Fighting with fire

CHAPTER NINE

Fortunately, Lex had been right? no water came rushing in to knock him off his feet. Instead there was just a blast of icy cold, slightly damp air rushing past him. It smelled of salt and seaweed and deep places and dark things. As far as Lex could tell from the light the stuffed nets of starfish were giving off, the force field keeping the sea out was about fifty feet high, stopping just above the crow’s nest at the top of the tallest mast. Above that, dark water pressed in in a most disconcerting way. Bits of dust and flotsam had settled on the top, outlining the dome of air that covered the deck where sailors ran about, slipping and sliding on the wet wooden boards. There was also a strange sensation of what could only be described as pressure. As if it was possible to feel the great weight of water pressing down on them from above, kept away only by the strength of the force field. For a fleeting moment Lex wished that he was still playing against Lucius. Then all he would need to do to have him cowering in the corner for the rest of the round would be to scream, ‘Look, there’s a poisonous octopus!’

There was such a lot of activity on the bridge that no one even noticed Lex and Jesse step out on to it. The captain was sure to be somewhere amongst this lot but Lex didn’t know which of the many sailors was the infamous Captain Jed Saltworthy. When Jeremiah or Lorella or both could be upon the scene at any moment, Lex didn’t have time to waste twitting about trying to find the captain in a more subtle way. So he cupped his hands around his mouth, raised his voice and shouted, ‘Which one of you is the captain? I need to talk to him at once!’

His voice seemed to carry unnaturally far in the strange, damp air down there and practically every single sailor on the bridge stopped dead to turn and stare at Lex with an expression of shock.

And then someone threw a spear at his head.

Lex ducked to the floor so fast that it didn’t even come close to hitting him. Jesse, too, had excellent reflexes and was flat on the boards a bare millisecond after Lex. As the spear whistled past them and embedded itself in the wall behind, Lex thought fleetingly that it was a really good thing he had an outlaw as his companion this time rather than an elderly lawyer. If that had been Mr Schmidt standing there, rather than Jesse, his head would now be impaled on a fisherman’s spear, like a weird-looking trout. It certainly would have dampened the hero’s welcome Lex received on returning to the Wither City if he’d been carrying his employer’s head on a pike. He was sure the rounds had been easier last time…

Within seconds, strong hands were hauling Jesse and Lex to their feet and the sailors were bellowing at each other for someone to fetch the captain. These members of the cursed crew all looked more or less the same as the harmonica player they had encountered downstairs? a bit damp and with a greyish tinge to their skin that made Lex think of zombies and walking dead but, other than that, not too bad, all things considered.

But then the legendary Captain Jed Saltworthy himself came into view and he was another thing altogether. Even Lex, who was relatively used to seeing weird and wonderful things, made a disgusted sort of sound in the back of his throat and had to struggle not to let the revulsion show too clearly on his face. In light of his new-found phobia, this was not at all easy.

Jed Saltworthy was not a large man? barely five foot eight? but he was built like a barrel and his coat was so stiff with salt that it looked like it would shatter if you smacked it against the wall. The same was true of his black beard and mane of hair. There were bits of seaweed hanging around him and even a few barnacles crusted to his tough black boot on one side and the wooden peg leg on the other. None of this overly bothered Lex for, although he may have had a thing about cleanliness himself, he had seen enough unclean people not to be overly distressed by it. He wasn’t even at all bothered by the peg leg. But there were two things about the captain’s appearance that did upset him.

The first was that he had an octopus on his shoulder. It had its tentacles wrapped around the captain’s upper arm and was just clinging there, looking all revolting and horrible and squidgy? enough to make Lex’s skin crawl. A sea captain having a parrot on his shoulder was one thing? as long as you didn’t mind the bird poo? but a highly poisonous, vicious octopus was something else altogether. Any way you looked at it, it was just plain wrong.

The second thing, even more horrible than the first, was that Captain Jed Saltworthy’s skin was covered in blue rings. His hands, his face, his neck? any part of his skin that was showing was sporting blue rings, identical to the ones on the Squealing Blue-Ringed Octopii sitting on his shoulder. He must have suffered hundreds of bites to look such a state? perhaps as a result of carrying one of the monsters around with him like that all the time.

To Lex’s surprise the sea captain glared down at them with an expression of almost ferocious approval.

‘What’s this, then?’ he boomed. ‘Volunteers?’

‘Volunteers?’ Lex gasped. ‘Volunteers for what?’

‘For bait, of course! ’Tis very brave of you, men. Very brave. Well done!’

‘Look, there’s been some sort of mistake,’ Lex said. ‘We’re not volunteering for anything. We just want your medallion.’

‘This old thing?’ the captain said, holding up the shiny gold disc that hung round his neck. ‘Certainly, my boy. Take it, by all means.’ He raised the chain over his head and dropped it into Lex’s outstretched hand. ‘’Tis the very least I can do seeing as you’ll shortly be going to your death.’

‘You mad old duffer! We are not volunteering to be bait! We’re just playing in a Game-’

‘Game?’ the captain interrupted. ‘Octopus-hunting’s no game, boy! You should ne’er have joined my crew if you weren’t serious about catching these things.’ He gave the octopus perched on his shoulder a pat on the head that made Lex wince. ‘Beautiful, ain’t they?’ the captain went on, pulling the octopus off and stroking it tenderly. ‘But we can’t allow them to rule our waters, can we?’ Lex practically had to look away as the insane sea captain actually kissed the thing’s squidgy head just as the octopus bit him on the neck. They could see he’d been bitten by the fact that blue rings? brighter than the others? suddenly spread out over his skin there. The captain hardly seemed to be aware of this, possibly because he’d suffered so many bites in the past.

‘Look, we’re not in your crew!’ Lex protested. ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that you’ve never seen us before?’

But the captain wasn’t listening. He was already beckoning other men forwards. Men who were carrying very large nets.

‘I think we can take ’em,’ Jesse muttered in Lex’s ear.

Lex stared at him. ‘ Take them?’ he repeated. ‘If you mean fight them, then of course we can’t, you dolt! There must be thirty of them and only two of us!’

Jesse grinned. ‘Ain’t that always the way? Ready on three?’

‘No!’ Lex hissed. ‘Not ready on three or any other number! Listen? I can talk my way out of this-’

‘Fine. You do your thing and I’ll do mine.’

‘That’s not how this works!’

But Jesse wasn’t listening. As the sailors approached with their nets, Jesse raised a hand, pointed out towards the black ocean and shouted. ‘Look! It’s Gloria!’

Twenty men spun around on the spot. Perhaps it wouldn’t have worked under normal circumstances but these were cursed sailors who had been waiting for Gloria for hundreds of years. Crying wolf was therefore a remarkably effective way to go. For a moment, even Lex thought he’d seen a dark shape moving out there beyond the force-field.

Not wasting any time, Jesse punched the nearest unsuspecting sailor, elbowed another and kicked a third. And then it was quite clear to everybody that they weren’t going to have to deal with Gloria, but with an irate cowboy who didn’t want to be used as octopus bait. There was no denying that Jesse was a very good fighter and the fact that he was outnumbered and backed into a corner didn’t seem to overly bother him, for the truth was that he had spent most of his life fighting that way. Nevertheless, the fight certainly wouldn’t have lasted very long if Jeremiah hadn’t appeared on the scene a moment later.

Lex was quite useless in a fight. It wasn’t that he was scared; it was simply that he was practical. He knew his own limitations and, although he was strong in a wiry sort of way? as a result of his exploits, first as the Shadowman and then as the Wizard? he was quite thin and not very tall and knew absolutely nothing about how to handle a weapon. He had therefore avoided physical altercations his whole life because he knew he was unlikely to win them. And Lex only played to win. Besides, he didn’t want any muscled buffoon giving him some hideous scar that would mar the honest face that played such an important part in many of Lex’s scams. He needed his hands, too; he couldn’t have any broken fingers slowing him down in his line of work.

As soon as Jesse threw the first punch, Lex’s mind was working fast and it seemed to him that the best course of action would be to leave Jesse there to fend for himself? he had, after all, started this thing? and leg it back to the bridge with the medallion. Once the round was over, Lex was sure that Lady Luck would pluck Jesse out of whatever mess he was in. The round would be over then, so the rules would not apply. It wasn’t like Lex owed the cowboy anything, after all. It had been Jesse’s own stupid idea to just start punching.

Lex was halfway to the door leading back into the bridge, the medallion gripped firmly in his hand, when he hesitated. What if Jesse got himself killed? Lex couldn’t lose him. Not now, in the very first round, when Jesse had yet to teach him a single thing about being a cowboy. And then he’d have no companion for the rest of the Game and so would be at a disadvantage. No, there was only one thing for it. He was going to have to stay and help the idiot cowboy out of the mess he’d got himself into.

Lex turned back round in time to see a sailor rushing towards him. The thief ducked the man’s clumsy grab, whirled around and punched the side of his face. It was rather a half-hearted sort of punch for whilst Lex wasn’t averse to robbing and cheating people blind, he generally preferred not to cause them any physical injury. At any rate, the punch seemed to hurt Lex as much as it did the sailor, who staggered back with his hand clapped to his face whilst Lex clutched at his hand with a groan. His thumb throbbed so badly that, for a moment, he thought he’d broken it, and his knuckles were smarting like anything.

Well, at least he’d tried. Time to go. Jesse would just have to look after himself. And if he got himself killed, Lex would be really angry with him. Unfortunately there were now five other sailors racing towards him. The annoying thing about it was that there were only two running towards Jesse. Evidently the more intelligent sailors had sized up the cowboy, sized up Lex, and decided that Lex was very definitely the way to go. Lex couldn’t really blame them. He would have done the same thing himself.

His thoughts of helping Jesse now totally and utterly abandoned, Lex spun on his heel and sprinted towards the door. But, before he could reach it, Jeremiah burst out, sword drawn, Tess close behind him. Lex leapt out of the way before Jeremiah could impale him, by accident even if not on purpose. The nobleman rushed forwards and the sailors shrank back a little. Jeremiah did look rather impressive and the sword was extremely large.

‘Where is the captain’s medallion?’ Jeremiah roared.

Lex hastily put his hand behind his back, silently giving thanks that his competitor was too busy shouting his fool head off to actually look.

‘I demand to be given it this instant!’

‘Excellent!’ came a cry from Captain Saltworthy, from across the other side of the deck. ‘More bait! And such a strapping lad, too! Bring him to the nets!’

Despite the threat of the sword, the sailors moved forwards. They were only half alive, after all, and Lex supposed that if a poisonous octopus couldn’t kill them then a dumb hero with a sword might not be able to do much damage, either. He ducked out of the way of Jeremiah and the sailors, and grasped the door handle with the intention of slipping through to the bridge. But the door was jammed shut. That oaf, Jeremiah, had clearly slammed it so hard that it was now stuck in its frame.

‘What’s that in your hand?’

Lex looked down to see Tess staring at him suspiciously.

‘Never you mind,’ he replied in what he hoped was an annoyingly grown-up voice.

‘It’s the medallion, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘You’re a rubbish liar.’

‘I’ll have you know that I’m an exceptional liar, kid,’ Lex replied, revelling in being able to call someone else ‘kid’ for a change.

Tess glared at him for a moment before turning her head and shouting loudly, ‘Jeremiah! He’s got it! Lex Trent has the medallion!’

Jeremiah, who had been flourishing his sword threateningly at the sailors surrounding him, glanced back over his shoulder. Lex couldn’t help it. He drew the medallion out from behind his back, held it up so that it gleamed in the light from the sunset starfish, gave Jeremiah his most smug, irritating grin and then flew across the deck to the centre mast. Pausing only to hang the medallion around his neck to leave his hands free, Lex shot up that mast with monkey agility. He was a good climber and he had never been afraid of heights.

He reached the crow’s nest in under a minute and from there he had a perfect vantage of all that was going on down below. Jeremiah was surrounded by a large group of sailors and, though he was still waving the sword about rather vigorously, he seemed distinctly reluctant to actually use it. Lex supposed that he’d probably never attacked anyone with it in his life. Pratting about with a posh fencing instructor at a posh school was one thing. Carving a man up for real and seeing his guts pouring out all over the place was probably another thing altogether.

Jesse had no such reluctance to cause physical harm and seemed to be doing rather well, all things considered. There were quite a few groaning sailors lying on the deck around him, at any rate. Captain Jed Saltworthy, meanwhile, was marching about the deck, bellowing for his men to ‘ready the bait!’ It certainly looked as if Jeremiah East was going to be stuffed into a net and hung out for Gloria sometime soon. Lex would have liked to watch the show but there was no time for dawdling when there was a round to be won.

From the crow’s nest, he assessed his situation. The force field was so close that he could have stuck his hand through it. In fact, if he shimmied up the mast just a little further then he would emerge into the sea. That would get him off the ship and away from the batty captain but it wouldn’t win him the round since it seemed that the Gods expected them to find their own way to the surface, which presented something of a problem when you were so many fathoms under water. The sea above was pitch black? Lex couldn’t see even a glimmer of light from above. They were on the seabed, after all. There was no way he would be able to make a swim for it. Once again, Lex cursed his loss of the enchanter’s hats.

But then he glanced back down and, in the gloom, he noticed the thick seaweed-covered chains. There must have been six or seven of them? thick, strong, impressive-looking things all ending in an anchor. They were holding the ship to the seabed.

Of course! The ship was full of air pockets. The force field in place over the deck of the ship was itself a giant air pocket. Without the chains holding it down, the ship would simply float up to the surface! That had to be it. If Lex couldn’t leave the ship then he would have to get the ship itself to take him back up to the surface. All he had to do was find a way of releasing the chains. He was just starting to devise a scheme for doing so when a movement out in the dark water beyond caught his eye. He looked. Then he looked again to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. He wasn’t.

From Lex’s vantage point he had a perfect view of the gigantic octopus that was Gloria coming straight at the ship like a bull going for a red rag. It was the most horrific sight Lex had ever seen before in his life. She was coming so fast that he had only seconds in which to brace himself for impact before the huge monster crashed into the side of the ship. The chains all along that side were ripped out and the ship rocked wildly. Everyone on the deck went flying. Lex, despite his best efforts to hang on, was thrown from the crow’s nest but managed to get a grip on the netting about fifteen feet above the deck, although the rope burnt his hands horribly.

Gloria was not at all happy. Her awful tentacles? thick as tree trunks? punched through the force field and curled around the deck until she had the ship in a death grip. She looked just like the little octopuses Lex had already seen, except for the fact that she was about a hundred times their size. And the terrible squealing sound she was making was about one hundred times louder.

Everyone on the deck was shouting and running around, trying to avoid Gloria’s deadly, thrashing tentacles as the ship, recovering from the first shock of impact, now rocked the other way. The anchor chains on the other side were all ripped out in the process and, suddenly, the ship began to rise.

Lex grinned despite himself. That horrible monster was doing his work for him! They’d reach the surface in no time. Assuming Gloria didn’t crush the ship first, of course.

‘Fire the cannons!’ the captain roared, below.

Lex watched as a cannon was lit and, a moment later, there was an explosion and a cannon ball ripped through the water in a trail of bubbles. It missed Gloria by a mile, of course. She was, after all, entwined around the ship, her tentacles thrashing about all over the deck. The only way a cannon ball would hit her would be if she was positioned right in front of the cannon itself.

Lex tore his eyes away and tried not to think about the octopus. He couldn’t let Gloria distract him. And he most certainly did not want Jeremiah noticing his reaction to the octopus and realising that he had a phobia of them. Where was Jeremiah, anyway…?

Lex thought about it too late. He couldn’t pick out any players in the chaos below but, just as it occurred to him to wonder where Jeremiah was, a hand gripped his ankle. He looked down and saw Jeremiah clinging to the nets, glaring up at him.

‘Give me the medallion!’ he shouted above the din.

Lex offered a choice expletive in response and kicked out viciously with his foot, but Jeremiah held fast and then yanked down hard. Under ordinary circumstances, Lex might have been able to hang on but the rope burn his hands had suffered meant that he instinctively let go as soon as the nets began to cut into his already-raw palms. Fifteen feet was higher than Lex cared to fall. He flailed desperately at the ropes but was stopped in his descent by Jeremiah grabbing his shirt. In another moment the nobleman had whipped the medallion from around Lex’s neck and let him go again, plainly intending to drop him to the deck like a sack of potatoes. But he wasn’t counting on Lex shooting out his arm to grab Jeremiah’s wrist and, when he fell, Lex took the nobleman with him.

They crashed to the deck together, all the breath knocked out of them when they hit the boards, and the medallion flew out of Jeremiah’s hand to skitter along the deck amongst the feet of the running sailors. Lex and Jeremiah both twisted round where they lay to stare after it but, already, it had disappeared from their sight. Air bubbles were shooting up around the ship and the sea was getting lighter by the second. They would burst through to the surface at any moment and now, all because of Jeremiah, Lex no longer had the medallion. It was all he could do not to scratch the nobleman’s blasted eyes out.

Shoving Jeremiah aside, Lex leapt to his feet and hurried away in the direction the medallion had gone. It was extremely difficult moving about the deck now because the sailors had got spears from somewhere and were trying to stab them into Gloria’s tentacles like they were skewering meat on a kebab. They weren’t having much success because the tentacles were too thick and strong, and the spears just seemed to bounce right off them. All they seemed to be achieving was to make Gloria even angrier than she already was.

Lex pushed on, avoiding spears and tentacles, and keeping his eyes glued to the floor in desperate search of the faintest glimmer of gold, but he could see nothing beyond scuffling shoes and the more-than-occasional smear of blood. Until a pair of cowboy boots came into view and a voice said, ‘Looking for this, kid?’

Lex looked up and a wide grin spread across his face at the sight of Jesse, standing there holding the medallion. Apart from the fact that he stood on a sunken ship’s deck rather than a desert, Jesse looked the very epitome of a character from the Western novels Lex had read. His clothes were in disarray, with more than the occasional rip and tear, his hair was a mess, there was a long cut down one side of his face and? most importantly of all? he still had his hat and he was grinning from ear to ear.

‘I take it back,’ the cowboy said. ‘This Gaming thing is fun! Don’t know why I never tried my hand at it before!’

A sailor suddenly lurched up behind Jesse with a spear but, before Lex could even shout a warning, Jesse threw his elbow back without even so much as turning around and caught the man right on the chin. This caused him to bite his tongue and he dropped the spear and staggered off with both hands clasped to his mouth. Lex practically swelled with pride. Picking Jesse as his companion had been a stroke of genius on his part. With Lex’s quick mind and Jesse’s superb brawling skills? never mind all the rascally dishonesty they had between them? they made the perfect, perfect team.

The next time I play in a Game,’ Lex said, ‘you have got to be my companion again!’

‘Let’s just see how this one turns out first, eh?’ Jesse replied.

Lex said nothing but he already knew how it was going to turn out. He was going to win again. And gloriously, too! Some people were simply born to win and Lex was one of those people. He smirked smugly to himself. It was almost too easy.

But the next few minutes were where it all went horribly wrong.

They could see sunlight glimmering above now as the ship continued to rise and they could tell that they would reach the surface in a matter of minutes. The Gods would be waiting for them there and it would then be a simple enough matter of handing the medallion over.

‘Give it to me then,’ Lex said, holding out his hand for it.

But Jesse had suddenly gone stiff as a board and was staring over Lex’s head at something on the deck. He was motionless only a split second before racing past Lex, taking the medallion with him.

‘What the-’ Lex whirled around, thinking for a moment that Jesse was betraying him. But he saw, instantly, what the cowboy had seen.

Tess East was standing a few feet away in the middle of the deck? with the captain’s little Blue-Ringed octopus in her arms. It seemed that she had just picked it up off the deck, possibly in order to save it from being squashed by the many tramping feet of the sailors who were still running about all over the place.

Lex was horrified. One bite? one bite, the book had said? and those octopuses had enough venom in them to stop the hearts of twenty-six men within minutes. He knew in that moment that he should have told Jeremiah about the octopuses when he’d had the chance. But it was too late for that now. Lex started forwards towards Tess but Jesse got there first. The girl shrank away from the huge cowboy who was inexplicably charging straight at her but Jesse wrenched the octopus from her grasp whilst at the same time pushing her away from it so hard that she sprawled over on the boards. Then he spun round on his booted heel and threw the octopus as far as he could. It flew through the air in an arc? like a bizarre, upsetting sort of frisbee? and spun right out of the force field and into the sea where it smacked on to Gloria and, recognising its mother, promptly attached itself to her, happily.

Jesse then turned back around to Tess where she still lay sprawled on the floor and took a step towards her, saying urgently, ‘Hey, kid, did that thing-’

But that was as far as he got before Jeremiah leapt in front of her, eyes blazing with fury, and hit the cowboy so hard across the face that he staggered back and would have fallen flat on the boards had Lex not caught up in time to grab at his shoulders and steady him.

‘How dare you raise your hand against my sister!’ Jeremiah roared. ‘A defenceless child less than half your size! You are a coward, sir!’

Tess was on her feet now, staying close to her brother’s side. And clutching the medallion. Jesse must have dropped it when he’d grabbed the octopus from her.

‘Shut up, you prat!’ Lex snapped. ‘Don’t you know what just happened? Your sister was holding one of the most toxic creatures in the world!’ He looked at Tess and said, ‘It didn’t bite you?’

She shook her head silently, her eyes wide.

‘My companion just saved her life!’ Lex raged at Jeremiah.

Jeremiah? because he was, after all, something of a twit? looked suspiciously at Jesse, who was still nursing his jaw, and said cautiously, ‘Well, if that’s true then I… I’m in your debt.’

The cowboy shrugged. ‘Think nothing of it, kid. I-’

But that was as far as he got before breaking off to clutch at his chest with a horrible gasp. And that was when Lex first noticed the ugly blue rings rising up on the cowboy’s right hand.

‘Oh my Gods,’ Lex practically whispered. ‘It bit you!’

Jesse tried to croak a reply but no words came out. He was still staring in horror at his hand as his knees hit the floor and he crumpled to the deck.