Tome of the Undergates

Twelve

The companion craft tore through the waves like an overeager child. Its canvas sails bubbled and giggled with the air fed into them, it slipped over wave and surf with a grace both enthusiastic and distinguished.

Lenk would remember to savour the imagery later.

For the moment, his world was one of wood. Fingers aching, he clung to the vessel’s railing, knees wobbling in nauseous rhythm with his churning stomach. His lunch rose up in protest for the sixteenth time, narrowly fought back by a tightening throat, as they cut over another wave. Near-faint, he was spared a violent uprising of jerked beef and fruit as a fist of froth struck him squarely in the face.

‘Fourth time that’s happened.’

Wet strands of silver obscuring his vision, Lenk scowled towards the prow. Kataria leaned on the edge, perfectly balanced, an obnoxious smile beaming in time with the oppressive sun.

‘Choke on it,’ Lenk snarled in reply.

‘You wouldn’t get wet so often if you didn’t put your face over the side,’ she chided. ‘Though, frankly, the concept of water being wet may be too much for me to expect you to grasp.’

‘If you’d like to clean up my mess after I spill it on the floor, be my guest.’ He cast a sneer at her, chiefly to hide his nauseous grimace. ‘Perhaps you could take a moment to roll around in it first.’

‘I didn’t even know you got seasick.’ The shict gave no indication she had even heard the insult as she tilted her head. ‘Where was this love of lurching when we were on the Riptide?’

‘Buried below deck,’ Lenk replied sharply. ‘Since I lack that privacy here, I have the distinct pleasure of hearing you while I-’

His sarcasm caught in his throat, overtaken by a stampede of half-digested meat. In one vile swoop, he tilted overboard.

‘If you’re feeling a bit fragile, I could ask Dreadaeleon to slow down,’ Kataria offered, none too gently.

‘I doubt he’ll listen.’

Their eyes slid towards the stern, narrowing upon the scrawny, coat-clad figure seated upon the sole bench. Legs folded, hands knitted in a gesture that looked painful to even consider attempting, Dreadaeleon’s eyes were shut tightly, lips quivering in a series of incomprehensible murmurs.

Above his head, the air shimmered and waxed, the sails billowing with every rapid twitch of his mouth. Behind him, the combined strength of Denaos and Gariath fought to control the rudder against the fury of the artificial wind. The rogue looked not at all pleased with the task; perhaps due to the proximity of the dragonman, perhaps due to the boy’s coat-tails whipping him about the face.

‘Fortunate that the companion vessel is small enough for him to move, isn’t it?’ Kataria spared a smile for the wizard. ‘I’d wager even the Abysmyth can’t swim so fast.’

‘Yeah. . fortunate,’ Lenk grumbled, narrowly avoiding a rogue wave. ‘We’ll be food for it that much quicker.’ His cheeks bulged momentarily. ‘And here I am, courteously marinating in my own juices.’

‘If it bothers you that much, wake him up.’

‘You don’t know much about wizards, do you?’ Lenk cast a baleful glare at the youth. ‘He’s focusing at the moment. If he’s disturbed, something could go wrong.’

‘Such as?’

‘I woke him up one time while he was trying to keep a fire lit without wood.’ A sour frown creased Lenk’s face. ‘He got startled and I walked away with no hair anywhere, save on my head.’

Kataria blinked for a moment before her eyes widened.

‘You mean even-’

‘Yes.’

‘Sounds painful.’

‘It was,’ he replied. ‘Anyway, if you feel like being blasted by whatever he’s messing with, go right ahead. Maybe then I can be sick in peace.’

Kataria chose to hold her tongue as his head bowed back beneath the railing. An expression that lingered uncertainly between lamentful and resentful played upon her face as she stared at him. There was a quiet comfort in his lurching, she thought, not without a modicum of distaste for the idea. She could see him now, vulnerable, as she had not seen him for ages. She could stare at him now without agitating him.

Without him screaming at me.

His head snapped up suddenly, his gaze fixing on her with a cold intensity. She resisted the urge to jump, even as he narrowed his eyes at her, as though he had heard her thoughts. In an instant, whatever malice lurked behind his glare dissipated, replaced by something hovering between meekness and resentment.

‘So,’ he whispered softly, ‘this will sound rather odd to hear.’

She quirked a brow.

‘And, rest assured, it’s not that easy to say, but. .’ His eyes flitted to the side, indicating a lock of silver that had been coated in a thick brown substance. ‘Would you mind terribly?’

The other brow went up, eyes widening as she realised his request.

‘Mind?’ she asked. ‘Yes, of course I mind, and more than a little of it is quite terrible.’

He blinked at her. ‘But can you do it anyway?’

‘Yeah.’ She sighed, doffing her gloves. ‘Just don’t get any on me.’

With a roll of her eyes, she slid behind him just as his head went back over the railing. Gingerly, she knitted her fingers into his hair and pulled it back gently, holding it out of his face as he sent a wave of brown cascading from his maw.

It occurred to her, with no small amount of grimacing, that she shouldn’t be looking so intently, much less smiling so broadly, at the sight of his liquid corkscrews. His sickness was a comfort to her, however; perhaps it was simply morbid amusement at his suffering, perhaps it was simply pleasant to feel needed once more. Either way, she could not turn away nor banish the smile from her face as he let out a gurgling sound, choking on pleas for mercy to his own innards.

She resolved to be disgusted with herself later.

‘This is nice, isn’t it?’

‘Nice,’ he repeated, gasping. His head tilted upwards slightly. ‘I’m vomiting up my intended last meal so that I’ll be nice and lean before something out there in the wide, blue sea of death decides to devour me.’ He shuddered. ‘Yes, this is very nice.’

‘What I mean is,’ she continued, ‘this is like how things used to be.’

‘That’s odd, I don’t remember this part.’

‘Just shut up and listen for a moment.’ Her ears twitched for emphasis. ‘What do you hear?’

‘I really don’t think-’

‘Wind and water,’ she speared his sentence with a smile, ‘nothing more.’ From behind her, a shrill voice rose to an alien crescendo. ‘Well, wind, water and Dread, anyway.’ She leaned closer, skewering him a little further on her grin. ‘But that’s all there is. There’s no screaming, no dying. It’s just the sound of the world. Do you even remember when we were last able to hear this?’

He raised his head from the sea, casting a glimpse over his shoulder. Despite the sopping strings of hair clinging to his face and the brown streak creeping from the corner of his mouth, some hint of a smile shone through, like the merest sliver of sunlight through a boarded-up window. With a sigh, the first sigh, she noted, not to brim with resentment, he turned away.

‘I’m not sure I’d put it in those words,’ he said, ‘but I do remember a time less red. . and brown.’ He made a choking sound as he bit back a meaty uprising. ‘I suppose if we could have such things all the time, though, they wouldn’t mean anything.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Hm?’

‘Well, given the circumstances, you think we might. .’ She let the thought dangle off her tongue, hanging ominously in the air over his head.

‘Run away?’

‘Yeah.’

‘The thought had occurred to me.’ His second sigh bore not even a hint of contentment. ‘What of you? You seemed eager enough to go chasing the Abysmyth last night.’

‘Well, I wasn’t about to be shown up by you,’ she retorted, less hotly than she thought she ought to. ‘But I’ve had time to think on it.’

‘And now you want to run?’

‘Not really,’ she spoke evenly. ‘I’m merely putting it forth as a possibility. It doesn’t matter much to me.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Lenk repeated. She could hear his brow furrowing. ‘How does it not matter? Have you not figured out that we’re all going to die?’

‘Well, if you’re so certain about our fate, it would seem a bit pointless to worry about it. But that isn’t what I’ve been thinking about.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘It just occurs to me,’ her voice grew hesitant, as though she were attempting to soothe an irate beast rather than pose a question, ‘I don’t know why you’re out here.’

Lenk’s response was a wet gurgle as he nearly toppled overboard with the fury of his heaving. The sea giggled a mocking, salt-laden tune as it reached up to slap him with a frothy palm. He pulled back a scowl dripping with resentment.

‘I ask myself that same question,’ he muttered, ‘every Gods-damned day.’

‘That’s not what I mean.’ She spoke more harshly. ‘Why are we out here? Why did you decide to go after the demon if death is so certain?’

‘I believe we covered this last night,’ he replied, ‘with one thousand golden responses.’

‘Don’t you dare pretend to think that I’m an idiot by pretending you’re an idiot, Lenk.’ All traces of sensitivity had given way to ire, anger spurred by his evasion. ‘All the gold in the world won’t do you any good if you’re dead. There’s another reason you’re out here, one you’re not telling me.’

He drew in a deep breath suddenly and, as though he had inhaled the sun, the air seemed to go cold around her. Before her, he went stiff and rigid, his fingers threatening to dig deep furrows in the railings, so white did they become. His voice was low and soft, though not at all gentle, as he hissed through his teeth.

‘Then why would I tell you now?’

Kataria found herself shivering at his response. For an instant, something else spoke from his mouth, another voice that lurked between his words. An echo of an echo resonated in her ears, lingering in the air around his lips and sucking the warmth from the sky with each reverberation.

‘Lenk, that’s not-’

No, no, NO! Her instincts thundered in her brain, drowning out all other sounds. Don’t you apologise to him, don’t you try to make peace. If he wants to be difficult, let him be difficult.

And yet, the voice that seeped out of her mouth was not that of her instinct.

‘Lenk,’ she whispered, ‘does it have to be this way?’

‘What way?’

Let him be difficult. . and let him remember what it means to be difficult.

Whether it was instinct or simple, vengeful pride that forced her to tighten her grip on his hair, she could not say. Whether it was instinct or the last layer before a shell of quiet resentment gave way to a boiling core of anger that caused her arms to tense, she could not say.

‘This way.’

If it was anything other than a perverse pleasure that caused her to slam his head down against the railing, bringing a smile at the cracking sound that followed, she did not care.

‘Khetashe!’ he screamed, fingering the red blossom under his nose. ‘What was that for?’

When his fist lashed out to catch her jaw, he found nothing but air. A quick glance over his shoulder saw her crawling across the vessel’s meagre deck. Had he energy for anything besides heaving, he might have scrambled for his sword and pursued. As it stood, he merely vomited again.

Asper glanced up as Kataria sprang forwards over the shifting deck. Her eyes went wide at the chorus of curses from Lenk’s lips and she turned a befuddled stare to her companion as she sat down beside her.

‘What was that all about?’

‘Nothing to worry about yet,’ Kataria replied swiftly. With unnerving speed, she forced a smile onto her lips. ‘All’s well here?’

‘I suppose,’ the priestess replied. She noticed the bright red spot upon the railing and frowned. ‘Should I-’

‘No, you shouldn’t,’ Kataria snapped. ‘He’s fine. How are you?’

‘Decent enough,’ Asper replied with a weak shrug. She furrowed her brow at the shict. ‘Why do you care, anyway? ’

‘I can’t care about my companions?’ She gave Asper a playful slug on the arm, her grin growing broader as the priestess let out a pained squeak. ‘What’s the matter with you, anyway? You haven’t spoken for hours.’

‘I’m fine.’ Asper’s voice was as distant as her gaze, her eyes staring out over the endless blue. ‘I’m just. . distracted.’

‘By?’

‘Well. . nothing.’ The priestess shook herself angrily, as if incensed by her own lie. ‘Nothing that I can help, anyway. It’s just. . I hear something. My ears are ringing, I have a headache,’ she fingered the phoenix medallion in her palm, ‘but I don’t know why.’

‘Seasickness, perhaps.’ Kataria sneered in Lenk’s direction as the young man let out a saliva-laden groan. ‘It could be worse.’

‘It’s not that.’ Asper shook her head. ‘It. . well, it sounds strange to say, but it feels. . like something’s calling to me.’ Seeing her companion’s baffled expression, she continued hastily. ‘It-it’s not a sound, not a normal one, anyway. It’s not like the ringing of bells or the crying of children. It’s … an ache, a dull pain that I hear.’

‘You hear. .’ Kataria’s face screwed up, ‘pain?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Well.’ The shict clicked her tongue thoughtfully. ‘If there were something out there that you could hear, I think chances are that I would hear it first.’ Her ears twitched. ‘And if it were something I couldn’t hear, I think Dreadaeleon would sense it.’ She glanced back at the entranced boy and frowned. ‘Then again-’

‘I know.’ Asper sighed. ‘It’s just nerves, I suppose.’ Her hand tightened around the pendant, squeezing it as she might a lover’s hand. ‘I don’t think I can be blamed for it, knowing what we’re going after.’

‘The Abysmyth can be hurt.’ Kataria spoke as much for her own assurance as for Asper’s; the quaver in her voice, however, seemed to convince neither of them. ‘We’ve seen it, right?’

‘We saw the Lord Emissary chase it away with prayers.’

‘Well, I suppose we’re in luck, since you seem to do a lot of that.’

‘It’s not the same and you know it.’ Asper glowered at her companion. ‘Further, we also saw it take a harpoon through the belly and. .’ Her face twisted slightly. ‘Mossud, bless him-’

‘I remember.’

Kataria paused to force a frown upon her face. It felt awkward, like pulling a muscle, to strain such false sympathy through her teeth. Yet it was infinitely preferable to trying to explain her thoughts on the matter. Mossud’s death had been something appalling, the shict readily admitted to herself, but he was still just one human amongst many.

The fact that the world would make more did not seem as consoling as it once had.

‘Even if there is something out there, you don’t need to worry.’ Kataria shifted her face into a smile, hoping the priestess wouldn’t notice the pain with which she did it. ‘Leave matters of death and dying to the warriors.’

Asper frowned. As though her brain were wrought out of lead, her head bowed to stare dejectedly into the dull silver of her pendant, fingers caressing its metal wings.

‘Yeah. . the warriors.’

Kataria fought back a sigh; humans never seemed satisfied by anything. They exuded fear, yet despised being reassured against it. They blatantly craved admiration, yet had no desire to earn it. They’re all nothing but a bunch of slack-jawed hypocrites, she thought resentfully, cowards.

Quietly, the urge to sigh twisted within her, becoming an urge to do to Asper what she had done to Lenk.

Before she could so much as tense her fingers, however, she suddenly noticed the waters calming. Curious, she leaned out over the railing, watching the waves slow until they finally came to a bobbing stop. She glanced up; the sails hung impotent against the tiny mast.

‘Well,’ she snorted, ‘maybe Dread can ease your apprehension, since he seems to be done with whatever he was doing.’

‘Are we close to land?’ Asper cast a glance about the waters. ‘I don’t see anything here.’ Her eyes shifted towards the rear of the boat. ‘Dread, are you-’

All eyes, in addition to the priestess’s, had turned towards the vessel’s bench. Dreadaeleon stood upright upon it, stiff as a board and eyes wide with an expression that could only be described as baffled shock. A few moments of silence passed before Denaos cleared his throat.

‘Did you get tired or something?’

The boy did not respond. Rolling his eyes, the rogue rose to his feet and reached out to place a hand on his shoulder.

‘Listen, we’re on a bit of a schedule, as you might recall. If I’m going to die, I’d like it to be before lu-’

In the blink of an eye, Dreadaeleon’s hands flung out, palms wide and aimed at the sail. His voice was an incomprehensible thunder, a furious phrase that erupted from his lips. The air shimmered for a moment before it rippled and quaked, as though threatening to burst apart like an overstuffed pillow.

The vessel responded immediately, rocking at the sudden burst of wizardly force and flying forwards like a javelin. Its prow rose so far out of the water as to threaten to capsize; bodies were forced to cling to wood to avoid being hurled from the deck, their protests inaudible over the boy’s chanting.

‘Sweet Silf,’ Denaos howled, ‘what is he doing?’

‘Turn the rudder!’ Lenk shouted from the prow. ‘Try to stop it!’

Hands, both human and dragonman, went to the steering rudder, arms quivering with effort as they grunted, growled and spat curses at the stubborn mechanism. It would not budge, except at the beck of whatever force Dreadaeleon imbued in it, jerking it wildly back and forth.

‘Stop him, then!’ Kataria shrieked above the sorcerous gale.

Gariath responded with a roar that nearly silenced the wind, pulling himself up the deck by his claws, the gleam in his black eyes suggesting that however he intended to stop the wizard, he also intended it to be permanent. As he came closer, his claws reached out to grasp at the boy’s fluttering coat-tails.

Dreadaeleon’s voice grew louder and, like a wooden slave, the vessel obeyed, lunging out of the water violently. Gariath tumbled backwards, his massive red bulk slamming into Denaos and nearly crushing the tall man against the ship’s gunwale.

‘Fine,’ the dragonman snarled, making ready to pull himself up again, ‘he can’t work his magic if his head is ripped off.’

‘No!’

He narrowed his fury at Lenk. ‘Why not?’

‘He’s focusing on. . something,’ Lenk hollered. ‘If you disrupt him now, this whole ship may be blown apart!’

‘How is this any better?’ Denaos countered.

‘He’s not acting of his own will,’ Asper shouted in retort.

‘How do you know that?’ the rogue howled. ‘His magic may have driven him insane! It’s not unheard of! We need to put him down!’

‘Calm down,’ Lenk shouted back. ‘I don’t think he’s going to bring us to harm.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ Kataria cried loudly as the gale intensified.

‘I can’t, really.’

‘Oh. . well.’

He managed to pull himself up enough to see a rapidly approaching bank of sand in the far distance. As the waves lapped around the island, revealing jagged rocks jutting from the shore, he winced and braced himself as the island grew closer with each blinking eye.

Lenk stared upon the wreckage with dismay.

The companion boat lay on its side upon the beach, several yards up a shore marred by a deep skid-mark. Its red ribs jutted from the jagged hole gaping in its flank, as if it had been harpooned. Its shredded sail hung from a splintering mast like flesh flayed from bone. His frown grew so long it hurt his face as he waited for the carrion flies to begin swarming over it.

‘At least no one was hurt too badly,’ piped up a cheerful voice from beside him.

He glared at the grinning shict and then at the bandage wrapped tightly around his arm. He flexed it a little, wincing as the cut beneath it seared his skin.

‘Well.’ She coughed. ‘I wasn’t hurt too badly.’

‘Lucky for us,’ he grumbled.

He cast a glance over Kataria, who bore no physical injuries aside from a few scuffs and sand stains on her pale skin. When the vessel had hit the shore, she had been tossed into a nearby shrubbery. He had had the misfortune of nearly impaling his arm on a jutting timber rib. Disdainfully, he twitched his forearm again and saw a bit of red seep through the white bandages.

He glanced at the long skid in the sand where he had landed after being hurled from the vessel. He winced and made a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity had prevented him from striking any of the bone-white jagged stones jutting from the sands like teeth. The tips of the same stones, their white hues mottled with coral the colour of vomit, emerged from the surface of the blue, foamy seas beyond.

A sea of trees, rising from a blanket of shrubbery, roots and vines, stood behind them; the only landmark breaking a nearly perfectly endless sheet of white sand and rock. At a glance, it seemed lush, Lenk thought, but he knew well that forests could be just as unforgiving and desolate as deserts. The corpse of the vessel, sprawled out on the sand like a beached whale, wood drying under the sun like bones bleaching, seemed a charming example.

‘It could be worse,’ Kataria offered, snapping him from his gloomy reverie.

It certainly could, Lenk thought.

He glanced over his shoulder to where Gariath squatted. The dragonman had taken the worst of the crash, having been tossed from the prow violently, skidding across the sands until his violent journey ended abruptly at a nearby palm tree. Cuts from the beach rocks and thorny shrubs covered his red skin and splinters from the tree jutted from his back.

Regardless of his injuries, the hardy dragonman had refused all aid.

‘Human medicine,’ he had growled, ‘is for skinned knees and constipation.’

Instead, he had skulked over to the shade of the same tree he had caromed off and sat quietly.

Dragonmen, particularly red ones, Lenk had been told, were resilient creatures and had an innate ability to heal themselves through sheer force of will. If there was a will stronger than Gariath’s, Lenk had never seen it, for the dragonman’s wounds were no longer bleeding.

He would have thanked his companion for declining aid if it was out of generosity. There weren’t a great many supplies to go around for the purposes of treating injuries.

His arm had required a good deal of Asper’s bandages and Denaos’s scrapes had required a good amount of salve. Most of the priestess’s aid, however, had gone to the one who had caused the wreck in the first place. Lenk’s eyes narrowed to thin, angry slits as he cast a glare further down the beach.

Dreadaeleon sat propped up against a rock, Asper squatting by his side, working to tighten the bandage around his head that covered the gash at his temple. A lot of bandages, Lenk noted with a wince, too many to hold in such a small brain.

Even now, the wizard clutched his head as he lay against the rock, pampered like a baby. Lenk’s teeth ground together so hard, sparks almost shot from his mouth. He felt his hands clench into fists, heedless of the strain it put on his wounded arm. Kataria noticed his ire rising and laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘Now, calm down,’ she said soothingly. ‘He already told you-’

‘He told me nothing,’ Lenk snarled. ‘If we’re going to be stuck on some Gods-forsaken island and starve to death because of him, I want to know why.’

Not waiting for a reply from his companion, the young man stormed over to the boy’s resting place with such fury in his stride as to burn the sands beneath him. He paused nearby and folded his arms over his chest, focusing his icy scowl upon the wizard. Asper said nothing and continued working on her patient’s splint, though her hands trembled more than a little under Lenk’s frigid stare.

‘Well?’ Lenk snarled after several moments’ silence.

‘Well what?’ Dreadaeleon replied, not opening his eyes.

‘Well, how’s your little scrape, you poor little lamb?’ Lenk said, his sarcasm burning. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ the wizard replied, equally vitriolic. ‘I suppose I thought: “I bet Lenk would find it hysterical if I decided to crash the boat.”’ He snorted. ‘I already told you, I don’t know what happened.’

‘How?’ the young man spat back. ‘How do you not know what you were doing?’

‘The intricacies of my mind are of such staggering complexity that they might very well cause yours to explode, leak out of your ears and puddle at your feet.’ He tilted his nose up. ‘Suffice it to say, I knew exactly what I was doing, I just wasn’t sure why.’

‘Oh, well, thank Khetashe for that distinction!’

‘Lenk,’ Kataria said, creeping up to his side. ‘You know Dread wouldn’t do it on purpose.’

‘Well, I’d like to know whose purpose he did do it on,’ the young man growled, casting a sideways glare at the shict.

Despite the protests of his conscience, his rage cared neither for compassion nor logic. It took all his willpower not to flay the boy alive and use his skin to patch the vessel’s wound.

‘I’m not sure what happened,’ Dreadaeleon said, finally opening his eyes and looking at Lenk. ‘I was focusing on moving the ship, as you asked, when I suddenly. . heard something.’

‘Heard something?’ Lenk asked, screwing up his face in confusion. ‘When you focus, you can’t hear bloody murder two inches from your ear.’ His sniffed, glaring at Kataria. ‘I know from experience.’

‘Baby,’ Kataria grunted.

‘It wasn’t in my ears,’ Dreadaeleon said softly, ‘it was. . in my head.’

‘So you were just going mad?’

‘No, Lenk,’ Asper said, looking up. ‘I. . I heard it too.’

‘Really?’ Lenk asked, more in sarcasm than genuine curiosity. ‘So tell me, why didn’t you go insane?’

‘She’s not sensitive to magic,’ Dreadaeleon said, ‘I am.’

‘If she’s not sensitive, then how did she hear it at all?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dreadaeleon said, shaking his head. ‘It’s possible that-’

He cut himself off and fell back against the rock, his face screwed up in pain as he clutched his skull.

‘What now?’ Lenk asked, an inkling of concern seeping through his anger.

‘Magic headache,’ Dreadaeleon replied with a halting, pain-filled voice.

‘What?’

‘Wizard’s headache,’ Asper said, a hand going to Dreadaeleon’s shoulder. ‘Magic takes a toll on the body.’

‘If I use magic too much,’ Dreadaeleon replied, breathing hard, ‘or cast too many spells at once, I get a headache.’ He glared up at Lenk through strained eyes. ‘I’ve told you this before.’

Before Lenk could form a reply, he was suddenly aware of a tall figure standing between him and Kataria. He glanced up, startled as he saw Denaos’s concerned face staring down at the wizard.

‘And just where have you been this whole time?’ the young man asked.

‘Asper asked me to get some water for Dread,’ the rogue replied, holding up a bulging waterskin.

‘We have water on the boat,’ Lenk said, casting a glance over his shoulder. ‘Most of the cargo was secured, it shouldn’t be damaged.’

‘True,’ Denaos replied with a nod, ‘but I thought I might as well take a look around, since we may be here a while.’

‘It won’t take that long to fix the ship,’ Lenk replied. ‘With any luck, we’ll be back out on the sea in a day or two.’ His eyes steeled. ‘Every day we’re on land, the Abysmyth’s lead increases. Every day we hesitate, another-’

‘We’re on it.’

‘What?’

‘We’re here.’ He stomped the earth. ‘This is Ktamgi.’

‘How do you know?’

The rogue reached down to pluck a single grain of sand from the beach. He eyed it for a moment before holding it next to Kataria’s midsection.

‘Just a shade whiter, as Argaol said.’ He pulled back his hand before Kataria could slap it. ‘Check the sea charts and you’ll see I’m right.’ He blinked at Lenk suddenly, coughing. ‘Sorry for ruining whatever speech you had, though. I’m sure it was astonishingly inspirational.’

‘When did you learn to read sea charts?’ Asper shot a suspicious glare at the rogue.

‘Around the time I learned how to avoid angry debt collectors by signing on as a deckhand and fleeing the city,’ he replied with a wink, ‘but that’s another story.’ He tossed the waterskin to Dreadaeleon, the wizard making only half an attempt to catch it as it bounced off his face to land in his lap. ‘Drink up, little man.’

‘I see. .’ Lenk said, furrowing his brow in brief thought. ‘Well, if it is as you say, we’ll take a look around, then.’

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to take another moment to berate me for finding the island?’ Dreadaeleon asked with a wry smirk. ‘Or did you perhaps have some praise for me?’

‘What I’ve got for you is a length of steel and few compunctions about where I jam it,’ Lenk snarled. ‘Now shut up before I plug the ship’s hole with your fat head.’

‘Still,’ Asper said, ‘is it wise to move out now?’ She glanced at Dreadaeleon. ‘Everyone’s more than a little roughed up.’

‘We’re not too bad,’ Lenk said, glancing at his arm. ‘We’re only looking for traces of the Abysmyth and the tome.’ He glanced around his companions. ‘If you find it, don’t try to fight it on your own.’ He cast a concerned glare at Gariath. ‘Come and get the rest of us.’

The dragonman merely snorted in reply.

‘How are we even going to hurt it?’ Denaos asked.

‘We’ll worry about that later,’ Lenk said. ‘For now, we just need to find out whether it’s still here and still has the tome.’ He looked disparagingly at the copse of trees and scratched his chin. ‘We might as well spread out to find whatever resources we can.’

‘That makes sense.’ Asper dusted her hands off, rose to her feet. ‘The more food and water we find here, the less we have to use from the ship.’

‘Not to mention that spreading out will make it easier for the Abysmyth to hunt us down and eat our heads,’ Denaos added with a nod. ‘As per usual, your genius cannot be praised with mere-’

‘Yeah, we’re all going to die, I get it,’ Lenk interrupted, waving the rogue away. ‘Anyway, foraging shouldn’t be a problem. Gariath alone can probably sniff-’

He glanced up at the sound of sand crunching beneath massive feet in time to spy Gariath’s wings twitching as the dragonman turned his back to the companions. Without so much as a word, he began to stalk off down the beach, snout occasionally thrust into the air with quivering nostrils.

‘There, see?’ Lenk smiled smugly. ‘That’s what you call community-minded. He’s already got the scent of some food.’

‘You can all starve,’ Gariath replied calmly without looking back. ‘I’m following something else.’

‘What?’

‘Die.’

‘Ah.’ Lenk frowned. ‘He’s in a mood.’ He cast a sidelong glance at Dreadaeleon, gesturing towards the dragonman with his chin. ‘You’d better go with him.’

‘What?’ The boy looked incredulous. ‘Why me? I can barely walk.’

‘“Barely” still translates to “capable”,’ Lenk responded sharply. ‘It’ll be better if we’ve got two hounds on the Abysmyth’s trail.’

‘I’m not sure I follow.’

‘You can sense magic, can’t you?’

‘All wizards can.’

‘And there you have it,’ Lenk replied. ‘While I don’t know if the demon is actually magical in nature, it probably leaves some kind of reek behind that either you or Gariath can follow.’

‘That logic doesn’t entirely hold up.’ Dreadaeleon rose to his feet shakily. ‘Wouldn’t one of us have sensed it before it attacked the Riptide?’

‘Maybe things work differently when it’s out of water.’ Lenk placed a hand on Dreadaeleon’s shoulder. ‘The other reason I’m sending you is to keep an eye on him. If you do find the demon, try your best to keep him away from it until we can all assemble. We don’t want anyone to fight this thing alone.’

The wizard had no sarcasm in reply. Instead, placing an expression of resolution upon his face, he nodded stiffly to the young man, his tiny chest swelling as Lenk offered him an encouraging smile.

‘Beyond that,’ Lenk clapped him on the shoulder, ‘he looks like he’s going to kill someone, and since you crashed the ship, it might as well be you.’

‘That does make sense.’ Denaos nodded.

‘What?’ Dreadaeleon’s eyes flared. ‘You can’t be-’

‘I am.’ With another clap on the shoulder, Lenk sent the boy staggering across the sands in pursuit of the dragonman. ‘Off you go now.’ He had barely a moment to make certain Dreadaeleon was still on his feet ten paces later before he spied Kataria moving away in the opposite direction. ‘Where are you off to?’

‘Hunting,’ she replied, holding up her bow and patting the quiver of arrows upon her back. ‘Gariath is going that way, I’ll go this way.’

‘Fine.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘You don’t have to,’ she muttered in such a way as to indicate that it was not at all a simple suggestion.

‘But I should,’ he said, less firmly than he might have, ‘if only for protection.’ He raised a brow. ‘Is that disagreeable to you?’

‘Slightly,’ she hissed. ‘But if you can keep up, I can’t tell you where to walk.’

And with that, she was gone, vanished into the palm trees like a shadow. A dramatic sigh brought Lenk’s attention to the rogue leaning on the remains of the vessel, staring wistfully into the jungle.

‘Tell me,’ he muttered, ‘why is it that you always get to go with Kataria while I’m left behind?’ A puzzled expression flashed across his face. ‘And what am I supposed to do here, anyway? Not that I’m complaining, but I seem to have been left out of this plot of yours.’

‘The boat needs mending.’ Lenk gestured to the wreckage. ‘You and Asper can tend to it and see if the Abysmyth comes your way.’

‘Oh, good,’ Denaos said, sighing once again. ‘We get to sit here and do busywork while we wait for the demon to come and eat us.’

‘More like appetisers than busyworkers, I’d say.’

Lenk didn’t linger to hear whatever the tall man might have offered in retort. Pausing only for a moment to pluck his sword from the ruined vessel, he slung it over his shoulder and tore off in pursuit of the shict.

With a resigned grunt, Denaos pulled himself up to perch upon the hunk of wood, frowning at the gaping hole between his legs. Definitely some work to be done here, no doubt, and it was work he hardly felt like doing. There’d be wood to find, wood to shape and wood to attach to the ship’s wound.

‘So, you know how to take care of this, right?’ Asper asked, tilting her head at him.

‘It’s not too hard,’ he replied. ‘I did a bit of work under a carpenter back in Redgate.’ He scratched his chin. ‘His name was Rudder, more body hair than flesh. Nice fellow, but a bit handsy when he tossed back a few. So long as you can-’

A sudden movement caught his attention and he glanced over to see Asper busily at work, altering her garments. After a little bit of tearing, she tied a flap of her skirt to each of her legs, securing the fabric with leather strips to form a pair of makeshift leggings. His interest was piqued and he leaned forwards as she rolled up the sleeves of her tunic to her shoulders, exposing firm arms. The faintest hint of a grin appeared on his face as she grabbed the hem of her tunic and rolled it up, tying it off below her chest and baring a slender midsection.

Suddenly aware of his gaze, she looked up with a suspicious glance.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘But that’s quite a bit of skin to show if you’re just mending sails.’

‘You can knit,’ she said, scowling at him as she moved over to the boat and pulled herself inside. After rummaging around in a few crates, she produced a shiny, well-worn hatchet. Leaping from the vessel, she hiked it over her shoulder and glanced at him. ‘There’s wood to be cut. If you’re scared of demons and want to sit here and cry, though …’

He bit his lower lip contemplatively as he watched her go. Truthfully, he had to admit it was a difficult decision: linger here, out in the open where he couldn’t be surprised by anything on two or more legs, or follow a hatchet-wielding, half-clad woman into the forest where he might very well accidentally strangle himself with a vine if insects — or demons — didn’t eat him alive first.

The decision seemed easy, he thought, until he caught one last glimpse of her before she vanished. It was funny, he thought, but he had never noticed the particular delicacy with which her hips swayed.