Tome of the Undergates

Eighteen

Gariath searched the air with his nose, greeted by the same scents he had encountered before: salt and trees. The stink of paper and ink that followed the human boy wherever he went were lost on the wind and in the dirt, and while he did detect traces of dried animal excrement, they weren’t the odours of the particular excrement the wizard was fond of drinking.

For a time uncountable, Gariath had to pause and wonder why he was even searching.

It was but one more wonder to add to a running, endless list he had been keeping ever since deciding to follow the humans. Chief amongst them, now, was why they insisted on fanning out to search for the little runt. Surely they must have known that he, a Rhega, would find the boy first.

Why even bother attempting to find him without Gariath? Even searching solitarily as he was, there was no chance they would so much as catch a whiff of the boy’s farts before he did. They were too slow, too stupid, their noses too small and underdeveloped.

‘Stupid little. .’ His curses degenerated into wordless mumbles.

Of all the creatures that walked on two legs, he offered grudging, unspoken admiration only to Lenk. Despite the shame of having no family and the humiliation of being shorter than most humans, the young man was bold, disciplined and the only one worthy of something just a shade lower than genuine praise amongst the otherwise useless race.

It was unfortunate that Lenk had chosen to go with the long-eared human. Strong and swift, with a healthy contempt for her round-eared fellows, she might have deserved something a shade lower than what he attributed Lenk, had she not the brain of a squirrel.

The two tall humans were naturally inept at all things: fighting fairly, fighting intelligently and, of course, finding anything. The brown-haired woman was too proud in her false Gods to smell the earth. The rat would run away, leaving a yellow trail, at the first whiff of danger.

And, of course, the human boy had found danger. He was born with a dark cloud over his head, a curse of spirit and body, born of a shamed family and supported by a far more shameful life. The scrawny human was estranged from his father and mother, a wicked omen of itself, and far too feeble to overcome such hardship through the proper channel of bloodshed.

After all, how could one kill to honour one’s family if one’s family was not worth killing over? Most humans suffered from such a fate.

Fortunately for them, their wretched Gods loved them just enough to allow them the privilege of walking in a Rhega’s tracks. The chosen of the spirits, born of red rock shaped by furious rivers, the Rhega were the only creation of the world ever to have turned out right. This, he reminded himself, was why he allowed them to walk behind him. They needed him, as sheep needed rams. How else would they survive?

They’d find a way, he thought with a sigh. Luck and stupidity, both desirable traits to them, were things they had in ample supply.

He sighed again, stuck his nose into the air and inhaled deeply. No stink of human.

And yet, this time, he did not lower his snout.

Instead, he sniffed at the air once again, felt his heart begin to pound, ear-frills fan out attentively. The aroma filled his nostrils with memory and he summoned visions and sounds through the scent: clawed footprints in the earth, wings beating on the air, rain on heavy leather, uncooked meat on grass.

Rivers and rocks.

The boy was forgotten, humans disappeared from his concerns as he fell to all fours and rushed along the ground, following the scent as it wound over roots, under branches, around rocks and through bushes. He followed it as it twisted and turned one hundred times in as many breaths, each time growing fainter.

No, no, no, he whimpered inside his head.

The footprints in the earth became his own as he retraced them.

Not now!

The sound of wings beating on the air became the whisper of waves.

I’ve almost found you. .

The scent of rain was suddenly tinged with salt.

Please, don’t go yet!

Rivers and rocks became sand and surf.

He was on the beach suddenly, the forest behind him and the scent gone, a snake stretched too thin around the tree trunks. He rose, turned and thrust his nose into the air. Nothing filled his nostrils. He inhaled until the inside of his snout was raw and quivering and the stink of salt water made him want to vomit.

And salt water was all he received.

The sensation of weakness was foreign to Gariath. He had not felt weak in such a long time, not when blades kissed his flesh and cudgels bounced off his bones; yet he could remember the feeling well. He had felt it once before, so keenly, when he held two bodies not his enemies’ in his arms, stared into their eyes as rain draped their faces in shrouds of fresh water.

He had collapsed then, too, as he did now.

He had wept, then, too.

Drops of salt clouded his senses, but not so much that he could not perceive the new stink entering his nostrils. He did not stop to consider what it might be, whether it was something he ought or ought not to kill. His sadness twisted to fury as he drank deeply the aroma and began to anticipate when it would soon turn to the coppery odour of blood.

Fuelled by anger, he tore down the beach on all fours. When he sighted his prey, he stopped only to consider how she might die.

She, for it reeked of womanhood, was pale, beyond even the ghostly sheen of the pointy-eared human. She was so pale as to appear insubstantial, as sunlight shimmering on the sea. Hair the colour of a healthy tree’s crown cascaded down her back, its endless verdancy broken only by the large, blue fin cresting her head.

The Abysmyths have such a fin, he thought resentfully.

She was a mess of angles, frail and delicate and wrapped in a wispy sheet of silk that did barely anything to hide the glistening blues and whites of her skin. Through a nose little more than a bony outcropping she exhaled a fine mist. At her neck, what appeared to be feathery gills fluttered.

As vile as she was to behold, the sight of the young boy with stringy black locks in her hands was far more disgusting.

The wizard lay with his head in her lap, a look of contentment creasing his face, as though he were a recently suckled infant. And, as though soothing an infant, the female creature ran webbed fingers through his hair. Through lips a pale blue, she hummed a tune unearthly, one that carried over waves as it carried through the boy, sending both into comatose calmness.

What might temper the sea, however, could not cool the blood of a Rhega. She sought to sing him deaf; his ear-frills twitched. She sought to sing his eyes shut; they widened. She sought to carry his bloodlust from his shoulders; he vowed to set it upon hers with two clawed fists.

The fate of the boy was irrelevant; whether she cradled his ensorcelled breathing body or his ensorcelled corpse, she would find herself in a far deeper sleep than she had put him into.

Gariath’s wings unfurled like red sails. His hands clenched into fists so tight as to bloody his palms. His terrifying roar seized her weak song and tore it apart in the air. Upon all fours once more, he charged, levelling his horned head at her frail, angular mouth.

It would feel good to kill again.

Lenk staggered as he stumbled over a tree root, kicking up damp soil and leaves. With a sigh, he glanced down at the earth; whatever modest trail had been present was now nothing more than a smattering of dirt and tubers. If there ever was a trail there at all, he thought to himself, discouraged. How Kataria routinely made it look so easy, he would never know.

Which begged another question. .

‘Why aren’t you in front?’ he asked over his shoulder.

The shict started at his voice, as she had started at every sneeze, cough and curse to pass his lips for the past half-hour. She quickly composed herself, taking a gratuitous step backwards, placing her even further away from him.

‘It’s good practice,’ she replied quickly. ‘You need to learn this sort of stuff to survive.’

‘Not so long as I’ve got you around.’

‘Well, maybe I won’t always be around,’ she snapped back. ‘Ever think of that, dimwit?’

‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ The question came with a sigh, knowing full well that whatever she wished to tell him, he wished not to hear. ‘You’ve been skittish ever since we left the corpse.’

‘Imagine that,’ she sneered, ‘near-death experiences leave me a bit jumpy.’

‘Sure, jumpy.’ He glanced down to the bow drawn in her hands. ‘Are near-death experiences something you’d like to share? Because you’ve had that damn thing drawn and pointed at me for the past half-hour.’

‘Don’t you blame me for being cautious.’

‘Cautious is one thing,’ he replied. ‘You’re just being psychotic now. And while I’ve never begrudged you that before, I have to ask,’ he tilted his head at her, frowning concernedly, ‘what’s wrong?’

Her reaction did nothing to reassure him.

She shifted nervously for a moment, hopping from foot to foot as she glanced about the forest clearing as though noting all possible escape routes. She did not lower her bow, nor relax her grip on its string. She had all the anxiety of a nervous beast while at the same time regarding him as though he were some manner of bloodthirsty predator.

He knew he ought not begrudge her such a mannerism; she had only barely survived the Abysmyth’s touch. Surely, he reasoned, fear and panic were reasonable reactions. But towards him? Towards the man who had saved her? Towards the man who thought of her as not just a shict?

He found his hands tensing of their own volition and quickly fought to relax them. Something within him, however, fought just as hard to keep them in fists. Something within him spoke.

‘Ignore her,’ it uttered. ‘If she wishes to scorn us, then let her rot here while we do our work. There will be more Abysmyths. We know this.’

He clenched his teeth, straining to ignore the voice. His thoughts were glass, however, and the voice was a vocal rock. He felt them shatter and when the voice spoke again, it was a thousand echoing shards.

‘LEAVE.’

‘KAT!’ he shrieked.

She looked at him, ears twitching as though she could hear what brewed within him. With a grunt, he forced a new face, a frown of concern and narrowed eyes. Don’t upset her, he told himself, don’t let her hear it. .

‘Listen,’ his voice sounded strained to his ears, ‘you can tell me. I’m not the enemy here.’

She cocked her head uncertainly at that. Once more, something shattered within him. His heart contracted under her wary stare and he felt his face twist to match the pain in his chest.

‘Kataria,’ he whispered, ‘don’t you trust me?’

‘Usually,’ she replied.

Her face nearly melted with the force of her sigh as her shoulders slumped, lowering her weapon. Such an expression brought him no relief; she seemed less remorseful and more weary, as though the thought of talking to him was a surrender.

‘Do you remember the Abysmyth?’ she asked.

‘Uh,’ he blinked, ‘it’s rather a hard thing to forget.’

He felt his heart go numb at the sight of her stare, dire and sharp as an arrowhead.

‘Fine,’ he continued, ‘no, I don’t remember it. I can barely remember anything past meeting the damn thing on the beach.’

‘You. . met it?’

‘And had a conversation with it.’ He nodded. ‘It’s rather a polite demon, if you catch it between dismemberings.’

‘You said you barely remembered anything.’ She seemed unimpressed with his humour. ‘What do you remember?’

Voices. Or rather a voice, in my head. Icy and angry. Told me to pick up my sword and kill the demon. Told me a hundred times. Told me to kill, to slaughter, to rip it apart. And I did. And I know I shouldn’t have been able to, but I was. I killed the damn thing and I don’t know why. And when I did, it laughed. The voice laughed and I wanted to laugh, too. I wanted to laugh like a madman and dance in the thing’s blood.

That’s what I remember.

He told her none of this. Instead, he looked up, and replied in one word.

‘You.’

It was not exactly the entire truth, but though it was no lie, Kataria’s frown seemed to suggest that she did not quite believe it. He fought back a sigh and instead took a step forwards, feeling at least some relief when she did not tense up, retreat or bolt outright. Instead, she regarded him carefully with a hint of that same probing curiosity he hadn’t come to miss before she looked at him like he was a lunatic.

‘I saw you,’ he continued, unhindered, ‘I saw you shoot the Abysmyth. I saw the Abysmyth pick you up and I saw you go still and cold as a fish. Then, I saw you drop.’

‘And you know why I dropped?’ she asked.

He blinked, shook his head.

‘Because of you,’ she replied, ‘because you cut the demon’s arm off, because you killed it.’

‘I didn’t kill it.’

‘I’m fairly sure you did.’

‘We settled this already,’ he replied, ‘the poison killed it. The longfaces killed it.’

‘It didn’t stop moving until you put your sword in it.’

‘The poison took its time, then.’

‘Why are you denying this?’ She seemed as if she wanted to snarl, to spit the words. Instead, she could only shake her head at him. ‘I saw you, too. I saw you kill the demon. I saw you save me.’ Her frown twisted and Lenk could see that her heart sank as well. ‘Why are you denying that?’

Because, he thought, fingering the hilt of his sword, the Abysmyth can’t be hurt by mortal weapons.

He longed to say such a thing to her, if only so that she might know why he couldn’t say it. Instead, he could do little more than roll his shoulders, shake his head and sigh. She returned the expression and, without any fear, walked past him to take the lead.

Her shoulder brushed against his; she felt cold.

‘So,’ he spoke up, desperate to ease the tension, ‘do you see anything that I might have missed?’

‘Nah.’ She crouched to the earth, glancing over the jungle soil. ‘Something came through here, but I can’t tell who or what. Nothing’s clear.’

The leaves shook in the trees. Birds fled in a sudden burst as a thunderous roar split the forest apart. Kataria rose to her feet, following Lenk’s gaze out and away, towards the distant shore.

‘That is, though.’

Gariath could tolerate wounds of all kinds: piercings, cuts, gashes, bruises and assorted scrapes were things he could remember, things he could touch, things he could respond to. For those few injuries that drew no blood and beat no flesh, he had no patience.

‘Stand still!’

He lashed a claw at the female and, again, she stepped away from him. This routine was becoming quite tiresome. The creature’s relentless darting hardly irritated him as much as the serene expression she wore, unflinching, beyond offering him a congenial smile.

‘There’s no smiling,’ he snarled, ‘in battle!’

His roar drove his fist as he rammed it forwards, preparing to pulp her placid expression. Her sole defence was an upraised hand, a demure smile and a gentle hum.

Music filled his head, smothering him like a tide. His howling seemed so quiet, so meek, his muscles like jelly. When he opened his mouth to curse, he felt his jaw drop and hang numbly. Summoning what remained of his fury, he lunged forwards, arms flopping out before him like flippers.

And then they were lead weights, pulling him to the ground with a crash.

He roared, or tried to roar, both at himself and at her. He tried to rise, to crush her jaw, rip out her tongue, smash her face in so that she might only sputter out a tune with notes of broken teeth. His body, however, would not answer him. His eyelids became heavy like his arms.

A sweet, soothing darkness enveloped him.

The female tilted her head at him, gills flickering curiously, her gaze lingering only for a moment before she glanced up at the sound of shrieking.

The arrow bit angrily through the air where her head had just been, spitefully taking a few strands of green hair as it sped past her and sank into the sands beyond. The female blinked through eyelids that closed like twin doors and regarded the two pale shapes at the distant end of the beach.

‘What the hell was that?’ Lenk cried, punching Kataria in the arm. ‘Shictish archery, my left tes-’

‘She moved,’ the shict spat back, ‘she moved, damn it!’ Shoving him away, she drew another missile and narrowed her eyes at the wispy creature. ‘I’ll get her this time.’

Like a silk-swaddled bellows, the female’s chest inflated, mouth opening so wide as to threaten to dislocate her jaw. The arrow was lowered in momentary curiosity. Shict and man stared dumbly as the female took one step forwards, turned her mouth upon them and screamed.

The noise was shrill, getting shriller; annoying, Lenk thought through his fingers, but little more than that.

Kataria seemed to disagree.

Collapsing next to her bow, the shict writhed upon the ground, shrieking as she clawed at notched ears that withered like roses. Her legs kicked as she proceeded to bash her head against the sand, straining to pound the noise out of her head.

That left two companions down, Lenk thought, more than enough reason to stick a sword into something.

His weapon was up as he charged towards the female. Her alien features did not cause him to falter; he had killed things much more ferocious than her. He aimed at a spot between her breasts, undoubtedly where her heart was. If it wasn’t there, he reasoned, he’d just keep stabbing until he found something.

It was going to be messy. He found himself smiling at that.

It was only when he drew close enough to see her eyes that he hesitated. She cocked an eyebrow, or rather an eyeridge, at him, smiling. He returned the gesture with a confused expression.

Who, he wondered, smiles at someone charging at them with a sword? It’s like the stupid thing doesn’t even know I’m about to kill it.

Even as he continued to advance, his sword held high, still she did not seem to recognise his intent. She cocked her head, regarding him curiously. Good; better that she focus on him than look behind her. Better she lock eyes with him than be tempted to follow his gaze over her shoulder.

If she did, she might have seen Denaos looming up behind her, a long knife clenched in one hand.

The rogue’s scowl was as cold as his hand was quick. He slipped a gloved hand around and clasped it over her mouth, bringing his dagger up beneath her chin as she tried momentarily to struggle against his long fingers.

‘Shh,’ he whispered as he might to an infant, ‘no sounds, no singing.’ The tip of his blade scraped the bottom of her chin. ‘Don’t you scream.’

‘STOP!’

Had the command come from anyone else, Denaos would have cut out her jugular and autographed it before anyone could object. However, the shrill, excited voice forced his blade to a trembling halt a hair’s width from turning the female into a cut of choice meat.

He glowered over the woman’s head at the boy standing on trembling legs before him. His face was grave, breath ragged; hardly the sort of visage that should expect to have its commands obeyed, Denaos thought resentfully.

‘She needs our help,’ Dreadaeleon gasped, even speaking an ordeal.

The rogue glanced from Gariath, unconscious, to Kataria, squirming like a worm on the ground, back to Dreadaeleon.

‘What, seriously?’

‘Let her speak,’ the wizard said, nodding furiously, ‘and she’ll explain.’

‘Don’t do it, Denaos,’ Lenk ordered, ‘she just struck Gariath dead.’

‘The lizard’s still breathing,’ Denaos noted. ‘I’d be hard pressed not to release her had she actually killed him.’ He tugged her closer, bringing his knife a little further up. ‘As it stands-’

‘STOP!’ Dreadaeleon shrieked again. ‘She hasn’t hurt them. Kataria and Gariath will both be fine!’

‘Here’s a funny fact,’ the rogue spat. ‘Even if you say something a heap of times, it doesn’t actually make it come true.’ He levelled a murderous scowl upon his captive. ‘We should kill her before she has a chance to do to us what she did to them.’

‘She won’t!’ the wizard protested.

‘Well, of course she won’t if I stick her now.’

‘I mean she won’t at all,’ the boy added hotly, ‘not if you let her go. Otherwise, she might-’

‘Not if I jam a six-finger piece of steel in her face,’ the rogue interrupted. ‘Sweet Silf, man, try to keep up.’

Dreadaeleon made a motion to protest further, but instead turned two big, brown, puppy-like eyes to Lenk, pleading.

‘Lenk, she means us no harm. You’ve got to believe me.’

‘Oh, that’s fair,’ Denaos sneered, ‘go to Lenk for aid.’ He turned to the young man. ‘The boy might have been bewitched by her. Who says his words are his own?’

‘I say that you might be an imbecile but it’s far more likely that you’re a bloodthirsty moron! She was only defending herself!’

‘She attacked us first!’

‘Gariath attacked her first!’ The boy gritted his teeth. ‘Gariath always attacks first!’ He looked to Lenk once more, eyes going so wide they might roll out of his head. ‘Lenk, please. .’

The young man remained unmoving, silent for a long moment. He glanced from the unconscious dragonman to the curled-up shict, to the creature with green hair who looked remarkably calm for a woman-fish-thing that had a knife to her throat. He only spoke when the stand-off was joined by a red-faced Asper rushing up to meet them.

‘Asper,’ he gestured with his chin, ‘have a look at Kat and Gariath. See if they’re well.’

‘What?’ she asked, breathless. ‘Who’s well? What’s happening? ’ She glanced over at the strange captive. ‘Who’s she?’

‘We’re a little busy here, Asper.’

The priestess seemed to want to argue, but had no breath for it. With a muttered curse and a wave of her hand, she stalked towards her prone companions.

‘Release her, Denaos,’ Lenk commanded. ‘Keep your knife ready, though. Gut her if she moves funny.’

‘She’s going to move funny eventually,’ the rogue grunted. ‘It’d be easier to gut her now.’

‘Just do as I say.’

With a grudging snarl, Denaos took a cautious step away, releasing the woman. Both he and Lenk kept their weapons at the ready as the young man approached the creature with a grim look in his eyes.

‘If you’ve injured anyone here,’ he uttered, ‘I’ll take your head before he has a chance to gut you.’ He flashed a threatening gaze at Dreadaeleon. ‘And if you try to stop me, Denaos will take yours.’

He let that threat hang in the air as all parties exchanged wary glances. All save the female, who merely smiled as she opened her mouth and spoke in a lyrical, reverberating tune.

‘If all death threats have been finished, I should like to solicit your aid.’