Only then did he realise that his hand was not only numb, but empty. His sword was gone.
Forcing down panic, he made himself think. He was certain that he had been gripping the sword when he hit the water. He could remember the feel of the hilt in his hand as he was being tumbled about in the foam.
But then he had crashed against the rock—against the rock ledge on which he was standing now. He peered into the dark, foam-flecked water lapping at his feet. His stomach lurched as he saw the long, slow turn of pale, ribbed flesh.
One of the beast’s tentacles was writhing just below the ledge. If he had still been standing there…
The tip of the tentacle broke the water’s surface. Lief watched in fascinated dread as the worm-like fingers stretched towards the ledge, touched it, and began to ooze forward.
He stood rigidly still, hardly daring to breathe. If he tried to edge away, the fingers would sense movement and lash out, as they had lashed out at Glock. But if he stayed where he was, the fingers would soon reach his feet. Then they would creep up to his ankles. And as soon as they felt warm flesh…
‘Be very still.’
The voice was just a breath. Stiffly, Lief turned his head to the right and saw Barda edging out of a shallow hole in the cavern wall, only an arm’s length away.
Barda was dripping and bedraggled. His face was smeared with blood, and blood matted his sodden hair. But his sword gleamed as he raised it high.
Lief looked down again. The toes of his boots were covered in a mass of squirming, hooked threads. Cold sweat broke out on his brow. His stomach churned with revulsion.
The threads oozed forward. The tentacle tip from which they grew rose higher from the water, nodding horribly…
‘Go!’ roared Barda, and struck, his blade slicing cleanly through the white threads, a hair’s breadth from their roots.
Slipping and sliding on the uneven footholds in the wall, Lief scrambled aside. The water beneath the ledge began to heave and bubble as though it were boiling.
‘Get behind the shell!’ he heard Barda shouting.
Lief glanced over his shoulder. Huge coils of the injured tentacle were heaving upward, bursting out of the water in cascades of spray. The jerking, blunted tip, oozing slime, was dashing itself against the ledge where he had been standing.
Barda was hurriedly squeezing back into his shallow hiding place. But he would not be safe there for long. Nowhere would be safe for long.
The beast was screeching ferociously, its tentacles pounding the water once more. The light began to flicker. A wave crashed into Lief, throwing him to his knees, jarring his injured arm which throbbed agonisingly. Gasping, he crawled on, half in and half out of the water.
He could not move back. He could not stay where he was. His only choice was to move on.
For long, agonising minutes he crawled, expecting every moment to be snatched into the air. But at last he realised that the water beside him was calming. The rock shelf had broadened. Bleached, white bones lay in heaps all around him. He dared to look up.
He had reached the end of the cavern, the heart of The Fear.
Now he could clearly see what lay behind the huge mass of tentacles. He could see the cruel, tearing beak He could even see the small, pale eyes staring vacantly ahead. He could see the shapeless body and the vast, stone-like shell which rose halfway to the cavern roof, dull blue, ridged with the growth of centuries.
The shell had become part of the cavern wall. The Fear could not move. But it did not need to. Its mighty arms were more than long enough to reach every corner of its domain. No prey could escape it.
A small movement on the shell caught Lief’s eye. He stared, and almost cried out.
For the movement was Jasmine! Jasmine was crawling up the stony blue ridges, dagger in hand.
As if Jasmine felt Lief’s gaze she looked down. Their eyes met, and her face broke into a broad smile.
Perhaps she saw Lief’s joy at seeing her alive. Perhaps she felt joy of her own. But she did not speak. She simply pointed downwards, lifted her hand to Lief, palm outwards, and climbed on.
His heart beating wildly, Lief looked to where she had pointed. He saw Glock slumped against the shell, his broken sword still clutched in his hand.
Glock was breathing in shallow, painful gasps. Great, swollen wounds burned scarlet on his neck and face. Kree was standing motionless beside him, as though on guard.
By the time Lief looked up again, Jasmine had reached the top of the shell. As Lief watched in terror, she jumped lightly onto the billowing flesh that spilled from it, lay face down and began to wriggle forwards.
The Fear’s tiny eyes showed no sign that it felt her. Perhaps it did not. Or perhaps it thought no more of Jasmine than a human would think of a crawling fly.
Half sliding, half crawling, Jasmine moved on until she was just behind the beast’s eyes. Deliberately she raised her dagger. Lief stood, paralysed, helpless, unable to do anything but watch.
His heart leaped as Jasmine thrust the dagger down with all her strength, burying it to its hilt between the creature’s eyes. But then, with a thrill of terror, he saw those pale, vacant eyes roll back and fix on Jasmine’s face. He saw Jasmine stare, unbelieving, as the dagger sprang back in her hand, rejected by the rubbery flesh it was supposed to pierce.
Then, with a strike so fast that it was like a blur, a tentacle whipped backwards, curled around Jasmine’s body and snatched her, screaming, into the air.
18 - Rainbows
A black shape streaked upward. It was Kree, his golden eyes fixed and savage. He did not attempt to attack the vast coil that held Jasmine, but instead swooped fearlessly at the tentacle’s tip, stabbing and tearing at the hooked white fingers that wriggled there.
But this time The Fear did not loosen its grip. And more tentacles were curling back, their tips whipping through the air, striking at the darting bird, reaching for Jasmine’s dangling feet.
Lief plunged wildly forward, aware of nothing but Jasmine’s peril. He seized a bone from the scattered pile on the rock and, left handed, threw it as hard as he could into the squirming maze of tentacles above his head.
The bone hit one of the tentacle tips. The tentacle jerked and recoiled. Shouting savagely, Lief threw another bone, then another.
From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a figure moving near him on the ground. He could not pause to see who it was. A tentacle was coiling directly towards him. He spun a bone at it, and caught it on the tip. Some of the white threads curled back, jerking and oozing slime.
Lief shouted in triumph. But the sound died on his lips as another tentacle reared up from the churning water in front of him. It lashed at him with such speed that he barely saw it before it had wrapped itself around him. His head spun as he was swung off his feet, struggling and kicking.
The tip of the tentacle which was holding him bobbed beside his shoulder. White stubs waggled there, dripping slime. This was one of the arms that had been injured. But, injured or not, it had him. He could feel its coils tightening around his chest, crushing his ribs, squeezing the life from him.
Struggling for breath, he was swept up into the squirming centre of the tentacle mass. And it was then that he heard a bellowing cry from below.
And saw, in the very midst of the place where the tentacles began, directly in front of the beast’s gaping beak, the hulking, swaying figure of Glock.
Glock had crawled from hiding. Crawled, ignoring agony, ignoring fear, into the centre of the terror.
Now, bent and staggering, he raised his shattered sword. ‘So you tear us apart, and cast away our bones!’ he roared. ‘You like your meat soft, do you? Well, see how you fancy this!’
And he fell forward, plunging his arm and the jagged stump of his great blade straight down the beast’s throat.