by Sam Sykes
‘Today, you do, and you haven’t stopped rubbing it since you woke up.’ Denaos’ brow rose as the colour faded from her face. ‘With,’ he whispered, ‘your left hand.’
‘Shut up, Denaos,’ she hissed.
‘Not just accidentally, either.’
‘Shut up!’
‘But you’re right-handed, which leads me to ask again. What happened in Irontide?’
‘She said,’ came Dreadaeleon’s soft voice accompanied by a flash of crimson in his scowl, ‘to shut up.’
Their problems would come and go. His would not. They would yell. They would fight. When they were tired of that, they would find new humans to yell at.
There were no more Rhega to yell at. There never would be. Grahta had told him as much on Ktamgi.
You can’t come.
Grahta’s voice still rang in his head, haunting him between breaths. The image of him lurked behind his blinking eyes. He did not forget them, he did not want to forget them, but he could only hold them in his mind for so long before they vanished.
As Grahta had vanished into a place where Gariath could not follow.
‘It’s not like this is exactly easy for me, either,’ Lenk snapped back.
‘How? How is this not easy for you? What do you even do?’ Kataria snarled. ‘Sit here and occasionally stare at me? Look at me?’
‘Oh, it’s all well and good for you to-’
‘Let. Me. Finish.’ Her teeth were rattling in her skull now, grinding against each other with such ferocity that they might shatter into powder. ‘If you stare, if you speak to me, you’re still human. You’re still what you are. If I stare at you, if I speak to you, what am I?’
‘Same as you always were.’
‘No, I’m not. If I feel the need to stare at you, Lenk, if I want to talk to you, I’m not a shict anymore. And the more I want to talk to you, the more I want to feel like a shict again. The more I want to feel like myself.’
‘And you can only do that by ignoring me?’
‘No.’ Her voice was a thunderous roar now, cutting across the sea. ‘I can only do that by killing you.’
The wind changed. Gariath could smell the humans change with it. He heard them fall silent at the pointy-eared one’s voice, of course, saw their eyes turn to her, wide with horror. Noise and sight were simply two more ways for humans to deceive themselves, though. Scent could never be disguised.
An acrid stench of shock. Sour, befouled fear. And then, a brisk, crisp odour of hatred. From both of them. And then, bursting from all the humans like pus from a boil, that most common scent of confusion.
His interest lasted only as long as it took for him to remember that humans had a way of simplifying such complex emotional perfumes to one monosyllabic grunt of stupidity.
‘What?’ Lenk asked.
Whatever happened next was beyond Gariath’s interest. He quietly turned his attentions to the sea. The scent of salt was a reprieve from the ugly stenches surrounding the humans, but not what he desired to smell again. He closed his eyes, let his nostrils flare, drinking in the air, trying to find the scent that filled his nostrils when he held two wailing pups in his arms, when he had mated for the first time, when he had begged Grahta not to go, begged to follow the pup.
He sought the scent of memory.
And smelled nothing but salt.
He had tried, for days now he had tried. Days had gone by, days would go by forever.
And the Rhega’s problem would not change.
You cannot go, he told himself, and the thought crossed his mind more than once. He could not go, could not follow his people, the pups, into the afterlife. But he could not stay here. He could not remain in a world where there was nothing but the stink of …
His nostrils flickered. Eyes widened slightly. He turned his gaze out to the sea and saw the dredgespider herd scatter suddenly, skimming across the water into deeper, more concealing shadows.
That, he thought, is not the smell of fear.
He rose up, his long red tail twitching on the deck, his bat-like wings folding behind his back. On heavy feet, he walked across the deck, through the awkward, hateful silence and stench surrounding the humans, his eyes intent on the side of the tiny vessel. The tall, ugly one in black, made no movement to step aside.
‘What’s the matter with you, reptile?’ he asked with a sneer.
Gariath’s answer was the back of his clawed hand against the rogue’s jaw and a casual step over his collapsed form. Ignoring the scowl shot at his back, Gariath leaned down over the side of the boat, nostrils twitching, black eyes searching the water.
‘What … is it?’ Lenk asked, leaning down beside the dragonman.
Lenk was less stupid than the others by only a fraction, Gariath tolerated the silver-haired human with a healthy disrespect that he carried for all humans, nothing personal. The dragonman glowered over the water. Lenk stepped beside him and followed his gaze.
‘It’s coming,’ he grunted.
‘What is?’ Kataria asked, ears twitching.
Not an inch of skin was left without gooseflesh when Gariath looked up and smiled, without showing teeth.
‘Fate,’ he answered.
Before anyone could even think how to interpret his statement, much less respond to it, the boat shuddered. Lenk hurled himself to the other railing, eyes wide and hand shaking.
‘Sword,’ he said. ‘Sword! Sword! Where’s my sword?’ His hand apparently caught up with his mind as he reached up and tore the blade from the sheath on his back. ‘Grab your weapons! Hurry! Hurry!’
‘What is it?’ Kataria asked, her hands already rifling through the bundle that held her bow.
‘I … was looking into the water.’ Lenk turned to her. ‘And … it looked back.’
It took only a few moments for the bundle to lie open and empty as hands snatched up weapons. Lenk’s sword was flashing in his hand, Kataria’s arrow drawn back, Denaos’ knives in his hand and Dreadaeleon standing over Asper, his eyes pouring the crimson magic that flowed through him.
Only Gariath stood unconcerned, his smile still soft and gentle across his face.
The boat rocked slightly, bobbing with the confusion of their own hasty movements. The sea muttered its displeasure at their sudden franticness, hissing angrily as the waves settled. The boat bobbed for an anxiety-filled eternity, ears twitching, steel flashing, eyes darting.
Several moments passed. An errant bubble found its way to the surface and sizzled. Denaos stared at it, blinked.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘That’s it?’
And then the sea exploded.
The water split apart with a bestial howl, its frothy life erupting in a great white gout as something tremendous rose to scrape at the night sky. Its wake tossed the boat back, knocking the companions beneath a sea of froth. Only Gariath remained standing, still smiling, closing his eyes as the water washed over him.
Dripping and half-blind with froth, Lenk pulled his wet hair like curtains from his eyes. His vision was blurred, and through the salty haze he swore he could make out something immense and black with glowing yellow eyes.
The Deepshriek, he thought in a panic, it’s come back. Of course it’s come back.
‘No,’ the voice made itself known inside his head. ‘It fears us. This … is …’
‘Something worse,’ he finished as he looked up … and up and up.
The great serpent rose over the boat, a column of sinew and sea. Its body, blue and deep, rippled with such vigour as to suggest the sea itself had come alive. Its swaying, trembling pillar came to a crown at a menacing, serpentine head, a long crested fin running from its skull to its back and frill-like whiskers swaying from its jowls.
The sound it emitted could not be described as a growl, but more like a purr that echoed off of nothing and caused the waters to quake. Its yellow eyes, bright and sinister as they might have appeared, did not look particularly malicious. As it loosed another throat-born, reverberating noise, Lenk
was half-tempted to regard it as something like a very large kitten.
Right. A kitten, he told himself, a large kitten … with a head the size of the boat. Oh, Gods, we’re all going to die.
‘What is it?’ Asper asked, her whisper barely heard above its song-like noise.
‘Captain Argaol told us about it before, didn’t he?’ Denaos muttered, sinking low. ‘He gave it a name … told us something else about it. Damn, what did he say? What did he call it?’
‘An Akaneed,’ Dreadaeleon replied. ‘He called it an Akaneed …’
‘In mating season,’ Kataria finished, eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t make any sudden moves. Don’t make any loud noises.’ She turned her emerald scowl upward. ‘Gariath, get down or it’ll kill us all!’
‘What makes you so sure it won’t kill us now?’ Lenk asked.
‘Learn something about beasts, you nit,’ she hissed. ‘The little ones always want flesh. There’s not enough flesh around for this thing to get that big.’ She dared a bit of movement, pointing at its head. ‘Look. Do you see a mouth? It might not even have teeth.’
Apparently, Lenk thought, the Akaneed did have a sense of irony. For as it opened its rather prominent mouth to expose a rather sharp pair of needlelike teeth, the sound it emitted was nothing at all like any kitten should ever make.
‘Learn something about beasts,’ he muttered, ‘indeed. Or were you hoping it had teeth so it would kill me and save you the difficulty?’
Her hand flashed out and he cringed, his hand tightening on his sword in expectation of a blow. It was with nearly as much alarm, however, that he looked down to see her gloved hand clenching his own, wrapping her fingers about it. His confusion only deepened as he looked up and saw her staring at him, intently, emerald eyes glistening.
‘Not now,’ she whispered, ‘please not now.’
Baffled to the point of barely noticing the colossal shadow looming over him, Lenk’s attention was nevertheless drawn to the yellow eyes that regarded him curiously. It seemed, at that moment, that the creature’s stare was reserved specifically for him, its echoing keen directing incomprehensible queries to him alone.
Even as a distant rumble of thunder lit the skies with the echoes of lightning and split the sky open for a light rain to begin falling over the sea, the Akaneed remained unhurried. It continued to sway; its body rippled with the droplets that struck it, and its eyes glowed with increasing intensity through the haze of the shower.
‘It’s hesitating,’ Lenk whispered, unsure what to make of the creature’s swaying attentions.
‘It’ll stay that way,’ Kataria replied. ‘It’s curious, not hungry. If it wanted to kill us, it would have attacked already. Now all we need to do is wait and-’
The sound of wood splitting interrupted her. Eyes turned, horrified and befuddled at once, to see Gariath’s thick muscles tensing before the boat’s tiny mast. With a grunt and a sturdy kick, he snapped the long pole from its base and turned its splintered edge up. Balancing it on his shoulder, he walked casually to the side of the boat.
‘What are you doing?’ Lenk asked, barely mindful of his voice. ‘You can’t fight it!’
‘I’m not going to fight it,’ the dragonman replied simply. He affixed his black eyes upon Lenk, his expression grim for but a moment before he smiled. ‘A human with a name will always find his way back home, Lenk.’
‘Told you we should have left them,’ the voice chimed in.
The dragonman swept one cursory gaze over the others assembled, offering nothing in the rough clench of his jaw and the stern set of his scaly brow. No excuses, no apologies, nothing but acknowledgement.
And then, Gariath threw.
Their hands came too late to hold back his muscular arm. Their protests were too soft to hinder the flight of the splintered mast. It shrieked through the air, its tattered sail wafting like a banner as it sped toward the Akaneed, who merely cocked its head curiously.
Then screamed.
Its massive head snapped backward, the mast jutting from its face. Its pain lasted for an agonised, screeching eternity. When it brought its head down once more, it regarded the companions through a yellow eye stained red, opened its jaws and loosed a rumble that sent torrents of mist from its gaping maw.
‘Damn it,’ Lenk hissed, ‘damn it, damn it, damn it.’ He glanced about furtively, his sword suddenly seeming so small, so weak. Dreadaeleon didn’t look any better as the boy stared up with quaking eyes, but he would have to do. ‘Dread!’
The boy looked at him, unblinking, mouth agape.
‘Get up here!’ Lenk roared, waving madly. ‘Kill it!’
‘What? How?’
‘DO IT.’
Whether it was the tone of the young man or the roar of the great serpent that drove him to his feet, Dreadaeleon had no time to know. He scrambled to the fore of the boat, unhindered, unfazed even as Gariath looked at him with a bemused expression. The boy’s hand trembled as he raised it before him like a weapon; his lips quivered as he began to recite the words that summoned the azure electricity to the tip of his finger.
Lenk watched with desperate fear, his gaze darting between the wizard and the beast. Each time he turned back to Dreadaeleon, something new looked out of place on the wizard. The crimson energy pouring from his eyes flickered like a candle in a breeze; he stuttered and the electricity crackled and sputtered erratically on his skin.
It was not just fear that hindered the boy.
‘He is weak,’ the voice hissed inside Lenk’s head. ‘Your folly was in staying with them for this long.’
‘Shut up,’ Lenk muttered in return.
‘Do you think we’ll die from this? Rest easy. They die. You don’t.’
‘Shut up!’
‘I won’t let you.’
‘Shut-’
There was the sound of shrieking, of cracking. Dreadaeleon staggered backward, as if struck, his hand twisted into a claw and his face twisted into a mask of pain and shame. The reason did not become apparent until they looked down at his shaking knees and saw the growing dark spot upon his breeches.
‘Dread,’ Asper gasped.
‘Now?’ Denaos asked, cringing. ‘Of all times?’
‘T-too much.’ The electricity on Dreadaeleon’s finger fizzled as he clutched his head. ‘The strain … it’s just … the cost is too-’
Like a lash, the rest of the creature hurled itself from the sea. Its long, snaking tail swung high over the heads of the companions, striking Dreadaeleon squarely in the chest. His shriek was a whisper on the wind, his coat fluttering as he sailed through the air and plummeted into the water with a faint splash.
The companions watched the waters ripple and re-form over him, hastily disguising the fact that the boy had ever even existed as the rain carelessly pounded the sea. They blinked, staring at the spot until it finally was still.
‘Well.’ Denaos coughed. ‘Now what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lenk replied. ‘Die horribly, I guess.’
As though it were a request to be answered, the Akaneed complied. Mist bursting from its mouth, it hurled itself over the boat, its head kicking up a great wave as it crashed into the waters on the other side. The companions, all save Gariath, flung themselves to the deck and stared as the creature’s long, sinewy body replaced the sky over them, as vast and eternal. It continued for an age, its body finally disappearing beneath the water as a great black smear under the waves.
‘It was going to leave us alone,’ Kataria gasped, staring at the vanishing shape, then at Gariath. ‘It was going to go away! Why did you do that?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Denaos snarled, sliding his dagger out. ‘He wanted this. He wanted to kill us. It’s only fair that we return the favour before that thing eats us.’
‘Gariath … why?’ was all Asper could squeak out, a look of pure, baffled horror painting her expression.
The dragonman only smiled and spoke. ‘It’s not like you’re the last humans.’
; Lenk had no words, his attentions still fixed upon the Akaneed’s dark, sinewy shape beneath the surface. He watched it intently, sword in hand, as it swept about in a great semicircle and turned, narrowing its glowing yellow eye upon the vessel.
‘It’s going to ram us!’ he shouted over the roar of thunder as the rain intensified overhead.
‘The head!’ Kataria shrieked. ‘Use the head!’
He wasted no time in hurling himself to the deck, jamming his hand into their stowed equipment. He searched, wrapped fingers about thick locks of hair and pulled free a burlap sack. Holding it like a beacon before him, he outstretched his hand, pulled the sack free.
The Deepshriek’s head dangled in the wind, eyes shut, mouth pursed tightly. It regarded the approaching Akaneed impassively, not caring that it was about to be lost with every other piece of flesh on board. In fact, Lenk had the presence of mind to think, it’s probably enjoying this.
No time for thought, barely enough time for one word.
‘Scream,’ he whispered.
And was obeyed.
The head’s jaws parted, stretching open impossibly wide as its eyelids fluttered open to expose a gaze golden with malevolence. There was the faint sound of air whistling for but a moment before the thunder that followed.
The head screamed, sent the air fleeing before its vocal fury, ripped the waves apart as the sky rippled and threatened to become unseamed. The blast of sound met the Akaneed head-on, and the yellow gaze flickered beneath the water. The dark, sinewy shape grew fainter, its agonised growl an echo carried on bubbles as it retreated below the water.
‘I got it,’ Lenk whispered excitedly. ‘I got it!’ He laughed hysterically, holding the head above his own. ‘I win!’
The water split open; a writhing tail lashed out and spitefully slapped the hull of the boat. His arms swung wildly as he fought to hold onto his balance, and when he looked up, the Deepshriek’s head was gone from his grasp.
‘Oh …’
The eyes appeared again, far away at the other side of the boat, bright with eager hatred. The sea churned around it as it growled beneath the surface, coiled into a shadowy spring, then hurled itself through the waves. Lenk cursed, then screamed.