Tome of the Undergates

‘It’s simply not possible!’ His protest came as a wheeze. ‘Spells can’t just be hurled about without regard! There are laws! There must be pause, there must be rest, there-’ He stiffened suddenly, turning the expression of a scolded puppy upon Asper. ‘Wait, you think he’s better than me?’

‘Well. . I mean, you said he was.’

‘I said he did something different. That doesn’t make him better than me.’

‘I’m sure you’re very talented in other respects, but. .’ She scowled suddenly. ‘Does it really matter now?’

‘No,’ Dreadaeleon muttered. He studied the male through a scrutinising squint, his lip crawling further up his face with every spell cast. ‘If his magic were just stronger, I’d sense it. I’d know it.’ With cognitive suddenness, he slammed a fist into a palm. ‘He’s cheating.’

‘Cheating.’ Asper raised a brow.

‘Well, he is!’ Dreadaeleon stamped a foot. ‘Even in the most skilled hands, magic is a controlled burn. It strains the body, but not his. He’s not even breathing hard. He’s … I don’t know. . using something.’

‘Search him when he’s dead,’ Gariath growled.

With a low snarl, he reached behind him. His body jerked, spasmed, then relaxed at the sound of particularly thick paper being torn. Asper cringed as dark rivers poured down his back, then fought violently against the rising bile as he thoughtfully flicked a glistening fragment of red from one of the blade’s sharp prongs.

‘For now,’ the dragonman grunted, ‘there’s plenty to kill. If you’re smart, you’ll sit back and wait for a real warrior to finish it.’ He looked over the pair contemptuously. ‘Being that you’re human, though-’

‘Naturally.’ Dreadaeleon’s fingers tensed, beads of crimson glowing at their tips. ‘I don’t care who kills him. The laws of the Venarium must be upheld.’

With grim nods exchanged, the dragonman and not-yet man turned and stalked grimly towards the melee, ready to rend, to freeze, to bite and to burn. The battle raged with a yet-unseen fury, tides of pink and purple flesh colliding as the Abysmyths waded through to leisurely pluck opponents up and dismember them with disinterest.

Beautiful, Gariath thought.

The dragonman snorted. The wound felt good in his back. He would not be walking away from this fight, he knew. All that remained was to make certain that he got there before nothing was left to kill.

‘Wait!’

His eyelid twitched at the shrill protest. He scowled at Asper over his shoulder, meeting her objecting befuddlement with abject annoyance.

‘What about the others? Lenk, Kataria, Denaos-’

‘Dead, dead, dead quickly,’ he replied. ‘Honour them. Give them company in the afterlife.’

‘But I. .’ she whimpered, ‘I can’t fight.’

‘So die.’

‘I left my staff behind.’ Her excuse was as meek and sheepish as her smile. ‘I’m not much use. I. . could remain here and tend to you, though. You are bleeding quite badly and I-’

‘Moron!’ he roared, turning on her. ‘There will be nothing for you to tend to here. Nothing will survive if I can help it.’ He stomped towards her, scowling through his mask of gore. ‘You cried about wanting to fight.’ He thrust the jagged blade into her hands, staining her robes red. ‘Now prove if you’re worthy of life.’

‘I. . no, it’s not that.’ She tried to return the blade, her grasp trembling. ‘I don’t want to. . I mean, I can’t. My arm, you see, it-’

‘I don’t care,’ he snarled in reply. ‘No one will ever care what you did while you’re still alive.’ He snorted, spraying a cloud of red into her face. ‘Your life will be nowhere near as great as your death, if you manage to do it right.’

Her eyes were those of an animal: frightened, weak, quivering. But she held on to the blade, he thought, and more importantly, she stopped talking. For the moment, that was enough for him; if she managed to do something worthwhile in the time she still breathed, it would be a pleasant surprise.

She disappeared from his thoughts and his sight as he turned his back to her, stalking towards the throng. He ignored her cries of protest, ignored the boy who had already disappeared into the battle, ignored the thought of the other dead humans. He would mourn for Lenk later, laugh at the rest of them with his last breath.

The wound in his back felt good, the chill that filled him refreshing. The sound of his life spattering onto the ground was a macabre reassurance that he would not be walking away from this fight, that he would be seeing his ancestors before the day was done.

And he would not be going alone, he resolved.

When the first of the longfaces looked up at him, pulling her spike out of a pale corpse and loosing a war cry, it was not death that he smelled, nor sea, nor salt, nor fear. There was only the scent of rivers as she charged him.

Rivers and rocks.

Twenty-Seven

TO SEE WITH EARS

‘ Kat?’

That was her name, wasn’t it? No shict had ever called her that, of course; shicts had full, proud names that all meant something. Kat meant nothing, Kat was not a name, Kat was not a word.

‘Kat!’

Kat was her name, she remembered. Not her true name, not her shict name. Kat was a name that some silver-haired little girl had called her. No, she remembered, he had been a man. A human.

‘Kataria!’

She remembered him now. Skinny fellow, not at all impressive to look at; but she looked at him often, didn’t she? She followed him out of a forest, a year ago. Where was he now?

His voice was hard to hear. Her ears twitched against her head. They felt disembodied, hanging from her head and heavy with lead. Too deaf to hear her own breath, much less some weak little human girl. . man.

But she heard him, still crying out her name, still shrieking, still screaming as if in pain. He had a lot of pain, she remembered.

What was his name again?

‘Lenk.’ Her lips remembered. ‘Don’t be dead.’ The words came unbidden. They were not shict words. ‘I’m coming.’

‘Well, that’s just delightful. I’m sure if he wasn’t already dead, he’d be thrilled to hear it.’

Another voice: grating, simpering, unpleasant. She frowned immediately, her eyelids flittering open. The face she recognised: angular and narrow, like a rat’s, except more obnoxious. His wasn’t entirely concerned, his frown not particularly sympathetic.

‘Denaos,’ she hissed. Her voice was a croak on dry lips.

‘Oh, good. You remember my name. Everything else upstairs working?’ He tapped her temple with a finger. ‘Nothing feel loose? Leaking?’ He waved a hand in front of her. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘However many as will fit up your nose if you don’t get away from me,’ she snarled, slapping at his appendage. She rose from the stones beneath her, head pounding with the blood that rushed to it. ‘What happened?’

‘So, you are whole in the mind, right? That question was just your natural stupidity?’ He sneered and gestured down a dark, drowned hall. ‘Just listen, nit.’

She didn’t have to strain her ears; even weakened as they were, the distant furore sounded violently close. There was the sound of weapons clattering to the floor, harsh and croaking war cries mingling. Mostly, there was the screaming: loud and sporadic, flowing into a continuous river of agony that flooded into her ears and filled her