The Wrath of the Lizard Lord (21 page)

Only his spinning head and the bile in his throat told him that the
Liberty
was moving. Water gushed around them as if they were under a fountain. The force pushed him back into his seat, pressing on his chest and squeezing his breath out in short gasps. He reached out for the wheel with fingers like wet string.

We’re going up, not down!
Dakkar thought.
We’re being sucked upward!

The deluge of water cleared from the porthole, showing a round, black hole. They were being sucked straight into it. Dakkar coughed, trying to clear his burning lungs, and slapped his feeble hands on the ballast wheel, man­aging to blow the water from the hull cavity then, gradually, unconsciousness took him.

Chapter Thirty

Duncan MacDonald

A faint bumping sound brought Dakkar, groaning, to his senses. His head pounded and the inside of the upper cabin swum in front of him. The air in the
Liberty
tasted stale and his mouth felt dry.

‘Am I dead?’ he said, his voice hoarse.

Shaking himself and wincing, he looked out of the porthole. Raindrops speckled the glass, warping the view of a leaden sky and a grey, rolling sea. The chill air made him shiver. Wherever they were, it wasn’t the warm, constantly dry underworld.

Something bumped against the
Liberty
again. Dakkar frowned, staring down at the lower cabin. Gweek squawked feebly, trapped by the ruins of its own cage. Mary’s foot poked from under a pile of tarpaulins and chairs. Georgia was dragging herself to her feet, a task made more difficult by the pitching and tossing of the
Liberty
on the waves.

‘Where are we?’ she said, steadying herself on the wall of the cabin.

‘I’m not sure,’ Dakkar said, peering out of the porthole again. Then he gave a yell.

A tanned, bearded face filled his view. Dakkar glimpsed a bulbous nose and gappy, yellow teeth. The man gave a grin and tapped on the glass with a stubby finger.

‘Looks like we have company,’ Georgia said, helping Mary to stand up.

Dakkar pushed open the hatch to see the beaming face again. A fisherman wrapped in several coats, with grey, wiry hair over his shoulders, had tied his boat to the
Liberty
and was clinging to the deck.

‘Are-ye-awright-laddie?’ he said, his accent heavy and his voice muffled by his thick beard.

‘Pardon?’ Dakkar said, climbing out of the hatch. The cold sea breeze caught his breath and made his skin prickle.

‘Ah said, are ye awright?’ the fisherman said, slowing his voice down.

‘Oh, yes.’ Dakkar said. ‘I’m fine. Erm, could you tell me where we are?’

‘Ah, ye lost then.’ The fisherman grinned. He extended a gnarled hand. ‘Duncan MacDonald,’ he said. ‘I fish round these parts.’

‘Yes,’ Dakkar said, taking the man’s hand. ‘And what
are
these parts?’

Duncan scratched his beard. ‘That’s a funny-lookin’ boat ye have there,’ he said. ‘Where are its sails?’

‘We stowed them away,’ Dakkar lied. He scanned the horizon, seeing a smudge of land in the distance. ‘So, Mr MacDonald, where are we?’

‘Well, that over there,’ Duncan said, pointing at the land, ‘that’s Scotland. While over there,’ he pointed in the other direction, ‘that’d be Americay.’ He wheezed with laughter at his own joke, doubling up and nearly slipping off the
Liberty
.

‘Scotland?’ Dakkar’s heart leapt. ‘Then we made it to the surface!’ He slid back into the craft. ‘We made it, Georgia! We made it back!’

Georgia grinned and then looked at the mess around them. ‘We need time to clear up,’ she began.

‘No time,’ Dakkar said, climbing down into the lower cabin. ‘We can clear as we go. We have to get to Lyme.’

‘If you don’t mind me sayin’, laddie,’ Duncan called down. ‘Ye look a wee bit of a mess. If you need a place to take stock, my cottage is just by the shore there. It’ll be dark soon.’

He looked at Georgia, whose face sported a blue bruise and her lip a red cut. Mary stood blinking and coughing.

‘Just one night then, thank you,’ Dakkar said. ‘We set sail at first light.’

Duncan’s cottage proved to be almost as cramped as the
Liberty
: a tiny thatched croft on the edge of the shore, huddled in the shadow of two large mountains.

Duncan boiled a bubbling fish stew which made Dakkar’s mouth water.

‘Could I have a couple of the smaller fish please?’ Dakkar asked him.

Duncan looked puzzled. ‘Ye want them raw?’

‘Erm, yes,’ Dakkar said, his face reddening. ‘I just like a bit of cold fish now and then.’

Eyeing Dakkar with raised eyebrows, Duncan handed over a couple of the sprats he was about to drop into the pot. Dakkar took them and hurried down to the
Liberty
, which lay semi-beached in the tide. He climbed aboard and down into the lower cabin, where Gweek sat in his repaired cage, hunched on his perch.

‘Here you are,’ Dakkar said, poking the fish through the bars.

Gweek snapped them up greedily and jerked them down his leathery throat.

‘I think it would have been easier to explain the stupid lizard-bird thing than your taste for raw fish,’ Georgia hissed on his return.

Duncan stirred the stew and chattered away in an accent so thick that Dakkar had trouble taking it all in. The fisherman marvelled over the
Liberty
and how she moved without sails. Dakkar muttered something about steam and cogs and pedals and Duncan nodded sagely, but was clearly baffled.

Duncan’s cottage was so small and cramped that they sat at the low front door, sheltered by the overhanging roof and a small drystone wall, while they tried to explain where they’d come from.

‘We were caught in a whirlpool,’ Dakkar said, cradling a bowl of stew in his hands. ‘I passed out and when I awoke here we were.’

‘An incredible tale.’ Duncan shook his head. ‘Where were ye before?’

‘Iceland,’ Georgia said.

‘Norway,’ Dakkar said.

‘Somewhere round there,’ Mary finished off.

‘No wonder you’re lost,’ Duncan chuckled. ‘You didn’t even know where you were at the start.’

They slept in the byre that leaned against Duncan’s ramshackle home. Stuffed with hay and straw, it proved warm and dry.

‘Well, I’ll bid ye a goodnight,’ Duncan said, and closed the door on them.

‘It’s strange,’ Georgia murmured drowsily. ‘I never thought I’d be glad to see the dark again.’

‘Can you see the dark?’ Mary said, shuffling around in the hay.

‘I know what you mean, though,’ Dakkar said, his eyelids drooping. ‘I’m still not sure what day or month it is or how long we were underground.’

‘How
did
we get back up here?’ Georgia said, yawning deeply.

‘I think we were sucked up a waterspout,’ Dakkar replied, rubbing his eyes. ‘I saw them when the Gacheela tried to take me out to sea. They were huge columns of water. They must link to the sea on the surface. I don’t know how they work though. Maybe something to do with pressure inside the earth or something
.
.
.’

Georgia’s snores were the only reply he got.

Dakkar grinned and grabbed a handful of straw. ‘It’s good to be back though,’ he said in a whisper. He closed his eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep.

The warmth of the straw enveloped Dakkar and he relished the cold nipping at the tip of his nose while the rest of his body glowed. He stretched, wincing a little as his aching limbs reminded him of the battering he’d taken in the
Liberty
. A grey light filtered under the byre door but the thick stone walls sheltered them from the stiff wind that blew outside.

Dakkar smiled as he listened to the wind and the breathing of the others but a movement outside made him sit bolt upright. It wasn’t a casual, leisurely footstep – somehow it sounded stealthy. As if someone were creeping up on the door.

Dakkar jumped to his feet as the door flew open, the square of sudden light blinding him momentarily.

‘Don’t move,’ said a bulky figure filling the doorway.

Georgia leapt up but the room filled with bodies. Dakkar blinked as rough hands gripped his arms before his eyes could adjust.

‘Get off me, you filthy bloody-back!’ Georgia spat, tumbling past Dakkar as they spilled out of the byre.

Bloody-back?
Dakkar thought.
That means redcoats. British soldiers!

Eight marines in red coats and white breeches stood with their rifles ready, apart from the three who had hold of Dakkar, Georgia and Mary. Georgia pulled at the man’s grip but he just laughed, a clay pipe clenched in his teeth.

Behind them, Duncan leapt about, wild eyed.

‘I fetched ye,’ he cried, throwing his arms in the air. ‘Just like ye said I should. Anythin’ suspicious, you said. Aye, well, these lot look suspicious enough to me.’

‘You did well, Duncan,’ said someone next to him. Dakkar couldn’t see him properly as he was screened by the marines.

‘Watch that one,’ Duncan said, pointing at Dakkar. ‘Eats raw fish, he does!’

Dakkar looked across to the
Liberty
. More red-coated soldiers stood hauling at the ropes that moored her to the beach. A rowing boat lay half in the water and beyond, out in the bay, a frigate waited, a Union flag fluttering at her stern.

‘You sold us out!’ Georgia yelled, lunging at Duncan, who cowered behind the line of armed marines.

‘She’s an American,’ Duncan said. ‘Aren’t we at war with them?’

Dakkar frowned. The marines shuffled ranks a little, revealing the man Duncan was talking to. A tall thin man who had his back to them. He wore a black tricorne hat, a black jacket and his blond hair hung in a neat pigtail down his back.

‘That other one, she sounds funny to me,’ Duncan spat, pointing at Mary. ‘She could be French!’

‘French?’ Mary shrieked. ‘I’m from Dorset!’

The man turned round. A thin scar trickled down his left cheek from the corner of his eye to his chin, making one half of his face sad and mournful.

‘Commander Blizzard!’ Dakkar gasped.

‘So, Prince Dakkar of Bundelkhand,’ Commander Blizzard said, raising an eyebrow, ‘we meet again and, once again, under suspicious circumstances.’

Chapter Thirty-one

Project Nemo

Commander Blizzard stood in his cabin at the stern of the ship, arms behind his back. Dakkar gazed out of the square windows that lined the rear of the frigate and watched the islands slowly vanish behind him. Georgia sat in a chair glowering at Blizzard while Mary clasped her hands, her face as pale as the commander’s.

‘I seem to recall a similar situation only last year,’ Blizzard mused, pacing up and down his cabin. ‘Me asking questions and you being exceptionally reticent with the answers, Dakkar.’

‘With all due respect, commander,’ Dakkar said, arms folded, ‘I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you.’

‘I think you’d be surprised at how much faith I have in you, Dakkar,’ Blizzard said, his voice mild. ‘We came up here investigating reports of strange sea beasts. We all know what that means. And what do we find? You three – two of you wearing Cryptos uniforms – with what looks like a submersible and the strangest bird I’ve ever set eyes on.’

Gweek sat on his perch in the cage. The marines had brought it out of the
Liberty
at the commander’s orders.

‘He’s a bald parrot,’ Mary blurted out.

Blizzard smirked and threw his hands in the air. ‘If you can’t offer me a suitable explanation then I’ll have to assume that you’re spies.’

‘I thought you’d drowned,’ Dakkar said. Blizzard had commanded the HMS
Palaemon
, a frigate that Georgia had rammed with the
Liberty
, sending her to the bottom of the sea last year.

‘No, we had time to reach the boats and only lost one man,’ Blizzard said. He narrowed his eyes at Georgia. ‘We never knew what it was that sunk the
Palaemon
, although I’m beginning to have my suspicions.’

Georgia glanced out of the window, avoiding Blizzard’s searching gaze.

Dakkar bit his lip. Every minute they wasted here meant more time for Stefan to organise his troops and put his plan into action. Blizzard had the
Liberty
winched up to the side of the ship. Escape was almost impossible.

‘All right,’ Dakkar said. ‘I’ll tell you, but then you’ve got to help us.’

‘Dakkar, no!’ Georgia said, leaping up from her seat.

‘Are we going to stop the count alone?’ Dakkar said, looking Georgia straight in the eye. ‘We need help.’

‘If I can help, I will,’ Blizzard said. ‘I haven’t forgotten how you saved my life, Dakkar. You fought bravely at my side last time we met. That counts for a lot.’