Thorgar's Arc

Chapter 12 of 13

The thing pressed the hull upward. Thorgar felt the boat tip beneath his boots. He still could not see it. Water climbed past the gunwale and slopped cold around his ankles. If the beast rolled them now, they drowned in the dark, and the hoard died with them. He needed light before he could swing. "Gunnar," he said. "Steel and stone. Strike a spark." But the smith's flint and tinder had soaked through when the tide surged. Gunnar cursed and struck anyway. Wet stone gave nothing. Kjell moved in the bow. The old monster-hunter had killed things in worse dark than this, and Thorgar heard him tearing at his own pack. "Scales don't help," Kjell muttered. "Teeth don't help." Then his hand found the pouch at his belt. Coins spilled out, the northern lord's coins, old iron and gold stamped with worn runes. Kjell had carried them for years. He'd bet his axe on them. Now he crushed a fistful in his glove. "Give me your blade," Kjell said. Thorgar passed one axe across by feel. Kjell scraped the coins hard along the notched steel, fast, again and again. Sparks jumped. In each flash, Thorgar saw it. A gray hide, wet and slick, wider than the boat. No eyes he could name. A mouth split the front of it, ringed with hooked teeth, rising along the hull toward Kjell. The sparks died. Thorgar had the shape now. He did not need more. "Again," he said. "When I say." He set his feet. He gripped the second axe two-handed and raised it above the gunwale. He counted the beast's climb by the drag against the wood. "Now." Kjell scraped the coins. Light flared. The mouth hung there, an arm's length off. Thorgar swung down into it with all his weight. The axe bit deep behind the teeth and stuck. The beast reared. It ripped the handle from his grip and hauled the whole boat sideways. Water poured in. Harek fought the tiller. "Going over," he said, flat as ever. Thorgar caught the trapped haft with both hands. He hauled himself half over the side and drove his boots against the beast's hide. Then he wrenched the axe free and buried it again, higher, where the mouth met the body. Black blood pumped over his arms. The thing thrashed once, hard, and sank. The pull vanished. The boat slammed level. They drifted. Kjell struck the coins one last time. In the flash, blood coated the water. Ahead, the tunnel opened into a wider cave, and something gleamed on a ledge above the waterline. Dull gold. A pile of it. "There," Kjell said, and let the spark die. Thorgar sat in the dark, breathing. His axe was gone into the deep with the guardian. But the way ahead was clear, and the hoard waited on the stone.