“Come, while there’s time,” he croaked.
He held a slender, webbed hand out to Cyrus. Paralyzed with fear, Cyruslooked beyond. Rorroh was knocking over shelves andflapping her cloak out, trying to extinguish the blaze.
“Quick,” the phantom said, dark blood dripping from his mouth.
Cyrus looked to Edward. The spidertrembled with anger and terror. Cyrus reached up and took the stranger’s hand.His grip felt like steel wrapped in silk. With the door’s lock broken, thestranger threw it open and pulled Cyrus up a narrow set of stairs. They burstthrough a hatchway and found themselves in the cabin where Cyrus had first been drugged.
“Help me trap the witch,” the stranger said.
Cyrus clutched the vial between his teeth. Together he and the strangerripped and pulled the potbellied stove from its chimney. Footsteps crashed upthe stairway. Cyrus and the phantom dragged the iron furnace over the top ofthe hatch. The hatchway jumped and cracked.
“Open this door, or I’ll eat outyour liver,” Rorroh shrieked.
The phantom tipped a shelf onto the stove, adding to the blockade.
“Watch out!” Edward screamed.
Cyrus heard wood splinter. Then something snapped tight around hisankle. He instinctively jerked his leg away. It would not budge. He looked down.Rorroh’s branch-like arm reached through a crack inthe trap door. It was pulling his leg below. He took Edward’s vial from hismouth.
“Help,” he cried.
If she got his leg down the hole,she would surely chew it off. The phantom grabbed Cyrus’ arms and tried to pullhim free. Rorroh’s grip was too strong. Cyrus was being dragged under.
“No!” he shrieked.
His ribs throbbed. He searched for a weapon. It was no use.
“Quick, take mine,” the phantom said, gritting his teeth.
The veins in his corded neck swelled. Cyrus looked to the knife protruding from his heart. How washe still alive?
“There is no time,” the stranger shouted.
Cyrus’ foot was two inches from vanishing down the hatch. At best hewould be crippled for life. He reachedout and grasped the blade. The phantom winced in pain. Like a stiff cork, Cyrustwisted and pulled the knife free. The stranger let out a death choke and seemedto wilt, but still, he held on to Cyrus’wrist. The weapon dripped arterial blood down Cyrus’ hand. He looked down atthe boney, grey limb trying to pull him under.Gripping the knife dearly, he took a deep breath, then struck with all hismight.
“Ssssaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!”
The blade found its mark, slicing Rorroh’shand off at the joint. Black blood spewed from the wound. Cyrus and thestranger flew back from the hole, crashing into the door. Cyrus dropped thevial. It shattered against the deck.
Rorroh’s severedlimb thrashed and sprayed, before recoiling below deck. Her screams rippedthrough the ship like a shock wave.
“Come on,” Cyrus said, scrambling to his feet.
He collected Edward off the floor, then found his clothes in a pile nearthe door.
Outside the sun fought to break through a heavy fog.
“Cyrus, your leg,” Edward said, running up his arm.
Cyrus looked down and found Rorroh’s severed handstill clutching his ankle.
“Holy Sea Zombie!”
He used the stranger’s knife to skewer the appendage and fling it intothe sea.
“Over here,” the stranger gasped, slouched over the ship’s railing.
It was their boat, moored to the rope ladder below. The stranger must havesecured it.
“Quick, before that thing breaks out,” Edward said.
Cyrus dropped his clothes overboard and began to escape into his craft.He kept one eye on his strange rescuer. Why had Rorrohcalled him a traitor?
Chapter 20
FIBIAN
FOR A DAY AND A NIGHT Cyrus andEdward sailed south, while the stranger slept, reeling in a feverish dream.
They had long ago lost sight of Rorroh’svessel. Cyrus still searched the horizon for the oily ship.
In the grey morning rain, he wrapped the stranger in the wool blanketand mopped sweat from his forehead. Cyrus was in awe of how fast the creature’sinjuries healed.
Over the twenty-four-hour period, the stab wound to the stranger’s chestknit itself together as if closed by unseen stitches, and his fractured nosebecame narrow and straight. Deep lacerations to his sharp cheekbones andangular chin vanished, leaving his sunken face unscarred and smooth.
Cyrus also found six incisions cut into the ribcage of the phantom’ssuit. The eight-inch-long vents exposed two sets of shark-like gills that gaspedfor air as the stranger took in breath.Cyrus wondered how old the creature was. He looked childlike from one angle,middle-aged from the next.
The stranger’s eyes opened. Cyrus flinched.
“Uh, are you thirsty?” he asked, offering the stranger the canteen, “I’dgive you some food, but we have none.”
“Thank you,” the stranger whispered, accepting the drink with his webbedhand.
“You were out for quite a while,” Cyrus said.
“I feel much better,” the stranger said, slowly rubbing his chest.
“My name’s Cyrus, and my friend here is Edward.”
The spider gave the stranger a slight nod, his expression uncommonlycold.
“Ah yes,” the stranger said, attempting to roll to one side, “allow meto introduce myself,” he bowed his head, “My name is Corporal Fibian, of her Majesty’s Secret Army. Aide to the WarriorWitch, keeper of the island prison, and I am what is known as a froskman.”
“Warrior Witch?” Edward asked, “Why did that monster call you a traitor?”
Fibian paused a moment, cringing ashe adjusted his weight.
“That monster and the Warrior Witch are oneand the same,” he said, “Your people know her as the Sea Zombie.”
“She was telling the truth?” Cyrus gasped.
A gale wind blew across the sea, spraying the crew in a salty mist.
“I am afraid so,” Fibian said, “She called mea traitor because that is what I am.”
“You set her ship on fire and locked her below deck. Is she dead?” Cyrusasked.
“Dead? You cannot kill what does not live, Master Cyrus.”
“What are you talking about?”
With some effort, Fibian climbed over to theseat at the bow of the craft.
“The witch may have been wounded,but she is not called the Sea Zombie in vain. She has been cursed to wander theocean, lifeless and wretched. No mortal hand will ever take her from thesewaters.”
“And you served her?” Edward asked, his voice rising.
“I had little choice. She is mymaker.”
“Maker?”
Edward scurried over Cyrus’
