Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (79 page)

* * *

Kal remained calm as Sirensbane closed in on her. Her mind was clear; the drugged knife had not, in fact, affected her at all. She was at peace with her fate: the chances were she would never leave this place alive. But then neither would Sirensbane! All she could hope for now was the bonus of seeing him perish first. At least that way, she could die happy in the knowledge of a job well done. She picked her cutlass up off the ground.

Kal had seen the large nautilus submarine float up to the surface; she hoped that Lula was on board and had gotten safely away. The water was rushing into the broken dome so fast now that the entire complex—this miracle of ingenuity and engineering—would soon be a watery tomb.

Sirensbane was soaked. He waded towards her through the rising flood. Water poured in from above, cascaded down his arms and ran off the point of his knife. His face was a picture of evil fury. He needed no cowl and make-up to terrify his opponents now: the baleful set of his eyes was the stuff of nightmares.

But that was exactly how Kal wanted it. The careful, deliberate, scheming Sirensbane was no more. The slow-burning fire that had raised him to the top of the mountain of evil had been extinguished. He was now reduced to a howling monster, a purely physical threat that Kal could handle on her own terms. She raised her blade and prepared to meet him head on.

Above them, Briney the sea dragon seemed to watch with interest. His body now snaked around all the domes, as if he was claiming the whole complex as his own. Out of the corner of her eye, Kal saw one of the smaller domes—the dock where they had arrived, she guessed—implode completely under the pressure of Briney’s embrace. His massive head drifted away to munch on the crates of drugs that were released from the wreckage. He cared nothing for the score that was about to be settled below.

Kal focused her attention back to the fight at hand …

Sirensbane lunged for her with his knife. Kal sliced down, a blow that she expected would take off his outstretched arm, but he wrong-footed her, slipping his knife from one hand to the other as he closed in. Kal felt its point score against the bone of her right forearm. The pain caused her to drop her sword. She only just managed to avoid a follow-up stab by punching her opponent in the stomach.

Her knuckles banged against hard, flat muscles. For a man almost twice her age, Sirensbane was in top physical shape. Kal had heard of the warrior monks that he claimed to have trained with in the Empire of the Moon: they practiced their skills night and day, often on an empty stomach, in remote and isolated monasteries free from any distraction. If Sirensbane had had given them only a year of his life, and honed his skills every day since (and Kal was sure he had) then he would be fit to challenge almost any opponent at any time.

He outclassed Kal in every way. She had made her way in the world by avoiding biting off more than she could chew. At a card table, in the company of weak and strong players, she would always refuse point blank to engage the better players in a hand, even at the expense of her ego. The weak opponents were where the easy money lay for the taking. But here, she had made the mistake of trapping herself with a dangerous enemy that she now couldn’t simply just refuse to engage with.

Or could she?

Kal found herself backed up against a hard metal vat, up to her knees in water, with Sirensbane almost on top of her. The tip of his blade was an inch from her face. Kal gripped his wrists, trying to hold him at bay, but the deadly point was getting closer and closer. He grinned at her, knowing that victory was at hand. ‘You stupid fool!’ he spat at her. ‘We could have had it all!’

‘We could,’ Kal replied. ‘But you forgot one thing … twenty-eight things, in fact!’

The knife point didn’t waver. ‘What?’ he said.

‘I’ve only killed twenty-eight people,’ she said. ‘According to your reading of the cards, I’m due one more!’

This time the pressure on the knife
did
relax, just a fraction, as Sirensbane paused to process this information. But it was enough: Kal dropped her right hand to her belt and brought it back up holding her cleaver. She buried it in Sirensbane’s face, right between his eyes.

He fell backwards silently, and sank beneath the water that was flooding his lair. His dead eyes stared up at Kal. They were empty of emotion; there wasn’t even evidence of the surprise of Kal’s final attack. Did he even see it coming? A quick death was far too good for him.

‘Bamboozled by your own bullshit,’ Kal said to the corpse. She hadn’t even bothered counting her death tally accurately at all. But she had suspected Sirensbane believed in his own hocus pocus more than she did. She reached down to retrieve her cleaver, but it was stuck fast in his skull and wouldn’t budge.

Well, it wasn’t as if she had much need of it now. ‘Keep it then,’ she said.

Then, remembering Che, who had travelled with her for two months, and whose delicious curries, soups and seafood platters the world would never taste again, she added one final riposte:

‘Compliments of the chef.’

V.viii

The Paradise Wind

With Sirensbane’s demise, a wave of emotion washed over Kal, flushing away all her anger, her zeal and her single-minded drive for justice. Suddenly she felt alone and afraid, trapped deep under the sea, inside a delicate dome that was crushed in like an eggshell, and that could collapse at any moment.

Now that the moment had arrived, she realised she wasn’t ready to die. But the only exit from the dome was the way she had entered: through the cavern beneath. The water in the dome was up to Kal’s waist, though, so the cavern below would already be flooded. She was going to have to swim through it.

She waded over to where the spiral stairs descended into the cold water. The way was still lit by the phosphorescent lamps, which was a bit of luck; without them, she would have been swimming in the dark. But getting out of here still wasn’t going to be plain sailing. There was also the small matter of—

Kal shook her head to clear her mind. One thing at a time! She took a deep breath and plunged into the water. She pulled herself down the stairs with her hands, paddling with her feet. At the bottom, she pushed off and kicked like a frog to get to the metal airlock that led to the passageway out. She tried to slide the door open, but as she had feared, the hydraulic system had flooded. The door opened just a crack. Kal got her fingers in, braced her legs in the door frame, and heaved.

It was no good. The door opened maybe another inch, but there was no more oxygen left in her lungs, and no power left in her muscles. Did she even have enough strength to make it back up to the dome?

She was about to let go and head back when the door started opening, seemingly of its own accord. Then Kal noticed two more sets of fingers alongside hers in the gap. All of a sudden the door was open and Kal was face to face with Lula. Her friend was floating in the passage on the other side of the door. She grabbed Kal by the hand and pulled her through.

They surfaced in an air pocket just down the passage. Kal took great gulping breaths, then proceeded to reprimand Lula: ‘I told you not to come back!’

Lula just laughed. ‘You can spank me later. Where’s Sirensbane?’

‘Sleeping with the fishes,’ Kal said. ‘Lu, please tell me you have a way out of here!’

‘My dad’s waiting for us on the last sub out of here,’ Lula said. ‘The connecting tunnels are all underwater, so we’re going to have to swim from dome to dome. Think you can make it?’

‘If you can, I can,’ Kal replied. ‘Let’s go!’

Kal followed Lula as she swam down the passage, took a series of turns, and emerged in a small dome that had so far survived the destruction. It appeared to be Sirensbane’s study: there was plush carpet (now spoiled by seawater) and a beautiful carved desk. Kal was almost tempted to have a poke around—old habits died hard—but Lula’s sudden cry stopped her in her tracks.

They looked out of the glass to the next dome. It was being battered by the dragon’s tail. Water had already filled it halfway to the top, and the submarine inside was already floating free of its moorings. As they watched, every glass panel fell in at once, and the scene was obscured by a rush of bubbles. When they cleared, Kal could see the submarine caught in the dome’s metal frame, halfway in, halfway out, trying to push through at the point where the dome was divided into two halves. The propellers then switched up a gear, and suddenly the sub was free, heading for the surface and safety.

‘I told my father not to wait,’ Lula said.

‘At least he has some sense,’ Kal said. ‘Unlike you! You should have been on that sub, Lu.’

‘I told him not to wait,’ Lula repeated, ‘
because I have a back-up plan
. So stop complaining and get ready for one last swim!’

That shut Kal up. She let Lula take the lead once more, and followed her underwater through another series of turns and tunnels. Then she found herself swimming past trees and plants. When she finally broke the surface, Kal saw they were in another dome that was already almost completely-flooded with water. Palms and rubber trees filled the space all around and above them. A glass panel had broken above, and water gushed in, giving the impression of a jungle waterfall.

‘That’s our exit,’ Lula said, pointing to the hole in the top of the dome. ‘When the water level reaches the top, we just slip out into the sea.’

‘And swim fifty fathoms up to the surface?’ Kal said. ‘That’s impossible!’

‘Who said anything about swimming?’ Lula replied. ‘Wait here; I left something tied up below.’

Kal trod water as the ceiling got closer and closer. Air was bubbling out of the dome as the water rushed in, and Kal knew that their bodies would not be able to withstand the pressure when the sea water drove out all the air and completely drowned Sirensbane’s lair. She shuddered at the thought of her lungs being crushed by the sea.

But then she figured that the bitter heavy air that they had tasted in the domes had probably been treated by Sirensbane specially for breathing at these depths. If they took their fill of it, and Lula could get them up fast enough, then maybe, just maybe, they might have a chance of getting out of this mess alive …

Lula reappeared, and with her was a net full of coconuts. Coconuts that, in order for them to travel far and wide to spread their seed, nature had given a fibrous husk, air pockets, and a density lower than water.

In short, nature had decreed that they
float
.

Kal and Lula entangled themselves in the netting, and made their way as close to the torrent of incoming water as they could. They took one last gulp of air as the last of it was driven out of the dome … and then they were underwater.

The sea dragon was waiting for them to emerge. As they rose up out of the dome, the dragon twisted its great neck in their direction and opened its enormous maw. Kal squeezed her eyes shut, but when she opened them, the dragon had turned its head away. Briney had no interest in them; instead he turned his attention back to what was left of Sirensbane’s lab. Arching his great tubular midsection high, he brought it crashing down on the central dome, breaking it in two. When the dragon’s body pounded down on the rock that the domes were built on, the whole outcropping ridge shuddered and began to break away. As Kal and Lula went up, Sirensbane’s entire lair dropped away, sinking down into the uncharted depths of the ocean trench.

And Briney flipped his tail and followed, chasing Sirensbane straight down into hell.

* * *

When Kal broke the surface, she did nothing for five minutes but float on her back drinking in the sweet sea air. The sun had yet to rise, but the predawn sky was a silky blue-grey that was, in that moment, one of the most beautiful colours that Kal had ever seen. She didn’t need to look to see if Lula was alright, since they were still holding hands.

A fresh, brisk wind scraped across Kal’s face: the Paradise Wind, carrying new life into the world, and blowing away evil. ‘We’re alive,’ Kal said, turning her head to look at Lula. ‘I never dared imagine this moment.’

‘You did it, Kal,’ Lula said. ‘You destroyed the curse and saved the Islanders. I always knew you would. Without you here, no doubt I would have become a zombie too, probably sailing the seas forever with my zombie crew on a zombie ship, smuggling Sirensbane forever. You saved me too, Kal.’

‘No,’ Kal said. ‘
You
saved
me
. You were right, Lu, I was wasting my time stuck in the city, working for Ben. I needed to get out, escape my old life … do something not just for money, but for the adventure … and for the people I love.’

Lula reached over and took Kal’s other hand and pulled her upright. Their lips met, and they kissed for what seemed like hours. Kal could feel the rising sun on her face long before she opened her eyes.

When they returned to the real world and looked around, they were met with incredible sights. The horizon to the east was filled with ships: the Republic Navy and the Eldragoran Armada. Kal could see the
Mort Royal
in the lead, and up against its hull was one of the giant nautilus transport subs. The other was floating free nearby. Between Kal, Lula and the line of ships was a landscape littered with broken crates and floating wreckage. Teams of sailors in row boats were scouring the flotsam.

Lula grabbed hold of their floating net of coconuts and kicked off towards the rescue party. ‘Come on!’ she said. ‘There’s going to be one hell of a party in Port Black tonight!’

Kal hung back.

‘Kal?’ Lula said, catching the look in her friend’s eyes.

‘I’m not ready to go back,’ Kal said.

Lula stopped paddling. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I’m done with it all: with life, people … the world. I feel like … like I just want to drift away and disappear for a while.’

Lula didn’t argue. She started back towards Kal. ‘Then I’ll come with you,’ she said.