Tome of the Undergates

Chapter Two

In the span of a breath, colour and sound exploded.

They came surging over the railings in numbers unfathomable, the twisting wire of their tattoos blending together to create some horrible skeleton of black and blue outside the tide of flesh they arrived on. Their zeal was loud, joyous, the song of impending slaughter joined by the humming of their upraised swords and the clinking harmony of the chains they came clambering across.

‘Now, now!’ Denaos cried, lunging at the rigging and pulling a knife out. ‘We can still make it!’

‘What?’ Asper’s expression drifted from incredulous to furious. ‘You were planning on deserting?’

‘Oh, come on,’ the rogue protested sharply, ‘like you weren’t expecting this!’

‘I knew it,’ Quillian snarled. She shoved herself in front of Asper, blade extended. ‘Stay behind me, Priestess. The danger is not yet great enough that I cannot deal with a deserter first.’

‘I say, look lively, gentlemen!’

In the sound of whistling metal, the Serrant was proven violently wrong. The hatchet came whirling over the sailors’ heads, a bird of iron and wood that struck the woman squarely in her chest. A human gong unhinged, she went collapsing to the deck, Asper quickly diving to catch her.

‘Well, there you are,’ Denaos said. ‘Providence. Now, let’s go!’

‘No!’ Kataria’s bow was already in her hand, arrow kissing the string. ‘Even if we get that thing off, we won’t get far.’

As if to reinforce her point, a flock of hatchets came flying over the railings. The bold and unlucky sailors who had rushed forth to intercept the boarders went down under the sound of crunching bone and splashing liquid. The first of the boarders came sweeping over the railing, yet more of the thirsty weapons in their hands.

‘Dread!’ Kataria snarled, seizing the boy by the arm and shoving him forwards. ‘Do something!’

‘Right. . right. .’ He stepped forwards hesitantly. ‘I can. . do something.’ He cleared his throat, then glanced over his shoulder to see if Asper was watching. ‘Er. . you like fire, don’t you?’

‘NOW!’ Kataria shrieked in unison with the wailing weapons.

The boy’s eyes snapped wide open, hand up instinctively as he whirled about to face the onslaught of metal wings. His lips twisted, bellowing a phrase that hurt to hear, crimson light sparking behind his eyes.

The air rippled before him, hatchets slowing in their twisting flight, before finally stopping and falling to the deck.

‘Well, hell,’ Denaos grunted, ‘we can just have him do that and we’ll be fine!’

‘We can’t leave!’ Asper protested. ‘Quillian is hurt.’

‘So she can stay behind and be a decoy!’ the rogue retorted. ‘Am I the only one who’s thinking here?’

‘We don’t have time for this,’ Kataria growled. Her eyes, along with everyone else’s, turned towards Lenk, who was watching the ensuing fight impassively. ‘What do we do?’

He did not hear them. He did not feel her hand on his shoulder. Everything seemed to die; the wind ceased to blow, the sky ceased to move, the sea ceased to churn. He felt his eyes closing of their own volition, as though something reached out with icy fingers and placed them on his eyelids.

And that something reached out, whispered on a breathless voice into his ear.

When he opened his eyes again, there were no more enemies. There were no Cragsmen, no pirates, no sailors rushing forth to meet them. All he could see before him were fields of wheat, swaying delicately in the wind he could not feel. All he could hear was the whisper of their insignificance.

All he could feel was the blade in his hand and his boots moving under his feet.

‘Lenk! LENK!’ Kataria shrieked after him as he tore away from them, rushing to the railing.

‘Well, fine,’ Denaos said, ‘see? He volunteered to be the decoy. It’s a non-issue.’

The others fell silent; she continued to shout. He still didn’t hear her. The timbers quaked under him as several pairs of feet added their rhythm to his charge. Emboldened by his actions, possibly, or spurred on by the wordless call to battle Argaol sent from the helm.

He didn’t care.

His eyes were for the pirates that just now set their feet upon the timbers. His ears were for the sound of their last hatchets flying past his ears and over his head as he ducked low. His blade was for the man that just now set a hand upon the railing.

The sword lashed out quickly, catching the boarder by surprise as the Cragsman looked to see where his projectile had landed. It bit deeply, plunging below the pirate’s breastbone and sinking into his flesh.

His breath lasted an eternity, even as his mouth filled with his own life. The pirate looked down to see his own horror reflected in the steel, then looked up and Lenk saw his own eyes reflected in his foe’s unblinking gaze as the light guttered out behind them.

Chaff from wheat.

He pulled hard, his blade wedged so deeply in the man that he came tumbling onto the deck. Lenk smashed his boot against the man’s throat and pulled again, jerking his sword free in a spattering arc.

His senses were selective, ignoring the sound of sailors colliding into their foes in favour of the sound of feet coming up behind him. He whirled, lashing out with his blade, not caring who it was that had dared to try to ambush him.

Sparks sputtered in a quick and hasty embrace as his sword caught the pirate’s cutlass. It was enough to drive the man back with a surprised grunt, enough to give Lenk room to manoeuvre. He sprang backwards, felt something collide with his heel.

He looked.

A sailor; he recognised the face, if not the name. Such a task was difficult though, given that a hatchet had lodged itself in said visage, leaving little more than half a gasping mouth and one very surprised eye. At that, Lenk’s own eyes widened and the world returned to him.

Battle.

He could barely remember what had brought him this far: the fields of wheat, the unmoving sky and the silent screaming. What stood before him now was not something to be scythed down carelessly, but a man, towering and swinging his cutlass wildly.

Surprised, but not shocked, Lenk brought his blade up to defend. He felt the blow more solidly this time, shaking down to his bones. Behind his opponent, other tattooed, leering faces erupted over the railings, rushing to meet the defenders. He heard feet shuffling, bodies hitting the deck behind him. He was surrounded.

Imbecile, he thought. At what point did this seem like a good idea? His foe swung again, he darted to the side. Charging headlong? Who does that? He lunged, sought the pirate’s chest and caught his blade instead. Well, Gariath does, but he’s. . well, you know.

An errant kick caught him, sent him staggering backwards. His foe, apparently, had long legs. Long arms, too, Lenk noted; this wouldn’t be a fight he could win if it continued to be this dance.

Run away, he thought, escape through the crowd and you can-

Kill.

No, no! Stop that! You just have to get away long enough to-

Fight.

NO! If. . if you can’t escape, just keep him busy. Keep him distracted long enough for Denaos to stab him in the back or Kataria to shoot him in the neck or-

Alone.

‘What?’ he asked his own thoughts.

He whipped his gaze about the carnage that the deck had become. He could see flesh, faces rising up and down from a sea into which the sailors and Cragsmen had blended seamlessly. But they were only faces filled with fear or covered in tattoos. He could see no sign of a skinny youth, a tall and lanky cockroach, a flashing silver pendant.

Or, he noted ruefully, twitching ears and bright green eyes.

Whatever twinge of despair he might have felt must have made itself apparent on his face, for when he turned his attentions back to his opponent, the Cragsman had discarded his battle-hardened concentration in exchange for an amused grin.

‘I say, dear boy,’ he said, ‘you look to be possessed of a touch of the doubting dung beetle.’

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Lenk grunted in reply, hoisting his blade up before him.

‘More’s the pity, I suppose. Had you, indeed, succumbed to the previous hypothesis of being a man of the utmost practicality and, synonymously, cowardice, I would have invited you to congenially excuse yourself from the anticipated social of disaster about to be wreaked.’

Lenk blinked. ‘I’m sorry, did you just offer me an escape route or invite me to tea?’ He made a half-hearted thrust at the man, who easily darted away. ‘Either way, you would seem to be in a poor position to guarantee either. You’re not the captain.’

‘Indeed. Our dearest chum and astute tutor Rashodd has excused himself from this particular bloody fete to better assure you of his honour. All we wish to partake of is the women in your charter, as well as a portion of your cargo, us being pirates and all.’ He tilted his head slightly. ‘And a particular priest who has decided to associate himself with your uncouth captain.’

Lenk drew back at the mention, suddenly cocking a brow.

‘Evenhands?’

‘Ah, the delicate ladies of your employ would certainly be unimpressed at the object of your concern, sir.’

‘What do you want with the Lord Emissary?’

The Cragsman offered a smirk coy as he could manage with lips like a shedding centipede. ‘A proper gentleman never tells,’ the pirate said, advancing upon the young man and grinning as his opponent took a step backwards. ‘Unfortunately, in the time it took to deliver that stirring bout of eloquence, my patience, and thusly the offer, did decline. Alas. .’ He raised his cutlass high. ‘Generosity wasted is generosity insulted, as they-’

He was interrupted suddenly by the sound of an out-of-tune lute being plucked, followed by a whistling shriek that ended in a wet, warm punctuation. The pirate jerked suddenly, he and Lenk sharing the same expression of confusion before they both looked down to see the arrow’s shaft quivering from between two of the Cragsman’s ribs.

‘Ah,’ he slurred, mouth glutted with red, ‘that would do it, wouldn’t it?’

Lenk watched him until he stopped twitching, then turned his stare upwards.

He caught sight of Kataria’s smile first, her canines broad and prominent over the heads of the combatants as she stood upon the railing. She held up a hand, wiggling four slender fingers before scampering up the rigging, a trio of Cragsmen at her heels.

It was a well-believed idea of less-practical men that removing oneself from the reach of their opponent was low. Scampering away from them, however, was simply insulting. Kataria doubtlessly knew that. With dexterity better befitting a murderous squirrel, she turned, drew and loosed a pair of arrows at them, giggling wildly as they fell back, one dead, one wounded and the third apparently ready to find easier prey.

The saying was old and well-worn amongst men, but true enough that the pointy-eared savages had adopted it as their own.

Shicts don’t fight fair.

The Cragsmen, too, seemed equally aware of the phrase and voiced their retort in a whirl of thrown hatchets. She twisted, narrowly avoiding the gnawing blades, but found herself caught in the rigging as they glided over her head and bit through the rope. She shrieked, fell, disappeared into the melee.

Go back, was his first thought. Find her. Save her. But his legs were frozen, his head pulling towards another direction. She’s a shict. Savage. She doesn’t need saving. Keep going, keep going and-

Kill. The thought came again, more urgent this time. It hurt his head to think it, chilled his skull as though it came on icy breath. Fight.

He couldn’t help but agree; there would be time enough to worry about Kataria later, likely when she was dead. For the moment, something else caught his attention.

The sound of wheels turning with such force as to be heard over the din of battle reached his ears. A groaning of wood and metal sounded across the gap of the sea. Lenk could see, over the heads of the pirates who remained aboard the Linkmaster to hold their boarding chains steady, a monstrosity being pushed towards the railing.

‘A siege engine?’ he muttered to himself, not being able to imagine what else the wheeled thing might be. ‘If they can afford a damn siege engine, why are they raiding us?’

No answer was forthcoming from either the four Cragsmen pushing it, nor from the visor-bound gaze of Rashodd. It was not them that Lenk looked at, but rather the wisp of a man standing by the side of the titanic captain.

Or at least, Lenk thought it was a man. Swaddled in conservative black where the pirates displayed their tattoos brazenly, the creature’s clothing was the least curious thing about him. He was heads shorter than the others, looking like a mere shadow next to Rashodd, and his head resembled a bleached bone long scavenged of meat: hairless, pale, perfectly narrow.

Whether he saw Lenk staring at him or not, the young man did not know. But as the insignificant person’s lips twisted slightly, the bone showing a sudden marring crack, Lenk couldn’t help but feel as though it was intended for him.

To your left.

The thought came with greater clarity, with greater will, as though it was no longer even a part of his own mind, but another voice altogether. Lenk was highly surprised to hear it.

Not quite as surprised as he was to feel the rounded guard of a cutlass smash against his jaw, however.

He staggered backwards, his heel catching a dead pirate’s arm as though his foe reached out in death. His senses reeled as his sword fell from his hand, his vision blurred as he felt blood trickle down his nose. He looked up, blinking and shaking his head; the first thing he made out, shortly before the tattoos, was a long, banana-coloured grin.

‘It could hardly be said of me that so noble a man of the Crags does not endeavour to make good on his word,’ the pirate said. ‘But I do beg your pardon, kind sir. You do us no honour by sitting quietly and watching.’ He looked down at the man Lenk had tripped over and frowned. ‘Nor by the theft of so fine a fellow as this gentleman was to me.’

‘I’m. . sorry?’ Lenk’s voice was hoarse and weak, his hands trembling as he reached for his fallen sword.

‘Ah, of course, your apology is accepted with the utmost gratitude,’ the pirate replied. ‘Even if the idea of repairing such egregious breaches of conduct is more than a tad absurd.’

His fingers felt numb, unable to sense the warmth of the hilt, the chill of the steel. He tried to regain his footing, the ringing in his skull and the uncertainty beneath his feet conspiring to keep him down. The Cragsman seemed less than concerned with the young man rising, if his very visible pity was any suggestion.

‘I don’t suppose it would help if I said I wouldn’t do it again?’ Lenk asked, trying to talk through his dizziness.

‘I’m more than a mite remorseful to inform you that such would hardly be the proper retort.’ The pirate shook his head and levelled his blade at the young man’s face. ‘Regrettably, this is the point in proper protocol where we resolve and absolve alike through the gouging of eyes and spilling of entrails upon the uncaring deck, if you’ll excuse the crudeness.’

‘Ah.’

Absently, Lenk regretted not having thought of something better for his last words.

That thought was banished as his hands thrust up weakly, catching the pirate’s wrist and holding the blade fast a hair’s length away from his face. The gesture was futile, both Lenk and his foe knew; his arms trembled, his fingers could not feel the skin and metal they sought to hold back. His breath gave up before he did, becoming short, rasping gasps in his throat.

He clenched his jaw, shut his eyes, felt his arms begin to yield.

No.

That thought lasted for but a moment, while the moment existed as a drop of moisture on the pirate’s blade, dangling for a silent eternity. Lenk felt his breath run cold in his lungs, felt his blood freeze in his veins and time with it.

Fight.

His muscles did not strengthen beneath his skin, rather they denied strength entirely in favour of the frigid fingers that crept through him. In one long, cold breath, he felt the numbness sweep up his arms, into his chest.

Into his mind.

Deny!

The thought grew stronger, louder with every twitch of his hands, every fingerbreadth he gave to the blade. It echoed through his head, down into his chest, into an arm that involuntarily broke from his opponent’s grip and sought his fallen blade.

Through shut eyes, he could see the moment dangling off his opponent’s sword.

He felt it drop.

‘KILL!’

Blue flashed, pitiless and cold, behind his eyelids. Eyes not his own stared back into him. Teeth that were not his clenched. Fingers that were not his gripped a hilt. The thought did not leap to his mind, did not whisper inside him.

It had a voice.

It spoke.

Lenk felt something move, a snap of cold air that sent his hair whipping about his face. He opened his eyes and stared down the long steel blade of a sword he didn’t remember swinging, life dripping down it, upon which the Cragsman’s shock was violently etched.

He looked up, just as surprised as his opponent, and met the man’s eyes. No fear this time, no moment of futile hope and extinguished life. The pirate stared at him with eyes that could reflect nothing, the blow having come too swiftly to grant him even the privilege of a horrified death.

He mouthed, ‘No fair.’

And fell to the deck.

The numbness did not flee from Lenk’s limbs, but rather seeped into his body, as water disappearing into the earth. He felt suddenly weak, legs soft under a body suddenly unbearably heavy, breath offensively warm and jagged in his throat.

Slowly, he staggered to his feet. Slowly, he felt the sun again, heard the din of battle. But the warmth was faint, the sounds distant. He could feel the chill, he was aware of it as he was of his own shadow. It seeped away, dissipated into blood that began to run warm, leaving only a single thought given a voice behind.

‘More.’

‘What?’ he gasped, his own voice suddenly alien to himself.

‘More.’

‘I. . I don’t-’

‘MORE, YOU IDIOT! THERE’S MORE COMING!’

Argaol’s roar came from the helm with desperation. Lenk glanced up to see four sailors locked in combat with a pair of Cragsmen, desperately trying to keep the blade-wielding pirates away from their captain with their staves. The dark man himself looked directly at Lenk, pointing to the railing.

He shrieked, of course, as he usually did when addressing the young man, but Lenk didn’t hear him. He didn’t need to as he saw two more tattooed men leap from a boarding chain onto the deck. Instead of rushing towards the battle to aid their fellows, they instead cast wary looks about, hungry eyes and bare feet immediately setting off for the companionway.

Evenhands.

‘Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.’

A curse for every step as he charged after the boarders. Ironic, he thought absently as he pushed his way through the melee, that moments ago he was ready to leave the Lord Emissary to die. Then again, it was hardly surprising; so long as he had been hit in the face once today, he might as well get paid for it.

Which wasn’t likely to happen if his employer was gutted below decks.

‘Protect the charter, boys!’ Argaol roared to his own crew. ‘Protect the Lord Emissary! The Gods demand it and smile on us for it!’

Lenk’s pace was quick as he leapt over bodies, side-stepped brawls, darted around stray blades. The battle raged with no clear victor; he passed corpses both familiar and tattooed. But the sailors held, the Cragsmen had not overrun them yet, and the two boarders were not as swift as Lenk was. For a moment, he felt a rush of victory as he drew closer.

For a moment, he thought that maybe the Gods did smile upon him.

That belief died with the sudden twist of an ankle and a shriek as he recalled that the Gods loved irony far more than they loved their servants. He hit a patch of red-tinged seawater, his boot slid out from under him and he went sprawling, sword clattering to the deck.

There was barely enough time to spew out a curse before he lunged to his feet, seizing his weapon. Too late; he saw the two boarders vanish into the shadows of the companionway, laughter anticipating the impending looting ringing in their wake. Once inside, they would easily lose any pursuit in the maze of cargo holds and cabins, chopping up passengers at will, cutting and pillaging in a few breaths. And he was too late to stop it.

Too late, too late, too late, too late, too-

Stop it! Stop, he scolded himself as he forced his boots into a run. Fight first, fear later.

Just as the darkness of the companionway loomed up before him like a gaping maw, he was forced to skid to a halt. Something squirmed in the shadows. Someone screamed.

He threw himself to the side just in time to see the body of one of the invaders sail through the air, landing limply on the deck with his neck twisted at an angle at which necks clearly were not meant to twist.

‘G-GET AWAY FROM ME!’ the remaining pirate squealed from inside. He came shrieking out of the gloom, weapon lost, mouth gibbering. ‘MONSTER! THEY’VE GOT A GODS-DAMNED DRAG-’

His scream died in his throat, his feet torn from the deck as a great red arm ending in a set of brutal claws reached out from the darkness to wrap about his neck. The hand tightened, the sound of bones creaking between its massive fingers. Lenk cringed, but only for a moment. He knew the smile that then spread across his face was unwholesome, but he could hardly help himself.

The sight of Gariath brought out all sorts of loathsome emotions in people.

The dragonman emerged from the companionway, holding the writhing pirate aloft with an arm rippling with crimson muscle. He surveyed the battle through black eyes, his captive a mere afterthought.

The expression across his long snout was unreadable as he swung his horned head back and forth. The ear-frills at the side of his head twitched in time with the leathery wings folded on his massive back, as if stretching after a long nap.

‘I thought you weren’t coming up,’ Lenk said.

Gariath looked down at the young man, who only came up to the lowest edge of his titanic chest. He sneered, far more unpleasantly than either Lenk or Kataria could ever hope to, baring rows of sharp, ivory teeth.

‘It was stifling below,’ he grunted. ‘I came up for air and find humans dying.’ He glanced over the melee. ‘I can’t say I’m not pleasantly surprised.’

He became aware of the captive pirate thrashing in his hand, pounding at the thick red wrist wrapped in a silver bracer. His scaly eye-ridges furrowed as he turned to the companionway.

His snarl was short and businesslike as he slammed the pirate’s face against the wooden doorframe, staining it red. His roar was loud and boastful as he drove it forwards again, bone fragments splintering with the frame. His snort was quick and derisive as he crushed the pirate once more, reducing a formerly grisly visage to featureless red pulp. Already bored with his now-unmoving prey, the dragonman dropped him to the deck, raising a clawed foot to rest upon his head.

‘Who needs to die?’ he asked.

‘Pirates,’ Lenk replied.

Gariath ran his obsidian glare from one end of the ship to the other in long, patient stares.

‘Which ones are the pirates?’

‘What do you mean, “Which ones are the pirates?”’

‘You all look the same to me,’ Gariath grunted, folding his arms over his chest. ‘Ugly, stupid, smelly.’

‘So look for the ugliest, stupidest and smelliest ones and give it your best guess,’ Lenk replied. ‘Are you going to help or not?’

The dragonman’s thick red legs tensed. His weight shifted to the foot resting on the pirate’s skull. Lenk winced and turned away at the sound of something cracking, the sight of something grey and sticky oozing out onto the blood-soaked deck. Gariath snorted.

‘Maybe.’

Contrary to what her elders had said of the teeming race, Kataria didn’t find humans entirely awful. The only thing that truly annoyed her about them was their grossly underrated ability to adapt. It was a subject of routine discussion amongst those few shicts who grew old enough to stop killing their round-eared foes and start theorising about better ways to kill them.

‘They’re just monkeys, of course,’ it had often been said. ‘They spend their whole lives searching for food and, when they don’t find it, they just run around in circles, smelling their fingers and eating their own scat.’

In the year since she had followed a silver-haired man out of the woods, she had been keeping track of her own addenda that she might someday offer by the fire. And, as the possibility of her living that long quickly began to dwindle, she thought, not for the first time, that the elders’ description neglected to mention that, when faced with food, humans proved particularly motivated.

And the Cragsmen surrounding her proved to be particularly clever monkeys.

Should’ve stayed in the rigging, she told herself, should’ve climbed back up. Easier target for hatchets, sure, but you could’ve shot more of them.

She had hardly expected them to figure out what arrows were, much less corner her against the railing. But they had adapted; they had found her, pursued her, showing the extreme discourtesy of not giving her enough room to shoot them.

And now a trio of them surrounded her, their eyes locked on the gleaming arrowhead that drifted menacingly from body to body.

One shot. One arrow was all that kept them at bay, each one hesitant to rush, to force her to choose him to plant the angry metal seed in. After that, they would be upon her faster than she could pull another one free of her quiver.

Her ears twitched, recalling the threats and declarations they had inflicted upon her from the safety of their ship. Those same threats, that same hunger lurked behind their eyes now, dormant for fear that she would see them in their gazes and extinguish them with an arrow.

The sea roared behind her; the terror of humans was an invitation for her. It would be better that way, she knew, to kill one and then hurl herself into the froth. She would die, certainly, but it was infinitely better than the alternative, better than submitting to the human disease.

A bit late for that, isn’t it? she asked herself, resentful. She forced that from her head, though, determined to think.

Options were unsurprisingly limited, however: shoot and die in the sea, shoot and die in the arms of a human. . skip the third party and just shoot herself?

‘Get down, Kat!’

She heard Asper’s voice first, Dreadaeleon’s second. The instant she recognised the alien babble emanating from the boy’s mouth, she fell to the deck as her assailants looked to the source.

Then screamed.

Fire roared over her head in a wicked plume, the smell of stray strands of her own hair burning filled her nostrils. The stench of burning flesh, however, quickly overpowered it, just as the angry howl of flame overpowered the shrieks of the Cragsmen. She could feel the deck reverberate as feet thundered past her, carrying walking pyres over the railing to plunge into the water below with a hiss.

She got up, patted her head for any stray flames, then looked at the fast-fading plumes of steam rising from the sea.

That works, too.

‘Are you all right?’ Asper’s voice was joined by the sound of bronze on wood as she dragged Quillian to the shict’s position. ‘One moment. I can check you over as soon as-’

‘Oh, yes, sure, be certain to check her over.’ Dreadaeleon wore a look of ire as he walked beside her, one hand folded neatly behind him, the other flicking embers from his fingers. ‘I mean, it’s not like I did something incredible like conjure fire from my own body heat.’

‘Like that’s hard,’ Kataria growled. She pointed out to sea. ‘Those don’t count, by the way.’

‘Don’t. . what?’

‘Only kills you do yourself count. Wizard kills aren’t real kills.’

‘Real kills?’ Asper looked up, disgusted. ‘These are human lives we’re taking!’

‘We?’ Kataria asked with a sneer. ‘What did you do aside from try to choke me with moral indignation?’

‘I. .’ The priestess stiffened, looking down with a frown. ‘I can fight.’

‘Don’t waste your breath on a reply, Priestess,’ came a mutter from the deck, ire unimpeded by her barely conscious stagger. Quillian rose to her feet on trembling legs, turning a scowl upon the shict. ‘One can hardly expect in-humans to understand things like mercy and compassion.’

‘What? Your sword is just for show, then?’ Kataria asked, smiling.

Quillian did not smile back, did not even offer a reply.

Perhaps it was the clarity that the hatchet blow had robbed her of that caused the Serrant’s mask of contempt to crack, or perhaps it was that she simply didn’t want to bother keeping it up anymore. But in that moment, the displays of righteous indignation and palls of virtuous disgust fell away from Quillian’s face.

Hate remained in abundance.

It was a pure hate that Kataria had seen before, albeit rarely, a hate that flowed like an ancestral disease. Quillian hated Kataria, hated her mother, hated her father, hated everything with pointed ears as she hated nothing else, not even the pirates swarming about the deck.

‘Go! GO! He’ll kill us all!’

Or running, anyway, she thought as a tattooed blur rushed past her.

The moment of tense readiness collectively and quickly faded into befuddlement as the Cragsmen rushed towards the companions and then, without even looking, right past them. Precious steel was forgotten, wounded men were ignored, terror shone through every inked face. Kataria watched, baffled and wondering whether shooting them in the back counted.

More men rushed past, these ones belonging to the Riptide’s crew. She knew the source of the panic before she even turned about, much less before she heard the screaming.

‘MONSTER!’ one of the Cragsmen howled. ‘RUN, GENTS! THE LOUTS BROUGHT A BLOODY DRAGONMAN!’

Blood-soaked, she thought, would be a more accurate descriptor of the towering creature striding casually after them. A small heap of broken bodies, twisted limbs and ripped flesh lay behind him: the brave and foolish few who had decided he might not be quite as tough as he looked.

Gariath looked as unconcerned as someone covered in gashes and blood could be. Almost bored, she thought, as he stepped upon, rather than over, the bodies before him, continuing a slow pursuit after the fleeing pirates.

That expression gave her the courage to shoot him a pair of scowls. Once for his cold, arrogant stride when he clearly had only about one more kill to his name than she did, if that. Her deepest scowl, accompanied by a matching frown, was for the fact that he walked alone.

Lenk was nowhere to be seen.

‘Stop running, rats,’ Gariath growled. ‘The Rhega were made for better fights than you can offer.’

A body stirred on the deck. A Cragsman, apparently trying to hide amongst his dead fellows, came sprinting off the deck, only to crash back down as a corpse selfishly tripped him.

He did not remain there for long, however.

‘No! NO!’ he shrieked, a pair of clawed hands gripping him by the heels. ‘GET AWAY, BEAST!’

‘Oh, Talanas.’ Asper flashed a sickened look as Gariath pulled the man off the deck. ‘Gariath, don’t.’

The dragonman didn’t seem to notice her, much less acknowledge her words. Kataria stepped forwards, looking past his terrified victim and into his black eyes.

‘Where’s Lenk?’

He looked at her as he might an insect, shrugging.

‘Dead?’ she asked.

‘Probably,’ he grunted. ‘He’s human. Small, stupid. . not quite as stupid as the rest of you, but still-’

‘Put me down,’ the Cragsman pleaded, ‘please. PLEASE!’

‘Shut up,’ Kataria snarled at him. Her eyebrows rose suddenly. ‘Wait a moment.’ She knelt before him, looking into eyes that threatened to leap from their sockets. ‘Did you kill a silver-haired man?’

‘Looks kind of like a silver-haired child,’ Dreadaeleon piped up.

‘You’re one to talk,’ Asper replied snidely, ‘and he’s not that short.’

‘I. . I didn’t kill anyone! I swear!’ the pirate squealed.

‘You’re only making this more unpleasant.’ Gariath sighed. ‘Shut up and see if you can’t die without soiling yourself.’

‘How come you didn’t watch him?’ Kataria asked the dragonman.

‘If he can’t watch himself, he deserves whatever happens to him.’ Gariath snorted. ‘Hold that thought.’

‘NO!’ the man screamed as his captor pried his legs apart with no great effort. ‘It’s. . it’s all cultural! I was pressed into service! Please! PLEASE!’

One by one, groans of impending horror escaped the companions. No one dared to look up, much less protest, as Gariath drew his leg back like a hammer and aimed squarely between the pirate’s legs. Kataria stared for as long as she could, until the sight of the dragonman’s grin finally made her look down.

There weren’t hands big enough to block out the crunching sound that followed.

She looked up just in time to see a flash of red and brown as Gariath tossed the man overboard like fleshy offal. That, she knew, was about as much honour as he would offer creatures smaller than himself. That thought, as well as his massive, suddenly wet foot, kept her tense as she addressed him.

‘We have to go back,’ she said, ‘we have to find Lenk.’

He glanced over his shoulder. ‘No.’

‘But-’

‘If he’s alive, he’s alive,’ he snorted. ‘If he’s dead. . no great loss.’

He’s right, you know, she told herself. It’s one human. There are many of them. You shouldn’t want to look back, shouldn’t care. It’s one human, one more disease.

She sighed, offering no further resistance as he pushed his way past her, trying to convince herself of the truth of her thoughts as he moved through the companions. No one bothered to stop him. No one she cared about, at least.

‘So!’ Quillian placed a bronzed hand on her hip, unmoving as Gariath walked forwards. ‘The battlefield is further profaned by the presence of abominations? There is hardly any redemption for this-’

‘Shut up.’

The dragonman’s grunt was as thunderous as the sound of the back of his hand cracking against the Serrant’s face. Her armour creaked once as she clattered to the deck and again as he stepped on and over her.

‘What. . I. .’ Asper gritted her teeth at his winged back. ‘I just pulled her off the ground!’

‘Don’t encourage him,’ Kataria warned. ‘Come on. We look for Lenk. Gariath handles the rest.’

‘Oh, is that all?’ Dreadaeleon pointed over her shoulder. ‘There’s one part of our problem solved, then.’ He coughed. ‘By me.’ He sniffed. ‘Again.’

She turned, fought hard to hide her smile at the sight of the young man rushing across the deck. That task became easier with every breath he drew closer. For with every breath, she saw the blood on his sword, the uncharacteristic fury in his stride. .

The angry cold in his narrowed eyes.

‘Does this mean we have to help Gariath?’ Dreadaeleon asked, sighing.

She ignored him, cried out to the other short human.

‘Lenk!’

‘Chain,’ he grunted as he sped past. ‘CHAIN!’

It occurred to him, vaguely, that the voice snarling those words from his mouth was not entirely his. It occurred to him that she looked at him with those same, studying eyes and he had ignored her. It occurred to him that he was weary, dizzy, surrounded by death and rushing heedlessly into more.

What did not occur to him was that he should stop.

Something was driving him like a horse, spurring him on. Something compelled his feet to move beneath him, to ignore the footsteps following him. Something forced his hand on his sword, his eyes on the mother chain.

Something spoke.

‘Go.’

The chain grew larger with every step, as did the sight of the crimson hulk in the corner of his eye. Gariath had stopped before the chain, muscles tensed and quivering. No matter, Lenk thought, he must keep going, he must fight, he must obey the need within him.

In some part of his mind, he knew this to be wrong. He felt the fear that crept upon him, the terror that the voice was some part of the void to which his mind was slowly being lost. Madness; what else could it be? What else could compel him to fight, to rush into impossible odds? What else could override reason and logic with its own frigid thoughts?

‘Stop.’

He obeyed, not knowing what else he could do.

The reason became apparent quickly enough, reflected in the jagged head of a bloodied axe clenched in meaty, tattooed paws. The Cragsman was massive, apparently of the same stock that had bred the giant Rashodd, with grey hair hanging about a grizzled visage in wild braids.

He stood upon defiant legs, regarding the companions with eyes unwary, challenging them to take the mother chain. Lenk looked past his massive shoulders to the chain itself, swaying precariously as leathery bodies twisted over each link.

‘Reinforcements.’

‘And this one’s the vanguard,’ Lenk grunted in reply to the thought.

‘Meant for me. .’

Lenk glanced up at the dragonman as he heard the others come to a halt behind him.

‘What?’

‘This is it,’ Gariath whispered, taking a step forwards. ‘This one was made for me.’

‘That’s stupid,’ Kataria said, ‘I can put an arrow in him from-’

‘MINE!’

She recoiled, with everyone else, as he whirled on her, teeth bared and claws outstretched. ‘Those other ones were weak, stupid. This one. .’ He turned back to the massive man, snorting. ‘I might die.’

She blinked. ‘What?’

‘More than a chance of that, dear boy,’ the vanguard boomed, hefting his weapon over his shoulder. ‘Defiance of man’s law is our trade, but expunging an abomination is the work of the Gods, I am assured.’

‘Yes.’ Gariath’s eyes lit like black fires, his hands tightened into fists. ‘Yes.’ His wings unfurled behind him, tail lashing angrily. His jaws craned open, a roar tore free from his throat. ‘YES!’

‘COME, DEMON!’ the Cragsman howled, beating his chest. ‘COME AND TASTE THE-’

His speech was cut short as his body stiffened with a sudden spasm. He smacked his lips, furrowed his brow, as though he had just forgotten what he was going to say. When he opened his mouth to finish the challenge, a faint trickle of red appeared at his lips.

‘Well. . that’s. .’ The light behind his eyes extinguished along with the fire in Gariath’s as the pirate collapsed to his knees. ‘That’s. .’ He groped uncertainly at his chest, seeking to scratch an itch beneath the skin. ‘That’s. . rather …’

He fell face down. A bright-red flower bloomed from his neck, dripping onto the wood.

Denaos’s grin was short-lived as he looked at his companions, wiping clean the long knife in his hands.

‘That one was MINE!’ Gariath exploded in a roar, the deck shaking with the force of his stomp. ‘He was put here to fight ME!’

‘He just crawled over the chain, actually,’ Dreadaeleon said quietly.

‘You gutted him like a fish!’ Asper said, grimacing at the corpse. ‘You killed him as if he was nothing!’

‘Is that. . praise?’ Denaos shook his head. ‘No, no. Of course, you’re whining. Isn’t that typical? I’m demeaned for not killing anyone and the moment I save us all some trouble by indulging in an act of practical butchery, I’m suddenly at fault?’

‘I never asked you to take a life,’ Asper protested.

‘You don’t even think that it might be necessary!’ Kataria spat back. ‘If you had your way, we’d all sit around praying to some weak round-ear god for an answer while they sodomised us with steel!’

‘Don’t talk to her like that!’ Dreadaeleon piped up, trying hard not to wither under her scowl. ‘She’s right to have conviction, even if it is in imaginary beings on high.’ He blinked, eyes going wide. ‘Did I say that part aloud or think it?’

A hand cracking against his head made a proper answer.

‘Who told you to even scurry out of your hole, rat?’ Gariath growled. ‘You were meant to eat filth and drink your own tears. The Rhega,’ he thumped his chest, ‘were made to kill and die.’

‘Plenty of time for the latter,’ Denaos replied, holding his arms out wide. ‘Humanity didn’t fight its way to the top of the food chain to be condescended to by lizards.’

Well, that figures, Lenk thought to himself. The one time he musters the spine to confront someone, it’s one of our own.

‘Useless. .’ the voice muttered.

Agreed. He blinked. No, wait. Don’t talk to it.

‘Fight.’

Fight back! Resist! It’s madness, you know it’s madness! You aren’t mad! You can-

‘NOW.’

The voice came with a sudden insistence, a frigid howl that drowned out the sounds of argument, the sounds of clinking chains. The voice left no room for fear or for thought as it gnashed its teeth, fangs sinking into his brain, grinding his skull between them, filling his mind with fury.

‘Command.’

‘S-stop …’ he whimpered.

‘Lead!’

‘Hurts-’

‘KILL!’

‘STOP!’

He didn’t know how loud he had screamed, but everyone had snapped to attention. He didn’t know what expression he wore on his face that caused them to look at him so.

He didn’t care.

‘Dread,’ he snarled, pointing to the chain, ‘burn them.’

‘Right. .’ the boy said, swallowing hard and moving towards the links. ‘But I need time to-’

‘NOW!’

No time even to stutter an agreement, the cold rigidity in Lenk infected Dreadaeleon as well. His fingers knotted together in a gesture that was painful to watch, his lips murmured a language that was painful to hear. Lenk watched him open his eyes, watched the crimson energy flower from behind his eyelids as tiny electric sparks began to dance along his sleeves.

‘Enemies.’

‘Right,’ Lenk muttered, spying the hatchet-bearing pirates move to the chain on the Linkmaster. ‘Kat.’

‘Uh-huh,’ she replied, already drawing the fletching to her cheek. The arrows sang in ugly harmony, wailing from her string to catch them in the throat and chest. She wasted no time in turning a smug grin upon Gariath. ‘I win.’

‘What. .’ Asper asked, her voice as hesitant as her trembling hands, ‘what should I do?’

‘What can you do?’ Lenk replied coldly, his mind focused on other things.

No cry had arisen from the Linkmaster, none of the collective panic that had plagued them upon Gariath’s appearance, not so much as a harsh word from Rashodd. The pirates simply took a collective step backwards, their expressions unnervingly serene. Even Rashodd appeared not at all displeased as failure loomed in his iron-clad face.

Why?

They parted like a wave of flesh, opening up a space at the railing. Lenk’s eyes widened.

The siege engine.

It rolled to the railing, a mass of iron and wood whose immediate purpose he could not decipher. A ballista? Of course, how else would they have got the chain across? Then why weren’t they firing it?

‘What are they waiting for?’

No answer was heard over the sound of Dreadaeleon’s chant as it rose to an echoing crescendo. The sparks that were birthed on his sleeves grew into full electric snakes, crackling eagerly as they raced down his arms and into his knuckles. He extended his fingers, trembling as though they sought to jump free of their fleshy prisons, and knelt down to press two single fingers against the chain.

‘Yes …’

It came too quick for anyone to scream, the lightning leaping from his fingers and onto the chain with electric vigour. Men became insects in a hail of sparks, tattoos lost amidst the blackening of skin. They collapsed, fell into the water and were lost to the tide.

‘Good.’

‘Gariath,’ Lenk muttered.

The crimson hulk stared down at him for a moment, eyes narrowed, challenging him to give an order. Whatever the others had seen in Lenk that made them obey, he didn’t see it or didn’t care.

Inside his head, Lenk’s mind clenched, as if agitated that the dragonman would not obey. Whether he finally resisted out of inner discipline or pure fear, Lenk kept such ire from reaching his lips. He did not break his stare from Gariath’s black gaze, did not back down.

And when Gariath finally did move to the chain, he did not care why. He looked, instead, to the deck of the pirate ship and their siege engine. He spied the shadow there again, the man with the bone for a head who looked like some displaced spectre amongst the crowd. Again, the man met Lenk’s gaze, again the man smiled.

The dragonman hooked his hands into the mother chain’s clawed head, gripping it firmly. Snorting, he gave it a great shake, dislodging a corpse caught by the wrist in its links, throwing off the pirates who still tried to set foot on it. Lenk watched with narrowed eyes and empty thoughts.

Gariath grunted, muscles straining, wood cracking as he began to pull.

The shadow of a man held up a hand, waved it.

‘No.’

Sailors flocked to the railing of the Riptide, roaring challenges at their calm foes.

Two Cragsmen rushed to the engine, pulled a rope.

‘No!’

Gariath’s wings unfurled like great sails, the wind filled with a shower of splinters as the chain’s head came tearing loose. With a great iron wail for its lost charge, the mother chain collapsed into the sea and its little linked children followed, clinking squeals, while the Riptide drank the wind and tore away from its captor.

Men cheered. Denaos and Kataria shared an unpleasant cackle at the victory. Dreadaeleon managed a smile, looking to Asper, who managed a sigh of weary relief. Gariath snorted disdainfully, folding his arms over his chest.

It was too soon for Lenk to rejoice, not while his ears were fixed to a sound.

The siege engine came to life without boulders or spears or arrows. It shifted upon its wooden wheels, an iron monstrosity of spikes and blades, swinging back and forth. It sang.

A church bell, he suspected, by the look and sound, but forged from a mould more misshapen than was intended for any godly instrument. Its chorus was no echoing monotone droning, but something of many voices that sang out in horrid, discordant harmony.

A shriek banged against a moan, raucous laughter scraped against agonised weeping, a wistful sigh ground against a violent roar. The bell spoke. The bell sang. And it did not fade from Lenk’s ears, even as the Linkmaster shrank in his eyes.

‘That was it?’

Lenk turned to see scorn in Gariath’s eyes, the dragonman looking down at him with scaly lips pulled into a snarl. The young man regarded him coldly, forcing the horrid song from his thoughts long enough to meet him with an equally contemptuous look.

‘You got to kill someone, didn’t you?’

‘I barely bled,’ Gariath replied.

‘That’s. . a problem, is it?’

Gariath regarded him carefully for a moment before snorting. He turned, forcing Lenk to duck the sweeping tail that lashed out spitefully behind him, and began to stalk along the deck.

‘Don’t call me again,’ he grunted, ‘unless there’s real blood to be spilled.’

‘One wonders,’ Asper said snidely as he passed, ‘just how much blood needs to be spilled before it qualifies as “real”.’

Gariath did not reply, did not even seem to notice her or the bodies he crushed under his feet. That only seemed to cause her face to contort further, teeth grinding behind her lips. Her voice still brimming with ire, she turned to Lenk.

‘I’m going to help the men remove the bodies, someone has to-’ She hesitated, flinching, and seemed to exhale her anger in one long, weary sigh, offering the young man something of a smile. ‘At least it’s over and we’re safe.’

‘Yes, isn’t that interesting?’ Denaos commented as he walked away. ‘Violence solves yet another problem.’

‘That doesn’t mean I have to like it.’

‘You don’t, of course,’ he replied, ‘but what would you have done differently?’

She looked down, rubbing her arm. ‘Nothing, I suppose. ’

‘Then let us content ourselves with the present, bloody and body-strewn as it may be.’

‘Don’t act like you’re some great warrior,’ Kataria snarled at his back. ‘You were more than willing to run away when it was still an option.’

‘I was,’ he said without turning around. ‘And if we had done as I suggested, there’d be much less dead and we’d all be happy.’ He offered a limp-wristed wave as he headed for the companionway. ‘Let us consider this the next time we all decide that I’m not worth listening to.’

Asper muttered something under her breath, fingering her pendant as she walked towards the sailors who were already pulling up bodies, sighing over their companions and tossing their fallen adversaries over the railing. Dreadaeleon made a move to follow, but staggered, leaning on the railing.

‘I can. .’ He paused to take a deep breath, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow. ‘I can help. I’m. . just a little winded, is all. Strain and all that. Just. . just give me a moment.’

‘Take all the time you need,’ she said coldly. ‘There will be a lot of prayers to be said. I wouldn’t want you to subject yourself to that kind of ordeal.’

He made an awkward attempt to follow her after an even more awkward attempt to retort. Instead, he was left furrow-browed and sneering as he stalked the opposite way, leaning heavily on the railing.

‘As though it’s my fault I’m surrounded by the ignorant masses.’ He stopped, glowering at Lenk. ‘You swing a big piece of metal and make a mess on the deck and you get a smile.’ He poked himself hard in his sunken chest. ‘I electrocute three men as humanely as possible and I’m the heathen?’

‘Well,’ Lenk replied, admiring his own blade, ‘you must admit. . it is pretty large.’

The boy’s face turned as red as his eyes had just been as he staggered past the young man and disappeared into some corner of the ship, muttering under his breath.

Lenk paid it no mind as he walked to the railing and the angry chew-mark where the chain had been dislodged. The Linkmaster continued to dominate the horizon, even as it became a black beetle on the water. Even as its prey continued to outrun it, he could see no hurry aboard, no frenzy of movement as orders were barked for the ship to give chase. It faded into the distance, until he could see nothing of the men aboard it, hear nothing of their voices.

But he continued to hear, continued to see. The bell’s song lingered, echoing inside his head just as loudly as if it were next to him. Just as if they were before him, he could see the black-clad man’s bone-white lips, twisted into a wide and knowing smile.

And, lingering behind them all like gently falling snow, the sound of a thought given a voice, muttering. .

‘Are you aware that we won?’

He whirled about with a start to see Kataria smiling, leaning on her bow. Her eyes were soft now, two emeralds gleaming lazily under heavy lids.

‘If you want to cheer,’ she said, ‘I won’t think any less of you than I already do.’

‘If there’s anyone who should be cheering and demeaning themselves, it’s you,’ he replied, glancing at the cleanup taking place along the deck. ‘Lots of dead humans. . must be a good day for you.’

‘Only a few over a dozen,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Barely a dent in their numbers. Nothing worth celebrating.’

‘You’re aware that I’m human, right? Because, really, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take that remark.’

‘Well, it’s not as if any of the humans I like died.’ She followed his gaze as a drowsy-looking Quillian appeared to assist Asper. ‘In fact, several humans I don’t like survived.’ She sniffed the air, scratched herself. ‘Still, good day.’

Supposedly.

He suspected he should agree; a day that ended with someone else dead instead of himself usually qualified as ‘good’ for an adventurer. He suspected that his next thought should have disturbed him quite a bit more than it did.

This time, dead bodies just aren’t enough.

Had this been a chance raid, some simple act of piracy like he had originally suspected, of course he could take pride in the fact that he could still stab people and thus was still employable. But this hadn’t been a chance raid, there were too many factors screaming that this was something worse.

The calm demeanour of a famously bloodthirsty and deranged breed of murderers, a man who had no business being in the company of such towering and fierce creatures, a bell that sang instead of a ballista that shot.

A chill crept up his spine.

‘Staring. .’

He could feel it immediately, almost heard her eyes turn hard behind him as they bore into him, digging under flesh, searching, studying. He gritted his teeth, tried not to twitch under her gaze. But something inside him lacked willpower. He felt something shift under his skin.

‘Make her stop.’

‘You’re worried.’

When he turned, her smile was gone. He saw her, then, without the heat of battle to cloud his mind. She was weary: sweat slicked her skin and seeped into the cuts on her muscular physique, her hair clung in dirty clumps and the feathers she wore whipped about her wildly. She was the very vision of savagery, the image conjured up when people spat the name ‘shict’.

And she was staring at him with eyes full of concern.

‘You’re thinking.’ Her ears twitched, as if hearing his very thoughts.

His breath caught in his throat at that idea. ‘We won,’ he gasped, ‘they lost.’

She nodded intently.

‘But they didn’t curse. They didn’t scream. Wouldn’t you have?’

‘If we had lost and I wasn’t dead, probably.’

‘They were calm.’ He turned a glower over the sea. ‘They shouldn’t have been.’

A hand was laid on his shoulder. He felt her through the leather of her glove and the cloth of his tunic, felt her heartbeat just as he knew she could hear his. Just as he knew he should pull away, just as he knew that she didn’t touch humans if she wasn’t pulling arrows out of them.

Just as he knew he could not.

Everything went silent inside him. The wailing drone ceased, the smile vanished from his mind. He could feel himself grow warm again, feel the blood pump through him, coursing under her touch.

She turned him to face her, he did not resist. Her eyes were not soft, but not hard. He had no idea what lurked behind her green orbs as she stared into him, just as he had no idea what to do.

‘It’s over,’ she said with a certainty he hadn’t heard from her before. She smiled. ‘Stop thinking.’

He watched her lay her bow upon her shoulders, looping her arms up and over it. Her hair drifted in the breeze and carried the scent of her sweat into his nostrils as she walked away. It filled his breath, now deep and regular again as he repeated calming words to himself.

‘It’s over.’ He rubbed his eyes, laid his sword against the railing and leaned backwards. ‘It’s over.’

He heard the voice. It was soft, fading even as it spoke, but he heard it. He heard it speak a single word, ask a single question.

‘Over?’

And then, he heard it laugh.