Tome of the Undergates

venomous at her. In fact, as he noted a particularly thick branch just next to her head, he realised it would be even easier to repay her for her earlier violence.

All you have to do is reach out, and. .

He shook his head to dispel that thought. While he knew there to be very few problems smashing someone’s head into a tree couldn’t solve, this was not one of them. Tact, however little use an adventurer usually found for it, was called for in such a situation.

‘That’s all there is to it, then?’ he asked, hoping she didn’t note the civil strain in his voice.

‘In this particular case, yes.’ She ducked under a low-hanging branch. ‘Let me ask you something.’

His entire body tensed; questions from the shict, lately, had served chiefly as preludes to violence.

‘Have you thought at all about how you’re going to fight this thing if you find it?’

‘Would it distress you to hear that I don’t know?’

‘No more than usual.’

‘Well, I’ve been giving it some thought,’ Lenk replied. ‘The Abysmyth can’t be hurt by mortal weapons, and that’s about all we’ve got. But it can be hurt by fire. Dread can do something about that and, if we’ve got time, we can get torches.’

‘It’ll be hard to make a fire when it’s eating our heads.’

‘You think it eats heads?’

‘Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘It seems like the kind of thing that eats heads.’

He smiled.

‘Dreadaeleon has his headache, however.’ She grunted as she pressed her lithe body between a heavy stone and a tree trunk. ‘I’ve never seen him use magic in such a state, but I wager it won’t be pretty.’

‘You mean the spectacle of him straining himself beyond his limits?’ Lenk struggled to follow her through the squeeze but found his waist caught firmly in fingers of stone and wood.

‘I was thinking more about the greasy splatter that the Abysmyth will make of him.’ The shict took his hands in hers and, with a strained grunt, pulled him free. ‘This is all assuming quite a bit, though.’

‘Right.’ He paused to dust himself off. ‘We have to find the stupid thing first. Khetashe willing, we’ll spot it before it spots us.’

‘And then?’

‘Then we run away and hide until we can get fire.’

‘Not the bravest strategy.’

‘Bravery and effectiveness are rivers that run in different directions.’

He caught her staring at his shirt and followed her gaze. Even after he had brushed himself off, the forest proved less than willing to let him go: all manner of burrs, thorns and leaves clung to his garments. He glanced back up and she met his gaze, smugness leaking out of her every pore.

‘Perhaps you’d like to take a moment to rest,’ she said, leaning against a tree and folding her arms across her chest.

Reeking, pointy-eared know-it-all.

Despite having led the way through the underbrush, Kataria was completely free of scratches; nothing more than a slight smear of sand marred her flesh. He focused on it unconsciously, observing the sole discoloration to her pale skin, shrinking and growing with each unhurried breath she took.

Arrogant little. .

A breeze muttered through the canopy, parting the branches to allow a shaft of light through the greenery. As though the Gods had a flair for the dramatic, the beam settled lazily on Kataria, turning her shoulders gold, setting her hair alight, making the sandy smudge glisten.

Thinks she’s so. .

The sunlight clung to her, he realised, upon a skin of perspiration. Even as the dirt painted her body bronze, the sweat caught the sun and bathed her skin in shimmering silver. In the moments between the fluttering of the leaves, she looked like something that had sprung from the forge of the Gods, brightly polished metals, rough edges and brilliant, glimmering emeralds.

‘What are you looking at?’

He stiffened up at that, going rigid as though he had just been rudely awakened. The reaction did not go unnoticed as Kataria tilted her head to the side, eyeing him as she might a beast, her body tense and ready to flee. . or attack.

Not the ideal response.

Now’s your chance, he told himself, you’ve got to talk to her and you’re alone together. Start with a compliment! Tell her about that forge of the Gods thing, she’ll like that!

‘You look like-’

Wait, WAIT! He bit his tongue as her face screwed up in confusion. She’s a shict; she doesn’t believe in the Gods, just Riffid. Does Riffid use a forge?

‘I look like what?’

Damn it, damn it, damn it. He clenched his teeth. To the pit with this, just say something.

‘Hey.’

Genius. He sighed inside his head. Throw away your sword and take up a pen, you Gods-damned poet-general.

‘What?’ Kataria’s long ears quivered, as though she heard his thoughts.

If she can hear your thoughts, he scolded himself, you might as well just say whatever’s on your mind.

‘I want to talk.’

All right, not bad. Straightforwardness is key.

‘We don’t talk during a hunt,’ she replied, ‘ancient shictish tradition.’

‘What?’ He blinked at her, puzzled. ‘You talk to me all the time when you’re tracking.’

‘Huh.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess I just want you to shut up this time, then.’

Easy, he told himself, drawing in a sharp breath of air, she wants to fight you. Don’t fall for it.

‘I want to talk,’ he repeated, ‘now.’

‘Why?’

Because, he rehearsed in his mind, you’re the only person I can trust not to get me killed or murder me in my sleep. It likely sounds stranger to hear than to say, but you’re the only person I can sleep easily around and I’d very much like to keep things that way.

He cleared his throat and spoke.

‘Why not?’

Damn it.

‘You don’t want to do this now,’ she replied.

‘I do.’

‘Then I don’t want to do this now.’

‘Then how are we going to-’

‘We’re not, that’s the point.’

Her stare was different as she slid off the tree, something flashing behind her eyes as she regarded him. He had seen everything in those green depths: her morbid humour, her cold anger, even her undisguised hatred when she met the right person. Up until that moment, though, he had never seen pity.

Up until that moment, he had never had to turn away from her.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘it’s not that I don’t trust you any more, but you’re just. .’ She cringed, perhaps fearing what his reaction might be should she continue. ‘You’re skulking, secretive, snarling. That was charming, in moderation, don’t misunderstand me. But now. .’ Her body shuddered with her sigh. ‘You’re not even Lenk any more.’

‘I’m not Lenk?’ He threw a sneer at her as though it were an axe. ‘Answer me this, then, how is it you get to decide who Lenk is?’