Page 35 of Valour

“I didn’t hear anything other than the ice against the hull. Gosh—it’s not that singing again, is it?”

“No. Something else.”

“Come closer,” the voice growled, and Hester found herself leaning too far over the rail, not quite in control of her body.

Charlotte asked, “Hester? What are you⁠—”

Hester let out a shout and fell over the side.

She hit the ice and rolled once, twice, three times before she came to a halt. She grumbled and rubbed her bleating back. What the Hell happened? One minute she was leaning over the side, the next, she was on the ice. How embarrassing.

She got steadily to her knees, leaning against the alpenstock, which she’d managed to keep hold of. The harpoon gun lay a few feet away. She shuffled towards it, then looked up to see Charlotte and Winston peering down at her from the deck.

“Are you alright?” Winston shouted, concern on his face.

“Fine,” Hester huffed, getting to her feet, lifting the harpoon gun. At least the pain in her back was receding.

A dark shadow passed under her feet. It moved swiftly to the far edge of the floe. A spurt of mist shot into the air.

Hester jumped back. A whale? An orca? The orca from Argentina? There was no doubt in her mind that whatever it was had spoken to her. Spoken into her head.

“Good Lord, what is that?” Charlotte said, shielding her eyes.

“Throw down the ladder,” Hester shouted, hefting the gun. The ice shuddered under her feet. “Hurry!”

“No one evades me. No one. And yet, you dared to make a fool of me?” The voice was an echoing call, laced with the screams of men.

A shiver of dread ran down her spine. “Winston! Get that ladder NOW!”

The ice shuddered again, and Hester slipped, landing on her backside with a curse. She scrambled to her feet. The rope ladder clattered down the side of the ship. Hester stepped towards it, and the ice floe rocked, sending her skittering backwards. Eyes wide, she darted back towards the ship, but a huge wave rocked the floe, pushing it further away. Another spray of water jetted from the sea, followed by a shining black expanse of curved head and a tall black dorsal fin.

“Hurry!” Winston bellowed, leaning over the side. “What the Hell is that?”

Hester watched in horror as an enormous orca surfaced and flung itself onto the ice. The floe tilted, and Hester staggered and fell once more, sliding slowly towards the orca’s open maw.

“Hester!” Charlotte screamed.

Hester rolled onto her stomach and thrust the alpenstock’s axe-head into the ice to stop herself from sliding. Breathing in ragged pants, she held on tightly. Her heart raced, every muscle in her body tensed.

The floe tipped up and up, sending her higher and higher until she dangled from the shaft of the axe, the floe almost vertical. She took a gulp and looked down into the open mouth of the orca. The sharp teeth, the huge tongue, the waiting death.

This couldn’t be how it ended. “Oh God,” she whispered. One slip of her hand and she would fall into its jaws and be minced. Hester wasn’t especially afraid of dying, but the idea of leaving her crew to the clutches of the Southern Continent, and indeed, of this monster, sent terror screeching through her veins.

“You can’t hang there forever. Let go. You belong to me.”

The surrounding white of the ice was dazzling, and Hester cursed herself for not wearing her snow goggles. She tightened her hand around the alpenstock’s handle and aimed the harpoon gun directly into the monster’s throat. Her finger curled around the trigger as she screamed a battle cry.

The trigger wouldn’t budge.

“No no no,” she muttered, pulling it again, whacking the gun against her thigh, then wrapping a second finger around the trigger. The mechanism was stuck. She couldn’t hold on much longer. Her arm muscles screamed, her hand cramping.

This could not be the end.

And then, suddenly, the trigger depressed, and the harpoon flew downwards, and flew true, impaling the orca in the back of the throat. The great beast snapped its jaws shut and reared back. It smashed down onto the ice so hard that the vibrations shot through Hester’s hand.

Her grip slipped.

She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.