The Southern Trail (Book 4) (12 page)

And outside the cabin, its shadow blocking sunlight from directly shining into Marco’s cabin, was the body of a huge sea monster, rising up from the surface of the sea to attack the ship.

Marco gaped in astonishment, horrified by the sight of the bulky, scaly body that was just feet away.  He sprang from his mattress, drawing his sword, while the monster outside reached its highest point of rising from the sea, and started to fall back down into the water.  As the monster’s body slid downward before his eyes, Marco had another sudden flashback to his nearly-calamitous battle with the Echidna.  That too had been a vast creature with scales.

The body disappeared, and the monster’s head sudden dropped into momentary view.  It was no Echidna, with a human face; it was a scaly, feline-looking face, with large round eyes, a protruding snout that featured sharp teeth, and a size that was larger than the Echidna.  Marco distantly heard the shouts of the men overhead, up on the deck of the ship, where they also saw the assault by the sea creature.

As it passed in front of the opening where Marco and the women were watching, the monster suddenly jabbed its snout forward into the cabin, and locked its teeth on the arm of Gielle, who was standing right next to Marco.  Her eyes looked directly into his, wide with fear and horror, and then she disappeared, pulled through the opening and into the water by the descending monster.

“Gielle!” Ellersbine screamed.

And then she immediately screamed again.

“Marco!” the princess shouted, as he jumped without hesitation and dove out the opening, plunging into the water, going after the monster and the maiden in hopes of rescuing the unfortunate girl.  He had his sword in his hand and he was determined to rescue the girl.

He struck the salty water at a steep angle, and submerged deep beneath the surface, his eyes open in the briny liquid, searching for and finding the location of his quarry.  Gielle’s white blouse stuck out as a visible sign of her location, deeper still in the water.  Marco held his sword below him as he kicked his legs to drive himself down towards the stricken girl.

“Help!  Dolphin friends!  Help me, for I am going to fight a monster of great evil.  This is Marco two-legs, friend of the dolphins and merpeople,” he squeaked and grunted as best he could, praying that some brave dolphin was close by and would come to lend support in the face of such an overwhelming opponent.

The sea monster was not descending any further, and Gielle’s body floated limply in front of it as Marco approached.  He was unnoticed by the monster, and he took advantage of his arrival to strike his blade deeply into the back of its neck.  Marco stopped as he struck, and then tried to withdraw his sword, while the monster began writhing furiously, nearly wrenching the sword from his grasp before he managed to withdraw it from the scales and flesh that whipped around him.

The monster was not holding onto Gielle as it reacted to the pain it felt, and Marco stroked over to where she floated, unconscious or worse.  His lungs were bursting, and he grabbed her arm as he began to try to reach the surface quickly to find the fresh air he so desperately needed.

“Friend, you have chosen a dangerous sport,” a dolphin suddenly appeared beside him.

“Grab on,” it told him, then dragged him to the surface at a speed far in excess of what Marco could ever achieve.

It was the same dolphin who had helped him during the battle, when he had fallen into the sea between the ships.

“Friend, I hope I can return the favors I owe you someday,” Marco gasped as he sucked in the air.  Gielle was beside him, not looking as though there was any spark of life within her any longer.

“Keep my friend here on the surface,” Marco told the dolphin, and then he took in one last deep breath, and flipped himself to dive back down toward the monster.

He didn’t have to go far; the creature was rising to find him and fight him.  It sought revenge on the small being that had struck at its flesh and delivered a wound to it, and it was far closer than Marco had expected to see when he dove back down.  In a panic, he switched the sword to his left hand, and pointed his right hand, the hand with the hidden golden hue, down directly at the monster, then released a bolt of energy that flew at the creature and struck it in the torso.

The bolt of bright energy struck at the approximate point where the monster would have had shoulders, had it grown limbs, and the sea immediately became a murky floating globe of bloody water.  The creature writhed in agony, but continued to approach Marco, and he veered off wildly to the side, hoping to elude its attack.

He felt its teeth clamp weakly upon his left leg.  He was caught, but the animal was suffering from the battle the two of them were waging.  Marco swung his sword and scored the creature across one of its great eyes, making it release its grip on his foot and swing its head wildly back and forth.  Released, Marco fluttered his legs as best he could and slowly rose back to the surface.

He drew in a gulp of air as soon as he reached the top of the water, then momentarily looked around.  The dolphin and Gielle were floating fifty feet away, and the ship was floating another hundred feet beyond them, with a fringe of faces looking over the railing, looking down at the drama around him.  Marco took two more breaths, then dove back under the water and looked for the monster.

It was gone.  He detected an area of distant seawater that was deep beneath him, and perhaps a shade darker than the rest of the far perspective, but there was no other sign that could be interpreted as the location of the monster.

After several seconds of careful scrutiny, Marco rose back to the surface and took another deep breath.  He thrust his sword into his belt, then slowly swam back to where Gielle and the dolphin were.

“You are a great warrior.  You must fight all the time!” the dolphin said.

“More than I want,” Marco answered absent-mindedly as he examined Gielle.  She was gray and limp, and showed no signs of life.

“I am sorry to tell you your mate will swim no longer,” the dolphin said softly.

“This one was not my mate, but I am sorry that she will laugh with us no more,” Marco answered.  “I will take her body back to her friends,” he told the dolphin.  “Thank you for helping us.  You are a brave companion,” Marco saluted the marine creature.

“I will help you move her,” the dolphin said, and began towing Gielle back to the ship as Marco swam alongside.

They reached the bottom of the ladder that allowed Marco to climb back up, and they said farewell to each other, then Marco paused as he considered how he could carry Gielle up to the deck, just before a large net tied to a rope startled him when it slapped the surface of the sea after being thrown down to him.  Marco gently maneuvered Gielle into the net, then rolled himself in as well, preferring to ride up instead of climbing up on his injured foot.  As he realized he had the new injury, he placed his left hand in his mouth to sip on the water that flowed from Diotima’s spring.

There was a sudden jerk, and the net’s edges rose in the four corners, then another jerk and the corners closed together, and Marco and Gielle were pressed together as the net started to rise out of the water, and climbed back up to the deck of the ship a few feet at a time.   Marco moved himself to a more comfortable posture as the net squeezed him, then sighed with relief as it reached its full height and was swung inward, to be lowered to the surface of the deck, as a large crowd surrounded the returnees.

“Gielle!” Princess Ellersbine wailed as she knelt next to the body of her maid.

“I tried to save her,” Marco told the princess, as he sat up next to the body.  “But the monster took her so swiftly there wasn’t a chance.”  Hands were reaching towards him from all directions to help him rise to his feet.

“Marco, your foot is hurt!” the princess said, seeing the bloody mangling of his flesh that was a testimony to the work of the sea creature.

“It’s not bad; it could have been worse.  I’ll heal quickly,” Marco answered.

“Captain,” Marco heard a voice say.  He turned his head and saw that among the many folks nearby was the officer who had become captain after surviving the Corsair attack.  “Captain, we’ve got a major leak.  The monster struck the hull and broke several timbers below the water line,” a crew member said.

“I’ll come right away,” the captain responded, and he pressed his way through the crowd to go below deck to inspect the damage to the ship.

“Are you alright lad?  What happened down there?” Captain Fyld asked.

“We saw a flash of light!  Was that something the monster did?” Sergeant Hearst asked.

“Let the boy have a seat and catch his breath,” Prince Ellersby stood nearby, and the men promptly responded, taking Marco to a bench where he sat down.

“Have you ever seen anything like that?” Marco asked one of the sailors that hovered nearby.

“I’ve heard stories about sea serpents around the islands of Melina, but I didn’t think we were close to there.  I’ve never seen those monsters myself anyway,” the sailor answered.

“Thank you for trying to save her,” Duchess Rhen came over to where Marco sat.  “The princess is very upset over the girl’s death, but she thanks you for your heroism in trying to save her.  I’m going to take the princess to her cabin to comfort her now,” Rhen said, then walked away, and Marco watched the two women go down the stairs that led to their cabins.

Count Argen came over at that point.  “How’d you happen to see the maid be taken by the monster, and how did you react so quickly?” he asked Marco suspiciously.

“The girl and I were in my cabin when the monster broke the hull open, and he snatched her through the breach.  I dove down after them, trying to save her,” Marco answered.  It was a delicate situation, he realized, that would look poorly for Gielle for having been in his cabin; yet it was better than confessing that the Princess had also been in the inappropriate space.

“She was in your cabin?  She deserved what she got,” Colonel Varsen harrumphed.

“You take that back!” Marco said heatedly, rising to his feet and balling a fist, despite the pain he felt from standing on his injured foot.  “She did not deserve to die like that.”

“I am a superior officer, and you shall not countermand my comments!” Varsen blustered.  “I’ll have you whipped for insubordination!”

“Who do you think you’ll get to carry that order out?” Hearst asked ominously.

Varsen looked around at the unfriendly faces.  “I’m not making the order.  I’m reminding you that the military must have discipline,” he said defiantly, then retreated from the scene, followed by Argen.

“Thank you,” Marco told Hearst.  “I would have done something stupid if you hadn’t chased him away.”  He felt intense anger at the ill-mannered officer who had spoken so thoughtlessly.

Just then the captain returned to the deck, and sought out the Prince.  “We’ve been badly damaged, beyond repair.  We’re going to have to abandon the ship immediately.  If you and your party can start moving your belongings, we’ll move into this Corsair ship we still have available,” he said.

Marco looked at Hearst.  “Can you arrange a party to carry their goods over to the Corsair ship,” he asked the sergeant.

“Yes sir, I’ll do so immediately,” Hearst answered.  He gave a significant look to several of the men around him, and they all departed, leaving Marco momentarily alone on the bench.

The rapid procession of events striking the ship he was on was unbelievable.  From Corsair attack to sea monster visitation to tensions among the survivors to having to abandon ship, the stress had mounted, and he felt his bone-weariness overwhelming him.  He’d not slept soundly in days, and now the next crisis was underway.  He wondered if he would have survived the ongoing debacle if he had still been under Iasco’s spell.  His awakening of his personality had both allowed him to respond more powerfully to the crises that rained down, as well as prevented him from falling in love with the princess, as he might have been otherwise inclined to do.

“Can we help you?” a pair of the other Docleatean soldiers approached him.

“I left my pack in the cabin down below that the monster bashed open.  Could you fetch it for me?” he asked, and gratefully watched the men run the errand for him as the sun set over the western waters.  Marco reflectively took a sip of water from his finger, then spit it on his injured foot.  And then he leaned back and closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

Chapter 11

When Marco awoke, he found himself swaying in a hammock that was one of dozens hung below deck on the Corsair ship.  The other hammocks were empty, and Marco could see streaks of sunlight shining in through cracks between wooden planks in the hull and the deck above.  He saw his knapsack tied to the foot of the hammock, and his boots were on the floor next to him, courtesy of the men who had fetched his knapsack for him, and presumably carried him over to the new ship.

He sat up unsteadily as the hammock swayed, then he examined his injured foot.  It was healing nicely, and rapidly, thanks to Diotima’s waters.  His shoulder felt better, and his thigh as well.  And he’d had a long night’s sleep that had let his body overall rest and recover from the series of traumatic events of the past couple of days.

He slipped his feet into his boots and stamped them securely into place, then he stood, and began walking through the ship.  He sought two things; the way to the top deck, and the way to some food – he felt famished, and realized that he had never stopped to eat a meal the day before.

A bright set of steep stairs led up to the deck, and numerous people were present.

“Marco!” Captain Fyld greeted him first, and Marco walked over to where the captain stood along the railing. Marco saw that the captain, and nearly everyone else, was watching the sinking of their original ship, as the waves of the sea lapped against its sides just a few inches below the top deck.

“It’s something to see, isn’t it?” Fyld commented.  “So how do you feel?” he asked.