03 Sky Knight (6 page)

‘Your friend needed us.’

‘Tidal hates me. He’s made that obvious. I don’t know why I even wasted my time coming here.’ He kicked a pebble that had washed up on the beach. ‘I’ve got us in all this trouble and it’s Tide’s fault.’

‘Being angry isn’t going to help,’ Captain Spectre said. ‘And blaming Tidal for your misfortune won’t either. He is your friend, regardless of how he may have acted.’

Nimbus laughed bitterly. ‘He doesn’t feel like a friend right now. And I’ve got plenty enough friends back home who need me. Here, Cumulo, let me get this chain off you.’

As Nimbus reached for the collar, Cumulo roared and jumped away, bearing his fangs. His scales turned red; his eyes glowed alarmingly. ‘Stay back,’ he growled.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘The chain is enchanted. There is magic in the links that prevents me from breathing fire or ice, or using any of my other gifts. That is why I have not been able to heal these wounds of mine.’

‘Can’t you break out?’

‘I have tried, but it saps my strength somehow, and it’s getting worse. I fear this chain may have been made in another time, with the purpose of holding a dragon.’

‘If you let me take a look, I may be able to remove it.’

‘Or it may kill you.’ Cumulo snapped his teeth, causing Nimbus to retreat a few paces. ‘Magic strong enough to contain a dragon could tear you apart. I have already failed to save you once today. I will not allow you to risk your life again.’

‘You have to let me help.’

‘If it is my doom to stay chained to this cave, then so be it.’

‘This sounds like pride, Cumulo. I know what trouble pride can get you in.’

‘This is duty, and your duty is to Landmark. You need to find a way to get off this island before our captors return.’

‘But how? Without you to fly me, I’m stuck here too.’ Nimbus hung his head. ‘Besides, where would I go without you? Without you I’m nothing.’

‘You are too hard on yourself,’ Captain Spectre said, perching on the edge of a rock. ‘You forget, I was there when you faced the vampyr in the realm of the dead. You have come a long way since I first met you.’

‘I’m just making one mistake after another.’

Cumulo lowered his head, so that his eye was level with Nimbus’s. ‘Go. Find a way to help the people.’

‘What do you think, Captain?’

‘Someone brought you here for a reason. That seems like a pretty good argument for doing everything within your power to get somewhere else. I do not want to leave Cumulo this way, I am disgusted by the way he has been treated, but it’s no help to anyone if we just sit around waiting for a solution to present itself. It’s going to be even less help if you get yourself killed.’

Nimbus sucked in a deep breath. They were asking him to abandon a friend, just like he had abandoned his quest to find his father. Just like he had abandoned Flint Lock.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t do it.’

There was a cruel laugh farther up the beach, and Nimbus turned to see Tidal striding out of the ocean. There was a sword hanging from his waist, and the sun glinted on the well–defined muscles of his bare chest. ‘Same old Nimbus,’ he shouted, shaking water–droplets from his tangled hair. ‘Always being the big hero. Always putting his neck on the line for everyone else, so we can marvel at just how great he is.’

Behind Tidal, the surface of the ocean was broken by a gigantic arched back as something swam away from the shore into the deeper waters beyond. Cumulo growled and bared his teeth, furious that he lacked the strength to break free from his chains.

‘Time I wasn’t here,’ Captain Spectre muttered, evaporating into the shadows beneath the cliff.

‘Of course, I knew this was going to happen,’ Tidal went on, his tone mocking and proud in equal measure. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to bear leaving your pet lizard behind.’

‘Watch your mouth,’ Nimbus snarled.

‘Just like I knew that sooner or later you would fly out here to see if I needed rescuing again. You see, your biggest problem, Nim, is you are a complete idiot. You keep sticking your nose in where it isn’t wanted, time and time again. It makes you so predictable. And being predictable is going to get you killed one day.’

Tidal stopped, just beyond Cumulo’s reach, and drew his sword. He waved the blade in the air a few times to make sure Nimbus could see the way the gleaming metal seemed to phase in and out of existence with each swing.

‘That’s my sword,’ Nimbus said.

‘Finders keepers,’ Tidal said.

‘You don’t know what that sword is capable of. Give it back to me before you hurt someone.’

Nimbus moved forwards, but Tidal brought the tip of Venom to rest on the Wing Warrior’s throat. ‘Don’t try anything funny, Nim,’ he said.

The cold touch of the sword gave Nimbus a thrill of fear, and he carefully backed off. He knew how dangerous that sword was, even if Tidal didn’t. Just one small cut from the blade, and the victim’s spirit would be eaten right out of his flesh. It would be a terrible, dark death that even Cumulo’s magic could not undo. It would be eternal nothingness.

‘What are you doing, Tide? Why are you doing this?’

Tidal laughed, poking at Nimbus with Venom’s tip, until the Wing Warrior was pressed up against the rocks. ‘Because I can. Because I want to. Because I’m sick and tired of you waltzing around being everyone’s knight in shining armour.’

Nimbus felt like he had been slammed in the gut with an iron bar, and a lump formed in his throat as he finally realised just how much Tidal resented him. How could this have happened? They were once so close. They had been best friends. They had been like brothers. ‘Do you really hate me that much?’ he whispered.

‘I hate that it could have been me, Nim. If you had told me about the dragon, I could have been the Wing Warrior. And I would have been better than you.’

‘You have not the honour to be a Wing Warrior,’ Cumulo hissed. ‘I would no sooner carry you on my back than I would carry a goblin war party.’

‘Why is this so hard for you?’ Nimbus asked.

Tidal shrugged, and swished Venom in a figure of eight motion. ‘Just look at everything you have. A magic sword with a blade that vanishes then reappears. A dragon. A suit of armour. The love of the people. And glory.’ He grinned maliciously. ‘But now I will have the glory.’

‘What glory?’

‘Look around you, Nim. I set this whole thing up. I lured you out here. I captured the dragon, clapped it in chains that sap its strength and leaves it as weak as a kitten. And I caught you. The mighty Wing Warrior. You are a great hero, and now I get to be one too.’

‘This is not the way to be a hero.’

‘This is exactly the way to be a hero. You do something that makes people remember your name. And I will be remembered for destroying you.’

‘But you aren’t just destroying me. You’re destroying everything. There’s big trouble on the mainland. If I don’t get back, I don’t know what’s going to happen.’

‘There you go again. You just can’t wait to get back to save the day, can you?’

‘If you don’t let me go, you could be condemning hundreds of people to death. My family.’

‘Why should I care?’

‘Crow is getting stronger. Are you prepared to let him win?’

‘It doesn’t matter to me. He can rule all the dry land from here to eternity. I am different now. I am beyond his reach.’ Tidal turned his head slightly, and pulled back his hair to reveal a row of pink gills pulsing on the side of his neck. ‘Do you see? I am of the ocean, and what happens to you land dwellers is of little consequence.’

For a moment, Nimbus was shocked to silence as he tried to comprehend the alien creature that Tidal had become. ‘What about Sky?’ he asked, eventually. ‘If you hold me here, you are putting her in danger.’

‘Sky made her choice. I asked her to come with me, and she said no. She’ll have to live with that decision.’

‘And if that decision kills her?’

Tidal looked down at his feet. ‘Then she dies.’

As shocked as Nimbus was by such harsh words, he did not waste his chance to take advantage of Tidal’s momentary lapse in concentration. He threw himself at Tidal, knocking him down. Caught off guard, Tidal lost his grip on Venom, and the sword flew out of the reach of both boys as they began to wrestle.

Nimbus’s anger, and the element of surprise, gave him an edge at first; but Tidal was stronger, and he managed to pin Nimbus face down on the shore.

‘See, Nim?’ he snarled, as Nimbus struggled to break free. ‘I’m better than you. You should never have been the Wing Warrior. It should have been me all along.’

‘Get off me,’ Nimbus screamed, furiously.

Tidal got back to his feet, and retrieved Venom from where it had fallen.

‘This is stupid,’ Nimbus spat, brushing the sand from his face and neck. ‘We should be fighting together, against Crow, not fighting against each other.’

‘Fighting together with you just isn’t working for me,’ Tidal said, sheathing Venom. ‘You see, when I was helping you, or trying to look after Sky while you weren’t around, I was risking my skin, and you were still getting all the praise. I may not be bright, but even I can see that’s a fool’s game. I’m much happier this way.’

‘How can you be happy living alone on an island in the middle of nowhere? What are you even doing here?’

Tidal sat near the cave mouth. He completely ignored Cumulo, who was growling menacingly and occasionally heaving on the chain in an effort to break free. ‘I suppose you deserve some kind of explanation,’ he said.

Nimbus got to his feet. His attention was drawn to the ocean waters, where something was moving among the distant waves, writhing up through the spume and then ducking back out of sight with a silvery flick of an immense tail. ‘You’re working with that thing out there, aren’t you?’

‘The Ocean King.’

‘What is it? Some kind of snake?’

‘More than a snake. More than a dragon. The Ocean King is lord of the seas, a leviathan. He bit me that day back at Landmark, when I was almost drowned by the tidal wave. He agreed to help me, if in turn, I would help him.’

‘Help you do what?’

‘Are you not paying attention, Nim? He agreed to help me become a hero. He agreed to give me the skills and powers to overshadow your good deeds.’

‘He gave you gills. Turned you into a fish. Into a freak.’

‘You wouldn’t believe what it’s like down there, Nim. In the cool depths beyond the reach of everyone. It’s a whole new world, a place of pure silence. When I’m down there, I am the universe and all that’s in it. Nothing else matters.’

‘You’re talking crazy. The sea killed your parents, remember?’

‘But now I am a master of the dark currents. I can control what no man has ever believed can be controlled. And down there...’ He blinked slowly. ‘Down there I am closer to my parents than I ever was in life. We are together again.’

‘And what did you have to do in exchange?’

Tidal scooped a pebble out of the sand and bounced it on his palm thoughtfully. ‘The Ocean King brought me to this island. He showed me the leviathan chain, an ancient sorcery that can take the strength of even the mightiest beasts. He showed me exactly what I would need to do in order to knock you off the pedestal our people built for you. And in return, all I had to do was find something that was hidden somewhere on this island. A single piece of coral.’

‘Just that?’

‘Do you know anything about leviathans?’

‘Not really.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me. All this time fighting legends, and you still don’t know the first thing about them.’

‘I’ve had this lecture before, from better people than you, Tide.’

‘Well if you had bothered to do your research, you might have come across the legend of the Ocean King and the sea nymph.’

‘Sounds like a children’s story.’

‘It’s nothing of the sort. Once, the oceans were filled with leviathans. They could grow far bigger than any human could imagine. It was even rumoured a leviathan could grow so large it would be possible for it to circle the entire planet, and crush it in its monstrous coils.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘It’s easy to say something is impossible when so many people have died to make sure it never happens. You see, humans grew to fear the leviathans, and they waged a bitter war against them until the seas turned red and most of the ancient creatures were destroyed. Eventually only two leviathans remained, the Ocean King and his mate. They escaped here, to this very island, where they hid away from the vile humans who hunted them. They laid a new clutch of eggs, and they tried to rebuild what man’s hatred had destroyed.’ Tidal threw his pebble out into the ocean where it sank without trace. ‘But humans are cruel and spiteful creatures, and they would not leave them alone.’

‘You are human too, Tidal. Remember that.’

‘No. Not now. And I’m glad. The humans saw the Ocean King as a threat, and they wanted to destroy him. But this island is hollow, full of winding underground caverns. It was too easy for the leviathans to defend, and the humans knew that it would cost hundreds of lives to mount a full attack. They came up with a plan, a work of evil trickery that would bring the Ocean King’s reign to an end. They summoned the sea nymph, and promised him every gift that was in their power to give, if only he would help them. Have you heard of the sea nymph?’

‘No.’

Tidal laughed harshly. ‘There really isn’t very much you have heard of, is there? The sea nymph is a terrible creature, a being who speaks with the hypnotic voice of the waters. Have you ever sat on the beach, and thought the waves were talking to you, commanding you to dive in and swim away with them? That is the voice of the sea nymph, luring unsuspecting people to their watery graves. He is the reason why we find the sea so interesting, and yet so utterly terrifying. He is the secret, deadly undercurrent that drags swimmers into oblivion. The most beautiful of all the deadly creatures in this world.’

Nimbus walked over to Cumulo, and stroked the dragon’s snout. Cumulo nuzzled into him, flicking his tongue over the Wing Warrior’s cheek. ‘So what happened? How did this nymph plan to fight?’

‘Although the sea nymph was not strong enough to stand up to the might of two adult leviathans, he had other ways to defeat them. He ordered the greatest human wizards to forge a chain from their most potent spells. A chain that would consume the strength of anything caught within it. The very same chain that your dragon now wears. Then a fleet of human warships set sail for Serpent’s Coil, and lured the Ocean King from his lair. They had no hope of beating him, strong as he was by then, but winning was not their intention. They just wanted to distract him long enough for the sea nymph to visit the island and speak his soft, loving, hate–filled words to the Ocean King’s last mate. She was deceived by the sea nymph, and she fell in love with him and his terrible promises. She followed him out of the depths of Serpent’s Coil, up to this beach, where he asked her if she would allow him to place this simple chain around her neck, as a symbol of her devotion to him.’ Tidal clenched his hands until the colour drained from his knuckles; his shoulders shook with anger. ‘She was so in love with him by then she would have done anything. It was only once the chain was in place, and she felt the strength seeping from her body, that she realised the truth. She was heartbroken. The realisation of what had happened broke her far worse than the magic chain ever could.’