‘What the fuck was that?’ Steven asked, shaking. ‘Jesus, it just came out of the night. I thought we were-’ He stopped; Gilmour was gone. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘where are you?’
‘I’m in here,’ Gilmour called from the companionway. Steven could hear Garec and the others inside. He wasn’t surprised when the bowman appeared, armed and ready.
‘What’s happening?’ Garec asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Steven said. ‘There was something, but it’s gone. Gilmour? What’re you doing? I thought you were- Yikes! What happened to you?’
Gilmour’s nose was bleeding and he had a cut above his right eye. His left was closed and he was pressing against it with one hand.
‘Christ, are you all right?’ Steven helped him up. ‘What happened?’
‘You did.’ Gilmour spat a mouthful of blood and a tooth onto the deck. He retrieved the tooth and held it up to his good eye. ‘Ah, rutters. I need these teeth to last.’ He turned to Steven. ‘That was quite a shot you gave her.’
‘Sorry.’ Steven flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to clobber you too.’
‘No worries, no worries,’ Gilmour said. ‘I’m glad you did it. She would have killed us both in a heartbeat. Come, we need to check on the others.’
Steven, Garec and Gilmour, now with Kellin and Brexan in tow, came nose to kneecaps with Captain Ford, who looked pale and frightened.
‘Sera’s missing,’ he said, ‘and I’ve found what’s left of Tubbs.’
Gilmour sniffed at the air, then shouted, ‘Everyone, get below, quickly!’ He pushed Kellin, Brexan and Garec towards the corridor.
Garec resisted, saying, ‘I can help. What is this?’
‘She’s nothing you’ll even be able to see,’ Gilmour said, trying to explain, ‘and we don’t have the time right now. Please, just get below and close that hatch. You too, Captain.’
‘I’ll give the orders on my ship,’ he said forcefully as Gilmour tried to push him away.
‘Captain Ford, I can promise you that you’ll be as dead as Tubbs and Sera if you don’t get below,’ Gilmour cried. ‘Just get back to your cabin and block the door – quickly!’
Marrin and Kanthil appeared through a forward hatch, asking, ‘Captain? What can we do, sir?’
Gilmour whirled on the two sailors. ‘Rutting gods, but is everyone on this damned tub awake?’
‘So it seems,’ the captain said wryly, trying to remain calm.
‘Captain Ford, there is a monster, a starving otherworldly killer, haunting your ship right this moment. Now get below!’ Gilmour ordered, ‘and you two as well.’ He waved a dismissive hand at Marrin and Kanthil, but neither moved; they didn’t take orders from passengers.
Marrin said again, ‘Captain?’
Ford sighed. ‘Get below, and secure that hatch. I’ll be at the helm. We’ll find Sera, and we’ll need to give Tubbs his rites. He’s a rutting mess, and I don’t want-’
He was cut off by a hiss, sharp and unnerving, from somewhere in the rigging.
‘There!’ Garec shouted, already firing.
‘Do you see it?’ Marrin shouted.
‘No,’ Garec said, still shooting. ‘I heard it, out on the end of that crossbar, above the main sheet.’
‘I see it,’ Steven said, his voice toneless and flat. The magic was with him again. ‘Get below. Everyone. You too, Gilmour. I’ll do this by myself.’
The tan-bak dived for the deck; Steven lunged for the place he guessed the monster might land, but he wasn’t quick enough: as the creature touched down, it lashed at him with a clawed finger, opening a bloody slit across his shoulder.
‘Motherless son-of-a-bitch!’ Steven shouted, rolling to the deck and blasting at the shadowy figure as it leaped from the starboard gunwale to the bowsprit to the topmain and then back to the deck. It was like a madman’s carnival shooting gallery where the ducks, pigs and chickens all moved as unpredictably as lightning – and fired back. ‘Get down!’ Steven cried. ‘Get your heads down, now!’
Garec had an arrow trained into the rigging, but he didn’t fire – Gilmour had been right: it was too fast, too well-hidden. Running amidships, Steven cast a handful of fireballs into the night, illuminating the Morning Star as if it were midday.
How do you catch a shadow? he thought. How can I kill a shadow? You can’t kill a shadow… No, we can’t kill it; we mustn’t!
Garec was behind him. ‘There it is.’ His bowstring thunked twice; twin shafts arched into the night.
‘I’ve got it,’ Gilmour said, rearing back for a thunderous blast.
Steven skidded to a stop and shouted, ‘No, Gilmour, don’t!’
His arms raised, the magic ablaze on his fingertips, Gilmour stared at his young apprentice.
‘Don’t! We have to keep it alive!’ Steven cried. ‘It’s the only way to avoid him sending another, a frigging brigade of them. If you fire back, he’ll know, and then… look out!’
The shadow dived. Gilmour ducked as the creature passed over his head and slashed open Kanthil’s throat, then punctured ragged clawmarks down Marrin’s chest.
Steven sent a volley after it, catching the creature’s flank and sending it tumbling over the bowsprit into the sea. Ford rushed to his fallen men; a muffled curse confirmed that Kanthil lay dead.
It flies, it leaps around and swims like a fish. But just now it didn’t have fins, gills or a tail. What can do that? How can it do all those things? Steven waited beneath the mainmast, ready to parry another attack; he hadn’t killed it.
Gilmour said quietly, ‘We can’t capture it.’
‘True, but if we kill it, or if you start blasting away, Mark will know he sank the wrong ship this morning. There’s no way a navy crew could deal with that… whatever it is.’
‘He must know already,’ Gilmour said, keeping a wary eye out for their hunter. ‘Why else would he have sent her?’
‘Just to be sure,’ Steven said. ‘He showed us this morning how he would deal with our ship. The sea opened and swallowed them, right down to the frigging nuts. This thing… this is some kind of sick entertainment for him. If we kill it, he’ll send us to the bottom for sure.’
Gilmour sighed. ‘So I’m convinced, but what are we going to do?’
Steven ignored him, staring at a spot just starboard of the bowsprit, a plank in the weatherbeaten gunwale that had come into focus, separating itself from the blurry backdrop. It flies, swims and jumps around like Olga Korbut. What flies, swims and leaps around like that? An insect? What can do all that?
‘Steven,’ Gilmour asked again, ‘how do we capture it?’
‘We don’t,’ Steven said, standing in the bow, ignoring Marrin’s curses and Kanthil’s corpse. ‘I do.’
With another piercing hiss, the tan-bak burst from the sea, dragging a frothy trail of salt water like a rogue comet. Landing nimbly on the gunwale, her feet, webbed for swimming, transmogrified into clawed toes. She took Steven by the throat, gripping his neck with a thickly webbed paw.
‘Perfect,’ Steven choked.
The creature’s head changed. Gill flaps, opening and closing with the breeze, folded flush and disappeared; a primitive nostril beneath a flap of slippery skin perforated the monster’s face. Steven cringed when he smelled its breath, the aroma of old death, rotting corpses and disease. Bulbous black eyes rolled back, irritated by the brilliant false dawn, and when they reappeared they were gimlet, still bulging, but with smaller, almost human pupils. Finally the hand around Steven’s throat began to morph. Talons grew as bones hardened and webbing dissolved.
So that’s how you do it.
The monster hissed directly into Steven’s face, taunting him for being stupid enough to come searching over the rail. Rows of needle-sharp spiny teeth flattened into molars, leaving it with an evolved mouthful of ripping and crushing jaws. It hissed again, its fist closing tighter around Steven’s throat.