Shan, Darren - Cirque Du Freak 10 - The Lake of Souls

"Yes I can," I growled. "This is serious business. I'm not having you fly off the handle like you did in the temple. You can have some whisky before you go on watch, and when you come off, but between those times — not a drop."

"And if I refuse?" he snarled, reaching towards his long curved knife.

"We'll break the whisky bottles," I said simply, and his face went white.

"I'd kill ye if ye did!" he croaked.

"Aaarrr," I grinned, "but that wouldn't bring yer whisky back!" Handing the bottle and sack to Harkat, I winked at Spits. "Don't worry — when we're through, you can drink all the whisky you want." Then I hurried forward to find a bush to hide behind and observe the dragons.

 

We kept watch for almost a week before accepting that we'd have to revise our plan. At least three dragons remained in the valley at any given time, usually the two young ones and a female, though sometimes the male took one of the youngsters hunting with him. There was no way of telling when the absent dragons would return — sometimes the male was gone overnight, while other times he'd sweep back to his family within minutes, a bleating sheep or goat clutched between his claws.

"We'll just have to … sneak in one night and hope … they don't spot us," Harkat said as we debated our options. We were in a rough cave we'd dug in the soil of the hill, to hide us from the dragons when they took flight.

"Them dragons have awful good eyesight," Spits said. "I seen 'em spot prey from hundreds o' feet up on nights as black as a shark's soul."

"We could try burrowing to the Lake," I suggested. "The soil isn't hard-packed — I'm sure I could dig a way through."

"And when you broke through … to the Lake?" Harkat asked. "The water would flood the tunnel … and we'd all drown."

"We ain't chancing that!" Spits said quickly. "I'd rather be ate by one o' them demons than drowned!"

"There must a way to get past them," I groaned. "Maybe we could use the explosive Grotesque poison — wait until they're grouped together, sneak up close and lob it among them."

"I doubt we'd be able to … get close enough," Harkat said. "And if even one of them survived..

"If we had more'n one vial, we'd have nowt to worry about," Spits sighed. "We could walk in and toss a vial at 'em any time they came near. Mebbe we should go back t' the temple and search fer more vials."

"No," I frowned. "That's not the answer — even if they didn't blow up during the blast, they'd be buried under rubble. But you're on to something …" I took out my vial of "holy liquid" and examined it. "Mr Tiny knew that we'd crash through the floorboards and make our way to the kitchen, so maybe he also knew we'd only grab a single vial."

"Then one must be enough," Harkat muttered, taking the vial from me. "There must be a way we can … use it to get to the Lake."

"'Tis a pity Boom Boom Billy ain't with us," Spits chuckled. When we looked at him blankly, he explained. "Boom Boom Billy was a wonder with bombs. He knew all about dynamite and gunpowder, and how t' blow things up. The cap'n often said Billy was worth his weight in gold." Spits chortled. "Which made it all the funnier when he blew himself up trying t' crack open a chest full of ingots!"

"You've got a warped sense of humour, Spits," I sniffed. "I hope that one day you—" I stopped, eyes narrowing. "Bombs!" I exclaimed.

"You have an idea?" Harkat asked excitedly.

I shushed him with a wave of a hand, thinking furiously. "If we could make bombs out of the 'holy liquid'…"

"How?" Harkat asked. "We know nothing about … bombs, and even if we did, we don't … have anything to make them with."

"Don't be so sure about that," I said slowly. Reaching inside my shirt, I took out the piece of cloth I'd wrapped my share of the gelatinous globes in, and carefully unrolled them on to the floor. Picking up a jelly-like ball, I squeezed it softly between my fingers, watching the thin liquid within ooze from side to side. "By themselves, these globes are worthless," I said. "The 'holy liquid' is worthless too — by itself. But if we put them together …"

"Are you thinking of covering … the globes with the liquid?" Harkat asked.

"No," I said. "It would drop off on to the ground and explode. But if we could inject itinto the globes …" I trailed off into silence, sensing I was close to the answer, but unable to make the final leap in logic.

With a sudden grunt, Harkat beat me to the punch. "The tooth!" He dug through his robes for the bag of teeth he'd taken from the black panther.

"What're they?" Spits asked, never having seen the teeth before.

Harkat didn't answer, but sorted through them until he found the hollow tooth with the K carved on it. Holding it up, he blew through the tooth to make sure it was clear, then passed it to me, his green eyes shining brightly. "You have smaller fingers," he said.

Picking up a globe, I brought the tip of the tooth close to it, then stopped. "We'd better not try this here," I said. "If something goes wrong.