The Silken Key

Chapter 18

"Snake!" Rudiger bellowed. "Undead snake!"

At first glance, it seemed the gnome was right. The shape emerging from the marshy water did resemble the skeletal tail of a gigantic serpent. At the point where it met the water's surface, it was as thick as a man's chest. It curled high into the air, thinning out to a vicious, bony tip.

"Oh god..." Detlef gasped, as he realised what was about to happen. "We have to move!"

With all his strength, Detlef pulled the oar, bringing the boat around and narrowly avoiding the skeletal whip as it came down next to them, splashing dirty swamp water over them all.

"We won't be that lucky a second time," Tariq said as he pushed Rudiger out of his seat and took over on the second oar. "We must get out of here now."

Rudiger tumbled between Maddy's legs and scrambled to get himself up. Tabitha remained in the centre of the boat, bent over her precious box protectively.

Detlef and Tariq quickly fell into a rhythm of powerful strokes. The boat started to glide across the water at a more confident speed.

"I don't suppose, Tabitha," Maddy chattered, "your patron feels like granting you some power to get rid of whatever that was?"

"Undead creatures are puppets," Tabitha snapped. "Mind magic doesn't work on creatures without a mind!"

"Is that true?" Rudiger mused. "Perhaps to beat it, we need to think like the enemy. Think like a mindless creature!"

Tabitha narrowed her eyes at the gnome. "I was under the impression that was the only kind of thinking you were capable of."

The tail coiled up from the water a short distance away. Detlef released his oar, missing a few strokes so that Tariq could turn them away from it. Then, a second skeletal tail appeared. And a third...and a fourth!

Then, something else rose up out of the water in the middle of the four writhing appendages. It looked like a giant skull with a huge bulbous dome and eyes set into each side with no visible mouth.

"It-it's a....it's an undead...octopus!" Maddy stammered. "An octo-zombie!"

They rowed for all they were worth, just about managing to outrun another lash from a bony tentacle.

"This makes no sense at all!" Tariq shouted.

"I know," Tabitha said, still stooped over the box. "We already killed the necromancer. Who is controlling it?"

"Not that!" Tariq spat. "Octopuses don't even have skeletons!"

"Don't you mean 'octopi'?" Rudiger asked.

"Actually," Maddy interjected, "strictly speaking, the correct plural of octopus is 'octopodes'..."

"Duck!" Detlef yelled suddenly. Everyone in the boat bent down as a bony tentacle whipped overhead with enough force to send any of them flying out of the boat if it had hit them.

Even as he crouched, Detlef continued to row with all his might. They had managed to get the boat up to a good speed, but with the turbulence of the water, they simply weren't getting away from the octo-zombie fast enough. Plumes of brown liquid burst into the air with each lash. Everyone in the boat was soaked and a puddle was forming in the bottom.

"Maddy," Detlef said as his mind ran through the ways they'd considered fighting the last time they were in a threatened vessel. "Remember what you said about poisoning the water when the sea monster attacked?"

"Yes," Maddy croaked. "And it would still take me hours to make and as far as I know you can't poison a creature that doesn't have organs!"

"What about your acid?" Detlef suggested. "If you threw it in the water around the octopus, would it destroy the creature?"