too many ships have been caught unawares. That can mean death.’ He fiddled with the turtle pendant, eyes never still for one moment. ‘There are more fore and aft, too.’ He pointed to the prow where two crew were stationed.
Katrina was about to ask what a Razorpod was when a faint smell reached her nose. It was like old, wet trainers that had been filled with meat and left out too long. Poppy was already screwing up her face and eyeing Kneazel with suspicion.
‘What is that smell?’ Poppy eventually said, just before an ear-splitting scream shredded the darkness. Kneazel’s head jerked back and he struggled to draw an overlarge sword from a battered scabbard.
‘Shriex!’ he yelled. ‘Get down.’ More high-pitched screams echoed out of the darkness. The watchers in the rigging were ringing bells and brandishing weapons. In the gloom behind them, the Captain could be heard barking orders.
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Poppy.
Katrina felt a rush of air above her and a large, green-eyed shape plummeted out of the darkness. She ducked and lashed out, feeling her arm collide with something leathery. Poppy was waving one arm above her head, protecting herself with the other hand, while Danny swiped out and ducked beneath the swooping black shapes.
Katrina looked for a weapon and saw a broom that had been left leaning in a bucket against some crates. She had just grabbed it when she felt the air move and spun round to see another pair of green eyes in a terrifying mass of black plummeting toward them.
Danny, who was closest to it, yelled and ducked, but the creature clawed his head as it brushed over the top of him. Katrina swung the broom handle as Danny yelled, smashing the thing from the air while more leathery shapes dropped from the darkness and screeched toward them.
‘I got it!’ she shouted, as the dark thing thumped to the deck. They clustered together, hitting and lashing out. Danny wiped away the blood that was trickling down his face and managed to land a light punch on one creature as it zipped by.
‘Get inside!’ shouted Patches, rushing over to them. He pushed them into a small storeroom beside the large crew briefing room while he warded off the creatures.
‘Stay in here, don’t leave. Keep pressure on that.’ Patches pointed at Danny’s head and slammed the door, leaving them in near darkness.
Danny peeled his sticky hand from his head and peered at the blood. ‘Feels like my head’s on fire.’
‘Hopefully it isn’t too deep,’ said Poppy, scrabbling in her pocket for a handful of tissues and pressing them gingerly to the wound. Danny winced but, surprisingly, said nothing.
‘Sit down here,’ ordered Poppy, pushing Danny down onto a barrel amid the stowed equipment and coiled ropes. Shrieks and muffled shouts filtered in through the small window and Katrina was about to scramble up to look out when the door banged open.
Kneazel flung himself inside, slamming the door shut and peering through a crack. ‘I knew it. A swarm of Shriex. I knew this trip would be bad luck. No one ever believes me.’ He hung a small lantern up on a nail and twisted one of his many pendants between nervous fingers before noticing Danny’s injury. ‘I bet that gets infected.’
‘Thanks,’ snapped Danny.
‘Happened to someone I know after an attack by Shriex. Rotten meat in their claws. His head fell off in the end.’ Katrina rolled her eyes in disbelief and grinned at the faces the others pulled.
‘Here.’ Kneazel passed Poppy a small box. ‘Put some of that on it.’
Poppy tapped out some gritty blue powder and dabbed it onto the wound, making Danny wince.
‘What is it?’ he grumbled.
‘Bluescab. A fungus that grows in the Pass. Worth a lot of money that, overland.’
Poppy wrinkled her nose. ‘Does it help?’
‘No,’ grumbled Danny. ‘It feels like it’s got sand in it now.’
‘What are those things?’ asked Katrina from her new vantage point on a barrel by the window. The commotion had moved further down the main deck, but the occasional piercing shriek could still be heard.
‘They live way, way up in the roofs of the caverns. They mainly eat fish and animals, or carrion, but if they’re in a big enough swarm, they’ll attack people.’ He kissed his pendant and pressed an eye back to the crack in the door.
‘Shouldn’t you be out there helping?’ asked Katrina.
Kneazel’s body turned rigid and his huge, pale eyes swept over them all. His hands found and twisted around what looked like a golden leaf on a long chain.
‘No, I … I was told to come and watch you.’ He looked panicky. ‘Yeah,’ he rattled on, ‘Captain’s orders – I’m here to guard you.’
‘Who’s guarding you?’ muttered Poppy, making them laugh.
‘It’s no joke. My friend’s brother’s cousin’s girlfriend’s father knows someone who saw someone carried away by a swarm of Shriex,’ he said, looking affronted.
Danny and Poppy exchanged looks. Katrina pulled a face and pressed her nose back to the window.
‘They wouldn’t be big enough,’ said Poppy, ‘especially if he was struggling.’
Kneazel ignored her.
‘They never found him, but his finger washed up on Hacker’s Slab a few months later. That’s where all the bodies wash up. To do with the currents down here. The scavengers can tell you some horror stories, sometimes.’
Danny laughed out loud and Katrina snorted her incredulity into the glass.
‘A finger could have been anyone’s!’ scoffed Poppy. ‘How did they know it was his?’
‘Don’t encourage him,’ hissed Danny.
‘Wouldn’t it have rotted by that time, anyway?’ she pursued.
Kneazel pretended not to hear them and muttered to himself, stroking his pendant and peeping through the crack. ‘There’s Russell!’ squeaked Katrina, banging on the window. ‘Get off the deck!’ she shouted through the glass.
Poppy rounded on Kneazel. ‘You should go and get him. Now.’
The scrawny man looked mortified, and Katrina could swear his lower lip trembled. She glanced back outside and froze.
‘Look out! Fuck, those things are attacking him. Do something!’ Katrina shouted. Kneazel stared in horror at her, incoherent words bubbling in his throat. Katrina leapt down from the barrel and ran for the door, but he stepped in front of her and locked it.
‘You’re not going out there. It’s dangerous.’
She stared at him, aghast.
‘Besides, you might
let one of those things in here.’
‘If you won’t go, then get the fuck out of our way!’ shouted Katrina. She struggled to get past, but he shoved her, hard, and she crashed to the floor, banging her head on the side of a barrel. Danny and Poppy struggled with him, grabbing for the key while Katrina scrambled up onto the barrel and shoved the window open, ignoring the ache in her head.
Kneazel grabbed her leg as she slithered through, but she kicked back with all her might and crunched his nose, making him squeal and let go. She dropped down onto a row of small barrels that were secured against a rail on the side of the cabin, and then down onto the deck. Behind her, the door burst open and then slammed shut.
‘We locked the bastard in,’ came Danny’s voice, but she was already running, barrel lid in hand.
Russell was curled up on the deck, kicking out at two Shriex who were flapping and scrabbling at his body with their sharp claws. Katrina smashed the lid into one of them, getting clawed in the arm as it flapped away. She staved off the second, ignoring the fiery pain and staggering back as its flapping weight pressed down on the lid.
The claws scrabbling against the wood made her cringe; for a moment she imagined them coming through it and tearing into her hands.
Danny and Poppy joined the fray, and Poppy swatted at one creature with a thick piece of rope while Danny helped Russell up. Another wild swing from Poppy knocked one from the air, sending it crashing to the deck, momentarily stunned.
‘Mind out,’ said a voice, and Patches, Mineska, and the Captain were beside them. Patches grabbed the wing of the nearest creature and swung it round, smashing it into the rail. The Captain plunged a dagger into the chest of the one Poppy had stunned, and he and Mineska used their swords to despatch the rest, the last cries of retreating beasts dying away in the gloom.
Katrina looked at the others – they were all scratched and cut, Russell worse than anyone. A trickle of blood was running down his face, and his hands and arms were a mess where he had tried to defend himself. The sight made her throat burn, and her own pain seem to pale as Mineska led him away.
Patches kicked at the Shriex corpses, checking they were dead, and Danny moved in for a closer look, poking at the flaccid, leathery wings. Katrina bent and touched one. They were thin and oily, with hooked claws on the tips. Patches stretched a wing out, letting them marvel at the size compared to the black scaly body, which was the size of a cat’s. Pointed ears stretched to the back of its head, and the mouth was full of glittering teeth.
‘Look at the claws,’ breathed Poppy. ‘They look horrible.’ Curved black claws tapered to points on the tiny toes. No wonder they did so much damage, thought Katrina.
The Captain examined Danny’s head and Katrina’s arms. He accepted a handkerchief from Patches and wrapped it gently around her hands, while Patches used another to temporarily clean Danny up.
‘Jal, rearrange the watch to cover everyone who’s being patched up; we’ll get them below,’ said the Captain. ‘I’ll relieve you on the helm as soon as I can.’
With a worried glance at them all, Patches nodded and hurried away.
Chapter 19
◊
DANNY SHIFTED IN AN armchair whose stuffing was desperately trying to escape through a myriad of patched rips, while the Captain perched on the arm and dabbed at Danny’s head with a wet cloth.
Danny looked past him to Poppy, who was getting a nasty cut on her arm treated by Ivy, while Mineska finished with Russell’s injuries and began on Katrina’s.
‘Someone’s been at this already,’ the Captain commented, rubbing Bluescab from his fingers.
‘Yeah,’ said Danny, ‘that wanker Kneazel.’ His eyes flickered over the daggers poking from the tops of the Captain’s boots and he wished he had some. The Captain rinsed the cloth out in a nearby bowl.
‘I didn’t see him.’
‘No, he was cowering in the store cabin, pretending you’d told him to watch us instead of helping. He wouldn’t help when Russell was attacked; he just locked the door.’
The Captain paused for a moment before applying a thick pink paste to Danny’s head. His mouth set in a straight line, and his green eyes narrowed.
‘Go on.’
Danny explained what happened, feeling his temper rise. He felt angry just thinking about it.
The Captain had tensed and, for a second, Danny thought he would explode. ‘Was she hurt?’
‘No, she kicked him in the face when he grabbed her leg, though. Serves him right.’
‘So, he knocked Katrina over and left Russell to fend for himself?’ They looked over at where Russell was being helped into a clean shirt and jeans, his own bloody clothes laying nearby. His chest and arms were bandaged and it made his movements stiff and awkward.
‘Yes.’ Danny tossed the key onto the table beside him. The Captain looked furious but didn’t ask anything else. He tended to Danny’s other injuries, dabbed some more of the paste on his head, and ordered him to leave it all alone until he was told otherwise.
Ivy moved over and began to patch up the Captain, and Danny and Poppy joined a miserable-looking Russell on one of the sofas. They lounged back, watching crew members flit in and out, getting their injuries seen to by those who were unhurt, wincing at the various wounds but unable to look away – at least, Danny was.
As soon as the Captain was attended to, he scooped up the key that Danny had dropped and left. Danny wished he could slink along and see what would happen when he let Kneazel out, but he felt his head aching and decided he’d had enough for one day.
*
They rested in their cabin, filling Russell in on the Interfectrix and the breakfast discussions, and rehashing the attack until lunchtime. The ship, although he hated being on it, fascinated Russell. He’d seen enough pictures and even been on a few in maritime museums and naval yards to know that the interior was far from normal. It was too big, with too many cabins and rooms, and even had proper facilities (Thank goodness, he thought), and the crew room boasted a large fireplace – albeit magical.
The ship reminded him of the Gateway and its odd, expansive interior. The Captain certainly hadn’t built an ordinary vessel, but if it meant they weren’t sleeping in the hold in hammocks and peeing over the side of the ship, then he didn’t care.
‘Do you think you’re in trouble over Kneazel?’ Russell asked, struggling to hold his spoon in his bandaged hands. They all shrugged.
‘Bastard deserved it,’ said Danny. ‘The Captain wasn’t happy when I told him what happened.’
‘Were you really asleep the whole morning?’ asked Katrina, sipping at her soup.
‘Yes. That stuff knocked me out, but at least I feel okay now. I was glad to wake up.’ He shuffled in his seat, hoping they wouldn’t notice the small jolt he’d got when the dreams flashed back through his head. He felt Danny’s eyes on him and wished he would look away. If he stared long enough, he might see that Russell’s mother had fought Danny’s.
‘You okay?’ Danny asked, ripping a chunk of bread from one of the many loaves piled in a basket in the centre of the table and trowelling on some butter before dunking it in his steaming soup. Russell watched him spatter the orange liquid over the table.
‘I had weird dreams. Usual stuff. Depressing.’ He tried to make light of it but felt himself failing. ‘Some of the Oracle’s stuff, and I kept seeing that vision of Isa.’
Russell moved to rub his head, and his spoon clattered out of his hands. He swore, feeling useless. He couldn’t even feed himself thanks to the bandages. It was embarrassing and upsetting and he wished that he could just go home and sleep. In his own bed. But Isa’s face, and her fate, dangling in front of his eyes as soon as he rested, refused to let him be so selfish for long.
‘Try this.’ Danny emptied Russell’s soup into a beaker, which Russell lifted carefully, giving him a grateful smile. It was hot, but delicious and chunky – like winter vegetables and tomato – and he got halfway through it in no time.
A bang and the frozen expressions of everyone around the table made him stop with his tea halfway to his mouth. Stamp stalked down the stairs and placed another steaming tureen down in the centre of a nearby table. He was sporting a bloody bandage around his neck, which hadn’t done a thing for his usual mood.
Patches breezed in, deliberately bumping into Stamp and earning a stream of abuse before the cook clumped away with an empty tureen swinging from his hand.
‘Stamp seems as happy as ever,’ Poppy muttered to Patches.
‘Not surprised.’ Patches sat down and helped himself to a large bowl of soup. ‘Dar went to town on Kneazel for being a cowardly little bastard.’ He nodded to Katrina. ‘Put him on kitchen duty with Stamp until further notice. Stamp’s less than happy.’
Poppy snorted. ‘Serves him right. Russell could have been killed.’
‘Could have lost an eye. Just keep a watch on the cuts and scratches, all of you – you don’t want to get infected. Shriex are nasty buggers.’
Patches told them stories through lunch about the other creatures the crew had faced over the years, many of which sounded far worse and made Russell even less enthused to be there.
*
Over the following days, Russell spent most of his time snuggled in a chair in the crew room, buried in one of the books from the overstuffed shelves. After his previous experience, he had no interest in going up on deck and was perfectly content in the corner, watching Katrina and the others come and go.
Katrina seemed to keep busy – he had an idea that it was to stave off the memories. She was more communicative now, but whenever silence descended, she got that haunted look in her eyes. Russell had never seen anyone die before – especially not in such a brutal way – so he couldn’t contemplate what she was going through.
He’d also heard her crying quietly at night when she thought they were all asleep, but he didn’t know what to say or how to comfort her, so he’d said nothing, but the guilt was stifling.
