Tome of the Undergates (47 page)

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Authors: Sam Sykes

BOOK: Tome of the Undergates
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Lenk, however, was unmoved. His sword lashed out immediately, carving a deep gouge in the creature’s wispy torso. Black skin was rent like paper, globs of thick ebon spilling from the wound to plop in quivering jellies upon the earth. The creature shrieked at the wound again, its voice arcing into a high-pitched wail as it grabbed at the cut, straining to keep further parts of itself from slipping out.
‘Stop!’ it wailed. ‘Stop! Stop! You’re not supposed to do that!’
Lenk did not stop.
He lunged at the creature as it retreated backwards, thrusting his weapon into its leg so that the tip burst out of the other side in a fan of black. The creature collapsed to its knees and its shriek terrified the gloom, chasing the smoke further from the beach. Its hand quivered, darting between wounds, seeking to contain the thick liquids pouring from it at an alarming rate.
‘Not fair!’ it screamed. ‘Not fair! Get away from me!
GO AWAY!
’
Lenk did not go away.
His stride was soundless, his blade held loosely at his side as he advanced casually upon the creature. The victory was already decided, but rather than end it quickly, Lenk chose to take his time, walking so slowly as to suggest he wasn’t even aware that Kataria was nearby, covered with slime, still and breathless upon the ground.
‘Mother!’ the Abysmyth howled. ‘Mother! Help me!
HELP ME!
’
Lenk did not hear.
The demon made a lunge at him, feeble and sloppy, hurling its arm out to claw empty air as he stepped backwards. When the thing landed hard on its hand, he was quick to act, sidewinding about it like a serpent. His boots scraped against leathery flesh as he leapt and raced up the creature’s back, seizing it by its great black crest. His sword flashed, a steel fang sinking into the creature’s collarbone.
It was in that moment that Kataria realised the Abysmyth was making a sound she had never heard it make, never even thought it was capable of making before that moment: the demon was sobbing.
‘It hurts!
It hurts!
’ the thing cried out as Lenk wrenched the blade deeper, its mouth gaping wide. ‘
MOMMY! MOMMY! IT HURTS! MAKE IT STOP!
’ It batted at the weapon, digits suddenly becoming pudgy and helpless. ‘
MOMMY, I DON’T LIKE IT! MAKE IT STOP!
’
Lenk listened.
His foot came up and came down in one quick movement, heel upon the sword’s crossguard and burying it to the hilt. The silver blade burst out through the creature’s ribcage, sunlight through stormclouds, and shone defiantly.
The demon stopped its wailing. Lenk sprang off its back.
Its breathing was heavy now, laboured and ragged, shining rivers pouring out of it with every gasp. Even as it swayed upon its knees, its eyes could not express the despair it clearly felt as it stared blankly at the weapon. The sword looked back up at it through metal eyes, cruel and remorseless, denying the pity the Abysmyth so desperately wanted.
The wind moaned in the distance. Smoke parted above. A beam of light descended warily to the blackened earth and illuminated the silver spike as the demon reached up and fingered its tip.
‘So loud,’ it whispered, ‘the sky is . . . so loud.’ Waterfalls of black bile leaked out from between its serrated teeth, stained the ground. ‘It hurts . . .’ Quietly, it looked up to the sky. ‘Mother . . . how come it hurts?’
Kataria watched it collapse, the sword hilt proud in the sunlight, and a thought struck her.
That should not have happened . . .
It was when she blinked and felt her eyes squish that another thought rose.
I can’t breathe.
As though it had seemed a foreign concept until that moment, she began to rake at her face, pulling mucus off in great sheets. The slime seemed to resent this, trying to seep further inside her each time she clawed. Her lungs were ready to burst, heart ready to explode, mind ready to turn to stone and drag her head to the ground.
And still she raked.
Boots crunched. She felt a shadow descend upon her.
‘Lenk,’ she gurgled, choked, ‘help.’
He stood above her, unmoving, shadowed by the blend of smoke and sunlight.
‘Lenk,’ she said again, voice straining to get out through the ooze.
He twitched, knelt down beside her.
She opened her mouth to plead again, but found herself breathless. Blood froze in her veins, breath forgotten as her jaw went slack. She gasped; the ooze found its door into her body and flooded in. Her next breath was the last she took before she felt herself slip away, but even through the darkness of her eyes, she could still see him.
Lenk, skin as grey as a drowned corpse, eyes blue and burning, bereft of pupils.
Seventeen
BURY YOUR FRIENDS DEEP
‘I
s it working?’
Asper could feel Lenk’s eyes with such intensity they threatened to crack her skull. His stare darted between the priestess, sweating and pumping knotted hands over her patient’s chest, and the shict, who lay breathless upon the ground.
Asper kept her actual thoughts to herself; it just seemed in poor taste to tell him his concern over his dying companion was slightly irritating.
‘I don’t know yet.’ She pressed a pair of fingers against Kataria’s throat. ‘This sort of thing works on drowning victims, but only if we get to them quickly.’ No pulse; she kept her head low to conceal her frown. ‘Really, I just have no idea if it works on drowning by demons.’
‘Well, try—’
‘Oh, is
that
what I’m supposed to be doing?’ she snarled over her shoulder at him. ‘I’m not putting hands on her chest for your enjoyment, you know. Back away, moron!’
He nodded weakly, backing away. Such readiness to obey distressed her. It was exceedingly unlike the young man to so willingly bow out of such a situation. Then again, she considered, it was exceedingly unlike him to express any interest in death. Yet he seemed to be dying with the shict, moping about her soon-to-be-corpse like a dog around its dying master.
Asper forbore to tell him this.
She was sorely tempted to tell him to stop staring at her, though. His eyes bored into the back of her skull, drilling into two well-worn spots in her head where other, weary stares had rested. Gazes from mothers with fevered children, fathers with raped daughters had left the first scratches upon her scalp. Soldiers with wounded comrades and sons with ailing elders had bored even deeper.
Lenk’s stare, however, went well beyond her skin. He peered past hair, flesh, blood and bone into the deepest recesses of her mind. He saw her, she felt, and all the workings of her brain.
He knew she couldn’t save this one.
NO!
she shrieked at herself inside her own head.
Don’t think like that. You can do this. These hands have healed before, countless people. These hands . . .
Her gaze was drawn to her left hand, resting limply upon the shict’s abdomen. It twitched suddenly, temptingly.
You could end it all, you know
, her thoughts drifted,
just a bit of pressure, like you did to the frogman. Then, poof! All over! She won’t have to suffer any more . . .
‘No, no, no,
NO
!’
She ignored the concerned stares cast her way, ignored her hand, ignored everything but the placid expression upon Kataria’s face and the stillness of her heart.
‘I can do this,’ she muttered, beginning chest compressions anew, ‘I can do this, I can do this.’ She found solace in the repetition, so much that she barely noticed the tear forming at the corner of her eye. ‘Please, Talanas, let me do this . . .’
Lenk stared at Asper’s back, watching the sweat stain grow longer down her robe.
It was a hard battle to resist the urge to rush up beside the priestess, to see if he could help, if he could do something. He was used to fixing things: fixing the fights between his companions, fixing the agreements between him and his employers, fixing to jam hard bits of steel into soft flesh.
That’s how it should be.
He should have been able to fix this.
The sound of metal gently scraping against skin was loud, unbearable. He cast a resentful, sidelong scowl at his companion. Denaos, however, paid no heed to the young man, gingerly working at his fingernails with a tiny blade. Eventually, it seemed Lenk’s stare became a tad more unbearable and Denaos glanced back at him.
‘Sweet Silf,
fine
,’ he hissed, ‘I’ll do yours, if you’re so damn envious.’
‘Kataria,’ Lenk replied sharply, ‘is
dying
.’
‘To be more precise, Kataria may already be dead.’
Lenk blinked at him. Somewhere in the distance, a gull cried.
‘What?’ Denaos hardly looked at him as he plucked up a waterskin from the ground and took a drink.
‘This doesn’t bother you?’ Lenk all but shrieked at the tall man, snatching the skin away. ‘You can’t even keep yourself from drinking
her
water?’
‘It’s
our
water, you milksop. She’ll have her drink if and when she wakes up. Have at least an
ounce
of faith in Asper, would you?’ Denaos glanced over to the priestess. ‘She’s doing her best. She’ll do what’s right.’
‘Really?’ Lenk permitted a squeal of relief to tinge his voice. ‘You’ve seen this sort of thing before?’
‘Once, aye.’ He nodded appraisingly as Asper pressed her lips against Kataria’s once more. ‘But the spectacle cost me a pouch of silver.’ He became aware of Lenk’s angry stare after another moment. ‘What?’
‘What is wrong with you?’ The young man forced an angry snarl between clenched teeth. ‘I almost suspect Gariath would be more sympathetic in this than you are.’
‘He’s further up the beach,’ Denaos gestured, ‘far more curious about dead demons than he is about Kataria.’ He cast a smug smile at Lenk. ‘Besides, it’s not like he’d do anything more than I am save urinate on her corpse.’ He coughed. ‘Out of respect, of course.’
‘Then maybe you should go and linger with him,’ Lenk snorted. ‘If we’re lucky, I’ll only have to come back to see one of you still alive.’
‘Unsurprising as it might be, I find the near-dead to be rather more pleasant company than that lizard.’
‘Then do me,’ Lenk paused, ‘and
her
the respect of showing proper manners and worrying a little.’ He grunted. ‘Or by seeing how many daggers you can fit in your mouth. Whichever.’
‘Worry?’ Denaos made a scoffing sound. ‘Would that I could.’
The wind between them died. Lenk turned a scowl upon the rogue.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Frankly, I’d rather not say.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have said it in the first place,’ Lenk snarled. ‘
What do you mean by that?
’
The rogue’s shoulders sank as his head went low to hide the rolling of his eyes.
‘Really, you don’t want me to continue. If I do, you’ll get all upset and pouty, then violent. You’ll do something you’ll later regret, then come crawling back like a worm to tell me I was right and, honestly, I’m not sure if I can stand such a sight.’
‘Whatever I do, I’m guaranteed to regret it less if you don’t have the testicular-borne valor to finish your thought.’
Denaos half-sighed, half-growled.
‘Fine. Allow me to slide a shiv of reality into your kidneys. ’ He shrugged. ‘If she dies, it’ll be a tragedy, to be certain. She was a fine shot with that bow of hers and a finer sight for eyes used to far too much ugly, I’ll tell you. But it’s not like we’re losing anyone . . .’ He paused, tilting his head, wincing as though struck. ‘I mean . . . in the end, she’s not one of us. She’s just a shict. No shortage of them.’
Lenk blinked once. When his eyelids rose, it was not through his own stare that he saw his hands reach out and seize the tall man by his collar. It was not his arms that trembled with barely restrained fury. It was not his voice that uttered a frigid threat to the rogue.

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