The three hibernators bobbed about in the ocean as they tried to locate and swim towards each other. Their water soaked clothes were thick and heavy on them and they all shrugged out of their jackets, freeing their arms to swim. Soon, they were grasping each other by the arms as they watched the ship from which they'd just escaped speed away from them, its sails full of wind. Randall looked around, trying to see the horizon every time the passing waves lifted him high enough. There were no other ships in sight, he saw, but the shoreline was still just visible, low down on the northern horizon.

"Can we swim that far?" asked Jane, her hair plastered to her scalp by the cold water. A piece of seaweed was stuck to the side of her face. She pulled it off and threw it away.

"We'd better hope we can," replied Loach. "The tides should help. My head phone says that about six hours have passed since we left port, so the tide should be coming in again. If it is, the currents will be carrying us towards shore."

"So we've got six hours to get to the shore before the tide turns and carries us out to sea again?"

"If we can stay afloat that long. Come on, we'd better get moving." He didn't waste any more words but began swimming towards shore with long, strong swings of his arms. Soon he was a good distance away and getting further away with each stroke.

"Wait for us!" cried Jane in a panicky voice. She turned out to be an almost equally good swimmer, though, and it was Randall who soon found himself left behind, the others disappearing ahead of him until they were lost to view among the large, foam speckled waves.

Randall had only ever swum in swimming pools, and he hadn't even done that since the long lost days of his youth. He tried to swim after the others, trying to imitate the movements Loach had made, but some instinct told him that he was only moving at a fraction of the speed the others had been able to manage. Fear and despair began to creep over him. He'd come within a hairs breadth of becoming master of the solar system and now he was faced with drowning, alone, in the middle of a cold, uncaring ocean. With an effort of will he forced the fear to become anger. He would not die like this! The shore was close, and so long as the sun was in sight he could be sure of moving in the right direction. All he had to do was keep afloat and keep swimming.

Time passed and, although Randall was able to keep up a steady pace northwards for a while, he soon found himself tiring and had to stop, floating in the water while he got his breath back. He bobbed up and down waiting for a large enough wave to lift him high enough to see the shoreline, and when it did he was dismayed to see that it looked no closer than it had before. Was Loach wrong and the currents were carrying them the wrong way? His head phone told him that less than an hour had passed since they'd left the ship, though. Perhaps he shouldn't expect the shore to look any closer so soon. This encouraged him and he began swimming again.

There were seagulls above him, shrieking and crying, circling around and occasionally swooping down to take a curious look at him. One shriek was different, though. Longer and more human sounding. Distant, but unmistakably the shriek of a woman. Jane. Randall looked around, but there was no sign of her. The shriek came again, except this time it was more like a scream. It was followed by a clear and distinct human voice. "Shark! There's a shark!"

Randall looked down into the cloudy, green water. There were shapes down there, he saw. Long, streamlined shapes gliding through the water with deadly menace. Fear gripped him and he struggled to remain in control of himself. Unfortunately, all he knew about sharks came from watching old movies, but it was the only guide he had so he struggled to remember.

"Don't panic!" he called back. "Don't thrash about, that'll attract them!" A wave washed over his head, filling his mouth with salty water. He spat it out and struggled back to the surface.

"There's lots of them!" Jane replied. She said something else but another wave washed over Randall. He had to wait for it to pass to hear her. "They're everywhere!"

Randall took a few deep breaths to ready himself for another shout. "They're just curious," he said. "Act like a fish and they might lose interest."

"They eat fish!" screamed Jane in protest, as if accusing Randall of trying to kill her. Randall heard nothing more from her, though, so maybe she was taking his advice. He thought she would probably scream very loudly indeed if they bit her, so he took her silence as a good sign and continued to swim. There was nothing he could do to help her. The only thing any of them could do was get to shore as quickly as they could.

More time passed and the shoreline still failed to look any closer. Randall struggled to keep swimming but he was tiring rapidly now and he had to keep stopping to let his limbs rest before going on. Each rest was longer then the one before, though, and each spell of swimming was shorter than the previous one before he had to rest again. Soon, Randall knew, he wouldn't be able to go on any further. He would only be able to float there helplessly as the sun finished crossing the sky and sank towards the horizon. Night would fall, and sometime in the darkness Randall would sink below the surface and drown...

Suddenly, his foot touched the sea bed, only two or three feet below him. He was able to stand, and with his head now a couple of feet above the water he was able to see the shoreline clearly. It was still some distance away, but the water between it and him was shallow. A sandbank! Giving thanks for his good fortune, he started wading through the water towards the yellow, sandy beach he could see ahead of him.

Loach and Jane were already standing on the beach, he saw, and as he approached the former mob boss waded back out into the water to help him. The moment Loach's hand took his arm Randall felt the last of his strength going out of him and he sagged into the water. Loach had to virtually pick him up and carry him the rest of the way.

Randall collapsed on the beach and just lay there while his exhausted body tried to recover. The wind was beginning to pick up, and as it began to dry his clothes he began to shiver with the cold. Jane was striding up and down the beach in an attempt to keep warm, her hair and clothes plastered to her slender body. "We need shelter," she said to Loach. "Somewhere indoors, with a fire, until our clothes have dried out."

Loach was also shivering and he nodded his agreement. "Better get going, then," he said. "While we've still got light." He looked down at Randall. "You coming?" he asked.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Randall forced his tired, frozen body to climb to its feet. "Which way?" he asked.

"Inland, until we come to a road," replied Loach. "Come on." He led the way, seeming not to care whether anyone followed him or not. Randall struggled to keep up with him, but once again he found himself falling behind until Jane took him by the arm and helped him to walk.

☆☆☆

They reached a road just a couple of hundred metres from the coast and followed it west, to take them further away from Tetttlehall. They passed a couple of cottages along the way but didn't stop at either of them. They wouldn't have what they needed.

They'd walked five miles before they found what they were looking for. A small village with a tavern and a church. The walking had kept them warm, but as soon as they stopped to spy out the place from the cover of a small copse of trees the cold began to seep into their still damp clothes and they began shivering. Randall flapped his arms against his body in an attempt to generate heat.

"VIX will probably have warned the priest about us," said Loach. "If we go in together, he'll know who we are and he'll tell VIX we're here before we can shut him down."

Randall nodded. "I'll go in alone," he said. "Pose as a shipwreck victim. I'll hit him with yama666 as soon as I'm close enough and call the two of you in."

Loach nodded. Neither man asked Jane what she thought of the idea, but she wouldn't have been able to think of a better plan in any case. Would still have been nice to have been asked, though, she thought miserably as she fingered her hair, coarse and heavy with dried salt. She wondered whether the priest had a shower somewhere in his temple, then cursed herself for being so petty and shallow. There is a false god to overthrow, she thought, and the truth of Christ to be brought back to the world. None of the ancient martyrs of the Bible ever had such a calling as she did now, and she was busy fretting over her hair! The true God must be wondering whether He'd made a mistake in choosing her. She vowed to keep her mind on her duty from now on and not allow herself to be distracted by petty, worldly matters.

"That yama thing you've got," she said to Randall. "You gave it to Loach. Give it to me as well. I may need it."

Randall looked at her as if he'd momentarily forgotten she existed, but then he nodded. "I will," he said, "but after we've taken down the priest. If I give it to you now, the priest may detect the transmission even though he should be way out of range. We don't know how sensitive the equipment is that he uses to communicates with VIX." He looked across as Loach. "I assume we're all still in flight mode?"

"Of course I am," replied the former crime boss irritably. "You think you've got a monopoly on common sense?"

"Okay," said Randall, ignoring the other man's tone of voice. "Here I go." He stepped out from the trees, returned to the road and walked along it towards the church.

He hadn't gone far before he was spotted by an old woman hoeing weeds from a small herb garden in front of her house. She stared at him curiously for a moment, then returned to her work. Other villagers were more thoughtful, though, and a young man dressed in a simple green uniform approached him from a small brick building. "Yez oright?" he asked, more out of curiosity than concern.

"I need a priest," Randall replied. "I'm hurt."

"Reet, reet," the man replied. "Dent know if the priest's in et the moment. Saltmarsh got attacked by orcs yesterday. Young Jack, the Miller's son, cem riding in ter warn us. Dozens dead, the whole town in flames. Huge great army, they say. They say they attacked Tettlehall earlier, and Denchester before that. King David's sending an army ter deal with 'em, they say...."

"Yes, yes," said Randall impatiently, but then he paused. Where were these places the young man had mentioned? Were the orcs getting nearer, or further away? Should be be worried? The small village seemed peaceful and at ease, though, and this man seemed more thrilled by exciting events happening elsewhere than worried. Whatever was happening must be happening a safe distance away. "Can we go see if the priest's in?"

"He might have gone ter Saltmarsh, thet's whet I'm saying," said the young man. "Ter help heal the injured. Still, we cen go see, can't we?" He took Randall's arms to help him walk, even though he needed no such help. "Bejinks! Yez wet! Ye cem outta the sea, man?"

"My ship was wrecked," said Randall. "I was lost overboard. Luckily I managed to swim to shore."

"Wrecked?" said the young man in puzzlement. "If ye'd said run aground on the sandbanks they'd mek sense. Wrecked? How cen a ship be wrecked hereabouts?"

Randall cursed inwardly and decided that the best way to cover the lie was to not explain at all. "I just know everyone was shouting and running around, the ship was lurching around and I suddenly found myself in the water. I assumed we'd hit rocks or something."

"Nay rocks arend here," said the young man, whose eyes suddenly widened in wonder and excitement. "Mest've been a kraken! Hasn't been a kraken arend here since me granpappy's day! Bejinks! A kraken!" He left Randall and ran towards the large building that Randall had assumed was a tavern. "Den! Bunny! Kraken! There's a kraken out there! Took a ship down! There's a fella out here saw it, clear as day! Big as a house, he said, and eyes as big as pumpkins!"

Randall stared in surprise. Were krakens just a local myth, he wondered, or did such things actually exist? Created by VIX to help control and subdue the human population, like the orcs? The priest back in Tettlehall had said that VIX had created wonders and marvels in the wide, empty places of the world to tempt explorers and thrill seekers, so that mankind would find adventure on Earth and not go looking for it in scientific discovery.

Randall chided himself for having his thoughts diverted and focused his attention on the matter at hand. The priest. He forgot the young man in the green uniform, therefore, and hurried towards the temple.

He pushed through the heavy, oaken doors, passed through the foyer and opened the smaller door into the nave where, to his delight and relief, he saw the priest talking to an elderly man in the robes of a verger. They saw him and the verger turned towards him. "Apologies, stranger," he said, "but the Good Father is jest leaving. There's an emergency in Saltmarsh. Whetever business ye hev with him..."

"It'll only take a moment," said Randall. "I just need to have one quick word."

"It's alright, Morris,"said the priest, though. "Five minutes won't make a difference." He turned to Randall. "I can't give you more than five minutes, though, you understand?"

"Five minutes is all it'll take, I promise," said Randall. "Can we talk privately? It's a little embarrassing."

"Of course. Can you give us a couple of minutes please, Morris? And see if you can find some dry clothes for our guest." The verger nodded reluctantly, but he gave Randall a sharp look before turning and going through another door at the back.

Randall waited until the doorway closed before taking his head phone out of flight mode. Then he transmitted yama666 at the priest.

"So," said the priest. "What can I do for..." He fell silent and stared at Randall with a glazed expression on on his face.

Randall hurriedly put his phone back into flight mode. "You will continue to communicate with VIX as though everything was normal," he said, "but you will say nothing about there being any visitors to this village. You will tell VIX nothing about myself or my two friends."

"I will follow your commands," said the priest in an expressionless tone.

"You will talk normally, so that no-one in this village suspects that anything has changed," added Randall. "You will talk to the verger the same way as you normally talk to him."

The priest nodded. "Of course," he said.

"You will tell the verger that the situation has changed and you won't be going to Saltmarsh after all. The situation isn't as bad as you thought and you aren't needed there."

"I'll tell him that."

"You will then send him to fetch my two friends. They're waiting by a small copse of tress just on the east side of town."

"I know the place."

"While he's gone, you will arrange some hot meals for us. After that, you and I have a great deal to talk about..."