Grace was equally distraught, her front paws paddled frantically in the water, trying to stay afloat. She seemed to have sensed their danger and cleverly stuck by the Mariner, refusing to make a reckless (and no doubt fatal) dash for the land.
Then he realized what the barrels were for. They were markers, put in place by the pirates before him to signify a safe route through the island’s defence. The Mariner began a painfully slow swim towards the second of the yellow buoys, this one far to his right. Every few strokes he would have a quick look below the surface to make sure there was no coral nearby. There was, but not so close it could reach out for him. Grace followed in his wake, her eyes fixed on his back and unwavering.
They reached the second barrel, then the third and the fourth. Each one carved their route, zigzagging towards the shore. At every barrel they would stop, the Mariner putting one hand on the buoy and the other outstretched to support Grace. Together they’d rest, gathering strength for another swim. The path-makers must have employed a lot of ‘trial and error’ in finding this secret route, a lot of corpses were littered along the way. A lot of death to find the Oracle.
Such was the price of truth.
Gasping and exhausted, the pair reached the sandy shore, both with a similar expression despite the species divide. The Mariner staggered a few yards from the surf and sat with a thud, hands pulling open his trousers so he could inspect the state of his genitals. They were squashed, swollen and red, but the breaks in the skin weren’t as ruptured as they felt.
He dropped onto his back and stared at the sky.
They had made it.
Unlike her human counterpart, Grace had already forgotten the hardships of the swim to shore, and was harassing a large crab she thought looked like dinner. She’d dart towards it, snapping her jaws and barking, only to leap away when the crab clapped its claws. Both creatures repeated the process, locked in a dance.
The sun was harsh on his face, the cold he’d experienced out at sea long forgotten. He was in no rush to move, the sand felt great on his back and the pain between his legs deterred him from ever walking again. It was nice to simply lay and relish that after all this time, he’d finally found the island.
Dragged up onto the beach was a boat, large enough for ten and just as white and pristine as its larger sister out at sea. Where were its passengers? Probably up the gorge somewhere, disturbing those birds. He looked along the beach to either side, a thin strip of sand with cliff face on one side, water on the other.
No, not just that. There were two people. Running towards him.
The Mariner hastily struggled to his feet, clutching at his trousers, undone and bunching around his knees. He felt for his semi-automatic. Gone. Lost somewhere in the surf.
“Grace!” he cried, alarmed. She looked up from the crab, who took the opportunity to scuttle away to safety. She saw the targets of his anxiety: two people sprinting as fast as their wasted limbs could carry them.
Mindless.
The Mariner knew he couldn’t outrun them. They weren’t the fastest of creatures, but he certainly wasn’t going far with swollen testicles! His one chance was that the pirates would have left a gun in the small boat. Remote, but possible.
As the Mariner limped towards the vessel, Grace charged, snarling and shrieking her strange battle cry. The two were closer now, a man and a women, both horribly emaciated, faces twisted into dumb hungry grimaces. Mindless had no concern for themselves, their well-being or whereabouts. All they cared for was tearing open the heads of those not like them. They understood nothing but their prey.
This were the reason the male Mindless did not see the Tazzy devil as she streaked towards him, and still did not register her presence nor the pain as she sank her teeth into his leg. He did, however, fall into the sand, clumps kicked up into the air as he continued to drag himself forward whilst Grace leaped onto his back and fastened her teeth into his neck.
The woman, however, was still unhindered, and closed the gap.
With a final burst of agonising speed, the Mariner reached the boat and looked inside.
Empty.
Shit.
He turned to face his attacker, her hands outstretched and gnarled, movements crooked and alien,
Three gunshots rang in quick succession. The second and third hit the woman in the side of her head, caving in one side, and exploding the other. She fell lifeless onto the sand, staining the gold a bright red, pieces of bone scattered around her deformed skull like confetti.
A few twitches and the fading echo of gunfire were all that remained.
“What a coincidence!” A familiar voice drifted through the tinnitus whine. “I was worried you would have gotten here ages ago. Either that or gotten yourself killed.”
The Mariner looked towards the trees, the direction of the voice. Absinth was there, looking pleased with himself, rifle held in his hands. He looked as tough and old as he had before, although now he wore a different tee-shirt, one with a topless girl swearing, gesturing hostility at the world.
He grinned at the stunned Mariner. “We’ve found that Oracle of yours.”
8. THE ORACLE
TTHE ASCENT PROVED STRENUOUS. IF Absinth had any sympathy for the Mariner, he didn’t show it. He allowed him to stagger, often falling to the ground through fatigue. Not only was he suffering from the wounds he’d received, but he needed a drink. Bad. The wine seemed an age ago. An aeon. Couldn’t Absinth see that?
But Absinth walked ahead in silence, leaving the Mariner to be flanked by the remainders of his crew, four in total.
Grace refused to follow and leave her prize only partially eaten, and the sight of her prompted one to ask if she were some kind of dog.
“She’s a devil,” he replied. They scoffed.
“Absinth, who is this bloke?” asked one. He was young chap with a big ball of brown curls for hair and nostrils that flared like the mouths of cannons. “An old friend of yours?”
“He doesn’t have a name.”
“Bullshit,” muttered another. “His name’s just rubbish, that’s all. What do you think it is, Henry?”
The curly haired and big nosed gentleman laughed and thought about it. “Cuntface? I think his name’s Cuntface.”
The other sailor put a hand on the Mariner’s shoulder. “Is that it? That your name?”
The Mariner sighed and kept his bleary eyes on the difficult path ahead. “Sure. Why not?”
“Fuck yeah, why not, ay Dan?” Henry laughed.
The steep climb wound its way through dense trees with steep stone on either side. A small stream ran down it, marking the route they should take. At the top the foliage broke into a clearing dominated by a wide tent. They had climbed a fair height; a dizzy spell congratulated their ascent, and looking back across the tree-tops they could see their two ships, tiny in the great expanse of ocean.
“Feel glad we walked back down for you,” said Dan as he gathered his breath. “We saw your ship arrive and thought we better check you out. Lucky for you we did.”
Finally Absinth turned his attention to the Mariner. “Listen Cuntface,” he sneered. “This place is crawling with Mindless. We’ve had to shoot quite a few so far, you may have noticed their bodies as we climbed.” The Mariner hadn’t, he’d been thinking about wine. “They’ve killed a few of my friends, and we’re not happy about that.”
“It was fucking disgusting,” said Henry. “Smashed Dee’s head open with a rock and then smeared her brains over his face like it was a cream or somethin’.”
Absinth didn’t break his gaze from the Mariner. “Also, we lost quite a few to that coral down there. Nasty stuff. But I see you profited from our sacrifice. We don’t mind that do we lads? What we do mind though, is you keeping any secrets. So I’ll ask you, what do you know about this place? What do you know about that tent?”