‘Greedy bugger,’ Peck observed.

Ambel stepped around the mess and peered into the rapidly collapsing cavity.

‘Further back,’ he muttered, then cut open another three-metre flap. This time the stuff that emerged was less easily identifiable. Certainly it included undigested sections of glister shell and what looked like a load of rotten apples, which it took him a moment to identify as probably a whole shoal of boxies. The rest was just meat fibres, bones and dilute green bile.

‘Here we go!’

Ambel cut his way in, scooping aside the garbage with his machete, careful not to get any of the bile on himself. Eventually he revealed a large baggy organ the size and shape of a potato sack, fringed with wet combs of white flesh. Pulling some string from his pocket he tied off the intestinal tube leading from it to the main gut, cut that.. then cut around the organ until he could pull it free. It dropped and slid out, and he dragged it down to the sea to wash it off. There were boxies nosing about in the shallows, but the moment spilled bile washed off the bile duct and clouded the water, they shot away. Ambel could feel a slight tingling in his hands and a hollowness in his stomach, of either hunger or nausea. This had happened to him before: the slightest contact with leech bile—from which sprine could be refined—poisoning some of the viral fibres in his body. It would not kill him, since only swallowing the stuff could do that, though it could make him feel unwell.

‘A good un,’ he said, hauling the duct up out of the sea by its tied-off tube. Then he noticed Peck peering into the slimy cavity, his expression puzzled. Still carrying the duct, he walked up to stand beside the other man. ‘What’s up?’

Peck gestured with his shotgun. ‘What’s that bugger?’

Lying in the base of the cavity was a segmented silver sphere the size of a cricket ball. As they watched it opened out, like a pill-bug without legs, began emitting a low hum and rose up into the air, turning so it pointed towards Ambel and Peck. The two stepped back.

Peck aimed his shotgun, but Ambel reached out and pushed the barrel down.

‘It’ll be gone in a sec,’ said the Old Captain.

The object floated out into the open air, turned towards the sea, then abruptly shot away. In moments it was out of sight.

In response to Peck’s querying look, Ambel said, ‘Warden stuff. Likes to know where all the adult leeches are, and who’s getting hold of the sprine.’

‘Ah,’ said Peck. ‘Like mebbe hornets.’

‘Yes, certainly them,’ Ambel agreed.

As they headed back towards the Treader, Ambel glanced across to where the others were raking amberclams out of the sand. Really it was meat like that they most needed, but he had been unable to resist the lure of a bile duct obtainable without having to harpoon a living leech and cut it open out at sea.

‘Gettin’ some local activity now,’ announced Peck.

Ambel glanced back to see a rhinoworm rearing out of the sea, ten metres behind the beached leech—and other disturbances in the water to either side of it. He had observed this sort of thing before. It was as if the local fauna sensed the most poisonous part of the leech had been removed and that now it was time to feed. Often, seeing activity of this kind—the curious behaviour of molly carp, the awareness of danger in some whelks—Ambel wondered about the intelligence of some of the creatures here. The sails were obviously intelligent, but other Spatterjay animals definitely reacted in ways that were noticeably… odd.

Back at the ship, Boris threw him a rope, which he then tied to the bile duct.

‘Stow it carefully,’ said Ambel, as Boris hauled the organ aboard.

Ambel and Peck then returned to join Anne and the others. There was a stink in the air of the dried fish flakes scattered over the wet sand to lure up the molluscs. The juniors were now raking up the big amber-lipped white clams, while Anne and Sild collected them in riddles, washing them off in a nearby pool, and filled sacks with them.

‘Wonder if there’ll be any pearls?’ Peck was watching Ambel.

Almost unconsciously Ambel patted his pocket where he kept the only pearl he had ever extracted from a clam. Peck was wise to his trick of seemingly discovering this same pearl just prior to some dangerous venture—a sign of good luck. Ambel glanced back at the leech. Two rhinoworms were now arced up over the rear of it, like pink question marks, turning their rhinoceros heads from side to side as if trying to figure out what might have happened to it. Their behaviour was similar to vultures approaching the corpse of a lion: aware that here was available meat, but cautious of the possibility that it might still have some life in it. Then one of them plunged down, bit deep, thrashed from side to side, and tore off a chunk of brown and purple flesh. Ambel decided there was little time for play-acting when, over to one side, a single prill splashed up on the beach, and behind it sharp cones rose like teeth emerging from the waves as a flock of frog whelks came marching in.

‘That’ll be enough, Anne,’ he decided. ‘We’ll have more company soon.’

The juniors stopped raking to help collect the clams already raked to the surface, and soon they were all trudging back to the ship, laden with their booty. With two heavy sacks gripped in each hand, Ambel kept an eye on the host gathering around the huge leech corpse. Something there focused his attention. One of the rhinoworms appeared to have gone, which surprised him as, with such bounty available, the creature should not have left until utterly bloated. He kept glancing back, then saw the second worm being wrenched back down under the waves, disappearing like a lead bar dropped end-on into the water.

‘Looks like a molly carp just arrived,’ remarked Anne, also having witnessed this.

Ambel wondered. It would have to be a very big and powerful carp to drag a rhinoworm down that hard, so surely they should see some disturbance in the sea there. There was none.

‘Pick your feet up, lads,’ he said calmly.

Prill and frog whelks were now swarming over the massive corpse, like flies on a turd. Suddenly the body jerked. The prill still clung on with their sickle legs embedded in slimy flesh, but frog whelks were bounding away in every direction. A large flat tentacle rose up out of the sea, hovered like a cobra, then slammed down on the leech to get a better grip.

‘Boris! Up anchor!’ Ambel bellowed. Then to his fellows he said, ‘I think we should… run.’ He really had no need to say that last word, as by then they were all sprinting off ahead of him. Shortly they reached the ship, and while the juniors scrambled up on deck, Anne and Sild threw up to them the sacks of clams. Ambel dropped his own sacks for them to deal with, braced himself against the side of the Treader, and pushed, hard. The woodwork before him creaked and groaned, and he sank down into the sand up to his thighs. Heaving himself out again, he found another spot and pushed again. The last sack now up on deck, Sild and Anne climbed aboard as the ship slowly drifted out from the sand bank. It was already a few metres clear, Galegrabber unfurling and turning into the wind, when Ambel leaped the gap, caught a ladder, and scrambled aboard.

‘Not too close to the wind,’ he said casually, striding over to take up his blunderbuss from its hooks. Boris was now loading the deck cannon while Anne turned the helm.

‘Quickest way,’ Anne replied.

Ambel shook his head. ‘We need deep water. This breeze’ll take us straight over there.’ He gestured towards where the remains of the leech were disappearing into the sea. Anne nodded and swung the helm back a little. Galegrabber turned both himself and the fabric sails to the optimum angle.

A tense few minutes passed as the Treader eased out into deeper water.