Tome of the Undergates - Sam Sykes

‘Looting, as I said.’

Denaos’s hand suddenly stiffened, seizing something as a wicked smile came over his face. Lenk cringed and turned away as the man’s long fingers tensed, twisted and pulled violently. When he looked back, the man was dangling a small leather purse between his fingers.

‘The third pocket,’ the rogue explained, wiping the purse off on the man’s trousers, ‘where all reasonable men hide their wealth.’

‘Including you?’ Lenk asked.

‘Assuming I had any wealth to spend,’ Denaos replied, ‘I would hide it in a spot that would make a looter give long, hard thought as to just how badly he wanted it.’ He slipped the pouch into his belt. ‘At any rate, this is likely as good as it’s going to get for me.’

‘For us, you mean,’ Lenk said.

‘Oh, no, no. For you, it’s going to get much worse, since you seem rather intent on staying here.’

‘We are in the employ of-’

‘We are adventurers in the employ of Evenhands,’ Denaos pointed out. ‘And what has he done for us? We’ve been at sea for a month and all we’ve got to show for it is dirty clothes, seasickness and the occasional native-borne disease.’ He looked at Lenk intently. ‘Out at sea, there’s no chance to make an honest living. We’re as like to be killed as get paid, and Evenhands knows that.’

He shook a trembling finger, as though a great idea boiled on the tip of it.

‘Now,’ he continued, ‘if we run, we can sneak back to Toha and catch a ship back to the mainland. On the continent proper, we can go anywhere, do anything: mercenary work for the legions in Karneria, bodyguarding the fashas in Cier’Djaal. We’ll earn real coin without all these promises that Evenhands is offering us. Out here, we’re just penniless.’

‘We’ll be just as penniless on the mainland,’ Lenk countered. ‘We run, the only thing we’ve earned is a reputation for letting employers, godly employers, die.’

‘And the dead spend no money,’ Denaos replied smoothly. ‘Besides, we won’t need to take jobs to make money.’ He glanced at Kataria, gesturing with his chin. ‘We can sell the shict to a brothel.’ He coughed. ‘Or a zoo of some kind.’

‘Try it,’ Kataria levelled her growl at both men, ‘and what parts of you I don’t shoot full of holes, I’ll hack off and wear as a hat.’ She bared her teeth at Denaos. ‘And just because you plan to die-’

‘The plan is not to die, haven’t you been listening? And before you ask, yes, I’m certain that we will die when they return, for two reasons.’

‘If they return,’ Kataria interjected. ‘We scared them off before.’

‘When they return,’ Denaos countered. ‘Which coincides with the first reason: this was just the probe.’

‘The what?’

‘Ah, excuse me,’ the man said as he rose up. ‘I forgot I was talking to a savage. Allow me to explain the finer points of business.’

Lenk spared a moment to think, not for the first time, that it was decidedly unfair that the rogue should stand nearly a head taller than himself. It’s not as though the length of your trousers matters when you piss them routinely, he thought resentfully.

‘Piracy,’ the tall man continued, ‘like all forms of murder, is a matter of business. It’s a haggle, a matter of bidding and buying. What they just sent over,’ he paused to nudge the corpse at his feet, ‘is their initial bid, an investment. It’s the price they paid to see how many more men they’d need to take the ship.’

‘That’s a lot of philosophy to justify running away,’ Lenk said, arching an eyebrow.

‘You had a lot of time to think while hiding?’ Kataria asked.

‘It’s really more a matter of instinct,’ Denaos replied.

‘The instinct of a rat,’ Kataria hissed, ‘is to run, hide and eat their own excrement. There’s a reason no one listens to them.’

‘Forgive me, I misspoke.’ He held up his hands, offering an offensively smarmy smile. ‘By “instinct”, I meant to say “it’s blindingly obvious to anyone but a stupid shict”. See, if I were attacking a ship bearing a half-clad, half-mad barbarian that at least resembled a woman wearing breeches tighter than the skin on an overfed hog, I would most certainly want to know how many men I needed to take her with no more holes in her than I could realistically use.’

She opened her mouth, ready to launch a hailstorm of retorts. Her indignation turned into a blink, as though she were confused when nothing would come. Coughing, she looked down.

‘So it’s not that bad an idea,’ she muttered. Finding a sudden surge of courage, she looked back up. ‘But, I mean, we killed the first ones. We can kill them again.’

‘Kill how many?’ Denaos replied. ‘Three? Six? That leaves roughly three dozen left to kill.’ He pointed a finger over the railing. ‘And reason number two.’

Lenk saw the object of attention right away; it was impossible not to once the amalgamation of metal and flesh strode to the fore.

‘Rashodd,’ Lenk muttered.

He had heard the name gasped in fear when the Linkmaster first arrived. He heard it again now as the captain of the black ship stood before his crew, the echo of his heavy boots audible even across the roaring sea.

Rashodd was a Cragsman, as his colossal arms ringed with twisting tattoos declared proudly. The rest of him was a sheer monolith of metal and leather. His chest, twice as broad as any in his crew, was hidden behind a hammered sheet of iron posing as a breastplate. His face was obscured as he peered through a thin slit in his dull grey helmet, tendrils of an equally grey beard twitching beneath it.

And he, too, waited, Lenk noted. No command to attack arose on a metal-smothered shout. No call for action in a falsely elegant voice drifted over the sea. Not one massive, leathery hand drifted to either of the tremendous, single-bit axes hanging from his waist.

They merely folded along with the Cragsman’s titanic arms, crossing over the breastplate and remaining there.

Waiting.

‘Their next bid will be coming shortly,’ Denaos warned. ‘And he’s going to be the one that delivers it.’ He gestured out to the crew. ‘They’re dead, sure, but they’re Argaol’s men. We have to think of our own.’

‘He’s just a human,’ Kataria said derisively, ‘a monkey.’ She glanced at the titanic pirate and frowned. ‘A big monkey, but we’ve killed big ones before. There’s no reason to run.’

‘Good,’ Denaos replied sharply, ‘stay here while all sane creatures embrace reason.’ He sneered. ‘Do try to scream loudly, though. Make it something they’ll savour long enough so that the rest of us can get away.’

‘The only one leaving will be you, round-ear,’ Kataria growled, ‘and we’ll see how long your delusions of wit can sustain you at sea.’

‘Only a shict would think of reason as delusional.’

‘Only a human would think of cowardice as rational!’

Words were flung between them like arrows and daggers, each one cutting deeply with neither of the two refusing to admit the blood. Lenk had no eyes for their snarls and rude gestures, no attention for their insults that turned to whispers on his ears.

His stare was seized, bound to the hulking figure of Rashodd. His ears were full, consumed by another voice whispering at the back of his head.

It’s possible, that voice said, that Denaos is wrong. There are almost as many men on our ship as on theirs. We could fight. We wouldn’t even have to win a complete victory, just bloody their noses. Teach them that we aren’t worth the trouble. It’s business, right?

‘What’s the big deal over a big monkey, anyway?’ Kataria snapped. ‘The moment he raises that visor, I’ll put an arrow in his gullet and we’ll be done here! No need to run.’ Her laughter was sharp and unpleasant. ‘Or do you find his big muscles intimidating, you poor little lamb?’

‘I can think of at least one muscle of his that you’ll find unpleasant when he comes over,’ Denaos replied, a hint of ire creeping into his voice. ‘And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was bearded and covered in iron, too. He’s seen what you’ve done to his men. He won’t be taking that visor off.’

It’s possible, Lenk answered his own thought, but not likely. Numbers are one thing, but steel is another. They have swords. We have sticks. Well, I mean, I’ve got a sword. . fat lot of good it will do against that many, though. Running is just logical here. It’s not as if Denaos actually had a good idea here, anyway.

‘If you run, you don’t get paid,’ Kataria said. ‘Though, really, I’ve always wanted to see if human greed is stronger than human cowardice.’

‘We get paid slaves’ wages,’ Denaos said. ‘Silf, we get worse. We get adventurers’ wages. Stop trying to turn this into a matter of morality. It’s purely about the practicality of the situation and, really, when has a shict ever been a moral authority?’

When have any of them ever had a good idea? Lenk’s eyes narrowed irately. I’m always the one who has to think here. He’s a coward, but she’s insane. Asper’s a milksop, Dreadaeleon’s worthless. Gariath is as likely to kill me as help. Running is better here. They’ll get me killed if we stay.

‘Well, don’t get the impression that I’m trying to stop you,’ Kataria snarled. ‘The only reason I’d like you to stay is because I’m almost certain you’ll get a sword in your guts and then I won’t even have to deal with the terrible worry that you might somehow survive out at sea. The rest of us can handle things from here.’

‘And if I could handle it all by myself, I would,’ Denaos said. ‘Feeling the humanitarian that I am, though, I would consider it a decent thing to try to get as many humans off as I possibly could.’

‘Decent? You?’ Kataria made a sound as though she had just inhaled one of her own arrows through her nose.

‘I didn’t kill anyone today.’

‘Only because you were busy putting your hands down a dead man’s trousers. In what language is that decent?’

They’re going to die, Lenk’s thoughts grew their wings, flew about his head violently, but I can live. Flee now and live! The rest will. .

‘And what would you know of language?’ Denaos snarled. ‘You only learned how to speak ours so you could mock the people you kill, savage!’

… waiting, waiting for what? To attack? Why? What else can you do? There’s so many of them, few of us. Save them and they kill each other. .