Tabitha didn’t know the full truth any more than Isobelle did. In that moment, when the dragon’s eye had consumed her, Gwen had felt herself dangling over the edge of oblivion, faced with a choice: to hold on, to keep fighting, to cling to every last shred of hope she could find … or to let go and give in.
Gwen had chosen to fall.
Coward, she thought bleakly, staring at the ceiling of the grand Dragonslayer’s Suite.
So we’re all caught up now, yes?
You probably remember where we were: out on a tiny ship in the charming harbour of Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea, the rising sun illuminating the cliffs, geese trundling across the sky providing some misleading pastoral charm, in contrast to all the screaming and tentacles.
Dear reader, I could see you were most vexed when I paused at the start to go back and recount the manner in which we came to this place, but I think you’ll agree now it was the right call.
Now, you know why Isobelle was acting with such supreme confidence – to conceal the doubts and desperate fear that lurked beneath. The determination that this had been – that this must have been – a good choice. For of course it was she who followed Gwen the night before, and overheard Gwen confessing to Tabitha that which she could not tell her beloved. It was her fashionable shoe that scraped softly across the ground, her breath that was so carefully held.
You know as well, why Gwen froze at a most inconvenient moment face to face – or face to tentacle – with her foe.
You know that this fight is not just a battle against a sea monster, but a battle for Gwen’s very soul as a knight.
But it is also a battle against a sea monster – probably best not to forget that amid all the delicious tension and angst.
As we resume, you might want to duck.
10
A damned miracle
A tentacle swung out of the depths and slammed into Gwen, lifting her from the deck of the ship and tightening until her ribs creaked. She desperately missed her armour, though it would’ve been supreme idiocy to fight on the water wearing fifty pounds of steel.
She’d already severed one of the monster’s arms, and she tried to shift her grip on her sword to do it again. Before she could, the creature rose from the water, a great dome of coral red, blinding and gleaming wetly in the sun. It was on its side, tentacles writhing, tearing chunks out of the railing of the ship, then its mouth opened, a great, yawning maw lined with teeth, directly below Gwen.
Okay, let’s not cut off its arm, she thought frantically, clutching with her free hand at the awful, quivering band of flesh wrapped around her.
Then it opened its eye.
An alien, horizontal slit of a pupil cut through an orb of gold, fixing on Gwen.
She froze.
Horror swept through her, a despair so deep she couldn’t remember who she was or why she was there. It was like the dragon, this monster. It could petrify her, strip away her hope, like the dragon had done. She was lost, dead – worse than dead, obliterated.
Her body couldn’t move. Her muscles went lax.
Her sword fell from her nerveless hand.
Gwen watched it as it fell with a strange detachment – she was already nothing but despair. The loss of her weapon hardly mattered.
But there was something about how the sword fell, straight down, like an arrow …
Her vision dimmed, and then a shudder ran through the beast, vibrating along the tentacle holding her up. It gave a horrible scream, a noise unlike anything Gwen had ever heard, and it dropped her.
She hit the deck of the ship, stunned, and managed to lift her head, scrambling towards the railing to look down into the water. The waves were crimson, churned into a pink foaming sludge as the beast thrashed and rolled, and then vanished from sight.
Gwen heard Isobelle’s steps running towards her, distantly felt the other girl throw herself down beside her.
‘Oh my god, Gwen, that was amazing!’ she gasped, herarms going around Gwen tightly. ‘What a throw! I didn’t know you could do that!’
Gwen blinked at Isobelle, still too wrapped in shock and adrenalin to understand her properly. ‘Do what?’
Isobelle’s eyes were glowing with pride. ‘Throw your sword like that – you got it right in the mouth, exactly where the scroll said you should strike.’ A shadow clouded her bright expression. ‘But … your beautiful sword. It’s … gone, with the monster.’
