Tome of the Undergates

Twenty-Seven

‘ Kat?’

That was her name, wasn’t it? No shict had ever called her that, of course; shicts had full, proud names that all meant something. Kat meant nothing, Kat was not a name, Kat was not a word.

‘Kat!’

Kat was her name, she remembered. Not her true name, not her shict name. Kat was a name that some silver-haired little girl had called her. No, she remembered, he had been a man. A human.

‘Kataria!’

She remembered him now. Skinny fellow, not at all impressive to look at; but she looked at him often, didn’t she? She followed him out of a forest, a year ago. Where was he now?

His voice was hard to hear. Her ears twitched against her head. They felt disembodied, hanging from her head and heavy with lead. Too deaf to hear her own breath, much less some weak little human girl. . man.

But she heard him, still crying out her name, still shrieking, still screaming as if in pain. He had a lot of pain, she remembered.

What was his name again?

‘Lenk.’ Her lips remembered. ‘Don’t be dead.’ The words came unbidden. They were not shict words. ‘I’m coming.’

‘Well, that’s just delightful. I’m sure if he wasn’t already dead, he’d be thrilled to hear it.’

Another voice: grating, simpering, unpleasant. She frowned immediately, her eyelids flittering open. The face she recognised: angular and narrow, like a rat’s, except more obnoxious. His wasn’t entirely concerned, his frown not particularly sympathetic.

‘Denaos,’ she hissed. Her voice was a croak on dry lips.

‘Oh, good. You remember my name. Everything else upstairs working?’ He tapped her temple with a finger. ‘Nothing feel loose? Leaking?’ He waved a hand in front of her. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘However many as will fit up your nose if you don’t get away from me,’ she snarled, slapping at his appendage. She rose from the stones beneath her, head pounding with the blood that rushed to it. ‘What happened?’

‘So, you are whole in the mind, right? That question was just your natural stupidity?’ He sneered and gestured down a dark, drowned hall. ‘Just listen, nit.’

She didn’t have to strain her ears; even weakened as they were, the distant furore sounded violently close. There was the sound of weapons clattering to the floor, harsh and croaking war cries mingling. Mostly, there was the screaming: loud and sporadic, flowing into a continuous river of agony that flooded into her ears and filled her mind like a bubbling pot.

She winced, folded her ears over themselves. They ached terribly; why did they hurt so bad? With a pained expression, she reached up and rubbed them gently. Her horror only grew at the flecks of dried crimson that crumbled out into her palms.

‘Ah, yes,’ she muttered, remembering. ‘Screaming.’

‘Plenty of it,’ Denaos confirmed. ‘So, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to do this nice and quietly.’

‘Do. . what?’

Denaos rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I’d like to get out of here without having anything stuffed inside me that I didn’t put there.’ He eyed her warily. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Because I’m starting to think this might be easier if you were dead.’

‘Get out of here?’

Kataria looked over her shoulder. The great stone slab loomed at the end of the hall, the cracks in its grey face made haughty, shadowy grins against the emerald torchlight. It was mocking her, she realised, as she recalled what had happened. As she recalled who lay beyond it.

‘We aren’t going anywhere,’ she muttered, rising to her feet. Her bones groaned in protest. She ignored them, as she did the throbbing of her ears, the agony of her body. ‘Not without Lenk.’

‘I’m sure he appreciates the sentiment.’ Denaos crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. ‘However, given the fact that he’s behind Silf knows how much solid stone and we’re out here and. . you know, alive, he probably wouldn’t hold it against us.’

She ignored him, collected her bow and quiver from puddles of salt and slung them over her shoulder. With equal contempt for the limp she walked with, she trudged to the stone and ran her fingers down it.

‘It’s rather large, if you hadn’t noticed,’ Denaos muttered. ‘And thick. I checked.’

She looked over her shoulder at him with an even stare.

‘Admittedly, with not much care.’ He sighed. ‘There was the issue of the half-dead shict to attend to.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘But you’re up. You’re moving about. Whatever else is down here is distracted, thus leaving us a fairly good opportunity to do that activity I enjoy so much where I don’t get my head chewed off.’

‘You could have run already,’ she replied, turning back to the stone.

‘I stand a better chance with you watching my back.’

‘And we’ll stand an even better chance with Lenk watching both our backs. Help me look for it.’

‘For what?’

‘A switch. . a lever. . something that moves this thing, I don’t know. You’re supposed to be good with these things, aren’t you?’

‘With hopeless situations?’ He shook his head. ‘Only by virtue of experience. If there was anything that could move that thing, I’d have found it. The only chance you have at this point is to bash it down with your ugly face.’ He sneered. ‘Granted, while it seems tempting. .’

His voice faded into another babbling tangent, easily ignored as she pressed her ear against the rock. The noises were faint: scuffling, splashing, something loud and violent. Through it, though, there was a familiar, if fleeting, sound.

He’s alive.

At least, he sounded alive to her. It was difficult to tell; what she heard was but a fragment of his voice. It was a weak and dying noise, there and gone in an instant. Perhaps, she wondered, she imagined it?

A trick of her mind or her bloodied ears? Or maybe, in her heart if not her mind, she knew he was already dead and heard the last traces of his breath escaping this world before he followed it. Either way, it was a flimsy, weak excuse to linger in a forsaken fortress filled with demons.

Still, she thought as she cracked her knuckles, I’ve gone off less before.

‘Hurry it up,’ she growled as she leaned down to inspect the bottom of the slab. ‘He’s not well.’

‘Compared to you?’ She heard Denaos’s long sigh. ‘Good luck.’

She turned at the sounds of boots scraping across the stones. Denaos, with no particular rush or hesitation, stalked down the hall towards the drowned section. She quirked a brow.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Let’s not belabour this, please. We all knew there was going to have to be a parting of ways, eventually.’ He threw his hands up in resignation. ‘I did what I could. Let Silf bear witness.’

‘You did nothing!’ she spat at his back, as though her words were arrows. ‘I know your petty round-ear God rewards cowardice, but I don’t. Now get back here and help.’

He could feel her eyes boring into him, that emerald stare that he had seen even Lenk flinch at. But he was not Lenk. He was not Gariath. He was not Kataria. He was a reasonable man. He was a cautious man. He was a man who knew when to run.

Keep telling yourself that, he thought. Eventually, you’ll believe it. He stooped, making certain that the shict wouldn’t see his bitter frown, hear his sigh. Don’t turn around, he reminded himself, don’t turn around. She doesn’t deserve a second look from you. None of them do. You told them. You warned them. They didn’t listen and this is what happened.

It’s not your fault.

He paused at the edge of the water, blanched at its blackness and noted that it wasn’t nearly black enough to hide the frowning face that looked back up at him.

No. . still don’t believe it.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a bowstring drawn. He couldn’t say that the sight of her eyes, narrowed to venomous slits over a glistening arrowhead, was particularly unexpected.

‘No clansman is left behind,’ she snarled, ‘ever.’

Steady now, he told himself, holding his hands up for peace. She’s clearly lost what little mind she had.

‘Must we do this now?’ he half-whined.

Brilliant.

‘It should have been done long ago,’ she hissed, pulling the fletching to her cheek. ‘I’ve been lingering amongst your diseased race for too long. I wanted to believe the stories my father told me weren’t true.’ He caught the briefest sliver of a tear murmuring at the corner of her eye. ‘I wanted to believe that.’

Sweet Silf, she’s completely mad. Mad, he realised, and perceptive. His hands twitched, fingers eyeing the dagger at his belt. She responded, string drawing taut, teeth clenched.

‘But every time I try, every legend proves true, every story about your cowardice and sickness. .’ Her eyes went wide, like a crazed beast’s. ‘All of it was true.’

Grief-ridden, perhaps, he suspected. Gods know Lenk was a decent man, but this seems a bit extreme. He noted the trail of blood that had dried upon her temple. Maybe that last blow did it. . His attentions were drawn back to the arrow. Either way. .

‘If I can’t do anything for Lenk. .’ She growled, her fingers twitched anxiously. ‘I have to do something.’

‘He’s not a shict.’

Her fingers twitched, bowstring eased just a scant hair. Good enough, he thought as his hand slid a little closer to his belt.

‘W-what?’ Her expression seemed to suggest she hadn’t contemplated that fact in some time.

‘He’s human, you know,’ the rogue continued, pressing a thumb to his chest. ‘Like me, not you.’ He raised one hand in appeal, all the better to draw attention from the other. ‘You call him “clansman”, like that means anything to him … to us. But it only bears any weight on long, notched ears.’

There might still be a way out of this, he told himself, you don’t have to kill her. Yet, as his fingers brushed the weapon’s hilt, it seemed to add: But just in case. .

‘Lenk’s. . not like you,’ she muttered without much conviction.

‘Fair enough. What would he suggest you do, then?’ The rogue shrugged. ‘Sit here? Wait for whatever’s happening out there to find its way in here?’ He shook his head. ‘No, Lenk might not be like me. He’s reasonable. He’s cautious.’ He levelled an even stare at her. ‘He would run. . but he would want you with him.’

I can’t really afford to make that kind of choice right now, he added mentally. I’m sorry, Kat. The dagger slipped into his palm. This isn’t my fault.

He didn’t believe it then, either.

Something heavy slammed against the stone, water erupted behind him.

He whirled about, springing backwards at the sight of the great, white-eyed shadow barrelling out of the darkness. The Abysmyth clawed its way into the corridor, dripping water and black ichor from a number of festering emerald wounds that criss-crossed its body.

Denaos held the dagger high, ready to throw as the beast stretched out a claw. Yet, as vacant as the creature’s stare was, there was no mistaking its direction. The Abysmyth looked past Denaos, past Kataria, to the great, stone slab. Its mouth dropped open.

‘Prophet. .’ it gurgled, ‘why. . won’t you help-’

Its question ended in a violent sputter and a blossom of iron. Faster than Denaos could even gasp, a great wedge of metal burst out from between the thing’s jaws. It spasmed as green-tinged froth spilled out of its maw to splatter on the floor, twitched as something pulled on the metal and ripped the weapon free from the back of the demon’s skull. It toppled forwards and Denaos immediately forgot how close he had been to killing his companion.

The appearance of the newcomer demanded far more attention.

The woman, or what appeared to be a woman, swung her massive weapon over her shoulder, heedless of the black liquid dribbling down its length. With equally callous casualness, she stepped atop the creature, iron boots crunching upon spine and ribs.

Kataria met her gaze. It occurred to her that the stare, milky white, was not unlike the slain Abysmyth’s. Where the demon’s was vacant and unfeeling, however, this. . woman’s stare leaked hunger and scorn as though they were tears.

Her purple flesh was as lean and hard as her black armour. Even her face was long and thin like a spear. The fact that her metal was still slick with the Abysmyth’s essence did not encourage the shict to lower her weapon. She had cut down a demon with such cruel callousness and now regarded the rogue and shict with an angry ivory scowl. Any idiot could tell she was no ally.

And, as if on cue, Denaos rushed up to meet her.

‘Well done!’ He slid about the female, seeming to place her between himself and Kataria. ‘Quite a fine blow there.’

You can’t be serious, Kataria thought. Was the woman’s malice not apparent to him? Did she strike him as another lusty tramp eager for his seduction? She would have put an arrow through the woman in that breath, but white eyes held her in check, daring her and warning her at the same time.

‘Any lady that is a foe to any Abysmyth is a friend of ours,’ he said, smiling broadly to compensate for the cold scowl she shot him.

‘Abys. . myth?’ Her voice was a knife, raspy and cold. ‘Is that what they are called? Master Sheraptus refers to them as “underscum”.’

‘A fine term.’ Denaos’s laugh was a bit strained. ‘What does he call us humans?’

‘Overscum.’

‘Clever. And what do we call you?’

The woman regarded him cautiously for a moment, then turned her gaze back to Kataria. Her eyes narrowed, she forced the word into a sharpened blade aimed at the shict’s head.

‘Xhai.’ She swept that scornful gaze about the corridor. ‘Semnein Xhai.’ She waved a hand. ‘Unimportant. Where is the leader of this weak gathering? Where is the Deepshriek?’

‘We’re not entirely certain,’ Denaos replied. ‘Our friend slipped into that room there, see, and-’

‘Useless.’

His jaw became a gong of bone and blood, her gauntlet the hammer that sent it ringing through the hall. His whimper was somewhat less impressive as he crumpled to the floor in a whisper. She spared a derisive glob of saliva for his body before turning to the shict.

There was no time for Kataria to wonder whether her companion still drew breath. Her bow was up and levelled. All that stayed her arrow was the odious malice that oozed from every inch of the female’s skin.

‘Your males,’ the purple woman muttered, ‘have a great love of hearing themselves speak.’

‘Stay back, longface,’ Kataria hissed in reply.

‘Longface?’ The female arched a white brow. ‘We’ve been called that before.’

‘It’s slightly less of a mouthful than “white-haired, narrow-jawed, purple-skinned man-woman”.’

‘We are netherling, overscum,’ the woman snarled. ‘You would do well to shove the proper respect in your mouth when addressing the First of Arkklan Kaharn’s Carnassials.’

‘Whatever you like to be called, you’re not needed here.’

‘We go where we please.’ The netherling tapped her sword against her shoulder. ‘I have come for. .’ Her long face twisted in thought. ‘A book, is it called?’

‘The. . tome?’

‘Ah. That does sound more impressive.’

‘That isn’t yours to take.’

‘Ours is the right to take.’ Xhai levelled a metal finger at the shict. ‘Your fortune is to stay out of our way when we choose to allow you to. Now. . embrace your luck and get out of my way. I have much killing to do.’

‘So have I.’ Kataria drew back the arrow to her lips. ‘And I was here first. Get out.’

‘Or?’

Her bow sang a melancholy tune and, as Kataria witnessed wide-eyed the woman stagger back only half a step as the arrow sank into her ribcage, she couldn’t help but wonder if her weapon sang her own dirge. The Carnassial glanced down at the shaft quivering in her flesh and grinned broadly.

‘Weak.’

Stone groaned, metal shrieked, the netherling was rushing. Her long blade dragged behind her, spewing emerald-tinted sparks. Kataria fired again, hastily, clumsily, and the arrow lodged itself in the netherling’s biceps. Her grin broadened as she hefted the blade in both hands.

Stop, Kataria told herself. Breathe. The arrow slid into her fingers eagerly. Focus. She drew back the missile. Steady. She narrowed her eyes as the netherling raised the weapon above her head and shrieked.

Shoot.

The arrow howled, found its mark in a splitting squeal and bit deeply into a purple armpit. Iron clattered, the Carnassial shrieked and pressed a hand against the red blossoming under her arm.

Kataria smiled. All humans, purple or pink, never saw that one coming. The victory was as brief as the Xhai’s pause, and Kataria’s smile died and withered into a terrified gape.

She’s not stopping.

Another arrow flew, ricocheted off an armoured shoulder that collided with her chest. The shict felt something shift inside her violently. Her bow was torn from her grasp as she was torn from the floor, sent skidding across the salt and stone.

She could barely clamber to her knees, barely muster the energy to cough and send a thick liquid spattering onto the floor. Not good, she realised, not good, not good. Sounds were distant, sights varying shades of grey.

‘That’s it, is it?’

The netherling’s voice echoed against her skull. She looked up just in time to see a pair of milky orbs, a broad, jagged smile to match the shimmering sword held high above her head.

Move.

It was more of a lurch than a roll, but the sudden movement served well enough to place Kataria out of the way of the crashing blade. It devoured the stone in a shower of fragments, embedding itself hungrily in the floor. Xhai snarled, tugging violently at the weapon’s handle. She didn’t even bother to look up at the sound of boots crashing on the stone.

‘Surprise!’ Kataria roared.

She leapt, took the woman about the waist and sent them both tumbling to the ground. Xhai tossed her off as though she were an overenthused puppy, leaping atop her opponent.

But Kataria’s instincts were swift as her legs. Boots were up and planted into the Carnassial’s belly with a ferocity the shict was not even aware of. Even less aware of the roar tearing itself from her lips, she drove her feet against her foe’s stomach again. The netherling was hoisted up and over her to sprawl upon the floor in a crash of iron.

She should have run then. Some part of Kataria knew that was a good idea. But that part was far away now, bleating impotently against the howling within her.

Kataria could feel the roar, rather than hear it. Something forced undiluted rage from her heart, through her veins and out of her mouth. Something bit her muscles with sharp, angry teeth. She went taut, hard, her blood straining to feed her fury as her ears folded against her head in a feral display.

And through her bared teeth, her flashing canines, she could only say one thing.

‘No clansman is left behind,’ she snarled. ‘EVER!’

Xhai didn’t seem to notice, far more concerned with the foot that crashed down upon her face as she tried to rise. Kataria swept upon her, straddling her waist and seizing her by the jaw.

The sound of bone cracking upon the stone did not cause her to relent, could not drown out the roar. What dwelt within her screamed long and loud, sent its victorious, unpleasant laughter rushing into her ears and past her teeth. She brought her fist up and down, pumping with feral rhythm against the Carnassial’s bony cheek.

So loud and proud did it call, so fierce and feral did it roar, that she never even noticed that her foe was growling instead of flinching. She did not see that the netherling barely bled from her wounds. She did not see the metal-clad fist rising.

‘ENOUGH,’ Xhai shrieked.

The iron was a blur, crashing against Kataria’s jaw and sending her reeling to the floor. Her foot was a spear, kicking the shict hard against the ribs and sending her curling, her howl abandoning her in an agonised cacophony.

Where is it, she asked herself, where is the howling? I can’t hear it any more. . I can’t. .

There were many things that she could not.

She could not feel a heavy weight straddling her back, cold iron wrapping about her wrist and twisting her hand behind her back. She could not even roar in pain any more. When her arm was wrenched up so that her wrist pressed against her shoulder blades, it was a weak, meagre whimper that came out of her lips.

‘Stop.’ A second hand seized her by her braid and pressed her face forwards against the stone. ‘Do not taint the fight with weakness.’ She could feel Xhai’s smile bore into the back of her head. ‘I knew somewhere in this stupid horde of weakness, someone could fight. Naturally, I found it in a female.’

How, Kataria asked herself, how am I supposed to kill her? What was I supposed to do? The howling within her was silent, offering no answers. WHAT?

‘Don’t misunderstand, of course,’ Xhai continued, ‘I’m still going to kill you, but I’ll. . regret it. That is the word for it, yes? But not yet. I need you to speak.’ She rubbed the shict’s face in the salt water. ‘Your brains have yet to leak out onto the floor, so use them. Tell me what I want to know or I’ll wrench your arm off.’

‘Then do it.’ Kataria’s voice, weak and foreign to her own ears, did nothing to convince herself, let alone her captor.

The Carnassial’s derisive snicker confirmed as much. ‘Obey and I leave you whole. I understand whatever weak deities you overscum worship frown on followers in pieces.’ She pulled her prisoner’s face up that she might better hear the snickering spike being driven into her ear. ‘That’s all up to you, though.’ She pressed the shict’s face back to the stone. ‘Where is the book?’

‘I. . we don’t know.’

‘There are more of you, are there?’ The Carnassial snorted. ‘Odd that so many weaklings would congregate in one place. Were you all drawn here by some stink?’ The woman snarled, twisting the shict’s arm further. ‘Or were you sent?’

Kataria could hear her own bones creaking, feel her own fingers grazing the nape of her neck.

‘G-Greenhair,’ she half-growled, half-whined, a wounded beast. ‘S-siren-’

‘The screamer?’

Xhai’s recognition should have alarmed Kataria, would have alarmed Kataria if not for the fact that there was no room for panic or fear left in her. Nor was there any room left in the netherling for mercy, for as Kataria pounded the stones for mercy with her free hand, her captor merely let out a contemplative hum.

‘She is too loose with her allies,’ the white-haired woman muttered.

Whether out of mercy or out of boredom, she released Kataria’s arm and rose up and off her. Kataria gasped, biting back the scream in her throat. Her arm felt weak and useless, freedom a sudden unbearable agony. Straining to keep from shrieking, straining to keep her breath, she struggled to rise. Even her free arm ached, groped about with blind fingers.

It was by pure chance that she felt a handle amidst the salt water. It was with pure fury that she wrapped trembling fingers about it. It hurt to grin, but she couldn’t help it. Apparently, she thought as she looked into the blade of Denaos’s fallen dagger, he’s good for something.

‘After all, she chose you two weaklings rather poorly.’ The woman’s voice was only slightly harsher than the sound of her blade being jerked free from the stone. ‘I must admit, I was surprised.’ Kataria heard the whisper of air as the blade was raised. ‘Still, for a female, you are weak. Are all your kind?’

‘No.’

Xhai whirled, the great wedge of metal slicing off the scantest of hairs atop Kataria’s head as she drove the knife forwards. It found flesh and drove deep into the netherling’s hip. Kataria’s cry of joy was as short as her foe’s cry of anger.

Run.

She did, but the effort was hindered by a desperate limp. Still, she reasoned, if her pain was only a little less than that of having a dagger driven through a hip, she should be able to get away.

Unfortunately, she realised as a gauntleted hand clasped upon her shoulder, things rarely went as they should.

Stone struck her back, air was struck from her lungs as Xhai shoved her against the wall. With scarcely any breath left to scream, much less to marvel at the ease with which the netherling hefted the great chunk of metal, Kataria gritted her teeth, folded her ears against her head and hissed as she raked the woman’s metal-clad wrist.

She wasn’t quite sure what she hoped to accomplish. The unstable twitch that consumed the woman’s eyelid suggested she was as far beyond intimidation as she was beyond mercy.

‘Clever, clever little runt,’ the netherling snarled. ‘Cleverness never prevails against the strong. The netherlings are strong.’ She slammed Kataria against the wall again. ‘Semnein Xhai is strong.’

There was no room left for fear or pain within Kataria. She had done her part, she told herself, fought as best she could. The knife and arrows jutting from the woman testified to that. The netherling would remember her, long after she killed her. She tried to take comfort in that, but found it difficult. As difficult as she found it to keep a defiant face directed at the Carnassial. Her neck jerked involuntarily, drawing her attention back to the stone slab that loomed with granite smugness at the end of the hall.

‘Lenk,’ she whispered, though she could no longer hear her own voice, ‘I’m sorry.’

She expected the blow to come then: a quick, sudden sever that she would never feel, perhaps swift enough to allow her to stare up at her own neck as the rest of her rolled across the floor. The blow did not come, though. Reluctantly, perhaps afraid that the netherling was simply waiting for her to watch it come, Kataria turned back to face the woman.

What she saw was a black hilt jutting from the Carnassial’s collarbone, her face contorted in a sudden agony, iron rattling in her trembling arm. A sudden splitting of flesh drew Kataria’s eyes down to the gloved hand wedging a second blade into her flank. The woman staggered backwards as a pink face marred by a black eye and split with an unpleasant grin rose over her shoulder.

‘What was that about cleverness?’ Denaos hissed, twisting the knife further.

The female shrieked, whirling about to bring her sword up in a frenzied circle. The rogue was already out of reach, retreating nimbly as another dagger leapt to his fingers.

Xhai roared, hefting her sword as she stepped towards her new foe. Like a sparrow, the dagger danced off his fingers, tumbling lazily through the air to impale itself in the netherling’s knee. Her foot collapsed under her, she fell to one knee.

She seemed shattered in that moment, swaying precariously as a hand pressed against her as though straining to keep pieces of her from falling apart. Her wounds seemed to bloom all at once, life coagulating in the contours of her muscles. The mask of fury slipped off her face, exposing a slack-jawed, incredulous mockery of a warrior.

‘What. . I’m. .’ She touched her knee, eyes widening at the sight of red smearing her fingers. ‘I. . you can’t. .’ She tried to rise, her voice caught in her throat as she winced. ‘It hurts.’ As though this were something alien to her, she looked to Denaos. ‘You hurt me.’ ‘It’s what I do,’ he replied casually.

‘Impossible. I am. . unscarred.’ She rose to shaky feet. ‘I could kill you. . both of you!’ She jerked a dagger free from her side, hurling it to the floor. ‘I will kill you! All of you!’

Xhai hefted the sword and buckled under its weight, choked by an agonised whimper. The Carnassial, so strong and relentless, became a weak and meagre thing, Kataria thought. The fact that she still held a massive wedge of iron, however, kept the shict from savouring her pain. Instead, she retreated cautiously, eyeing her bow.

‘Stay back!’ Xhai roared, holding up a hand as she trembled to her feet again. ‘Stay away from me!’ Her eyes darted between them, crazed, before settling upon Denaos. ‘I will. . kill you.’

Her voice hanging in the air, her blood pooling beneath iron soles, she spat a curse in a harsh, hissing language. Her sword groaned as she dragged it behind her, Denaos’s dagger still lodged in her collarbone. She limped over the fallen Abysmyth into the watery passage and vanished into the gloom.

The air left Kataria in a sudden sigh as she collapsed to her rear. She could hear nothing but the pounding of her own heart and the lonely drip of salt water falling from the ceiling to dilute the sticky red smears on the floor. She felt the sweat of her body cold upon the stone, she felt her breath come in short, ragged bursts.

‘Sons of the Shadow,’ Denaos gasped, crumpling against the wall. ‘I thought she’d never leave.’ He glanced down to his belt, ominously empty. ‘Pity. . she took my best knife with her.’

‘If you’d like, I’m sure she can come back.’ Kataria resisted the urge to laugh, pressing a hand to her sore ribs. ‘How do you feel?’

‘About the same as any man who’s been beaten by demons and purple harlots in the same day. How do I look?’

‘About the same.’

‘Yeah? You should take a look at yourself before you decide to sling stones.’

Kataria didn’t doubt his claim. She didn’t need eyes to know the extent of her injuries. She could feel the purple bruise welling up on her midsection, the blood dripping from her nose, the lungs that threatened to collapse at any moment. She smiled, hoping the gesture was as unpleasant as his grimace would suggest.

‘I’ll be even less of a prize when we’re done.’

‘We are done,’ Denaos replied. He rose from the stones, knuckled the small of his back. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here, Kat.’ He gestured to the great stone slab. ‘We couldn’t lift that even if we weren’t both half-dead.’

The realisation hurt worse than any of her wounds. He was right, of course. Staying behind was lunacy, a short period of contemplation and repentance before a demon or another netherling stumbled upon her. And, as she heard her next words, she knew there would be much to repent for.

‘I’m staying.’

He looked at her, frowned.

‘He’s not a-’

‘I know.’

Quietly, he nodded. He plucked up her bow and quiver from the floor, giving a quick count before tossing it to her.

‘Thirteen arrows left,’ he said. ‘Unlucky number for round-ears.’

‘Shicts, too.’

‘Mm.’ He lingered there, watching her readjust her weaponry. ‘It seems a shame to leave you after you threatened to kill me for leaving earlier.’

‘You’ll get over it.’ She gestured down the hall. ‘Go. Don’t choose now to pretend we’ve got camaraderie.’

He nodded, turned. ‘I’ll bring back the others.’

‘No, you won’t.’

‘I might.’

She made no reply, merely staring at her arrows. He paused at the edge of the water, looking over his shoulder at her.

‘What are you going to do, anyway?’ he asked.

‘Something.’

He slipped into the water without a sound, vanishing. The sound of carnage was quieting now, nothing more than whispers of pain on a stale breeze. A pity, she thought, there might be no one left to come and kill her.

That might be less painful, she reasoned, than living to see the shame of waiting for a human she had dared to call her own.