Righting himself, Dion saw that the tiller was hard against the stern. Cob had the oars going but with the tiller angled the boat would turn in circles. He grabbed at the pole and centered the steerage.

Waves pounded at the hull, pushing the vessel back to shore. Risking a glance behind, Dion saw snarling monsters now waist deep in the water, just a dozen paces from the stern.

But Cob had his jaw set and pulled hard at the oars. The light vessel rose over the crests of the waves and drew away from the pack of raging wildren. Looking back, Dion saw the creatures finally halt.

Their prey had escaped.

As the boat reached calmer waters Sal went up front to help with the oars. For a long time they rowed only to increase their distance from shore, and then both the oarsmen slumped in exhaustion.

They exchanged wide-eyed glances.

‘Come on,’ Dion said. ‘Let’s get the mast up.’

The sun had risen by the time they mounted the mast and fit the sail, running it up and finally setting the boat to rights. Dion pushed the tiller, turning the boat until they were once more oblique to the distant landmass, still too close for comfort. Wind filled the sail and the sea was calm, as it often was in the early morning.

The growing light banished some of the fear from the previous night. But they had lost two men, and Dion kept wondering what he could have done differently.

‘We should never have brought Riko,’ Sal said.

‘It’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead,’ Cob murmured.

‘He saw some whale and called it a leviathan,’ Sal spat. ‘We should never have listened to him.’

Cob suddenly released the rope in his hands; his fingers went limp. He stared down into the blue water, then raised his head to look at Dion. His expression was strange, a look Dion had never seen before on the old man’s face.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ he said.

Dion looked down into the water.

An expanse of serpentine flesh was passing directly underneath the boat. The monster was as thick as the biggest tree and it revealed its entire length to Dion’s eyes as it writhed and undulated, faster than the boat it was swimming beneath. The glossy silver scales went on and on, displaying a crest-like silver fin along its spine and a tail like an eel’s, swaying back and forth to propel the body forward.

Dion’s blood ran cold. ‘Serpent,’ he whispered.

‘Where?’ Close to the front of the boat, Sal’s movements were frantic as he tossed his head one way and another, peering into the depths. ‘Where?’ he cried. ‘I can’t see it!’

‘Under the boat,’ Cob said calmly. ‘We’re dead men.’