Darren Shan - The Lake Of Souls

As we descended, the water around us lit up redly. It then grew warm and began to bubble. Kicking even harder, we swam clear of the danger zone, down into the darkness of the deeper water. Once safe, we stopped and looked up. The lake had darkened again and we couldn't see the dragon. Clinging tight to each other, we held our mouths shut, waiting for as long as our breath would hold.

As we floated in silence and fear, there was a huge splash and the dragon came slicing through the water towards us. There was no time to evade it. Before we knew what was happening, the dragon hooked us with its claws, dragged us deeper down into the lake, then turned and struck for the surface.

Bursting free of the water, the dragon screeched triumphantly and rose into the air, Harkat trapped in one of its claws, me in the other. It had hold of my left arm, gripping me tightly, and I couldn't wriggle free.

"Darren!" Harkat screamed as we rose higher into the sky and surged towards shore. "Can you … get loose?"

"No!" I shouted. "You?"

"I think so! It only has hold … of my robes."

"Then free yourself!" I yelled.

"But what about"

"Never mind me! Get free while you can!"

Harkat cursed bitterly, then grabbed hold of the back of his robes where the dragon had caught him, and tugged sharply. I didn't hear the ripping over the sound of the dragon's wings, but suddenly Harkat was free and falling, landing with an almighty splash in the lake beneath.

The dragon hissed with frustration and circled around, obviously meaning to go after Harkat again. We were almost over land now, at the very edge of the lake. "Stop!" I roared helplessly at the dragon. "Leave him alone!" To my astonishment, the dragon paused when I shouted, and gazed at me with a strange expression in its giant yellow eyes. "Leave him," I muttered desperately. Then, giving way to blind panic, I screamed at the beast, "Let me go, you son of a"

Before I could complete the curse, the dragons claws unexpectedly retracted, and suddenly I was dropping through the sky like a stone. I had just enough time to worry about whether I was over the lake or over land. Then I hit hard earth or water? and the world went black.

WHEN MYeyes opened, I was lying in a hammock. I thought I was back in the Cirque Du Freak. I looked over to tell Harkat about a weird dream I'd had full of black panthers, giant toads and dragons but when I did, I saw that I was in a poorly built shack. There was a strange man standing close by, studying me with beady eyes and stroking a long curved knife.

"Who are you?" I shouted, falling out of the hammock. "Where am I?"

"Easy," the man chuckled, laying his knife aside. "Sorry t' trouble ye, young 'un. I was watching over ye while ye slept. We get an awful lot o' crabs and scorpions here. I didn't want 'em getting stuck into ye while ye was recovering. Harkat!" he bellowed. "Yer wee friend's awake!"

The door to the shack swung open and Harkat stepped in. The three scars from his fight with the panther were as prominent as usual, but he didn't look any the worse for wear otherwise. "Afternoon, Sleeping Beauty," he grinned. "You've been out for … almost two days."

"Where are we?" I asked, standing shakily. "And who's this?"

"Spits Abrams," the stranger introduced himself, stepping forward into the beam of sunlight shining through a large hole in the roof. He was a broad, bearded man of medium height, with small eyes and bushy eyebrows. His black hair was long and curly, tied back with coloured pieces of string. He wore a faded brown jacket and trousers, a dirty white vest, and knee-high black boots. He was smiling and I could see that he was missing several teeth, while the others were discoloured and jagged. "Spits Abrams," he said again, sticking out a hand. "Pleased t' meet ye."

I took the man's hand he had a strong grip and shook it warily, wondering who he was and how I'd wound up here.

"Spits rescued you from the lake," Harkat said. "He saw the dragon attack … and drop you. He dragged you out and was … waiting for you to dry whenI waded out. He got a shock when … he saw me, but I convinced him I was harmless. We carried you here, to his … home. We've been waiting for you … to wake."

"Many thanks, Mr Abrams," I said.

"Tain't nowt t' be thanking me fer," he laughed. "I jest fished ye out, same as any other fisherman would've."

"You're a fisherman?" I asked.

"Of a sort," he beamed. "I used t' be a pirate 'fore I ended up here, and 'twas people I fished fer. But since there ain't much grows round these parts, I've been eating mostly fish since I came and fishing fer em."

"A pirate?" I blinked. "A real one?"

"Aaarrr, Darren lad," he growled, then winked.

"Let's go outside," Harkat said, seeing my confusion. "There's food on the fire and … your clothes are dry and repaired."

I realized I was only wearing my underpants, so I hurried out after Harkat, found my clothes hanging on a tree, and slipped them on. We were close to the edge of the lake, on a meagre green patch amidst a long stretch of rocky soil. The shack was built in the shelter of two small trees. There was a tiny garden out back.

"That's where I grows me potatoes," Spits said. "Not fer eating though I has one 'r two when I takes a fancy but fer brewing poteen. My grandfather came from Connemara in Ireland and he used t' make a living from it. He taught me all his secrets. I never bothered before I washed up here I prefer whisky but since spuds is all I can grow, I has t' make do."

Dressed, I sat by the fire and Spits offered me one of the fish speared on sticks over the flames. Biting into the fish, I ate ravenously, silently studying Spits Abrams, not sure what to make of him.

"Want some poteen to wash that down with?" Spits asked.

"I wouldn't," Harkat advised me. "I tried it and it made … my eyes water."

"I'll give it a miss then," I said. Harkat had a high tolerance for alcohol, and could drink just about anything. If the poteen had made his eyes water, it'd probably blow my head clean off my neck.

"Yerra, go on," Spits encouraged me, passing over a jug filled with a clear liquid. "It might blind ye, but Won't kill ye. 'Twill put hairs on yer chest!"

"I'm hairy enough," I chuckled, then leant forward, nudging the jug of poteen aside. "I don't want to be rude, Spits, but who are you and how did you get here?"

Spits laughed at the question. "That's what this 'un asked too, the first time he saw me," he said, pointing at Harkat with his thumb. "I've told him all about myself these last couple o' days did a helluva lot o' talking fer a man who ain't said a word fer five or six years! I won't go through the whole thing again, just give ye the quick lowdown."

Spits had been a pirate in the Far East in the 1930s. Although piracy was a "dying art" (as he put it), there were still ships which sailed the seas and attacked others in the years before World War II, plundering them of their spoils. Spits found himself working on one of the pirate ships after years of ordinary naval service (he said he was shanghaied, though his eyes shifted cagily, and I got the feeling he wasn't being honest). "ThePrince o' Pariahs was 'er name." He beamed proudly. "A fine ship, small but speedy. We was the scourge o' the waters wherever we went."

It was Spits's job to fish people out of the sea if they jumped in when they were boarded. "Two reasons we didn't like leaving 'em there," he said. "One was that we didn't want 'em to drown we was pirates, not killers. The other was that the ones who jumped was normally carrying jewels or other such valuables only the rich is that scared of being robbed!"

Spits got that shifty look in his eyes again when he was talking about fishing people out, but I said nothing about it, not wanting to offend the man who'd rescued me from the lake.