Then, “No,” he said. “It is well said, loyal servant, but now is the time. We strike now.” He raised his voice once more into a shout. “For Nandy-poos, Scorby, and the god of my choice!” He pushed off and made the deck in one swift movement, disappearing between decks before Marius could react. In quick succession, a series of massive thuds emerged from the bowels of the ship. Marius could hear, quite clearly, a cry of victory each time Nandus’ tortured imagination conjured up another foe to vanquish. Marius tilted his head, following the King’s progress through the empty vessel.
“Right, then,” he said after fifteen minutes, as Nandus’ assault showed no sign of abating. “I’ll… I’ll just go and wait over here, shall I?” He refused to consider the chances of getting this lunatic back to the shore. He simply refused.
Instead, he stepped away from the hull and found a small rise where he could lay back and knit his hands behind his head, and pretend he was lying in a field somewhere to rest off a particularly good drink, instead of waiting at the bottom of the ocean for an insane centaur with delusions of grandeur to finish beating up a ship full of nothing. His father had often told him that life was a funny old thing, which was certainly true when you were a successful merchant with a string of mistresses long enough to tire out three healthy country boys. But when it came to sheer comic potential, Marius thought, life had nothing on being dead. I’d laugh right now, if not for the fact that I have no idea how I’d stop.
Eventually, the rate of violence within the ship slowed down, and then all that was left was the sound of Nandus’ climbing back up to the deck. Marius stopped his contemplation of the tiny krill swirling before his eyes and padded over to his former place at the side of the hull. Nandus appeared at the railing.
“Victory!” he cried, leaping over the edge and landing before Marius. He spread his arms, and deposited a pile of small, black objects on the ground. Marius knelt, and picked one up.
“Barnacles?”
“Spoils of war!” Nandus leaned down and, without any sign that such a thing might be considered unusual, began packing his chest cavity with the tiny shellfish. “Stolen from the very heart of Oceanus’ empire. Oh, how he’ll shake his fist when he finds out what I’ve done. How the name of Nandus will stick in his throat!”
“Yes, he’ll certainly be miffed when he realises how many, uh, spoils you’ve got,” Marius agreed. Absently, he patted Nandus on the rump. “Good boy.” A proud neigh rumbled through him. Great, he thought. He likes me. “May I suggest we make haste, sire, before Oceanus and his cronies return and… drown us or something?”
“Good thinking, man. Yes. Let us proceed, post-haste.” Nandus galloped a few steps away. “This way, I think.”
Marius sighed. “Woah!” he shouted, and watched in amusement as Nandus’ stopped in his tracks. Marius raised two fingers to his lips, and projected the sound of a short, sharp whistle at the stationary King. Nandus turned in a wide-arsed loop, and came trotting back to him. He lowered his head, and bumped against Marius’ shoulder.
“What is the meaning of this?” he said, rubbing his head against Marius’ arm. “How dare you speak to me in such a manner?”
“Not you, Your Majesty” Marius said, quickly turning his head left and right to take in the ocean floor. “Our steeds. We need transport for our escape.”
“Transport? Where?”
“Here, sire.” Marius indicated an empty spot next to him. “Who else, sire, but your favourite, Littleboots?”
“Littleboots?” Oh, my poor baby,” Nandus’ hand snuck into his chest and began to stroke the horse’s skull down the length of its forehead, between its eyes. “Daddy’s missed you, you brave Senator. Did you miss Daddy? Oh, I thought you did–”
“Yes, well…” Marius bit his lip. Oh, he though, I can’t believe I’m going to try this. If I’m not right about this… “Are you ready to mount, Your Majesty?”
“To your own mount be, sirrah.”
“Okay, then.” He laid one hand on Nandus’ bony shoulder, lodged his foot between two ribs, and hoisted himself up and onto his broad, bent back.
“Are you ready?” he shouted. Nandus brayed his assent.
Stifling a giggle, Marius reached back, and slapped the King on the haunch.
“Giddy up!”
EIGHTEEN
Nandus galloped across the ocean floor, elongated legs tirelessly chewing through the miles as Marius tucked his hands and feet around protruding bones and held on for dear life. Fish scattered before them, silver flashes of light zigzagging away in panic to return in a more stately fashion once they had passed. They crested an outcropping in a bound, dislodging a small cuttlefish and sending it tumbling across the floor. Marius glanced back at it as they passed, and laughed at how its waving tentacle appeared very much like an extended middle digit. With every step, fistfuls of barnacles fell from Nandus’ chest cavity and scattered across the ocean floor. The redistribution of wealth begins at the top, Marius thought, and stifled a giggle. Miraculously, with the thought implanted in him that they rode side by side, Nandus had not the slightest objection to Marius seating himself upon his back. He simply turned his elongated neck towards him as they spoke, and Marius steered him as he would a horse, at least, a horse made entirely of bones. He simply grabbed whichever collarbone corresponded to the desired direction and pulled until Nandus turned appropriately. Very quickly they left the hull in the distance, and were soon pushing into shallower waters. Marius noted the rise in the ocean floor, and slowed his mount. He did not want to reach landfall before he was certain as to where he was likely to land, although how he was going to do that from his current position he wasn’t sure. They proceeded at a walk through shoals of brightly coloured fish. Coral beds stretched away on either side. Life abounded here, unlike the colder depths through which they had been travelling. Clouds of tiny rainbow-coloured fish darted hither and thither, pursued by darker shapes as long as Marius’ arm. Serpentine heads slunk out of gaps in the reef and perused them as they passed, jaws dropping open to reveals rows of dagger-like teeth that made Marius wince as he imagined them tearing flesh away from his bones. An octopus slithered out of a hole in the rocks and moved like sentient liquid up the face of the coral bed, legs slipping out and back in hypnotic patterns as it stalked some tiny creature visible only to its eyes. Marius stopped to watch, fascinated by the alien movement. He was so absorbed that, when he first felt the bump against his upper arm, he waved it away without concentrating.
“In a minute,” he said absent-mindedly. “I want to watch.”
“Sorry?” Nandus neighed. “I didn’t say anything.”
Marius frowned down at the line of gold circling the rear of Nandus’ skull.
“Didn’t you just… didn’t you just bump me?”
“No.”
“Then what…?” Marius glanced around just as a sleek, finned shape swum up from behind and thumped against his back with its rough skin. Marius spun around in time to see a double row of triangular teeth pass inches from his face, followed by six feet of grey-white skin and a high, whip-like tail.
“Shark,” he muttered, and then, in a sudden explosion of fear he dove from Nandus’ back and squeezed himself into a gap where bottom row of coral left sand. Nandus looked down at him, his skull tilted in surprise.