Tome of the Undergates - Sam Sykes

‘However meagre it might be,’ Argaol said with a sneer. ‘Your ship is damaged, Rashodd. We found scarcely anything of value aboard. Even the companion boat had been taken.’ He allowed himself a smirk. ‘It seems your men jumped ship, long before we could board. Small faith in your cause, had they?’

Not bad, Denaos noted. A cheap shot at a man’s esteem wasn’t always the best way to get someone to talk, but it might work in this case. Rashodd seemed like the kind of man who wouldn’t take kindly to being called small.

‘Sensible of them,’ the Cragsman conceded with a nod. ‘At the very least, they’ve saved me the hardship of paying for their funerary expenses.’ He turned a scrutinising eye upon Argaol. ‘You’re still a man in good standing with the guilds, yes? You do plan to extend that particular courtesy to the families of your slain men, don’t you, Captain? I’d offer to chip in, but as you said, not much aboard the Linkmaster worth taking, is there?’

The tall man bit back a wince at that. The captain will be groping his stones tonight, doubtless.

‘I will be, in fact,’ Argaol snarled, leaning in close to the prisoner. ‘I’ll pay for the funerals of those good men who were slain,’ he thrust a finger at the Cragsman as though it were a weapon, ‘by your monsters. Have you no shame, Rashodd? Summoning those. . those things to fight for you? Denying my men even the dignity of a death by their own race?’

Weak. Denaos shook his head. Rashodd’s response confirmed his judgement.

‘In all fairness, sir, you threw your monster,’ he caught a glimpse of Denaos in the doorway and coughed, ‘pardon, monsters at my men first. My. . associates simply had associates of their own. I can hardly be held responsible for their actions.’

‘And you still won’t tell me anything about them, even while they leave you here to die!’

Rashodd shrugged. ‘Friendships are a fickle and mischievous garden, requiring constant tending, with their own share of weeds.’

‘I. .’ Argaol flinched, his face screwing up. ‘What?’

‘I’d hardly expect you to understand, kind Captain. After all, most of your precious flowers are dead and trampled into the earth after today, aren’t they?’

It was over. Without fanfare or gloating, the verbal spar had ended. Argaol’s expression, wide-eyed, slack-jawed, hurt, lasted for only a moment before he turned around to hide the clench of his teeth upon his bottom lip. Rashodd watched him stalk away without contempt or smugness. All he could spare for Argaol was a yawn.

Denaos’s own stare lingered upon the pirate for a moment before he felt Argaol’s presence next to him. The captain leaned an arm against the wall, regarding the rogue with a tight-lipped, hard-eyed glower.

‘Well?’ he grunted.

‘What?’

‘Were you planning on doing anything besides lurking there?’

The tall man rubbed the edge of his blade against his chin contemplatively. ‘Well, I was planning on paying a visit later to that one spice merchant you’ve got chartered here. You know the one, right? Slim little dark-haired thing from Cier’Djaal. She called me a swine before, but I wager she’ll change her tune once she realises what I-’

‘Yeah, you’re adorable.’

‘That’s a word you’d use to describe something in pigtails and frills. I’m really more of a man possessed of immense gravitas.’ He offered the captain a broad smile fit for eating stool. Seeing no reaction, he sighed. ‘What is it you expect me to do, anyway?’

‘Get him to do what I’ve been trying to make him do all night,’ Argaol growled. ‘My boys are up there, terrified that some horror is going to return and do to them what it did to Mossud.’

‘Moscoff,’ Denaos corrected.

‘Mossud. I hired the damn boy.’ He sighed, rubbing his eyes. ‘What this Cragsfilth knows may be what I need to keep my boys safe, and he’s not talking.’

‘So throw him in the brig. Give him a few days without food or water and he’ll tell you.’

‘This is a merchantman, you twit. We don’t have a brig. In a few days, we could all be stacked in neat little heaps, ready to be eaten by whatever that thing was.’

‘Well, have you tried asking Gariath to help you? He’s not bad at this sort of thing.’

‘Your monster isn’t paying me any mind.’

‘Ah, ah.’ Denaos winced. ‘Keep your voice down. For a fellow with no ears, that reptile hears exceptionally well.’

‘Enough.’ Argaol’s voice became as hard as his eyes. He took a menacing step forwards. ‘I myself saw you gut two people like pigs on deck today, and we found more of your work down in the hold.’

The rogue shifted, appearing almost uncomfortable if not for the understated smile playing across his lips. It was impossible for Argaol not to notice the aversion of his eyes, however.

‘I managed to kill. . what, four? Compared to Kataria, Lenk and Gariath, that’s hardly-’

‘And your fellow adventurers all say you’re the man to talk to about things like this.’ Argaol adjusted his stare to meet the rogue’s eyes. ‘They say you’ve crawled out of more dark places than they’ve even heard of. Were they mistaken?’

Denaos’s grin faded, his face going blank. With the quietest of sounds, he slid his dagger back into its sheath. Eyes unblinking, he stared at the hilt.

‘They said that, did they?’ he whispered, voice barely louder than a kitten’s.

Argaol’s nod was hesitant, but firm. The rogue’s voice rang hollow in his ears, bereft of all previous bravado, bereft of any potential scorn. In his voice, as in his eyes and face, there was nothing.

‘I suppose they must be right, then.’

‘Good,’ the captain replied. ‘Be sure to get everything you can out of him. Question him more than once if you need to. Pirates lie. We need to know about that thing and every-’

‘Leave.’

‘What?’

‘Leave me, please. I don’t want an audience.’ He stared blankly at the shorter man, neck craning stiffly. ‘And don’t check up on me. This won’t take long.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Argaol asked. Feeling the quaver echo through his throat, he coughed, straightening up in a show of authority. ‘It’s my ship, my cabin, I have a right to know.’

‘Go.’ Denaos slid past the captain, striding towards Rashodd. He did not look back over his shoulder.

Rashodd glanced up with a start at the sound of a chair sliding. He blinked blearily, trying to take into account the shape sitting before him. He regarded the tall man curiously for a moment, studying the absence of any expression upon his face, the dark eyes free of any malice or cruelty. A silence hung between them, the Cragsman angling his face to scrutinise this newcomer.

‘And what’s this?’ he mused aloud. ‘Perchance, some more stimulating conversation?’ He leaned forwards, expressing a smile he undoubtedly hoped would be instigative. ‘And, pray, what cabin boy union did the good captain drag you out of?’

Denaos said nothing, his face blank, lips thin and tight.

‘Somewhere up north, aye? I say aye?’ Rashodd forced the word through his teeth, thick with a feigned accent. ‘Around Saine?’ He settled back into his seat, a satisfied smirk on his face. ‘Large men come from Saine, tall men. The Crags are right off the coast. We were once part of the kingdoms. I couldn’t truly expect a man of your particular breeding to know such a thing, though.’

Denaos’s only response was a delicate shift of his hand as he gingerly took the pirate’s manacled appendage in his own and held it daintily in his palm, surveying it as though he were reading a screed of hairy pink poetry.

‘Ah.’ Rashodd’s eyes went wide with feigned surprise. ‘Mute, I see. Poor chap.’ He glanced over the tall man’s head towards the dusky Argaol as the captain shifted closer to the door. ‘And simple, I suppose, by the way he fondles me. Tell me, then, Captain, is this the enticement you’ve sent me? I’d rather prefer the shict, if she’s still about.’

Rashodd watched the captain bite back a retort, resigning himself to a purse of lips as the door of his cabin creaked open. Quietly, the man slipped out, the door closing behind him with an agonising groan. Argaol’s departure, the lack of fuss and bravado, drew a brief cock of Rashodd’s brow, his eyes so intent on the last dusky fingers vanishing behind the door that he scarcely noticed the glimmer of steel at the tall man’s hip.

The door squeaked shut and, with a click of its hinges, there was the sound of a raspy murmur, the odour of copper-baked meat and a delicate plop upon the wooden floor.

Rashodd had time to blink three times, noting first the bloodied dagger in the man’s hand, second the twitching pink nub upon the floor, and third the red blossom that used to be his thumb. By the time he opened his mouth to scream, a leather hand was clasped over his dry lips, a pair of empty dark eyes staring dully into his own over the top of black fingers.

‘Shh,’ Denaos whispered. ‘No sound.’ He set the whetted weapon aside delicately, as though it were a flower, and reached down to scoop up the thumb. He held it before the captain. ‘This is mine now. It will remind me of our time together tonight.’

Slowly, he turned it over in his fingers, eyes glancing at every pore, every ridge, every glistening follicle of hair and every clean, quivering rent.

‘We’re going to talk,’ he continued, holding the finger just a hair’s width from his lips, ‘quietly. You’re going to tell me what happened today. Argaol asked nicely. He’d like to know.’

Rashodd dislodged his leather gag with a jerk of his head. He clenched his teeth together as he clenched his bleeding stump. Though tears began to well inside his eyes, he forced them to go harder, firmer, determined to show nothing.

‘And what is it to you, wretch?’ he snarled through his beard. ‘Hm? What makes you think I know anything more than what I said? I don’t know anything about that creature.’

‘Liar.’

His voice was as brief and terse as the flick of his weapon. The dagger was in his hand and freshly glistening just as another fleshy digit went tumbling to the floor. It came swiftly, so suddenly that Rashodd hadn’t even noticed it until the man was scooping it up. He opened his lips to spew a torrent of agony-tinged curses, but found the hand at his lips again, moisture dripping from his nose onto the leathery fingers.

‘I said no noise,’ Denaos hissed through his teeth, ‘it upsets me.’ Quietly, he set the digit beside the other. ‘You’re lying to me, Rashodd. I don’t like it.’ He shook his head. ‘And I don’t like what you did today, either. You threatened my livelihood, my career.’ He blinked, and, as an afterthought, added, ‘My associates.’

‘Zamanthras damn you for the heathen you are.’ What Rashodd intended to be a fearsome snarl came out as a trembling whimper. ‘You’ll attack an ignorant, unarmed man for money alone. Mercenary scum.’