“HELP US!” shouted Brann. “FILLAN! RIEKA! HELP!”
A rockjaw toppled out next to Coll, and he whacked it away with his stick. Behind them, the ground banked up against the wall. Were they high enough to stay dry? He couldn’t tell. The water showed no signs of slowing.
“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly.
Brann turned. “What?”
“I’m sorry I said that stuff. About Raven. About … about you.”
Brann gave a frightened laugh, then her face grew serious. “You came to get me.”
Coll shrugged. They moved back, almost at the wall. The water around them frothed.
A creature leapt and Coll pulled back as its jaws slammed shut just millimetres from his face. It landed on the ground, opening and closing, and he kicked it away, but another one came after it, and another. They were running out of space. He felt the cave wall against his back. More creatures came for them, and Coll and Brann swept them aside, back into the water again and again.
“Argh!” screamed Brann, as one bit at her leg. Coll reached down and flung it away, but another one came, and as Coll smashed his stick down against its open mouth it crunched shut. The stick splintered into pieces.
And still there were more, and Coll didn’t dare use his hands to fight them off. Brann was tiring; he took her stick and swung it again and again, smashing and sweeping. The little half-circle in front of them became their world, covered in blood and bits of shell, and behind it were ever more creatures, piled above each other, rolling in. His hands were slick with sweat. He drove Brann’s stick down hard into the nearest one, spearing it.
The stick snapped.
Desperately Coll threw the broken stick and its speared creature among the rest. They immediately erupted into a rage of killing, turning on the injured one in a froth of red. For a brief moment, the tide of monsters receded as they fought each other. Coll panted for breath and searched for another stick.
“Go! ” gasped Brann. “Coll, go!”
“I won’t leave you!” he snapped.
She looked bewildered. “Why not?”
Coll stared at her. Part of him wondered the same thing. Brann wasn’t Wolf; he owed her nothing. He wanted to run. He wanted to save himself, to clamber out of the cave. He could still do it.
But he didn’t.
Alpha had stared right through him, as Wolf had attacked Cub. Stared right through him and not seen him. Like always, really. He remembered standing on Wolf’s deck as they fought Raven, heaving at the net with the others. She’d seen him then, hadn’t she? It had seemed so important that she saw him. Saw him and knew he was worthy.
He’d spent his life trying to justify himself – to Alpha, to the crew, trying to prove he was as good as everyone else. The arm, the leg. The way everyone knew he was different. He’d had to be special, when everyone else could just be. He had to convince the world he was good enough.
A rockjaw flipped out of the water at them; he caught it mid-flight in his left hand and threw it away, clack, against the cave wall. His metal arm glinted in the thin light from above. Why should he have ever thought he wasn’t good enough? He’d done wrong, but he’d done right too. He was scared, but he was here.
“I won’t leave you,” he said again.
The rockjaws were swarming back towards the tiny spot of ground, chittering and snapping, a horrible tide of death. There was no escape. There was no weapon. But Coll stayed.
It didn’t matter if Alpha saw him. It didn’t matter what Wolf’s crew thought. He’d been worthy. He was still worthy.
He was worthy.
Suddenly he knew what to do. Rolling up his leggings, he unfastened his prosthetic leg and kneeled, holding it in both hands, feeling the weight of plastic and metal and anthryl, and everything it represented. Then he lifted it and swung it in a huge smash that crashed through five or more of the creatures and sent them hurtling back into the water.
“CUB!” he roared.
The leg chipped and splintered but didn’t break. He held it firm and knocked the creatures away, sweeping and sweeping, screaming with defiance. “CUB! CUUBB!!”
“Coll!” shouted Brann, but he hardly heard her. All his life he’d been treated differently. All his life he’d had to prove himself. But right here, right now, there was just him and death. This was his body. Here was his crew. He swung again and again.
“Coll! ”
Coll glanced up and saw to his astonishment that Brann was holding the end of a rope loop. And now he could make out two heads peering down from the gap above them – Rieka and Fillan!
“Go!” he shouted. Brann dragged the loop over her shoulders and under her arms. She tugged twice and it pulled upwards, heaving her away. The leg cracked, Coll’s arms ached, but he kept going. Brann reached the top, and a few seconds later the cable tumbled down for him. He hopped up on to his one foot as the creatures flung themselves towards him, then he leapt and grabbed the rope. The remains of his leg slipped from his hand and fell into the mass of shapes below, as he rose up and out of the cave.
As he reached the top, he realised he was laughing.
Hands reached for him, Rieka’s and Fillan’s, pulling him out. The sun seemed incredibly bright, dazzling and white. He scrunched his eyes tight shut. He stumbled out on his hands and knees, feeling the damp grass, the breeze on his face, hearing his scraping breaths and the hammer beat of his heart.
“Coll!” shouted Fillan’s voice, somehow near and yet far away. “You did it!” Then: “Where’s your leg?”
Coll grinned. Every part of him ached: his arms, his chest, his shoulders, the stump of his left arm, the base of his leg where the prosthetic should be. His hair ached. But all he could think about was the feeling of kneeling in the cave, driving the creatures away.
“I must have left it down there,” he murmured. “Get it for me, will you?”
He opened his eyes and saw Fillan glancing uncertainly at the hole. He chuckled. “It’s OK, Fillan, I’m kidding.”
Brann was sitting on the ground as Rieka examined her wrist. Brann was watching Coll, and he nodded to her. She bit her lip, then nodded back. Then she suddenly snarled. “Ow!”
“Well then, stop moving,” snapped Rieka, fastening a bandage round a splint.
