Tome of the Undergates

Seven

‘On three, right?’ Sebast grunted.

Lenk nodded.

‘Right, then. . one. . two. .’

They lifted the last of the bodies. The two men had no breath to spare for heaving or grunting as they upended the dead pirate over the railing, sending him tumbling into the eager waters. Lenk grimaced, observing with macabre fascination as the headless man plunged stiffly into the brackish depths.

The sea resembled a floating graveyard, corpses of pirates bobbing at the surface like fleshy lures, their lifeless faces staring up at the darkening skies before they slowly sank in a hiss of froth. Lenk watched the dark, slender shapes of fish gliding between the descending corpses, nibbling, tasting before casually sliding over to the next body. Bigger, blacker fish would join the feast, he had been told, once they caught the scent of blood. By morning, not a scrap of flesh would be left to remember the dead.

A strange thing, the sea, Lenk mused grimly. Hours ago, the men bobbing in the water had been ferocious foes and savage opponents. Now, as they sank in a cloud of swirling dark, they were simply sustenance for creatures that knew or cared nothing for them or their exploits. In the end, for all their bravery, all their savagery, they were nothing but food.

‘That’s the last of them.’ The ship’s first mate sighed, dusting off his hands and noting unhappily that such a gesture did nothing to remove the bloodstains. ‘Rashodd has been taken below, along with our own boys.’

Lenk nodded. Rashodd had been the only one left alive. What remained of his crew had been swiftly executed and tossed overboard, leaving nothing behind but their captured black ship, a lingering stench and a bloody tarp. Sebast looked to it as his men began to roll it up.

‘Once we get some mops up here,’ he said, ‘you’ll never be able to tell we all nearly died on this ship.’ His laughter was stale and bereft of any humour. ‘Ah, I suspect after I say that a few hundred more times, I’ll start believing it, aye?’ Quietly, the sailor shoved his hands into his pockets and began to stalk towards the companionway. ‘Decent of you to help dispose of the dead, Mister Lenk. I’ve got letters to write.’

‘Letters?’

‘To wives. . widows, anyway. Orphans, too. Unpleasant business. I wouldn’t ask you to help with those.’

Lenk remained silent; it would be an odd thing for the man to ask of him, but he wasn’t about to offer his aid, in any case. Sebast took the hint and stalked off across the deck. It was only when he was a thin, stoop-shouldered outline against the shadows of the companionway that a question occurred to Lenk.

‘What was his name?’

‘Whose?’ Sebast called over his shoulder.

‘The young man who died today.’ Realising his mistake, he corrected himself. ‘The one killed by. . by that thing.’

Sebast hesitated, staring at the wood beneath him.

‘Moscoff, I think. . some young breed out of Cier’Djaal. Signed on to make some silver when we last set out from that port.’ He suddenly glanced up, staring out over the evening sky. ‘I think his name was Moscoff, anyway. It might have been Mossud. . or Suddamoff. . Huh, you know, I can’t even remember any more.’ He smiled at a joke only he understood. ‘I can’t even remember his face … isn’t that funny?’

Lenk did not laugh. Sebast did not, either; even his faint corpse of a smile disappeared as he turned and trudged down the steps into the ship’s hold.

It only occurred to Lenk after the first mate had departed that his declaration that their work was done had been incorrect. There were still many corpses upon the Riptide’s deck, save that these still moved and drew some mockery of breath.

The Riptide’s crew traipsed across the deck without purpose, half-heartedly pushing mops over stains that would never disappear, picking up discarded weapons.

Privately, Lenk yearned to see them crack a joke, curse at each other, even brush up against him with a hearty greeting and a full blast of their armpits’ perfume in his face. Instead, they muttered amongst themselves, they stared up at the darkened skies above and made unintelligible remarks about the weather. They did not look at each other.

There was no blaming them, he knew. Their hearts were heavy with the deaths of their comrades, their minds trembling with the strain of comprehending what they had seen. He could hardly wrap his own mind about the events as he stared at the splintered dents in the deck.

The creature should not have been. It should have stayed in drunken ramblings and ghost stories, like any other horror of the deep. But he had seen it. He had seen its dead eyes, heard its drowned voice, felt its leathery flesh. Absently, he reached for a sword that was not present as he recalled the battle; he recalled the creature, unharmed by the blows dealt to him by Gariath, himself and Moscoff.

‘Or was it Mossud?’

At once, the sailors paused in their menial duties to look towards Lenk. He saw their own lips soundlessly repeat the name before they turned back to their chores.

The moments after the creature had fled returned to him in a flood of visions. Asper had run to tend to the fallen sailor, kneeling beside his still body, looking over his slime-covered visage. He remembered her grim expression as she looked up, shaking her head.

‘He’s dead,’ she had said. ‘Drowned.’

Lenk found his knees suddenly weak, his hand groping for the railing to steady himself. Drowned on dry land, he thought, that doesn’t happen.

Where did such a creature come from? What sort of vengeful God had spawned such a fiend that shrugged off steel and drowned men without water? What sort of gracious God would permit such a creature to exist in the world?

Gods, he had found, were seldom of use besides creative swearing and occasional miracles that never actually occurred. He leaned on the railing and cast his gaze out over the sea like a net, trawling for an answer, some excuse for the horrors he had seen. He knew he would not find one.

Kataria watched from the upper deck, a deep frown on her face as she observed Lenk.

His melancholy unnerved her more than it should, as the battle had unnerved him more than it should have. Bloodshed, she knew, had been a big enough part of both of their lives that pausing and thinking about it afterwards was no longer instinct. That he now stood unmoving, barely breathing, eyes distant, caused her to do the same.

She noted the icy glow in his furrow-browed gaze. His thoughts lingered on the dead, no doubt. He did not mourn; Lenk never mourned. The young sailor’s death was not a tragedy in his mind, she knew, but a conundrum, a foul question with no decent answer.

Below deck, she knew others were in mourning, asking themselves the same questions in teary curses. Their presence was the reason she stood away from them, atop the upper deck, far removed from the humans.

Her belly muttered hungrily.

That was reason enough to be away from them.

None of them would even be able to comprehend hunger at such a time, all choked on emotion and tears they dared not share, just as she was unable to comprehend their grief. No matter how often she attempted to place herself in their position, to understand the people they had lost, the same thought returned to her.

Dozens of humans had died, of course, but only dozens of humans. The world had thousands to spare. Even those who survived the day would likely last only a few more years after. What made these few so special? What if they had been shicts?

She shook her head; they hadn’t been shicts, of course. If they were, she would likely feel otherwise. The fact that they were human, weak, close-minded, prone to death, prevented her from feeling anything else.

Once again, her gaze drifted to Lenk, also human.

The young sailor and Lenk: both human, their differences too trivial to note. Why was it, then, that one made her think of food, while she could not tear her gaze away from the other?

‘Are we so fascinating?’

Kataria turned at the voice, regarding her new company quietly. A tall, black-haired woman stood at the railing beside her, polishing a bright red apple on the chest of her toga. Quillian had discarded her armour, her flesh no more yielding than the bronze she had worn. All the skin exposed was as white as the garment she wore, save for one patch of crimson at her flank.

Oaths, Kataria noted. In bright red script, the Serrant wore her profession, the condemnation that kept her from the very priesthood she protected. Her sins, her crimes were scrawled from her armpit to her waist in angry, mocking tattoos.

Kataria averted her eyes; given the nature of the brand, she thought it would likely be considered rude to stare. Such a thing wouldn’t normally concern her, but she simply had nothing left in her to fight with.

If Quillian had noticed her stare, she didn’t reveal it. Instead, she took a bite of her fruit and, chewing noisily, produced another, offered it to the shict.

Kataria lofted a brow. ‘You think enough of me now to offer food?’

‘No.’ The Serrant didn’t bother to swallow before answering. ‘But I thought to spare these brave men the indignity of hearing your belly rumble.’ She followed the shict’s stare to the young man below. ‘You two are lovers?’

Kataria’s ears flattened against her head and her scowl raked the woman. ‘Are you stupid?’

The Serrant shrugged. ‘It would have been the first I’ve heard of such a thing. Given your mutual lack of morality, however, it wouldn’t surprise me. I know of no adventurer who looks at her boss that way.’

‘Lenk isn’t my “boss”.’

‘I thought briefly about using the term “commander”, but I thought you’d be too unaccustomed to proper terms to recognise it.’

‘He’s my friend.’

‘So you say.’

Quillian’s chewing filled the air as she stared out, dispassionate.

‘You don’t have anyone you worry about?’ Kataria asked.

‘I forsook the privilege of worry when I earned this.’ She ran a hand down her tattooed flank. ‘Those who fight alongside a Serrant can take care of themselves. From the way your “friend and leader” fought today, I’d say he can more than take care of himself, too. Even if he was an idiot when he charged that. . thing.’

‘He’s not an idiot,’ Kataria snarled. ‘He was trying to protect everyone, you included.’

‘The only one I need protecting from,’ she narrowed her eyes upon the shict, ‘is the one right before me.’

Kataria resisted the urge to retort. There was no need for it now.

‘I’m not calling him anything more than a good killer,’ Quillian continued with a sneer. ‘He and that dragonman charged a creature that, by all rights, shouldn’t exist.’

‘Lenk is different from other humans. He doesn’t think like you.’

‘While I’m thrilled to see a shict stoop so low as to think so highly of a human, I feel compelled to ask. . how does he think?’

Kataria shook her head; she didn’t know the answer herself. She knew the man well enough to know his patterns, as she knew those of a wolf or a stag. She knew his likes, dislikes, that he wrote in a journal, that he slept little, that he bathed only in the morning, that he made water only when at least two hundred paces from anyone else. What made him think the way he did, however, was a mystery.

All she knew was what he had told her: something had happened in his youth, his parents were no longer alive. She absently wondered what he was like before.

‘So much the better,’ Quillian grunted at the shict’s silence. ‘I’d rather not know how you degenerates think.’ She swallowed another piece of fruit. ‘Argaol, I hear, has taken Rashodd alive. . to use the bounty to cover his losses.’

‘And the other pirates?’

‘Disposed of, not that you care.’

‘The world will make more humans.’

Quillian stared hard at her for a moment before snorting and turning about.

‘One moment,’ Kataria called to her back. ‘That phrase can’t be enough to make you irate. Tell me,’ she tilted her head curiously, ‘why is it you hate me, my people, so much?’

The Serrant paused, her back suddenly stiffening to the degree that Kataria could see every vertebra in her spine fusing together in contained fury. Then, with a great breath, her back relaxed and the woman seemed smaller, diminished. She ran a hand down her muscular flank.

‘For the same reason I wear this crimson shame,’ she replied stiffly. ‘I was there ten years ago.’

‘Where?’

‘I was at Whitetrees,’ she muttered, ‘K’tsche Kando, as you call it.’

Kataria froze twice, once for the name and again for the woman’s utterance of the shictish tongue. Red Snow. She offered no scorn for the woman any more; she could find none within herself. Her hate was no longer misunderstood, no longer unacceptable. Quillian had stood with the humans at K’tsche Kando.

She had good reason to hate.

‘Given that, and my inability to do it myself, I dearly wish you had died today.’ She set the remaining apple upon the railing. ‘Your due, should you get hungry later. Expect nothing else from me.’

She was gone before Kataria even looked at the fruit. She glanced at it for a moment before a smirk crossed her face. Plucking up the fruit, she sprang over the railing and glided nimbly across the timbers. As she neared Lenk, she rubbed the apple against her breeches and gave it a quick toss.

Her giggle was matched by his snarl as the fruit caromed off his skull and went flying into the water below. He whirled, a blue scowl locked upon her, as he rubbed his head.

‘You’re supposed to catch it,’ she offered, smiling sweetly.

‘I’m not in the mood,’ Lenk muttered angrily.

‘To catch fruit? No wonder you got hit in the head.’

‘I’m not in the mood for your. . shictiness.’

‘You never are.’

‘And yet,’ he sighed, ‘here you are.’

‘Call me concerned,’ she said, smiling. She cocked her head, regarding him for a moment. ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘The creature,’ he replied bluntly, scratching his chin.

‘What else?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Worrying about things you can’t help makes your hair fall out, you know.’

‘Someone has to worry about it,’ Lenk snapped, glaring at her. ‘Someone has to find out what it was and what can kill it.’

‘And that’s your responsibility, is it?’

‘I’ve got a sword.’

‘You can put it down.’

‘I can also get my head chopped off. What’s your point?’

‘Do you really need to think about this now? The thing is gone.’

‘For the moment.’

His hand slid up unconsciously, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. He had left it below after cleaning it, he recalled. His shoulder reacted to the pressure of his fingers, a sharp pain lancing from his neck to his flank. Asper had plucked the splinters from his flesh, though the wounds still ached beneath their makeshift bandages and salve. Still, such a pain felt minuscule against the sensation that clung to his throat like a collar.

He could still feel the creature’s claws, its digits like moist leather wrapped about his neck, tightening as it lifted him from the deck. At the thought, his legs even felt weaker, as though the thing still reached out from wherever it had retreated, seeking to finish what it had begun.

‘You’re hurt?’

He blinked; Kataria’s question sounded odd to him, considering that she had seen him be smashed against the timbers, hoisted up and nearly strangled in a webbed claw. In fact, it sounded rather insulting. His hand clenched involuntarily into a fist. Her jaw loomed before him, suddenly so tempting.

He snorted. ‘Yeah.’

His shoulder suddenly seared with a lance of pain as she laid a hand upon it. With a snarl, he dislodged her, whirling about as though she’d just attacked him. She matched the murder in his eyes with a roll of her own, placing both hands upon his shoulders and easing him down against the railing.

‘What are you doing?’ He strained to hide the pained quaver in his voice.

‘Hold still; I’m going to check you over.’

‘Asper already did.’

‘Clearly she didn’t do a good enough job, did she?’ She slid back the fabric of his tunic, examining the linen bandage wrapped about his shoulder. ‘Not surprising. Human medicine is roughly where shictish medicine would be if we were just crawling out of the muck.’ She snickered at that. ‘Of course, it’s humans that crawled out of the muck, not shicts, and that must have been centuries ago, so I’m not even sure what her excuse is.’

‘It’s fine. She gave me some salve and-’

‘Bandages. She thinks she can solve everything with bandages and salve.’ Peeling back the white linen, she scratched her chin thoughtfully. ‘A bit of fire would close these wounds, I bet.’

Had Lenk actually heard her suggestion, he might have objected. As it was, her voice was distant to him, second to the suddenly pervasive presence of her scent.

His nostrils flared soundlessly, drinking in her aroma as she leaned over him. His first thought was that she smelled rather unlike what he suspected a woman should smell like. There was no cleanness to her, no softness. Her perfume was thick and hard, an ever-present scent of wood, mud and leather under an ingrained layer of sweat and dried blood. As he swirled her stink in his nose, he became aware that he should find the aroma quite foul; it certainly smelled particularly disgusting on his other companions.

So why, he wondered, was he so entranced with smelling her?

‘That can’t be normal-’

‘What?’

‘What? Nothing.’ He blinked. ‘What?’

‘Fire.’

‘What about it?’

‘You could seal your wounds with fire,’ she repeated, ‘assuming you didn’t break down in tears halfway through.’

‘Uh-huh. .’

Her voice had faded again, ears suddenly less important than nose, nose suddenly far, far less important than eyes. The scent of sweat, that key ounce of her muscular perfume, became suddenly more pronounced as he spied a bead of the silver liquid forming just beneath the lobe of a long, notched ear.

She continued to prattle on about fire, shictish superiority and any number of topics related to the two. He could only nod, form half-decipherable grunts as he stared at the small trickle of sweat. It slid down her body like a snake, leaving a path of tiny droplets upon her pale flesh in its wake. It trickled down, trailing along her jawline to caress her neck, slithering over a perfectly pronounced collarbone, roiling over the subtle slope of her modest chest to disappear down her leather half-tunic.

Lenk was no longer even aware of her speaking, no longer aware of the dryness of his unblinking eyes or his slightly open mouth.

After a leather-smothered eternity, the bead reappeared just beneath the hem of her garment, settling at the base of her sternum like a glistening star of hope. It quivered there in whimsical contemplation before sliding down the centre-line of her abdomen. It glided over the shadowed contours of her belly’s muscle, across each subtle curve as it journeyed ever downwards, his eyes following, unblinking.

Lenk was forced to swallow hard as it finally reached her navel, dangling off the upper lip like some silvery stalactite, quivering with each shallow breath, each tug of her taut stomach, each breath he unconsciously sent its way, growing heavier. It glistened there, stark against the shadow of the oval-shaped depression before something happened. One of them breathed too hard, flinched too noticeably, and the bead quivered once.

Then fell.

It struck his lap with the quietest of splashes, leaving a dark stain upon the dirt of his trousers. Only when its silver ceased to sparkle did he finally blink, did he finally realise what he had just been staring at for so long.

He stiffened, starting up with an incomprehensible grunt. His head struck something and Kataria echoed his noise, recoiling and rubbing her chin. Eyes bewildered, like a startled beast, she regarded him irately.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘What?’ he echoed in a shrill, dry crack.

She blinked. ‘I. . didn’t say anything.’ Tilting her head, her expression changed to one of concern. ‘Did I hit a nerve or something?’

‘Yeah.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘A nerve or something.’

She nodded silently, but offered no response. At least, he thought, no decent response. She spoke no more, did not so much as twitch as she reclined onto her haunches and stared. He cleared his throat, making a point of looking down at the deck, hoping she would lose interest in him and find something else to do.

He had been hoping that for the year he had known her.

Kataria, however, had never found anything else to do besides follow him. She had never met anyone else in all their travels worth sparing a second glance for. She had never stopped staring.

He cleared his throat again, more loudly. It was all he could do; if he chased her away, she would stare from afar. If he asked what she found so interesting, she would not answer. If he struck her when his temper got the better of his patience, she would strike back, harder. Then keep staring.

She would always stare. He would always feel her eyes.

‘Something’s on your mind.’

Kataria’s voice sounded off. Distant, but painfully close, hissed directly into his ear through a wall of glass. He gritted his teeth, shook his head, before turning to regard her. She was still staring, eyes flashing with an expression he couldn’t understand at that moment.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

You, he wanted to say, I’m thinking of you. I’m thinking of your stink and how bad you smell and how I can’t stop smelling you. I’m thinking of how you keep staring at me and how I never say anything about it and I don’t know why. I’m thinking of you staring at me and why someone’s screaming at me inside my head and how someone’s screaming inside my head and why it seems odd that I’m not worried about that.

He wanted to say that.

‘Today,’ was all he said instead.

She nodded, rising up from her knees. She extended a hand and he took it, hauled himself to his feet with her help.

‘It’s something to worry about, isn’t it?’

Really? Worried? Why would we be worried? A man drowns on dry land at the hands of something that shouldn’t exist and we should be worried? You’re a reeking genius.

‘Uh-huh,’ he nodded.

‘You almost died.’

It occurred to him that he should be more offended by the casual observation of her tone.

‘It happens.’ It occurred to him that this was not a normal answer for anyone else.

She continued to stare at him. This time, he did not look away, absorbed instead by the reflection in her eyes. Behind him, the sun was setting over the bobbing husk of the Linkmaster, painting the sky a muted purple, the colour of a bruise. Above him, the stars were beginning to peer, content to emerge after gulls had been chased away. Before him, the world existed only in her eyes, all the silver, purples and reds drowned in the endless emerald of her stare.

‘You’re staring,’ she noted, the faintest of smiles tugging at the corners of her lips.

‘I am.’ He straightened up, painfully aware that he was barely any taller than she was. He cleared his throat, puffing his chest out. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘I don’t need to do anything about it,’ she replied smugly. ‘Stare as much as you want. I know I’m something of a marvel to behold to beady little human eyes.’

‘My eyes aren’t beady.’ He resisted the urge to narrow said orbs in irritation.

‘They are beady. Your hair is stringy, and you’re short and wiry.’

‘Well, you smell.’

‘Is that so?’ She reached out and gave him a playful shove. ‘And what do I smell like?’

‘Like Gar-’ He hesitated, a better insult coming to mind. He returned the shove with a smug smirk of his own. ‘Like Denaos.’

Her own stare grew a little beadier at that. Snarling, she shoved him once more.

‘Recant.’

‘No.’ He shoved her back. ‘You recant.’

‘Who’s going to make me? Some runt with the hair of an old man?’

‘Make you? I couldn’t make you bathe, much less recant.’ He leaned forwards, making certain he could see the edge of his sneer in her eyes. ‘Besides, what do the words of a savage matter to anyone?’

‘They apparently mean enough to force a walking disease to put up some pitiful display of false bravado.’ Her sneer matched his to a precise, hideous crinkling of the lip. ‘If they don’t matter to you, why don’t you back away?’

‘I don’t show my back to savages.’

‘Shicts don’t squirm at stoop-spined swallows struggling to strut.’

‘I don’t. .’ He blinked. ‘Wait. . what?’

She smiled and shrugged. ‘So my father taught me.’

He smiled at that. Beneath him, his foot twitched, brushing against hers, and he became aware of how close they stood. He felt the heat of her breath, felt her ears twitch at every beat of his heart, as though she heard past all the grime caking him, all the flesh surrounding him, heard him function at his core.

‘Back away,’ he whispered, heedless of the lack of breath in his voice.

Her foot did not move. The wind moaned between them, singing a dirge for the dead that went unappreciated. As if in spite, the tiny breeze cut across them and sent their locks of silver and gold whipping across their faces. Between them, though, the air remained unchanging. He could feel the subtle twist of heat as her chest rose with each breath, the cool shift as another bead of sweat formed upon the pale skin of her neck to begin a snaking path down her belly.

‘You back away,’ she muttered, her voice barely audible over the wind’s murmur.

The stars were out, unafraid. The sky was the deepest of bruises now. The clouds had long since slunk into black sails on far distant horizons. Behind Lenk, the sky met the sea and the world moved beneath them.

‘Last chance,’ he whispered.

Before Lenk, the world was eclipsed in two green suns above a pair of thin, parted lips.

‘Make me,’ she smiled.

There was a heartbeat shared between them.

‘Stop.’

His eyes snapped open wide. His neck became cold just as it had begun to shift forwards.

‘Staring at us.’

He didn’t hear the voice; he felt it, crawling across his brain on icicle fingers.

‘She’s staring at us.’

‘What’s wrong?’

Kataria’s ears went upright, sensing something. Could she hear it, he wondered, as it echoed inside his skull?

‘Stop,’ he repeated.

‘Make her stop.’

‘Stop,’ his voice became a whine.

‘Stop what?’

‘Make her stop!’

‘Stop!’

‘Stop what?’

‘MAKE HER STOP!’

‘STOP STARING AT US!’

The sailors glanced up from their routine, eyes suddenly quite wide as his scream carried across the corpses bobbing on the waves. They stared for only a moment before cringing as he turned around, clutching his head, before returning to their duties and taking a collective step away from his vicinity.

Kataria, however, did not look away.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘Nothing’s wrong. I’m perfectly fine.’ The statement sounded less absurd in his head, but his brain was choked by frigid fingers, an echo reverberating off his skull. ‘Perfectly fine. Would you stop staring at me?’

She did not.

‘You’re not fine,’ she stated, her eyes boring past his hair and skin as if to peer at whatever rang in his head. ‘You just broke down screaming at me for no reason.’

‘There’s always a reason for me to be screaming,’ he growled. ‘Especially at you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Her gaze narrowed; no longer a probe but rather a weapon to stab him with.

‘What do you mean, “What’s that supposed to mean?” Isn’t it obvious? I was nearly killed today!’

And now I’m hearing voices in my head, he wanted to add, but did not.

‘You’re nearly killed almost every other day! So are all of us! We’re adventurers!’

Insanity isn’t common amongst adventurers.

‘We’re not supposed to nearly be killed by hideous things that can’t be harmed by steel and drown men on dry land! Moscoff-’

‘Mossud.’

‘Whatever his name was, he rammed the damn … that … thing through with a spear and it didn’t even flinch! Gariath and I threw everything we had at it and it didn’t budge! I …’ He stalled, then forced the words out through gritted teeth. ‘I looked into its eyes and I didn’t see anything.’ ‘And that’s why you went mad a moment ago?’

I went mad because I’m likely losing my mind.

‘And you feel that’s inappropriate?’ he asked with a sneer.

‘Slightly.’ She sighed, her shoulders sinking. ‘You meet one thing you can’t kill and this is how you react? Is it so hard to accept that some things exist that you simply can’t change? I would have thought you were used to it, being a-’

‘Human.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Of course. How could I not be used to such things, being a weak-willed, beady-eyed human?’

‘I wasn’t going to say that.’

‘But you were thinking it.’

Her eyes were hard and cruel. ‘I’m always thinking it.’ ‘Well, if you think so little of us, why don’t you leave and go frolic in the forest with the other savages?’

‘Because I choose not to,’ she spat back. Folding her arms over her chest, she turned her nose upwards. ‘Who’s going to make me do otherwise?’

‘Me,’ Lenk grunted, hefting a hand clenched into a fist, ‘and him.’

She glanced from his eyes to his fist and back to his face. They mirrored each other at that moment, jaws set in stone, eyes narrowed to thin, angry slits, hands that had once been close to holding each other now rigid with anger.

‘I dare you,’ she hissed.

Asper tied the bandage off at Mossud’s arm. A frown ate her face in a single gulp as she looked over the tightly wrapped corpse upon the table. Skinny as he was, with his arms folded across his chest, legs clenched tightly together, the pure white bandages swaddling him made him look like some manner of cocooned vermin.

She hated bandaging; it was such an undignified way to be preserved. Though, she admitted to herself, it was slightly better than being stuffed in a cask of rum. At least this way, when they were stuffed in salt, they wouldn’t shrivel up. He would be preserved until the Riptide reached Toha and he could be turned over to proper morguepriests.

Still, that fact hadn’t made it any easier when she had wrapped the other men up.

She felt sick as she looked over the bandaged corpses laid out upon the tables of the mess hall. The dusty, stifling air of the hold and the mournful creaking of the ship’s hull made it feel like a tomb.

She could still recall laughing with sailors and passengers over breakfast that morning. .

Tending to the dead was her least favourite duty as a priestess of Talanas. She was bound to do it, as a servant of the Healer, in addition to performing funerary rites and consoling the grieving. When she had trained in the temple, though, she had tended to the latter while less-squeamish clergy had handled the former.

The crew of the Riptide would be dead themselves before they let her console them, however. And Miron, the only other man of faith on board, had vanished shortly after he had driven off the beast.

She sighed to herself and made a sign of benediction over the sailor’s corpse; if it had to be done, she thought, it was better that she did it than letting him go unguided into the afterlife.

Quietly, she walked down the hall and noted a red stain appearing at the throat of another bound corpse, tainting the pure white. A frown consumed her; that poor man might have lived if Gariath was able to tell the difference between humans a bit better. She reminded herself to rebind him when she could acquire more bandages from Argaol.

The sound of quill scraping parchment broke the ominous silence. She turned to one of the tables, where Dreadaeleon sat, busily scribbling away. She grimaced at the casualness with which he sat next to the bandaged corpse, as though he were sitting next to an exceptionally quiet scholar in a library.

‘Have you finished?’ she asked, forcing the thought from her mind.

‘Almost,’ he replied, hurriedly scribbling the last piece of information. ‘Do you know what his faith was?’

‘He was a Zamanthran, I believe,’ Asper said. ‘Sailors, seamen, fishermen. . they all are, usually.’

‘All right,’ he said. He finished with a decisive stab of the quill and held the parchment up to read aloud. ‘“Roghar ‘Rogrog’ Allensdon, born Muraskan, served aboard the Riptide merchant under Captain S. Argaol, devout follower of Zamanthras.”’ He frowned a little. ‘“Slain in combat defending his ship. Sixteen years of age.”’

With a sigh, he rolled the parchment up and tied it with coarse thread. He reached over the bandaged corpse and tucked the deathscroll firmly in its crossed hands. His sigh was echoed by Asper as they glanced at the pile of scrolls on the bench next to him. With solemn shakes of the head, they plucked them up and walked about the tables, delivering the deathscrolls to their silent owners.

She hesitated as the last one was deposited in stiff, swaddled arms. Dreadaeleon’s listless shuffling echoed in the mess.

‘Dread.’ The shuffling stopped. ‘Thank you for helping me.’

‘It’s not an issue.’ He took another step before pausing again. ‘I suppose I was duty-bound, being one of the few literate aboard.’

She smiled at that. ‘I just. . hope you don’t begrudge me anything after what I said to you earlier.’

‘I said things just as bad,’ he replied. ‘We all do. It’s not that big a deal.’

She felt him look towards her with familiar eyes: big, dark and glistening like a puppy’s. It would have felt reassuring to see him look at her that way, she reasoned, in any other situation. Amongst the library of bandages and scrolls, however, she resisted the urge to return the gesture and waited until she heard the shuffling of his feet once more.

‘So, what was it?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Pardon?’

‘The creature,’ he said, ‘that thing. Was it some unholy demon sent from hell? Or an agent of a wrathful god? What?’

‘What makes you think I know?’ She scowled at him. ‘Is there nothing in any of your books that explains it?’

‘I have only one book,’ he replied, patting the heavy leather-bound object hanging from his waist, ‘and it’s filled with other things.’ He tucked a scroll into the arms of another corpse. ‘Nobody knows what that thing was.’ He looked up at her suddenly. ‘But the Lord Emissary seems to have a better idea than anyone else.’

‘What are you insinuating?’ she asked, her eyes narrowing as she drew herself up. ‘Lord Miron would never consort with such abominations.’

‘Of course not,’ Dreadaeleon said, shaking his head. ‘I’m just curious as to what that creature was.’ He sighed quizzically. ‘It’s certainly not something I’ve ever seen in any bestiary.’

‘You’re as likely to have an answer as I am,’ Asper replied with a shrug. ‘I’ve never heard of anything that can drown a man on dry land, have you?’

‘There are spells that can do such things. But if it had been using magic, I would have known.’ He paused and thought for a moment. ‘I wish that ooze hadn’t dried off Moscoff-’

‘Mossud.’

‘I wish it hadn’t dried off his face so easily. I could have studied it.’

The priestess chuckled dryly and he turned to her, raising an eyebrow.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘I shouldn’t be laughing, I know. But. . you’re the only man I know who would face something so horrible and wish he could have been closer to it.’ She stifled further inappropriate laughter. ‘Denaos has sent no word yet?’

‘No,’ the wizard replied, shaking his head. ‘The captain and he have been down there for hours.’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows what they’re doing to Rashodd?’

‘I’m not certain I want to know,’ Asper replied, frowning. She cast a glance to the companionway leading to the hold below and shuddered.

‘And what do you intend to do about him?’ Dreadaeleon asked, pointing to the far side of the mess hall.

Asper cringed; she had purposely avoided glancing at that particular section. Swallowing her anxiety, she turned and glanced at the cold, limp corpse of the frogman lying on the table under a sheet, eyes wide open and glazed over as they stared up at the ceiling. She hadn’t even ventured near enough to close his eyes, she realised, cursing herself for such disrespect. Still, it was difficult for her even to glance at the corpse. Without the rush of combat, the man’s appearance unnerved her greatly.

Anxiety was not a word that Dreadaeleon recognised, however, and she gasped as she saw the wizard take a seat next to the corpse and poke it curiously.

‘Dread!’ she cried out, hurrying over. She skidded to a halt about halfway, cringing, but forced herself to come alongside the boy. ‘Foe or not, have some respect for the dead!’

‘Look at this,’ the wizard said, ignoring her. He held up the corpse’s limp arm and she cringed again. He held the arm a little closer to the light and pointed to the skin. ‘His skin is still wet and he’s been down here for hours and. . my, my, what’s this?’

He didn’t have to point it out to her, for Asper saw it as clearly as he did. The boy gently pulled the man’s fingers apart, stretching the flaps of skin between the digits.

‘Webbed hands,’ he said, examining the digits. He dropped the hand and spun in his seat, lifting up the man’s leg. ‘Look here. . he has them between his toes as well.’

‘Fascinating,’ Asper replied. ‘Do you really have to do this now?’

‘And if he has webbed appendages. .’ Dreadaeleon trailed off as he inched closer to the frogman’s head.

Asper reeled back, cringing as he lifted the corpse’s head and pulled back his ear. She nearly retched when she saw the thin red slits hidden behind the earlobe.

‘Interesting,’ Dreadaeleon remarked, sharing none of her disgust. ‘He has. . gills.’

‘So. . he really is a frogman?’

‘It’d be more accurate to call him a fishman, I think.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Asper replied, intentionally avoiding looking at the mutated man. ‘It’s. . good that the captain didn’t order him tossed overboard. Otherwise you might never have found this out.’

‘Why does Argaol want him, anyway?’ Dreadaeleon asked, examining the webbed toes again. ‘Weren’t the others tossed overboard after they were executed?’

‘I suppose he believes the frogmen have some connection to the creatu-’

Asper stopped short, staring in abject horror as Dreadaeleon dropped the man’s leg and began to pull the sheet covering him down. Able to stand no more, she stamped her foot and reached for his hands.

‘Even if he is a loathsome creature, I won’t let you desecrate him like-’

‘Do you have any tattoos under your shirt?’ he interrupted.

‘What?’ Asper asked, pulling back with a shocked expression on her face.

‘You know, like on your belly or chest?’

‘I most certainly do not!’

‘Really?’ Dreadaeleon asked. With one swift jerk, he pulled the sheet from the corpse. Asper reeled back at the sight as Dreadaeleon leaned forwards to get a closer look. ‘Our friend here has an interesting one. .’

Emblazoned on the man’s chest in ink the colour of fresh blood was a symbol of a pair of skeletal shark jaws, gaping wide and lined with hundreds of sharp teeth. The other frogmen had worn the symbol on their biceps, she recalled. Did they all have them on their chests, too?

‘What. . do you think they mean?’ At his curious glance, she cleared her throat and continued. ‘In your opinion, that is?’

‘I’m at a loss. Symbols are really more the dominion of priests, aren’t they?’

‘Well, maybe I-’ She hesitated, suddenly aware of the edge in his voice.

Or rather, she noted, the lack of an edge. He’s doing it again, trying to appear nonchalant and enquiring while secretly smugging it up in his own head. She felt a familiar ire creep behind her eyes, her hand clench involuntarily. Not this time, runt.

‘What do you mean by that?’ she finished tersely.

‘I. . didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘You leapt straight to linking those symbols to some manner of priesthood. Religious orders are hardly the only organisations to use sigils, you know. What about thieves? Assassins? Merchants? Argaol himself carries his own sigil.’

‘Not tattooed on his flesh.’ He held up his hands before she could retort. ‘Listen, I’ve neither the time nor inclination for a debate right this moment. I’m simply posing theories regarding a mystery that no one else seems to be thinking about besides you and me.’

Her jaw unclenched so slowly and forcefully that it might have made the sound of groaning metal. She inhaled sharply, holding her breath as her thoughts began to melt into a fine, guilty stew in her head. She had overreacted, of course she knew that now; not everything he posited was a challenge to her faith, nor was he intentionally trying to be snide.

The fact that he was unintentionally quite skilled at it, she chose to ignore. For now, she forced her irritation down and her smile up, offering an unspoken truce.

‘Though, you have to admit,’ he scratched his chin, perhaps hoping a beard would magically grow to make the gesture more dramatic, ‘it is a little odd.’

‘What is?’ She felt her jaw set again.

‘That the only one who seems to know anything isn’t answering any questions and is also a priest.’

It unclenched in a creaking snarl. ‘Why, you smarmy little-’

Before she could finish expressing her righteous indignation, before he could offer any stammering excuses, a noise filtered through the timbers of the mess. Growing closer with each breath, the sound of cursing, bodies hitting the wood, heavy-handed slaps and more than a little squealing filled the air.

Both pairs of eyes turned towards the companionway as a tangle of flesh, gold and silver came tumbling out of the shadows. They tussled for a moment, all frothing saliva, bared teeth, reddened skin and sheens of sweat, before settling into a mess of limbs. Gloved hands gripped arms, ankles, tufts of hair. Feet were planted in bellies, shins, dangerously close to groins. Their teeth were glistening, their recent use testified by the red marks on each other’s skin.

It was a horror to behold, Asper thought, but she had long since spent all her lectures on companionship and scolds for infighting. At this particular tangle, she could only blink once and sigh.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Ask this savage,’ Lenk growled. ‘She bit me.’

‘This round-ear bit me first!’ Kataria snapped back.

‘At least I don’t have teeth like a dog’s!’ Lenk spat.

‘And that’s only his most recent crime,’ Kataria continued, ‘before which came insanity, excessive cursing and oversensitivity!’

‘Lies!’ he all but roared. With a shove, he pulled free from her, clambering to his feet as she did. ‘It hardly concerns anyone else, anyway. This is between me and her.’

‘Have you no respect for the dead?’ Asper protested, taking a wary step to intervene. ‘These men, who fought and died alongside you, are resting here and you have to bring another squabble into their midst for no reason?’

‘There’s plenty of reason,’ Lenk snarled. ‘These men are dead because of us.’

‘Why? Because you weren’t able to kill the thing that killed them?’ Kataria turned her nose up haughtily. ‘Accept your weakness and move on. There was nothing you could have done.’

‘I could have grabbed the book!’

‘You could have had your head smashed in and lost the book anyway. Then we’d be short a book and you.’

‘And what do you care about that? What is it you always say?’ He pulled his ears upwards in mockery of hers, his voice becoming a shrill imitation. ‘“The world can make more humans.” I’d have thought one more of us dying would make you happy.’

‘In hindsight, it would have, since I wouldn’t have to suffer your voice now!’ Her ears flattened against the side of her head in a menacing gesture. ‘And don’t even think to try to imitate me, even if you’ve got the height for it.’

It occurred to Asper at that moment, regarding them so curiously, that this was no ordinary fight. They had squab-bled before, as had all in their company, but never with such fervour. There was something animalistic between them, a frothing, snarling fury they had not deigned to show each other, or anyone else, before now. For that reason, she thought it wise to keep her distance.

Dreadaeleon, however, had never understood the difference between intellect and wisdom.

‘You’re disturbing everyone here, you know,’ he said, reaching out to place a hand on Lenk’s shoulder. ‘If you’d just-’

‘Back AWAY.’

Lenk seized the boy’s frail hand roughly, nearly crushing it with his fury-fuelled grip. He shoved Dreadaeleon off effortlessly, propelling his scrawny mass across the floor as though he were a stick wrapped in a dirty coat. And like a dirty coat, he twisted, stumbling across the floor, making a brief cry of surprise that was silenced the moment he came to a sudden halt.

Face-first against Asper’s robe-swaddled bosom.

He staggered back as though he had been punched in twelve places at the same time, sweat suddenly forming on his face in streaming sheets, hands held up as though he was facing some murderous wild beast. Given the red-faced, gaping-mouthed, narrow-eyed incredulous expression on the priestess’s face, he wagered it would be a reasonable reaction.

‘I–I’m truly sorry,’ he stammered, ‘but you must acknowledge that this was hardly my fault, you see-’

Her slap cut through the air deftly, stinging him across the cheek and sending a spray of anxious sweat into the air. He recoiled, touching the redder mark upon an already reddened face and regarded her with a shocked expression.

‘What’d you do that for? I was just telling you it was an accident!’

‘Accident or no, a lady is always entitled to deliver a slap for purposes of preserving her dignity.’ She flicked beads of moisture off her fingers. ‘Rules of etiquette.’

His finger was up and levelled at her in a single breath, an incomprehensible word shouted in another. A small spark of electricity danced down his arm and leapt from the tip, striking the priestess squarely in the chest. She trembled, letting out a shriek as it spread and ran the length of her body sending her hair on its ends and bathing her in the aroma of undercooked pork.

‘What was that for?’ she hissed through chattering teeth.

‘Spite,’ he replied, flicking sparks off his fingers.

‘How utterly typical,’ she growled, sweeping a scornful gaze across her companions. ‘You people feed off each other. When one of you acts like a vagrant, you all do.’

‘Us people?’ Lenk sneered. ‘You remember you’re with us, don’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ Kataria grunted, ‘at least we involved you in the fighting. I don’t see Miron out here even talking to you, much less getting ready to jab your eyeballs out.’

‘Why, you pointy-eared little-’

The fight died suddenly as the lanterns swayed at a sudden impact. The companions froze, taking a collective hard swallow as they noted a large shadow looming out from the companionway leading to the ship’s hold. All looked up to see Gariath standing in the entry, surveying them through eyes glittering with excitement.

‘What’s going on here?’ he asked as softly as he could, hardly enough to prevent them from taking a collective step backwards.

‘Nothing’s going on,’ Lenk said, forcing a weak smile onto his face.

‘It doesn’t look like nothing to me,’ the dragonman growled, taking a step forwards. ‘It looks like you’re all trying to kill each other.’

He paused, flashing his teeth in a morbid smile.

‘Without me.’