‘Your thoughts?’ Bralston asked.
‘Run,’ Dreadaeleon said.
‘Venarium law permits no retreat.’
‘He … uh … he’s not getting tired.’
‘Confirming my hypothesis. The stones feed him.’
‘Their power can’t be limitless.’
‘They seem to be.’
‘No,’ Dreadaeleon said, shaking his head. ‘That can’t be right, I’ve seen them-’
‘Seen them what, concomitant?’
It was too late to lie, Dreadaeleon knew the instant he saw the subtle, scrutinising narrowing of the Librarian’s eye. It would have seemed a good time to tell everything about the red stone, how it drained him of his power, how it had tainted his body, how he, too, had broken the Laws by using it.
That might have been a matter to discuss when there were decidedly less flaming-eyed wizards approaching, however.
Truly, aside from an added slowness to his step, Sheraptus looked no worse for wear as he strode toward them.
‘I find myself running out of things to learn about your breed,’ the longface said calmly.
Whether Bralston saw an opportunity in the longface’s easy stride, or was merely desperate and stubborn, he acted regardless. His hand whipped out, sending a paper crane fluttering from his grasp.
Even if Sheraptus hadn’t seen the movement, someone else had. A longface previously motionless upon the deck rose suddenly with a wordless cry of warning for her master. The paper crane found her, latched upon her throat and began to glow bright red, a tick gorging itself with blood. In one moment, it sizzled upon her flesh. In one more, she whimpered another meaningless phrase to Sheraptus.
And in less than a moment, she came undone.
Sinew unthreaded, bones disconnected, flesh segmented itself in a spray. With only a sound that resembled the pop of a bottle, the longface erupted into pieces.
They flew into the air, and stayed there.
Sheraptus, unblinking, simply waved a hand, causing the air to ripple and suspend the remains of his warrior in an eerily gentle float. Slowly, the dead stirred under his feet. Bodies trembled, weapons clattered, all rising up to float around him like bleeding flowers upon a pond.
‘Your denial of the obvious is charming,’ he whispered sharply, ‘but only to a point. To know why you do this, futile as it is, requires a certain kind of patience.’ He narrowed his stare to thin, fiery slips. ‘I dearly wish I possessed such a thing.’
At another word, an incomprehensible alien bellow, the dead came to horrific, swirling life. The bodies flailed limply, heedless of swords rending their dead flesh, as flesh, sinew and iron enveloped him in a whirlwind of purple and grey.
A hurricane of the dead, with him the merciless and unblinking eye, he began to approach the wizards.
‘Suggestions?’ Bralston asked in a way Dreadaeleon felt far too calm for the situation.
Perhaps such a calm was infectious enough to keep Dreadaeleon from hurling himself screaming overboard. Perhaps it was infectious enough to allow him to see the careful slowness to the longface’s step, his face screwed up in concentration as he strove to keep the whirlwind under control. He may be able to perform such a feat forever, but he couldn’t do it quickly.
And that realisation made Dreadaeleon look with a clear mind to the wounded Akaneed, swaying and only now recovering from its bloodied stupor. Its agony turned to fury as it turned an angry single eye upon the deck.
‘Frost,’ he muttered, unsure to who.
‘What?’
‘Give me cold!’ he said with sudden vigour. ‘Lots of it!’
Sparing no more than a curious glance for the boy, Bralston complied. His chest grew large with breath before it came pouring out of his mouth in a great, freezing cloud. Dreadaeleon looked within it, seeing each shard of ice, each flake of frost, and the potential within them.
He extended his hands, fingers making minute, barely visible movements as he began to shape the cold within the cloud, drawing freezing particles into flakes, flakes into crystals, crystals into chunks. He could feel the wind of Sheraptus’ cyclone, the scorn of the longface’s stare as he looked upon his prey. He could feel the roar of the Akaneed rumble through the deck as the serpent lurched forward.
But the feel of cold was stronger, kept him focused as he melded chunks together, breaking them down and rejoining them in an instant, forcing them into one immense whole. His coattails had just begun to sway from the wind of the cyclone when he finished his creation, forming the frost into a freezing blue spear the size of a large hog.
And with a thrust of his hands and a shouted word, he let it fly.
Flakes tailing behind it, the icicle fled through the sky, screeching against the night. The Akaneed had just opened its mouth to let out a thundering howl when the freezing spear’s wailing flight was punctuated with a gut- wrenching sound.
Dreadaeleon watched with more glee than was probably appropriate as the spear punched through the back of the creature’s head, its red-stained tip thrusting out through blue flesh. He held his breath as the Akaneed swayed, first away from the ship, teetered precariously as it seemed likely to fall back into the ocean, and then …
His eyes widened, heart raced.
‘Move,’ he said.
‘Agreed,’ Bralston confirmed, seeing the same thing.
Dreadaeleon felt himself seized by powerful hands as the Librarian wrapped his arms about his torso. He then felt the sensation of his feet leaving the deck as Bralston’s coat became wings, pulling them both aloft.
From above, the boy beamed as his plan took shape. The joy he derived from Sheraptus’ scowl was compounded for the sheer fact that the longface’s eyes were upon him.
And not on the immense weight of a dead, serpentine column that came thundering down on his ship.
Dreadaeleon thought he might break out cackling when the longface turned about in time to see it.
Whatever happened next was lost in a crash of waves and the thunder of splinters as the Akaneed’s head smashing down upon the deck like a blue comet, punching through the wood, ploughing through the hull, vanishing beneath the waves that rose up to claim the ship.
‘Well done, concomitant,’ Bralston said.
‘That probably did it,’ Dreadaeleon said, smirking to himself as he watched the corpse of the ship groan and begin to sink. ‘He’s dead.’
‘We must assume so, for lack of any better information.’
‘Then let’s go down there and be certain.’
‘When the Laws are violated, there are no certainties.’
‘What do we do now, then?’
‘The Venarium will want a report,’ Bralston replied. ‘My orders,’ he paused, ‘
‘We won, then,’ Dreadaeleon whispered. ‘Or … wait, there was something I was supposed to do, wasn’t there?’
‘There were others on the ship, I believe. I see them back on the beach,’ Bralston replied. ‘Associates?’
‘Yes, but there were …’ Dreadaeleon shook his head. ‘It’s still hard to think.’
‘There were tremendous amounts of energies released tonight, more than most members are equipped to handle. Take some pride in the fact that you are still conscious, if not totally aware, concomitant.’
‘Right …’ Dreadaeleon nodded. ‘Right, I feel …’
That phrase lingered on the night wind as Bralston swept about, leather wings flapping and bearing the two wizards towards the shore, neither of them taking any note of a pair of solemn blue eyes staring at them from a
