Chapters (42)
- BENEATH THE DARK ICE
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Epilogue
- One
- Two
- Three
Borshov had fired several shots and only grazed his target. What kind of chush’ sobách’ya gun was this? He had only been stopped by the rock and ice beneath him pulsing like an earthquake, cracking the continent from below. Then before his ruined eye, a great creature was growing up out of the pit. Dragan Zmey Gorynych! To Borshov, it was an ancient dragon from Russian mythology, the Gorynych, the devourer of men.
Borshov feared no man, but this monstrosity liquefied his bowels and broke his nerve. He burst from his snow cover and sprinted away to his rendezvous; his white suit and the chaos behind him masking his escape.
The jackhammer and its vibrations had excited more than just the orthocone; the inexorable climb of the giant blood worms had at last brought them to the base of the ice roof. They could sense and taste the blood in the air and it was filled with the scent of the orthocone. The blood that splashed down to the ice from the helicopter attack spurred them on.
The orthocone had traded its armour-plated shell for speed and manoeuvrability, but in doing so had left itself vulnerable to the worms. The first worm reached the body of the massive cephalopod as it was occupied with trying to launch itself at the buzzing helicopters above it. At first the leviathan felt nothing as the worm burrowed its head deep into the unprotected flesh. Then as more and more of the worms attached themselves to the cephalopod’s hide so they could saw into the skin and suck the flesh from the body, the giant nightmare beast finally realised the danger it was in.
It turned over and tried to drag its body against the stones and edges of the ice, hoping to dislodge the giant parasites. But by now, the bodies of the worms were burrowing into the flesh, their tough bristled shapes impossible to dislodge.
“What the hell are those things?”
O’Riordan and all the crew could see the orthocone as it turned over to fight the parasites, exposing the thistly red bodies of the worms. The squid managed to pull some free with its powerful tentacles and crush them, however, more simply inched their way on towards it with a blind hunger.
“Hell is the right word.” Matt was shivering in the back of the helicopter as they watched the battle. By now some of the worms had actually disappeared into the body of the orthocone—the giant beast now carried its own death within it.