She collapsed to her knees, but he refused to relinquish his grip on the garrotte, stalwartly absorbing each elbow she thrust behind her. It was a valiant effort, Lenk thought, awestruck by the rogue’s tenacity, though not enough to avoid a sudden thought.

Wait … where’d he get the rope?

The question lingered only as long as it took for the hate to leak out of the netherling’s eyes, whereupon Denaos loosed his grip and let her drop. Lenk stared down at the rope, recognising it as far too furry to be anything but what the man had been wearing moments ago.

It took a strong perception for Lenk to realise the imperative need to not look back up. It took a decidedly stronger resolve not to scream when he invariably did.

Denaos certainly didn’t help matters by placing his hands on his naked hips and setting a triumphant foot on the netherling’s back.

‘Take it all in, gentlemen,’ he replied, gesturing downward and tapping his foot. ‘What do you suppose? The biggest one here?’

Gariath stalked past him, casting a glance and offering a snort.

‘I’ve seen bigger.’

‘Well, this is all highly disturbing,’ came a shrill voice. They glanced over to see Dreadaeleon sitting upright, looking at them inquisitively. ‘I assume, once someone sees fit to untie me, we’ll be giving chase?’

‘Were you not dead a moment ago?’ Denaos asked.

‘Coma,’ Dreadaeleon replied, pausing only to sit still long enough for Gariath to shred his bonds and hoist him to his feet. ‘A momentary overwhelming of the senses, not unlike deeply inhaling a pot of mustard.’

‘Mustard doesn’t do that,’ Denaos pointed out.

‘Surprisingly enough, I use these childish metaphors for the benefit of your diminished comprehension,’ the boy spat back, ‘not so we can waste time. We have to go after the renegade … the longface.’

‘They’re out at sea,’ Lenk muttered. ‘We don’t know where.’

‘We will shortly,’ Denaos replied.

Before anyone could ask, the rogue slipped behind a nearby bone and returned, shoving what appeared to be a walking, bound, bruised melon before him. Togu did not raise his head, his yellow eyes cast down. Shame, Lenk thought, or perhaps just out of a sense of protection as Denaos drew his loincloth-turned-garrotte tightly between his hands and looked to Lenk for approval.

‘No,’ Lenk said, sighing. ‘We’ve got to find out what he knows first. The sea is a vast place, his ship could be anywhere and—’

‘Two leagues that way,’ Dreadaeleon interrupted, pointing out over the shore.

‘Huh?’

‘He leaks magic,’ the boy replied. ‘He’s a skunk in linens to me.’

‘Oh.’ Lenk glanced over at Denaos and shrugged. ‘Go nuts, then.’

‘STOP!’

The Gonwa chased his own voice, emerging from the gloom before Denaos’ wrists could even twitch. They regarded him as warily as he did they, though he seemed to be under no delusions that the sharpened stick in his hand was any match for the bloodied sword in Lenk’s. Still, his eyes carried a suspicious forthrightness that Lenk instantly recalled.

‘Hongwe,’ he muttered the creature’s name. ‘If you’re here to finish the betrayal …’

‘He’s not,’ Gariath grunted.

‘I’d believe that if anyone else had said it,’ Denaos replied.

‘What makes you so sure?’ Dreadaeleon asked, quirking a brow.

‘I know,’ the dragonman said.

‘The Rhega speaks the truth, cousins,’ Hongwe said softly. ‘I am no friend to the longface.’ He gestured to Togu. ‘And neither is Togu.’

‘He sold us to them,’ Denaos growled.

‘For survival,’ Hongwe replied sharply. ‘He had choices … He made the wrong one.’

‘How is this not reason enough to kill him again?’

‘Because I can’t watch him die,’ Hongwe replied, ‘and don’t ask me to look away. Togu saved the lives of me and my people. I trusted him, and if you want my help, I ask you to spare him.’

‘What help?’ Denaos asked, sneering. ‘We know where the ship is. We’ve now got our weapons back as well as our monster – no offence, Gariath – so the only thing lacking is a loose end which I’ve already tied up and am about to strangle with my loincloth.’

Hongwe shrugged. ‘You got no boat.’

‘He has a point,’ Dreadaeleon replied, eyeing Denaos. ‘What do you care, anyway? Death is nearly assured. Not really your ideal situation, is it?’

‘Prepubescent men in loincloths,’ Denaos replied, ‘are in a universally poor position to choose their help.’

‘Postpubescent.’

‘So you say.’

‘Shut up, shut up, shut up,’ Lenk snarled. He whirled a scowl upon Hongwe. ‘You can get us to the ship?’ At the Gonwa’s nod, he looked to Gariath. ‘You coming?’

‘People will die,’ Gariath replied.

‘They will.’

‘Then yes.’

‘Great, fantastic, good,’ Lenk muttered, waving an arm about in swift instruction. ‘Get the boat. Get ready. We sweep in, start killing, hopefully come out of this all right.’

‘That’s a plan?’ Denaos asked. ‘Not to prove the boy’s point, but a fire-leaking wizard is something to take a moment about in regards to how we’re going to attack this.’

‘Faith fades, steel shatters, bodies decay,’ Lenk replied, hurrying to the palanquin. ‘Duty remains.’

‘What does that even mean?’

‘Khetashe, I don’t know, you stupid protuberance! Just shut up and help me get my pants on,’ he snarled, tearing through the palanquin’s array. ‘If I’m about to go charging onto a ship brimming with purple psychopaths who worship someone who leaks fire, I’m not doing it with my balls hanging out.’

‘That’s a good first step, at least,’ Dreadaeleon replied. ‘What next?’

Lenk’s fingers brushed against something thick and soft. He plucked the severed head from the assorted tribute, holding it by its golden locks and staring into its almost serene, closed eyes.

‘I’ll think of something,’ he said softly.

Thirty

BURIED IN SKIN

All shicts knew how to deal with predators.

It was a matter of instinct. Those who lived in the wilds shared them with predators; those who knew how to deal with them possessed the talent for doing so. Those who did not lacked the instinct, thus they had not been given the talent by Riffid, thus they were not shict.

Kataria was a shict.

She reminded herself of this. Her breathing was slow and steady, fear kept hidden deep, far away from her eyes. She sat up straight, resting on her knees, back rigid: Those with weak stances were easy prey; those who drew attention to themselves provoked sharp teeth. Her wrists were relaxed in their rawhide bonds: Struggle suggested weakness, weakness invited attention. She forced herself still, daring no movement beyond quick breaths and subtle darts of her eyes.

She glanced at Asper, kneeling beside her, similarly bound. The priestess had only ceased to struggle against her captors when she had been forced into the cabin, placed in the corner with Kataria. Without fury to hide it behind, fear had set in quickly. She cowered in her bonds, bowed her head, breathed quietly, choking back sobs.

‘Talanas protect me,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve doubted so much, I’ve feared for everything, I can’t take this anymore, you’ve denied me my whole life, please don’t let him do this, please, please, please …’

‘Stay calm,’ Kataria muttered, ‘stay still. Don’t speak.’

‘Shut up,’ Asper whimpered, ‘shut up, shut up, shut up. You don’t know what’s going to happen. You can’t know.’

Kataria narrowed her eyes, her ears folding over themselves. She tried to ignore the priestess’ fervent whispering, tried to ignore the truth of her words to no avail. For as much as she reminded herself that she was shict, that she knew how to deal with predators, she could not shut out the doubt, the fear entirely.

Nor could she ignore the sound of long purple fingers drumming on wood. Nor could she recall any predator she had seen whose eyes burned like flame.

Predators were creatures of simple motive: fear, hunger, anger all plain in their gazes. Nothing about Sheraptus was plain on him, least of all his eyes burning fire. Instinct told her to fear him, yet he had not so much as looked at them since ushering them aboard the great, black vessel. His power was obvious, but he had done nothing more than whisper quiet orders to his netherlings to prove it.

Of him, all she could be certain was that his stare, brimming with fire, was not on her. For that, she was thankful.

Sitting lazily in a massive, blackwood chair beside a matching table, he weighed the tome heavily in his hands, staring at it with varying levels of disinterest, drumming his fingers on the armrest contemplatively. Occasionally, he reached up and ran a finger along the crown of black iron upon his brow, relaxing as soon as he touched it, suitably convinced that it was still there.

The crown was his sole distraction, all he seemed to truly notice in the room. It shared his enthusiasm, its three crimson jewels glowing all the brighter at his touch, speaking in a wordless, glimmering language only he could understand. More often than not, Kataria noticed him grinning at the crown’s unheard jest, the wrinkles at his lips giving the impression that his mouth stretched far longer than any mouth could or should.

At those moments, Kataria found it difficult to keep the fear buried.

‘What is paper made of, anyway?’

It was both the suddenness of and genuinely curious tone behind the question that caused her to start.

‘Wood,’ a voice grated.

She heard Sheraptus shift in his chair, dared glance up to see him a bit surprised by the sudden voice. Xhai, leaning against the wall with arms folded across her chest, met his gaze and shrugged.

‘Hacked down, pressed … I don’t know.’

‘Wood … from trees.’ Sheraptus hummed thoughtfully, staring at the book. ‘They have thousands of trees.’ He glanced out the cabin’s great bay windows. ‘Water, salted and pure, they have in abundance. They have fertile earth to grow food to feed themselves and four-legged things they turn into food. There is absolutely nothing to fight over on this world.’ He lifted the book up to the overhanging oil lamp, as if hoping to divine some secret from it by fire. ‘But they fight … over this.

‘No, no.’ He suddenly shook his head. ‘Not even this: what’s inside this.’ He flipped the book open, thumbed through the pages with a sneer painted on his face. ‘Ink, letters, words I can’t even read.’ He glanced over at Xhai. ‘The Grey One That Grins … he said that no overscum could read it, either, didn’t he?’

‘He did,’ the female replied.

‘And yet so many creatures want it,’ he whispered, astonished. ‘The overscum wish to keep it out of the underscum’s hands. The underscum desire it for reasons I can’t even fathom. The Grey One That Grins wants it for reasons he wants us not to fathom. And those green things wanted it to protect them …’

‘From us,’ Xhai finished, grinning.

‘No, not those green things. The other ones … the tall, tattooed ones.’ He shook his head. ‘So much worth fighting for … and they choose this.’

‘Are you going to read it?’ Xhai asked. ‘If the Grey One That Grins wants what’s in it, we should know.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t trust him. Or the screamer. We should have hurt her a little. I don’t think she should—’

‘Of course you don’t,’ Sheraptus said, sighing. ‘That’s what makes you a netherling. You come from nothing, you return to nothing. Your entire life is set: your actions, your fate, your …’ His gaze drifted towards Kataria, causing her head to duck sharply, drawing a grin from him. ‘Instincts.’

She cursed herself instantly; the movement was too sharp, too sudden. It had drawn his attention. She heard his chair slide as he rose from it, his feet scraping softly on the wood floor. She heard Xhai’s teeth grind, felt the milk-white scowl levelled at her like a weapon. She tried to swallow, finding it difficult to do so with her heart lodged in her throat.

She heard his hand before it reached her, heard the quiet moan of the air as it parted in fear before his fingers. It did not stop her from cringing when it cupped her beneath the chin.

‘But these things … these creatures …’ He whispered, a farce of gentility in his voice. ‘Nothing is certain. They do things that make no sense, worship creatures that don’t exist, fight over ink, scream in pain when pain is a certainty …’ He tilted her face up, stared into her with burning eyes. ‘Why?’

Her eyes wanted to burst from their sockets, to let tears boiling behind them come flowing out. Her lips twitched with the scream that sought to pry them open and be heard. She buried them with her fear, or tried to.

But his eyes of fire searched her face, searing away masks of confidence and burning down walls wrought by defiance. He sought her fear, caught it in fleeting glimpses, and bid it to emerge within her stare as his fingers slid down her chin, brushing lightly against her throat, trying to coax out the scream inside.

She trembled, a shudder that rose in the pit of her stomach and coursed through her body, up to his fingers. He sensed it, a smile tugging at lips too long, eyes brightening wickedly. The jewels on his crown shone, wordlessly squealing, whining, suggesting, pleading, demanding that she stare into his eyes, that she loose her terror and fold over and tremble and weep and feel his eyes and teeth upon her, sinking into her flesh, drinking her fear.