‘Look, we’re not in your crew!’ Lex protested. ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that you’ve never seen us before?’
But the captain wasn’t listening. He was already beckoning other men forwards. Men who were carrying very large nets.
‘I think we can take ’em,’ Jesse muttered in Lex’s ear.
Lex stared at him. ‘ Take them?’ he repeated. ‘If you mean fight them, then of course we can’t, you dolt! There must be thirty of them and only two of us!’
Jesse grinned. ‘Ain’t that always the way? Ready on three?’
‘No!’ Lex hissed. ‘Not ready on three or any other number! Listen? I can talk my way out of this-’
‘Fine. You do your thing and I’ll do mine.’
‘That’s not how this works!’
But Jesse wasn’t listening. As the sailors approached with their nets, Jesse raised a hand, pointed out towards the black ocean and shouted. ‘Look! It’s Gloria!’
Twenty men spun around on the spot. Perhaps it wouldn’t have worked under normal circumstances but these were cursed sailors who had been waiting for Gloria for hundreds of years. Crying wolf was therefore a remarkably effective way to go. For a moment, even Lex thought he’d seen a dark shape moving out there beyond the force-field.
Not wasting any time, Jesse punched the nearest unsuspecting sailor, elbowed another and kicked a third. And then it was quite clear to everybody that they weren’t going to have to deal with Gloria, but with an irate cowboy who didn’t want to be used as octopus bait. There was no denying that Jesse was a very good fighter and the fact that he was outnumbered and backed into a corner didn’t seem to overly bother him, for the truth was that he had spent most of his life fighting that way. Nevertheless, the fight certainly wouldn’t have lasted very long if Jeremiah hadn’t appeared on the scene a moment later.
Lex was quite useless in a fight. It wasn’t that he was scared; it was simply that he was practical. He knew his own limitations and, although he was strong in a wiry sort of way? as a result of his exploits, first as the Shadowman and then as the Wizard? he was quite thin and not very tall and knew absolutely nothing about how to handle a weapon. He had therefore avoided physical altercations his whole life because he knew he was unlikely to win them. And Lex only played to win. Besides, he didn’t want any muscled buffoon giving him some hideous scar that would mar the honest face that played such an important part in many of Lex’s scams. He needed his hands, too; he couldn’t have any broken fingers slowing him down in his line of work.
As soon as Jesse threw the first punch, Lex’s mind was working fast and it seemed to him that the best course of action would be to leave Jesse there to fend for himself? he had, after all, started this thing? and leg it back to the bridge with the medallion. Once the round was over, Lex was sure that Lady Luck would pluck Jesse out of whatever mess he was in. The round would be over then, so the rules would not apply. It wasn’t like Lex owed the cowboy anything, after all. It had been Jesse’s own stupid idea to just start punching.
Lex was halfway to the door leading back into the bridge, the medallion gripped firmly in his hand, when he hesitated. What if Jesse got himself killed? Lex couldn’t lose him. Not now, in the very first round, when Jesse had yet to teach him a single thing about being a cowboy. And then he’d have no companion for the rest of the Game and so would be at a disadvantage. No, there was only one thing for it. He was going to have to stay and help the idiot cowboy out of the mess he’d got himself into.
Lex turned back round in time to see a sailor rushing towards him. The thief ducked the man’s clumsy grab, whirled around and punched the side of his face. It was rather a half-hearted sort of punch for whilst Lex wasn’t averse to robbing and cheating people blind, he generally preferred not to cause them any physical injury. At any rate, the punch seemed to hurt Lex as much as it did the sailor, who staggered back with his hand clapped to his face whilst Lex clutched at his hand with a groan. His thumb throbbed so badly that, for a moment, he thought he’d broken it, and his knuckles were smarting like anything.
Well, at least he’d tried. Time to go. Jesse would just have to look after himself. And if he got himself killed, Lex would be really angry with him. Unfortunately there were now five other sailors racing towards him. The annoying thing about it was that there were only two running towards Jesse. Evidently the more intelligent sailors had sized up the cowboy, sized up Lex, and decided that Lex was very definitely the way to go. Lex couldn’t really blame them. He would have done the same thing himself.
His thoughts of helping Jesse now totally and utterly abandoned, Lex spun on his heel and sprinted towards the door. But, before he could reach it, Jeremiah burst out, sword drawn, Tess close behind him. Lex leapt out of the way before Jeremiah could impale him, by accident even if not on purpose. The nobleman rushed forwards and the sailors shrank back a little. Jeremiah did look rather impressive and the sword was extremely large.
‘Where is the captain’s medallion?’ Jeremiah roared.
Lex hastily put his hand behind his back, silently giving thanks that his competitor was too busy shouting his fool head off to actually look.
‘I demand to be given it this instant!’
‘Excellent!’ came a cry from Captain Saltworthy, from across the other side of the deck. ‘More bait! And such a strapping lad, too! Bring him to the nets!’
Despite the threat of the sword, the sailors moved forwards. They were only half alive, after all, and Lex supposed that if a poisonous octopus couldn’t kill them then a dumb hero with a sword might not be able to do much damage, either. He ducked out of the way of Jeremiah and the sailors, and grasped the door handle with the intention of slipping through to the bridge. But the door was jammed shut. That oaf, Jeremiah, had clearly slammed it so hard that it was now stuck in its frame.
‘What’s that in your hand?’
Lex looked down to see Tess staring at him suspiciously.
‘Never you mind,’ he replied in what he hoped was an annoyingly grown-up voice.
‘It’s the medallion, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘No.’
‘You’re a rubbish liar.’
‘I’ll have you know that I’m an exceptional liar, kid,’ Lex replied, revelling in being able to call someone else ‘kid’ for a change.
Tess glared at him for a moment before turning her head and shouting loudly, ‘Jeremiah! He’s got it! Lex Trent has the medallion!’
Jeremiah, who had been flourishing his sword threateningly at the sailors surrounding him, glanced back over his shoulder. Lex couldn’t help it. He drew the medallion out from behind his back, held it up so that it gleamed in the light from the sunset starfish, gave Jeremiah his most smug, irritating grin and then flew across the deck to the centre mast. Pausing only to hang the medallion around his neck to leave his hands free, Lex shot up that mast with monkey agility. He was a good climber and he had never been afraid of heights.
He reached the crow’s nest in under a minute and from there he had a perfect vantage of all that was going on down below. Jeremiah was surrounded by a large group of sailors and, though he was still waving the sword about rather vigorously, he seemed distinctly reluctant to actually use it. Lex supposed that he’d probably never attacked anyone with it in his life. Pratting about with a posh fencing instructor at a posh school was one thing. Carving a man up for real and seeing his guts pouring out all over the place was probably another thing altogether.
Jesse had no such reluctance to cause physical harm and seemed to be doing rather well, all things considered. There were quite a few groaning sailors lying on the deck around him, at any rate. Captain Jed Saltworthy, meanwhile, was marching about the deck, bellowing for his men to ‘ready the bait!’ It certainly looked as if Jeremiah East was going to be stuffed into a net and hung out for Gloria sometime soon. Lex would have liked to watch the show but there was no time for dawdling when there was a round to be won.
From the crow’s nest, he assessed his situation. The force field was so close that he could have stuck his hand through it. In fact, if he shimmied up the mast just a little further then he would emerge into the sea. That would get him off the ship and away from the batty captain but it wouldn’t win him the round since it seemed that the Gods expected them to find their own way to the surface, which presented something of a problem when you were so many fathoms under water. The sea above was pitch black? Lex couldn’t see even a glimmer of light from above. They were on the seabed, after all. There was no way he would be able to make a swim for it. Once again, Lex cursed his loss of the enchanter’s hats.
But then he glanced back down and, in the gloom, he noticed the thick seaweed-covered chains. There must
