We’d warned them all to get inside their houses and lock everything down tight after midnight. They knew the storm was going to be a really bad one. Many had already retired, especially those with young children, but there were still plenty of revellers, and the endless supply of hot dogs and grilled burgers filled the buffeting air with their unmistakable reek.
“They’re out there,” said Morgana. “I can feel the hatred of the sea god. It knows me, and the things we’ve set here against it. Its servants will come. Nothing will prevent that now.”
She was right. The bigger waves that battered their way in along the narrow harbour clawed at the buildings, whipped up by the ferocity of the wind. Lightning forked over the bay in dazzling displays and thunder rolled over us, almost drowned out by the roar of the waves. Small ships bobbed up and down at their moorings, tossed dangerously high. Several smaller craft were flipped over and dashed to pieces on the quay. I saw something emerging from the sea, a shadowy mass, like one wave had formed itself out of thick, glutinous tar. It wrapped itself around the bow of a trawler and I realised what it was – seaweed. Tons of the stuff, mangled up and balled into a massive web by the madness of the sea.
In that flickering light it extended several tendrils; they snagged the back of the trawler. Davey cried a warning. The boat belonged to his cousin. He could see it was in danger of being wrecked. Already the weed had tangled itself around the wheelhouse. Another huge wave tore along the harbour and as it hit the trawler, the weed mass was flung completely over it like a black blanket. Moments later it subsided, dragging the craft under the water.
Davey howled in fury, but there had been nothing any of us could have done. We raced along the harbour side, opposite the maelstrom where the trawler had gone down, but there was no sign of it.
“Get the last of the revellers inside!” Morgana yelled, heading back to her vehicle, which was parked up one of the narrow side roads.
As I started for the village square, the air writhed with shapes, debris perhaps, ripped from buildings, fences, anything loose. Ahead of me, one of the villagers was coming to see what was happening: something hit him in the face and chest. His hands tore frantically at it and I almost choked in revulsion as I recognised it. A jellyfish whipped up from the sea and hurled like a missile. We’d often had plagues of these creatures, but they were smaller than the palm of your hand and relatively harmless. This thing was three feet across, a sickly transparent colour, its long fronds barbed and deadly. They swung like lashes and cocooned the upper body of the villager, flinging him to the ground.
Before I could react the air was filled with more of the things, blown into the village like a wave of mutant bats or aerial manta rays. I wove my way to the side street where Morgana had disappeared and barely reached its sanctuary in time to evade the whipping tendrils of another of the creatures. I could see the square. Most of its lights were out, the people having made for their homes now that the storm had erupted so violently.
Morgana had pulled from the boot of her vehicle a long canvas bag. She hastily undid it and another bolt of lightning was reflected on what she revealed. Swords. A half dozen of them. At first I thought they were samurai blades, as they had that slight curve and were their typical length. But as she gave me one I realised it was something different, maybe from another time, an ancient weapon, although beautifully preserved.
My other companions had all made it to the side street and each of us took a blade, unsheathing it to reveal a silvery blade on which unusual runes had been carved. Morgana waved to us to follow her. She was dressed in clinging dark clothes, a black assassin, a tight mask hiding all but her eyes. In the constant flicker of lightning she moved like a huge insect, occasionally swinging her blade at the air, slicing into the things that were gusting past us like missiles. We did the same, slicing the horrors apart in thick spatters of fluid.
At the edge of the village, higher up, we could see the tide’s edge where the frothing white insanity of the waves disgorged more shapes. Things hopped ashore like giant fleas, and man-like beings shambled out of the water, apparently not damaged by it, as at home in its turmoil as seals. They were entering the village but I couldn’t see any of the villagers. The storm had thankfully driven them inside. Doors had been doubled locked and windows boarded up in preparation for this mayhem.
Morgana shouted something about a black god’s army, intent on driving home his will. “They’ll want to reduce Rooksands to rubble, as they did with other villages. This time they’ll be weakened by the relics and the charms you set as protection the place. If we can divert their attention to us,” she added, but the wind tore the rest of her words away.
I stood with Davey, Kelvin and Tom and in a minute we saw another figure coming down from the fields beyond us. Jan Riddick. He carried a shotgun, though Morgana tossed him the last of the swords. He gripped it uneasily but nodded. We were exposed up here, the storm raging around us, and it was all we could do to keep on our feet. We could see the edge of the sea, where waves larger than any we’d seen before uncurled and crashed down on to the beach, churning the sand and flinging it back up onto the edge of the field.
Beyond us, out of reach of the waves, the lines of pumpkins stretched away into the darkness. I had seen them grow daily, the bloated shapes emerging from the ground at an extraordinary rate. Whatever foul concoction Morgana had fed them had done its work well.
“There!” cried Tom, pointing with his blade.
They were coming for us, knowing we were the key to the success of their invasion. The seas spewed forth another wave and it burst and reassembled itself into more skulking shapes. Tens, dozens, scores, a whole mass of them. The sea dwellers. The frightful, misshapen creatures that had been out in the ocean since before our own race walked the land. I tried to see their faces, but they were hidden under frond-like tresses, though their mouths gaped, ringed around with those lamprey-suckers. Their arms were elongated, ending in long, spatulate fingers. All carried a weapon, something resembling short spars of wood – ocean debris, perhaps, they’d shaped into killing tools.
Neither I nor my mates spoke the one thing we feared – we hadn’t got a cat in hell’s chance against this huge mob. And there was nowhere to run. We were just going to have to use our swords and protect ourselves as best we could. Jan Riddick thrust his blade into the ground and levelled his shotgun at the front ranks of the sea things. He shot at them twice, and two of the creatures exploded like sacks of treacle, collapsing. But it was like killing two flies in a swarm.
Morgana raised her sword. “Stand aside for a moment!” she shouted and the five of us fanned out away from her. She spoke strange words, which I took to be ancient Celtic lines, probably from the Old Magic she swore by. It was like she was conversing with the raging storm. To my amazement – and I admit, terror – she stretched upward and a crackling bolt of pure white light sizzled down from overhead and hit the end of her blade. The weapon went incandescent and I gasped, thinking Morgana would be roasted where she stood.
However, she seemed unharmed. Instead she swung the blade down to the earth and drove it home. The five of us watched in amazement as the white light poured from the blade down into the soil. More than that, it spread out like a huge stain, back towards the rows of pumpkins. It was like fire, only it didn’t consume. It empowered. The pumpkins shook.
For a moment the ranks of sea dwellers had paused, perhaps smitten by the dazzling lightning. They liked the darkness.
On the upper slopes, all two hundred bloated pumpkin heads were shaking. I saw one begin to rise up, tearing itself from the ground, something from a nightmare. Shoulders, arms, a trunk – an entire body. Deep green, rounded, unfinished, but a body. Those arms unfurled, twice the length of human arms, and for hands there were roots, thick and gnarled, curling fingers of filament. And the faces!