"All this haze!" protested Eddinray, blowing. "Bloody immature game if you ask me!"
Interrupted, both looked at the opening door and John Hallet's appearance there. Without comment, the Midshipman hurried down the steps to free their hands and heels.
***
The captain's cabin was bursting with plunder. Portraits of glossy aristocrats decorated the walls; an oversized rug covered the floor, and another three where stacked against the corner. Golden goblets trickled around the bed and a hundred pieces of eight spread like Cleopatra over the sheets. Leaning against a grandiose oak cabinet, the tired captain had long lost his love for it. He poured himself a drink from the decanter, and assuming this red water was not wine, Harmony and I turned down his offer of a drink, even if it was from the finest crystal I'd ever seen. Not offended, Christian placed his goblet between the bandages at his mouth, and then drank.
"Are you in pain?" asked Harmony, soft and sincere.
"Constant,” he replied, after a satisfied swallow.
This sorrowful seaman intrigued me, an honourable man driven to mutiny, now sailing his mutilated self from something terrible.
"Have you ever seen the second death?" he grimaced, stretching his back with a creak. "I have. I have seen souls leave their bodies and turn to maggots in oatmeal, shells at the bottom of the sea. That is what it means to die here, and I do not want that for my men…nor me. For all my endeavours this fate chases us still, it gains hard upon our heels and takes us one by one from the night. More and more I wonder, I sit in my cabin and ask myself — can God deliver us from this evil?"
"I could hear your confession?" offered Harmony. "God will hear your prayers."
The weary captain bent to peer out of his cabin window, the line between black sky and sea unclear. "Confessions are for the guilty,” he said, breathing heavily. "Every action I have taken, every choice made and order given has been for the unconditional welfare of my crew. For that angel, I am far removed from guilt."
"But your methods have been questionable," she stressed, "and the path is now confused. You sail from evil captain, but you must recognise God before he can deliver you from it."
Christian groaned and I could see, even through the layers of soiled bandages, that Harmony was testing the man's patience. "Tell us more of the Dreadknot?" I asked him. "When did it start its attack on your ship?"
Christian opened the window a crack and sucked in a salty breeze, as if needing courage before discussing the thing. "It came from the waters," he started; "no more than six months ago. I was first to be seized by its talons. The lads came quick to my aid but could see nothing but strips of flesh being peeled from my face. It could have torn my head off if it wanted, could have put me out of my misery. Instead it took its taste then left me to heal — a meal to be savoured for another time." His eye slits wandered over our stimulated features.
"Ever since that moment," he continued, "the Dreadknot has snatched any piece of man swabbing decks or watching the horizon. Its hunger grows insatiable — no longer satisfying its thirst with blood but taking its bread for all crust and bone, and ever bolder in the doing of it."
Harmony frightfully jumped side me as a knock arrived on the cabin door. John Hallet opened it and showed in a confused looking Kat and Eddinray.
"All okay?" asked the knight, his greedy eye drawn to the loot. "My moons and my stars! Did you get me some meat Harmony?"
"You don't want what they're eating Godwin."
"That will be all Mr. Hallet,” said Christian, so obediently, the young Midshipman closed the door and left us to it.
The captain's macabre appearance startled our friends. Kat refused his peace offering drink, but Eddinray helped himself. "About time too!" he said, snatching a goblet and filling it to the brim. "I say, have you any peanuts?"
"Never have I seen the like,” muttered Christian, shaking his head as he slumbered to his cabinet for another pour, the decanter trembling in his grip as he filled the cup.
Eddinray joined Harmony and I on a lush sofa whilst Kat remained standing; the samurai was tetchy, missing a part of him he could not live without. "Where are our weapons?" he asked the captain. "My sword? Give it to me!"
Christian observed Kat, lacking the will to argue or even stand up straight. "Your weapons will," he exhaled, "if I am impressed, be in your possession directly. Mr. Fox is it? You talk of killing my creature — tell me how ye free a captain of his burden?"
Kat and Eddinray looked suitably bemused, so my explanation would be to their benefit; but a revolted knight interrupted the mood by spitting his liquor to the rug. "What vile fluid is this?" he baulked. "My tongue rejects it!"
Harmony prudently shushed him, and I stood to address my unusual audience in this rocking pirate ship.
"The Dreadknot…are a race of reptiles found in the waters here and the Distinct Earth. Alien in origin, they are stalkers who snatch their prey from the shadows; they are smart, determined, and needless to say, extremely dangerous. You don't see these things coming, in-fact you don't see them at all. Dreadknots are, by all accounts, the perfect predator. They are killing machines and one appears to be using your ship as its feeding ground captain. It's got a taste of something it likes."
Christian caressed a palm over his bleeding bandages as I concluded. "It's no doubt watching the Bounty as we speak. Behind us, in front — who knows."
The captain returned his eye to the window, scrutinizing the void of nothingness beyond. "If ye can't see it," he hissed, "how do we kill it? How? Tell me how!"
"Fire!" I answered. "Fire, pure and simple…I have a plan."
33. Enter The Dreadknot
Alone I stood, drenched on a deck dimpled by the downpour, wearing nothing but jeans. This was a hellish night; a ferocious wind howled through torn sails, and at the helm, thick rope knotted around the wheel to hold us on an unstable blaze over the ocean.
Fire would kill a Dreadknot. "Predators of the Under Realms" told me as much; but this creature needed a drink to entice it, so I would be its vendor. Holding arms outward, I slashed cuts down my forearms to release the flow of blood — time would tell if I was to the creatures liking. "Where are you?" I said, squinting at Bounty's stern and feeling the rain pelt on my head.
At my flanks would appear to be plain wooded casks, but examining the left side closer you would spot a crouched knight and the clamped wings of an angel, doing her best to keep out of sight. Huddling tight, Eddinray used his body to conceal the heat and light of a lantern, whilst Harmony, still nursing a pain in her arm, held the longbow with a ready arrow — its tip wrapped in an oily rag and aimed at my back. Concerned, Eddinray pestered Harmony with worry, and she repeatedly reassured him. Hunched against a stout cask to my right was my second surprise for the Dreadknot — Kat, reunited with his swords.
Here I stood and here I would wait, the blood congealing over the cuts I had made, mind not on the wet or the cold — but on the ridiculous task of slaying a carnivorous, and invisible dinosaur.
Out of the weather below, Christian and his crew loitered at steps leading to the upper deck. All of them armed with antique muskets, they were a jammed group of steaming sweat and paranoia.
"We will hear him scream an' beg,” whispered McCoy. "Scream and beg I tell ye. Any minute now."
"He is not afraid," replied Hallet, "and he is no fool."
"Pipe down!" Christian hissed. "The devil is out there…"
***
Three hours later, and with no change in my aching stance or the diabolical weather, my head drooped to my chest and my arms felt like saturated tree trucks. Although my short sword and dagger hung ready from my belt, I couldn't draw either if I tried. Yet I focused for my friend's sake, observing rain swept canvas, the black night and shimmering wood for any sign, hint of the hunter killer. I didn't have to wonder if Kat was still alert and fresh at his barrel, with him that was guaranteed; Harmony and Eddinray on the other hand, would be struggling alongside me.