by Sam Sykes
‘Bad idea,’ the voice snarled.
The shark dived. Darkness filled Lenk’s mouth as the green firelight waxed and grew fainter above him. He was pulled deep, to the bottom of the foetid pool, leaving a crimson cloud behind. He flailed, pounded the shark’s head, raked at its rock-hard flesh with painfully human hands. The sheer futility did not occur to him. He was well past the point for logic to be of any use.
The shark’s teeth dug further into his flesh in response. He screamed, his voice lost on bubbles and blackness, and through thoughts clouded by pain he wondered why the demon simply hadn’t sheared through his leg.
The beast twisted, turned sharply upwards to bring him to the surface. He was spared a choked gasp, a triumvirate of giggles, before the shark angled sharply and pulled him under.
It’s. . he realised, it’s tasting me.
And it did so with macabre discerning. It chewed on him thoughtfully, fondled his thigh with a thick tongue, saliva cold even in the brackish depths. The three heads shifted, licking their own lips, sharing their grey host’s experience with water-choked enthusiasm.
And Lenk continued to strike it, still. The liquid slowed his fists, pulled at him, defending the demon even as impotent as his assault was. And yet, such a futile fury was all that kept him alive. When he ceased struggling, when panic faded, the abomination would become bored.
Hunger, if the thing did indeed eat, would not be far behind.
But his body was running out of fear to fuel his survival. His lungs tightened, vision darkened. A chill seized him, as though the water seeped into his very skin, drowning his panic, consuming fear and replacing it with numb resignation.
This is how it ends. The thought was a sigh on a wisp of bubbles, a slowing of his fist. Eaten by a shark with three heads. His strike was an infant’s against a stone wall. It’ll make a good story, at least.
His thoughts were faint against the creature’s laughter. All sounds were fading, drowned by the water rushing into his ears. Even the sound of his heart groaning, ready to burst in a sloppy eruption, was but a distant whisper.
It wouldn’t be long. And, as the water reached to caress his mind with liquid tendrils, that didn’t seem such a bad thing.
‘Fight.’
The voice, colder than all the water and pain coursing through him, muttered from a distant corner of his head.
‘Kill,’ it uttered, faint, like someone screaming from behind a great wall of ice, but growing stronger.
‘Kill!’
As water reached from without, something reached from within. A hand with fingers of frigid mist snaked through his body, expelled the invading liquid. His heart went hard, stopped beating. The fear that such a reaction should cause was gone, the need for air less desperate. The pain in his leg was gone, the limb felt numb even under the saw of teeth.
‘Kill!’
The numbness spread to his entire body, a coldness that quieted the demands of his flesh, silenced the shrieking laughter. He could not feel his arms moving, but saw his fingers guided by something not himself. They slid down with focused precision to the shark’s side, sank into something soft and fleshy. He did not know the beast’s weaknesses, but whatever moved his limbs did, and it seized them, merciless.
‘KILL!’
Lenk felt his hands dig into the ridges of the gill slits. He felt an impassive, uncaring strength course into his grip. He felt flesh tear.
A gout of red wept in the gloom. The shark’s groan was long and echoed through the blackness. The heads above went into a snaking, writhing agony, sputtering through the cloud of blood that drifted into their faces. The jaws relinquished him to the water and he watched the thing twist sharply, retreating into the darkness.
He remembered air, the taste of it in his lungs. He saw the green light shimmering above him. But the strength that coursed through him, the rivers of ice that replaced his blood, would not let him go to it.
Instead, his legs became as lead, pulling him to the bottom. He did not resist, did not feel fear at such a thing, did not hear the cry of his body for breath. All thoughts were gone, retreated from the voice that muttered in his brain, hidden in some forgotten corner of his mind.
His eyes were jerked, forced upon a glimpse of metal in the darkness. He swam to it, heedless of his bleeding, heedless of his need for air. He felt the massive demon swoop over him, heard it scream, but ignored it. Only silver existed.
His fingers groped the rocky bottom of the pool, the glint of silver vanishing as his shadow fell over it. He caught something in the darkness, a strap of some kind. Unthinking, he took it in one hand and reached again. His hand felt a familiar hilt, a leather-bound grip in his own.
Lenk remembered his sword.
‘And now, we are strong.’ The voice spoke to him with what sounded like an attempt at soothing reassurance. It would have caused Lenk to cringe, if not for the smile he felt creep across his face. ‘Kill,’ it commanded.
And, in the death of sound that existed between the blade sliding from the rocky floor and the tightening of his hand around its hilt, Lenk answered.
Yes.
The presence fled him in an instant. He was once more aware of the blood pumping in his arms, out of his leg. He felt his heart pound in his chest. He remembered the need for air.
Twisting, thrashing, he pulled himself skywards. Out of the corner of an eye wide with returned fear, he spied the Deepshriek spearing towards him. Its jaws gaped, six golden eyes narrowed furiously. He thrashed harder, straining, lusting for the surface.
The water stirred under him, the sound of bone cracking filled the dark as teeth clamped shut over emptiness. It sped beneath him. He felt three pairs of fangs gnash at him, grazing the leather of his boot and growling in frustration.
Lenk sundered the surface with a gasp and tore towards the outcropping. He grunted, grabbed and hoisted himself upon the rocky ledge. The stale air felt as sweet to his lungs as the hard, unyielding granite felt welcome to his body. He lifted his sword above him, smiling at the thick steel as he would an old friend.
And in his reflection, his old friend smiled back.
It wasn’t until he rose that he felt the weight in his other hand, the leather strap wrapped around his fingers. A satchel, he realised, water dripping off its black, slick leather. Its mouth hung loosely open, exposing a glimpse of its contents. Yellowed parchment, he recognised with widening eyes, bound between planks of dark leather that reflected no light.
As he stared down at it, the book stared back up at him with papery eyes and smiled.
‘It can’t be-’
‘VILE LANDBORNE FILTH!’
He looked up, simultaneously tossing the satchel behind him as he took up his sword in both hands. Three heads snaked before him, ominous golden scowls narrowed upon him as they spoke in a unified trio of spite.
‘What disease of your feeble grey brain afflicts you so to persist in this stupidity?’ they snarled. ‘You know nothing, less than a fraction of what lingers within those pages, and you come, suffer our wrath, even as your fellow mortal pests are butchered beyond this chamber.’
‘What?’
Lenk knew he shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t have let the fear show even for a moment on his face. He should have ignored the demon, drowned its words, but they echoed in his ears.
‘This. . shocks you?’ The three heads bared fangs in unpleasant smiles. ‘We see all that occurs in this tomb of rock and froth. We see mortals dying, blood being spilled, agony, fear, panic-’
‘It lies,’ the voice came rushing back into his brain. ‘Kill it now.’
‘They are broken, mortal.’ Their mouths twisted, caught between joyous grins and hateful grimaces. ‘They have suffered much. They begged for salvation from uncaring Gods.’
‘Ignore it.’
Lenk could not hide the despair flashing on his face, despite the voice’s command. Did it truly lie? The demon had powers, powers he could not contemplate. Could it know?
Could it speak the truth?
‘And when none came,’ the heads spoke, ‘they begged for death.’
‘Kill it now!’
Lenk’s sword drooped in his hands and he stared out into nothingness. He didn’t notice the golden-haired head rising above its swaying kin on a neck gone rigid.
‘Fret not, poor creature,’ the red- and raven-coloured heads purred. ‘Your fates are tied. Their mercy was cruel, but swift.’
‘LOOK, FOOL!’
Lenk spied the bulge rising up the centre stalk. The golden-haired head’s mouth stretched impossibly wide.
‘YOURS,’ the other two heads shrieked, ‘WILL BE MUCH MESSIER!’
The air shattered, the stones trembled. Lenk’s vision rippled as the shrieking thunder split the world before him. He flung himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the vocal onslaught as it bit into the stone slab, digging a crater in a spray of granite shards.
Snarling, he pulled himself away from the edge. His ears rang, but he heard nothing, not the lapping of water or stones sinking into the gloom or the curses of the Deepshriek.
He heard but one cold, angry voice that swiftly became his own as he tightened his grip on the sword.
‘DIE!’
Three great bulges rose up the stalks, three mouths gaped wide.
Silent, ignoring the voices of reason and instinct, he charged. Silent, ignoring the quake of his heart and the scream of his leg, he leapt. Silent, heeding only the voice in his head and in his hand, he struck.
He landed, straddling the shark’s slippery back. He teetered, narrowly avoiding toppling back to eager jaws by reaching out to grasp the central stalk. The golden-haired head let out choked protest, jerked down as he struggled to keep atop the beast.
The air split with the other heads’ shrieks, their fury launched at nothing. His grip tightened as he pulled himself to his feet. The other heads snaked about, snapped at him, nicking multiple cuts on his arms. He ignored them, focusing only on the central head’s bulging eyes and the sickly shade of blue it turned as the bulge of air was choked beneath his grasp.
His sword came up and down in a silver blur, sundering the thick flesh of the stalk. His grip slipped as golden locks tumbled into the air and disappeared beneath the water with a satisfying plop.
Time stopped suddenly. The shark came to a halt, the four remaining eyes went wide, and even the blood from his wounds seemed to stop seeping.
Then, chaos.
Their screams filled the chamber, their heads flailed with such fury as to seem ready to rip off from their stalks. The air within the now-headless central stalk came bursting out, heralded by a torrent of black, sticky blood. Lenk released it, seizing the shark’s fin as the stalk went wild, spewing black ichor.
The remaining heads shrieked in unison, barely audible through their agony. ‘What have you done, mortal? What wicked blade do you possess?’
Odd, he thought as he reached for the red-haired head, until that moment, he had never wondered if demons felt fear. Nor did he care as he raised the sword, ready to add another head to his tally.
His arm was jarred as the entire chamber shook. The shark rammed its snout into the rocky wall, causing Lenk’s swing to go wide. He snarled, swept his blade up to carve a gaping gash into the beast’s hide. It groaned, thrashed suddenly and sent him flying to crash against the wall.
He peeled himself from the stone, winded, but still with his wits about him as he hit the water. His sword was up, its silver bright in the water’s gloom as he prepared to finish the demon off.
Through the water, though, Lenk spied the Deepshriek, thrashing madly, its heads screeching. He watched it, squirming about like a wounded animal before it turned to the bottom. He watched it as it passed through the floor, staring in curiosity as its tail vanished into a gaping, black hole, its screaming echoing off the water as it disappeared.
He stared at the hole, waiting for it to return. When moments had passed, he surfaced. His breath was heavy as he hoisted himself onto the outcropping once again. Heavy, but clean.
He stared at the waters for ages, sword clenched tightly as he waited for the demon to return. The surface would yield no signs from its blackness, though, and, with a great sigh, he allowed his sword to fall and himself to collapse onto his back.
His head felt like lead, but through his hair he could feel something resting under his skull. He remembered then: leather, unadorned and black, in the satchel. What he had come all this way for. .
‘The tome,’ he whispered, smiling.
And under his head, it smiled back.
Twenty-Nine
BURN
A blade was a peculiar thing to feel, Asper thought.
She had never held one before, only stared at them with envy as they danced to a tune played by more capable hands. Now that she did feel one, it was heavy in her grip, like an iron burden wrought with jagged teeth.
Dripping with blood, she added mentally, Gariath’s blood. The thought of holding such a thing had occasionally crossed her mind, in her darkest anger against the dragonman.
But now that she held it. .
‘I can’t do this,’ she gasped, ‘I can’t do this, can’t do this, can’t …’
Reassuring denial was lost in an errant roar from the distant hall.
The battle, as Denaos might say in his cruder moments, had long since spent its best affections and now slid into sluggish, sleepy, blood-glutted cuddling.
The precise strikes from the longfaces’ iron spikes had become vicious, slovenly chops as their purple kindred lay beside their feet. The endless stream of frogmen had choked to narrow trickles, the pale creatures glancing around with dark eyes to seek out their emaciated Shepherds. The demons themselves had either fled or lay in smoking husks that still sighed white plumes of steam as they sank into the salt.
And even the water seemed disgusted, sliding out of the great wound in Irontide’s hide in an effort to escape the battle. Water shunned the place, she thought, and begged her to go with it. Neither of them belonged here.
They were healers. She was a healer. She served the Healer. What place did she have in this slaughter?
She did not desire an answer, but received one, anyway, at the end of her left arm. It twitched now, throbbing angrily. It did not doubt, it snarled. It did not beg, it demanded. And with each moment, it grew harder to ignore.
‘Not now,’ she whispered to her appendage. ‘Not now. I can fight this. I can resist this.’ Only remotely aware of how much of a squealing whisper her voice was, she felt the tears slide down her cheek to land upon her sleeve. ‘Not. . now.’
‘Then when?’
Asper’s head snapped towards the longface standing over her. For a woman bludgeoned and cut, she looked remarkably calm, regarding the priestess from behind a circular iron shield. The unpleasant grin that split her face, however, left no motive unclear.
‘You look lost, pinky,’ the longface said. She raised her iron spike, slammed it against her shield. ‘Need some help?’
‘S-stay back.’ Asper retreated a step, raising her left hand, then forcing it down against her side and holding up the blade. ‘I’ve got a weapon.’
‘One of our own gnawblades.’ The longface tilted her head to note the gore dripping down its handle. ‘But you don’t look like you could have done that with it.’
‘I. . I did.’
‘I haven’t seen you in the fight. Hiding is reserved for males.’ The longface smiled, took a step forwards. ‘Females fight.’
‘Stay away from me!’
‘Do your breed proud and stand,’ the woman hissed. ‘If I have to stick you in the back, I’m going to be unhappy.’
Asper took a step backwards and the longface’s grin grew broader. Unhappy, indeed. Calling the woman a liar would seem a bit futile, though. Instead, she tensed, ready to turn, ready to flee.
‘QAI ZHOTH!’ A grating roar split the air. ‘DIE, OVERSCUM! AKH ZEKH LA-’
The war cry was
cut short with the sound of paper splitting. Both longface and Asper looked up, seeing a great red fist thrust into the mouth from which it had poured. Gariath offered no war cry in retort, no insult or unpleasant cackle. His blow was vicious, but his fist hung in the air long after his victim collapsed. When he finally lowered it, he gasped with such exhaustion that the rest of him threatened to follow his hand to the floor.
Still, it was enough to send three other longfaces leaping backwards, shields raised. And in the parting of purple flesh, Asper could see the red pools at his feet, the tears dripping from his flesh, the waning hatred in his eyes. His knuckles were purple, wings flaccid on his back, but his smile was large and unpleasant.
‘Lucky, lucky.’
Her attention was brought back to the longface before her, who snorted, spat and hefted her shield.
‘Looks like the darker you pinkies get, the more trouble you are.’ She flashed a grin at the priestess. ‘I don’t need you any more. I don’t want you any more.’
‘What?’ Asper could not help but look incredulous as the longface stalked away. ‘That’s it?’
‘I’ll be back later.’
‘But. . you were going to. . I mean, I’ve. . I’ve got a gnawblade!’
‘There are always more weapons.’
‘You can’t just-’
Stop that. Her thoughts echoed in the sound of iron soles. This is your chance. Run. You don’t belong here. Her eyes narrowed upon Gariath, swinging wide against an encroaching longface. He doesn’t want you here. He wants to die. She swept the rest of the battle. No sign of Dreadaeleon, either. He’s dead. . you can’t bring people back from the dead. No one can.
There’s nothing you can do here.
The longface swung her iron spike, testing its weight. Her left arm twitched.
You shouldn’t even be with these people.
Gariath buckled to one knee under a sudden blow from behind. Her left arm throbbed.
What, she asked herself, could you even do?
She clenched her jaw, tightened her grip upon the weapon. And, in the faint flash of crimson that ran down her arm in time with the beating of her heart and the burning of her skin, she knew her answer.
