by Sam Sykes
‘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 awa
y 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.’
