The Riddle - Alison Croggon [9]
Two bolts of fire arced from the boat: one bounced off the hard scales of the creature’s long body and vanished, sizzling into the waves, but the other clove deep into the unmailed skin. The sea boiled as the ondril thrashed violently and roared, a deafening noise that raised all the hairs on Maerad’s skin. For a while she saw nothing but a white chaos of spray. She heard Cadvan shouting “Back!,” fearing they would be swamped, and felt the boat move under Owan’s sure handling.
When she could see again, they were a safe distance from the ondril. For the first time, Maerad could see how big it really was: its thick, scaled body stretched back for hundreds of spans, coiling and uncoiling in spasms of fury and agony that sent up geysers of spray. A black cloud of blood boiled out into the sea, reaching even to their boat, and Cadvan called Owan to draw back still farther.
“Have we killed it?” Maerad asked.
“I doubt it,” said Cadvan. “It may give up and go to lick its wounds. But I think we dare not count on that. I think it more likely that it will come for us now in a fury of revenge, and we will be most imperiled if it dives and comes up from beneath. I think we will need to blind it, at least.”
He turned to Owan, and Owan simply nodded. “Best be quick, I reckon,” he said. “Before it works out where we are.”
“I fear the Owl might be swamped,” said Cadvan.
“My beauty won’t sink,” said Owan with certainty. “Not unless she’s broken to bits.” He began to steer steadily back into the eye of the maelstrom, where the ondril was beating the ocean into a tumult.
Maerad shared none of Owan’s confidence, but said nothing. She drew a long breath and then took her place by Cadvan on the prow of the boat, her sword raised in readiness.
They were tossed wildly as they neared it, and but for the fastening charms would surely have been thrown into the ocean. It was much more difficult now to see where to strike; all was a seething chaos of scales and water. Maerad did not understand how they could avoid being smashed to pieces, but for the moment fear had left her, to be replaced with a steely resolve. She squinted fiercely, scanning her side of the boat.
Suddenly, no more than ten paces from the rail, the head broke the surface of the water, rearing up before them, the mouth opening wider and wider and wider. Time seemed to slow almost to a halt as the ondril reared high, towering monstrously above them. Maerad cried out, and she and Cadvan struck for its one remaining eye. Both bolts hit their mark, and a black torrent of blood burst out and splattered onto the deck. The monster roared and fell back, drenching them all with a huge rush of seawater that washed over the deck and fell in streaming torrents down the sides, and Owan was guiding the tiny Owl so it darted away, slipping as nimbly as a minnow evading the rush of a pike.
This time they kept running. Cadvan put a swift wind in the sails, and they scudded westward over the waves. Owan lashed the tiller and silently disappeared below decks, and Cadvan and Maerad both sat down heavily, looking behind them at the sea, still boiling with the ondril’s fury, which now dwindled fast behind them.
Owan shortly reappeared with the small brown bottle of liquor, and they all took a swig. Maerad studied the deck; there was no sign of their ordeal anywhere. The ondril’s blood had all been swept away by the water, and around them was a calm, blue sea, in which it seemed impossible such monsters could exist.
Cadvan toasted Owan and Maerad tiredly. “A brave bit of sailing, Owan,” he said. “And well marked, Maerad. That was a great stroke, behind the head; I missed that one. I should not have liked to have gone down that gullet.”
“By the Light, I think not!” said Owan.
Maerad looked away over the sea, feeling nothing but a vast emptiness. She had no sense of triumph, nor even relief. All she felt was a returning wisp of nausea. The only good thing about being frightened half to death, she thought,