I don’t see any balls, so I drop to all fours and crawl forward, looking beneath the cannons as Cecco and Cookson curse and hammer behind me. When the ship lists to one side again, a ball rolls past me. I jump on it, stopping its progress, but that’s when I realize I can’t lift it. Instead, I roll it over to the cannon Shiner’s working on.
“Shiner!” I scream when a thin tentacle darts through the opening where the cannon sticks out from the side of the ship.
She whirls and buries a dagger into it, pinning it to the hull. It pulls away, splitting itself in two and leaving a smear of purple blood as it disappears back out the window.
“Thanks.” She bends down, and together we lift the cannonball and load it into the barrel.
My joints ache, my head going woozy from the effort of it. I stand back and gulp in air as Shiner turns a crank that sends the cannon back out the window.
“How do we light it?” I look around but don’t see any matches.
“Use the quill!” Cecco points to a wire cage full of what looks like feather quills. “Then the flint.”
“Got it!” I grab a quill and stare at the cannon.
“In the breech hole!” Cecco yells.
“Breech hole? What’s a breech hole?” I look up at Shiner.
“There!” She points to a small hole at the back of the cannon then grabs a set of rocks in another cage set overhead.
I put the quill in, shoving it until it stops.
“Back up! The recoil could kill you.” Cecco gets knocked back by a wave that sends seawater pooling around my feet.
I stand to the side. Shiner motions me to move away even more, so I do. Then she strikes the flint. One, two, three strikes, and on the fourth, the quill ignites.
The shot is fast and loud, the cannon recoiling just like Cecco warned about.
A screeching sound slices through the air, and I gasp. Through the port hole, an enormous, slitted, yellow eye appears, though it has a purple spot spreading on one side of it. Its mouth opens, and the screech it lets out again seems to shatter my eardrums.
“Nailed it in the eyeball. Have ter see it ter believe it.” Cookson cackles as he stares out the busted hole in the hull.
Shiner grins. “Again!”
I get back on my hands and knees to find another cannonball.
“Hold fast!” Hook’s bellow reaches all the way to us below decks.
“Grab on ter something!” Cookson runs to me, wraps an arm around my waist, then hauls me to a beam.
Shiner and Cecco grab on, too, and we all look upward, wondering what Hook is up to. That’s when Long Tom fires again, the entire ship rocking violently with its recoil.
The kraken screams again, and I can hear the sound of tentacles whipping the surface of the water.
“What’s happening?” I yell.
“I do believe the captain nailed that scallywag in the face much like you just done.” Cookson grins.
“I hope so.” Shiner bends over and peers out the gun port. “I … I don’t see it anymore.”
The whipping sounds quiet. No more booms from any quarter. No screeching or screaming. Only quiet and the water sloshing around my feet.
“Is it dead? Maybe it’s dead.” I lean over and look out. I don’t see the creature. Just black water and Anne’s ship in the distancefloating in two pieces. “It’s gone.” I let out a breath of relief. Right when I do, a thick tentacle shoots up from the depths and slams against the side of the ship so hard we go flying, the hull fractures, and dark water pours in all around us.
Chapter
Ten
