Tome of the Undergates - Sam Sykes

‘No.’ The creature’s voice was breathless, like a mewling kitten. Its eyes grew wider as it stared at Miron as its victims had stared at it. ‘Cease your pitiless wails! Silence your mourning, vermin! I have no ears for it!’

Miron was not silent.

The chorus of feathered creatures was the first to scream. They erupted in a cacophony of noise and flapping feathers, leaping, tumbling, tearing from their perches upon railings and rigging. The sky was painted white, men falling to the deck as great white curtains of ripping, frenzied feathers fell over the ship.

Miron was heedless.

Every breath the priest took seemed to cause him to grow. His presence grew brighter, the whites of his robes suddenly blinding, the fall of his feet causing the deck to quake. His chant became thunder, every word a bolt of lightning, every syllable a crackle of purpose. None dared to stop him, to pull him back as he drew closer to the monstrosity. They fell away, as terrified of him as they had been of the creature.

The creature’s jaws tore open as it let out a terrible, unearthly howl that carried the sounds of a thousand drowned voices. Miron did not relent, his chant rising in volume to match the monster’s scream as he continued to advance towards the abomination. The creature’s claws clutched its skull as it backpedalled on trembling legs, shrieking in agony as it shook its head about angrily. The priest continued forth, his chant a bellowing chorus of alien phrases, his face a mask of wrath as he drew closer, his symbol raised like a shield, his voice a weapon.

Driven to the wind, the chorus disappeared from the ship, becoming clouds as they swiftly disappeared into the blue upon shrieks of terror and agony.

The foul beast itself let out one last, agonised howl and turned, breaking into an ungainly sprint as it loped towards the railing. With one immense leap, it sailed over the edge of the ship and fell into the waters below with a colossal splash.

The waves settled and Miron’s chant slowly died as he lowered his hand, his twisted face returning to normal. He took a deep breath and let out a great exhalation, his body shrinking considerably as he released all his air in one great gasp. None dared speak in his presence as he stared out over the waves, his eyes locked upon the unseen creature as it fled beneath the waters.

Men dropped their weapons and their jaws, their eyes agog and their murmurs breathless. Dreadaeleon wore a look of amazement, while Gariath’s face was carved into an expression of suspicious concern. Kataria pulled her silver-haired companion to his feet, staring out over the railing with wide eyes. Denaos looked towards Asper for an explanation, but she had none to offer, her eyes locked upon Miron in awed disbelief. From the crow’s nest, Quillian gazed out at the waters, hardly believing that the beast was truly gone, believing even less easily the way it had departed.

Sole amongst them, Lenk took a step forwards, his footsteps echoing across the waves. Miron remained unmoving, unchallenging of his employee’s approach, unspeaking as Lenk cleared his throat behind him.

‘It’s gone now, is it?’ Lenk whispered. ‘The danger’s passed?’

‘Danger?’ Miron cast a smile out from beneath his cowl.

‘I suspect you’ll soon learn the reason that word was invented. ’

Seven

‘On three, right?’ Sebast grunted.

Lenk nodded.

‘Right, then. . one. . two. .’

They lifted the last of the bodies. The two men had no breath to spare for heaving or grunting as they upended the dead pirate over the railing, sending him tumbling into the eager waters. Lenk grimaced, observing with macabre fascination as the headless man plunged stiffly into the brackish depths.

The sea resembled a floating graveyard, corpses of pirates bobbing at the surface like fleshy lures, their lifeless faces staring up at the darkening skies before they slowly sank in a hiss of froth. Lenk watched the dark, slender shapes of fish gliding between the descending corpses, nibbling, tasting before casually sliding over to the next body. Bigger, blacker fish would join the feast, he had been told, once they caught the scent of blood. By morning, not a scrap of flesh would be left to remember the dead.

A strange thing, the sea, Lenk mused grimly. Hours ago, the men bobbing in the water had been ferocious foes and savage opponents. Now, as they sank in a cloud of swirling dark, they were simply sustenance for creatures that knew or cared nothing for them or their exploits. In the end, for all their bravery, all their savagery, they were nothing but food.

‘That’s the last of them.’ The ship’s first mate sighed, dusting off his hands and noting unhappily that such a gesture did nothing to remove the bloodstains. ‘Rashodd has been taken below, along with our own boys.’

Lenk nodded. Rashodd had been the only one left alive. What remained of his crew had been swiftly executed and tossed overboard, leaving nothing behind but their captured black ship, a lingering stench and a bloody tarp. Sebast looked to it as his men began to roll it up.

‘Once we get some mops up here,’ he said, ‘you’ll never be able to tell we all nearly died on this ship.’ His laughter was stale and bereft of any humour. ‘Ah, I suspect after I say that a few hundred more times, I’ll start believing it, aye?’ Quietly, the sailor shoved his hands into his pockets and began to stalk towards the companionway. ‘Decent of you to help dispose of the dead, Mister Lenk. I’ve got letters to write.’

‘Letters?’

‘To wives. . widows, anyway. Orphans, too. Unpleasant business. I wouldn’t ask you to help with those.’

Lenk remained silent; it would be an odd thing for the man to ask of him, but he wasn’t about to offer his aid, in any case. Sebast took the hint and stalked off across the deck. It was only when he was a thin, stoop-shouldered outline against the shadows of the companionway that a question occurred to Lenk.

‘What was his name?’

‘Whose?’ Sebast called over his shoulder.

‘The young man who died today.’ Realising his mistake, he corrected himself. ‘The one killed by. . by that thing.’

Sebast hesitated, staring at the wood beneath him.

‘Moscoff, I think. . some young breed out of Cier’Djaal. Signed on to make some silver when we last set out from that port.’ He suddenly glanced up, staring out over the evening sky. ‘I think his name was Moscoff, anyway. It might have been Mossud. . or Suddamoff. . Huh, you know, I can’t even remember any more.’ He smiled at a joke only he understood. ‘I can’t even remember his face … isn’t that funny?’

Lenk did not laugh. Sebast did not, either; even his faint corpse of a smile disappeared as he turned and trudged down the steps into the ship’s hold.

It only occurred to Lenk after the first mate had departed that his declaration that their work was done had been incorrect. There were still many corpses upon the Riptide’s deck, save that these still moved and drew some mockery of breath.

The Riptide’s crew traipsed across the deck without purpose, half-heartedly pushing mops over stains that would never disappear, picking up discarded weapons.

Privately, Lenk yearned to see them crack a joke, curse at each other, even brush up against him with a hearty greeting and a full blast of their armpits’ perfume in his face. Instead, they muttered amongst themselves, they stared up at the darkened skies above and made unintelligible remarks about the weather. They did not look at each other.

There was no blaming them, he knew. Their hearts were heavy with the deaths of their comrades, their minds trembling with the strain of comprehending what they had seen. He could hardly wrap his own mind about the events as he stared at the splintered dents in the deck.

The creature should not have been. It should have stayed in drunken ramblings and ghost stories, like any other horror of the deep. But he had seen it. He had seen its dead eyes, heard its drowned voice, felt its leathery flesh. Absently, he reached for a sword that was not present as he recalled the battle; he recalled the creature, unharmed by the blows dealt to him by Gariath, himself and Moscoff.

‘Or was it Mossud?’

At once, the sailors paused in their menial duties to look towards Lenk. He saw their own lips soundlessly repeat the name before they turned back to their chores.

The moments after the creature had fled returned to him in a flood of visions. Asper had run to tend to the fallen sailor, kneeling beside his still body, looking over his slime-covered visage. He remembered her grim expression as she looked up, shaking her head.

‘He’s dead,’ she had said. ‘Drowned.’

Lenk found his knees suddenly weak, his hand groping for the railing to steady himself. Drowned on dry land, he thought, that doesn’t happen.

Where did such a creature come from? What sort of vengeful God had spawned such a fiend that shrugged off steel and drowned men without water? What sort of gracious God would permit such a creature to exist in the world?

Gods, he had found, were seldom of use besides creative swearing and occasional miracles that never actually occurred. He leaned on the railing and cast his gaze out over the sea like a net, trawling for an answer, some excuse for the horrors he had seen. He knew he would not find one.

Kataria watched from the upper deck, a deep frown on her face as she observed Lenk.

His melancholy unnerved her more than it should, as the battle had unnerved him more than it should have. Bloodshed, she knew, had been a big enough part of both of their lives that pausing and thinking about it afterwards was no longer instinct. That he now stood unmoving, barely breathing, eyes distant, caused her to do the same.

She noted the icy glow in his furrow-browed gaze. His thoughts lingered on the dead, no doubt. He did not mourn; Lenk never mourned. The young sailor’s death was not a tragedy in his mind, she knew, but a conundrum, a foul question with no decent answer.

Below deck, she knew others were in mourning, asking themselves the same questions in teary curses. Their presence was the reason she stood away from them, atop the upper deck, far removed from the humans.

Her belly muttered hungrily.

That was reason enough to be away from them.

None of them would even be able to comprehend hunger at such a time, all choked on emotion and tears they dared not share, just as she was unable to comprehend their grief. No matter how often she attempted to place herself in their position, to understand the people they had lost, the same thought returned to her.

Dozens of humans had died, of course, but only dozens of humans. The world had thousands to spare. Even those who survived the day would likely last only a few more years after. What made these few so special? What if they had been shicts?

She shook her head; they hadn’t been shicts, of course. If they were, she would likely feel otherwise. The fact that they were human, weak, close-minded, prone to death, prevented her from feeling anything else.