We Ride With the Tide

CHAPTER EIGHT - RISE OF THE ISLE OF THE LOST

Lizzie's POV

The skeletons came out of the darkness, descending from the sky like ghosts their calcium-white bones glistening in the light of Uma's torch, they danced in the black their limbs making herky-jerky motions up and down, bobbing as they walked.

Gil screamed and fell backward, splashing water everywhere and I panicked thinking one of the skeletons might have struck him with its swords, Harry quickly bent to check for wounds, while the skeletons drifted closer, dipping up and down their feet hardly touching the ground.

We had no idea what magic this was especially since magic didn't work here so I had no clue how was this even happening and upon further look I realised there was now more skeletons, descending from the dark reaches of the cavern's ceiling, a place so distant that not even Uma's torchlight could reach it.

The crew quickly formed ranks, drawing our swords and readying one another for the fight but I noticed our faces were as white as the skeletons, we were a hardened crew but none of us had ever seen anything like this.

"Gil's okay" Harry announced.

"Just a bit of wounded pride" Gil added as he shook the water from his hair, stumbling backward to avoid the approaching skeletons.

We were all retreating but the lagoon was at our backs so with each step we took we were forced to walk deeper into the water as I tried not to panic as the water started to reach my knees, this could only go on for so long before we'd need to stop and fight but the skeletons didn't pass the water's edge and they hung there waiting their twirling swords and nodding heads tempting us pirates into battle and Uma being Uma had never been one to turn down a fight, so she rallied the crew and stormed the beach.

"At my back, you cowards!" she called and I sighed pulling out my sword with the familiar sound ashamed by my own courage, I'd had enough fear already from near drowning so I wasn't going to be stilled by skeletons, we called out battle cries and emerged from the water splashing onto the beach.

I swung at the skeleton closest to me with every bit of might that I had hoping to nick a bone or perhaps to break a rib or two but instead watched as its entire rib cage shattered, sending bones flying in all directions, some landing in the water with a hundred different splashes.

I smirked encouraged by my success and continued on slashing and knocking my blade through the skeletons watching as they fell before I suddenly stopped when I saw one of the heads bobbing up and down in midair...

"It's on a rope!" I called out informing the others as I slashed at the darkness above one of the skulls severing the cord, sending the head tumbling onto the beach before looking back at all the skeletons we'd taken out and with a quick inspection I saw a whole series of thin black ropes that were tethered all over the skeletons, it must have been some kind of mechanism that had been jerking them up and down, back and forth, like marionettes on a string. "They're not alive, it's not magic it's just a trick!" I added quickly.

"Keep moving!" Uma instructed. "There must be some machine up there, embedded in the cavern's ceiling" she said as we continued through the cavern, the black strings were nearly invisible in the dark cave.

I turned finding Harry was the closest to me watching as he was going over a fallen skeleton, inspecting the ropes, some of which were still connected to the machine before a severed hand leaped upward from the beach dangling in his face with its sword still in its grasp and I laughed a little seeing him slash at the cord and the arm fell limply to the sand but the whole thing was unnerving.

I focused back on the rest of the crew seeing we were all slashing at the ropes but we could only cut so many, so the dead continued their dance and pretty soon there were pieces of broken arms and legs everywhere, some still jerking about in the air.