Tome of the Undergates - Sam Sykes

‘More like appetisers than busyworkers, I’d say.’

Lenk didn’t linger to hear whatever the tall man might have offered in retort. Pausing only for a moment to pluck his sword from the ruined vessel, he slung it over his shoulder and tore off in pursuit of the shict.

With a resigned grunt, Denaos pulled himself up to perch upon the hunk of wood, frowning at the gaping hole between his legs. Definitely some work to be done here, no doubt, and it was work he hardly felt like doing. There’d be wood to find, wood to shape and wood to attach to the ship’s wound.

‘So, you know how to take care of this, right?’ Asper asked, tilting her head at him.

‘It’s not too hard,’ he replied. ‘I did a bit of work under a carpenter back in Redgate.’ He scratched his chin. ‘His name was Rudder, more body hair than flesh. Nice fellow, but a bit handsy when he tossed back a few. So long as you can-’

A sudden movement caught his attention and he glanced over to see Asper busily at work, altering her garments. After a little bit of tearing, she tied a flap of her skirt to each of her legs, securing the fabric with leather strips to form a pair of makeshift leggings. His interest was piqued and he leaned forwards as she rolled up the sleeves of her tunic to her shoulders, exposing firm arms. The faintest hint of a grin appeared on his face as she grabbed the hem of her tunic and rolled it up, tying it off below her chest and baring a slender midsection.

Suddenly aware of his gaze, she looked up with a suspicious glance.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘But that’s quite a bit of skin to show if you’re just mending sails.’

‘You can knit,’ she said, scowling at him as she moved over to the boat and pulled herself inside. After rummaging around in a few crates, she produced a shiny, well-worn hatchet. Leaping from the vessel, she hiked it over her shoulder and glanced at him. ‘There’s wood to be cut. If you’re scared of demons and want to sit here and cry, though …’

He bit his lower lip contemplatively as he watched her go. Truthfully, he had to admit it was a difficult decision: linger here, out in the open where he couldn’t be surprised by anything on two or more legs, or follow a hatchet-wielding, half-clad woman into the forest where he might very well accidentally strangle himself with a vine if insects — or demons — didn’t eat him alive first.

The decision seemed easy, he thought, until he caught one last glimpse of her before she vanished. It was funny, he thought, but he had never noticed the particular delicacy with which her hips swayed.

Thirteen

Forests, Lenk decided, were places where man was not meant to tread.

It seemed a logical enough theory; humanity built their cities out on the open, where they could see threats coming. In the canopy-choked gloom, everything seemed to be a threat.

What had begun as a tiny copse of trees had blossomed into a lush jungle, deep and green as the sea. And, like the sea, the forest, too, was alive. Hidden amidst eclipsing boughs and grasping leaves, sounds emerged in disjointed harmony. Birds sang shrilly, determined to drown out the thrum of insect wings with their agonising choruses. For all the noises, he couldn’t see a single living thing. Not so much as a flicker of movement in the shadows.

Sunlight filtered through the green, twisting net of the forest’s canopy, shadowing every tree that crowded Lenk in an attempt to keep him out of their domain. He glanced about warily; in the darkness, the verdant trunks, slim and black, resembled nothing so much as his quarry.

The Abysmyth comes from the sea, right? He asked and answered himself. Right. It’ll stay near water, then. He paused. But what if it needed to go into the forest for some reason? What if it had to eat. . demons eat, right? He considered that for a moment. Right. They eat heads, probably. They seem like the kind of thing that would eat a person’s head.

If it had retreated into the forest, it could stand right in front of him and not be seen. Even worse, it could easily ambush anything that wandered by it; after all, how could anyone tell the difference between it and a tree in the gloom?

Simple, he thought, a tree won’t eat your head.

That thought brought him no comfort. Instead the same thought occurred to him each time he forced his eyes closed in a blink: he didn’t belong here. That thought, in turn, opened his eyes in a scowl at the pale figure shifting effortlessly through the foliage in front of him.

How does she make it look so easy?

‘You’re moving rather quickly,’ he said, if only to break the ambience.

‘I’m sorry,’ she replied acidly, ‘would you like to stop and paint a picture of the scenery?’

Lenk let that particular barb sink into his flesh, not bothering to pull it out or launch one of his own. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth; perhaps, he thought, he should wait before attempting to mend things with the shict. She didn’t seem to be in the mood for reconciliation at the moment.

No, no, he scolded himself, if you don’t do it now, she’ll just get angrier and do worse than bloody your nose. His eyes drifted down to the hunting knife strapped to her leg. A grimace creased his face.

‘What I mean,’ he replied, ‘is you usually take longer to find a trail.’

‘In most cases,’ she nodded, ‘but this particular quarry has a few exceptional qualities.’

‘Such as?’

‘For one, there’s still a great deal of noise in the forest. Prey, like birds and bugs, always go silent when a predator is about.’

‘You said a few qualities.’

‘Well, there is something more.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a ten-foot-tall fish that walks on two legs and reeks of death, you moron,’ she snapped. ‘If it’s anywhere on this island, it’ll be disgustingly hard to miss.’

He chose to leave that one in his flesh, as well. It would be easy, he knew, to sling something equally venomous at her. In fact, as he noted a particularly thick branch just next to her head, he realised it would be even easier to repay her for her earlier violence.

All you have to do is reach out, and. .

He shook his head to dispel that thought. While he knew there to be very few problems smashing someone’s head into a tree couldn’t solve, this was not one of them. Tact, however little use an adventurer usually found for it, was called for in such a situation.

‘That’s all there is to it, then?’ he asked, hoping she didn’t note the civil strain in his voice.

‘In this particular case, yes.’ She ducked under a low-hanging branch. ‘Let me ask you something.’

His entire body tensed; questions from the shict, lately, had served chiefly as preludes to violence.

‘Have you thought at all about how you’re going to fight this thing if you find it?’

‘Would it distress you to hear that I don’t know?’

‘No more than usual.’

‘Well, I’ve been giving it some thought,’ Lenk replied. ‘The Abysmyth can’t be hurt by mortal weapons, and that’s about all we’ve got. But it can be hurt by fire. Dread can do something about that and, if we’ve got time, we can get torches.’

‘It’ll be hard to make a fire when it’s eating our heads.’

‘You think it eats heads?’

‘Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘It seems like the kind of thing that eats heads.’

He smiled.

‘Dreadaeleon has his headache, however.’ She grunted as she pressed her lithe body between a heavy stone and a tree trunk. ‘I’ve never seen him use magic in such a state, but I wager it won’t be pretty.’

‘You mean the spectacle of him straining himself beyond his limits?’ Lenk struggled to follow her through the squeeze but found his waist caught firmly in fingers of stone and wood.

‘I was thinking more about the greasy splatter that the Abysmyth will make of him.’ The shict took his hands in hers and, with a strained grunt, pulled him free. ‘This is all assuming quite a bit, though.’

‘Right.’ He paused to dust himself off. ‘We have to find the stupid thing first. Khetashe willing, we’ll spot it before it spots us.’

‘And then?’

‘Then we run away and hide until we can get fire.’

‘Not the bravest strategy.’

‘Bravery and effectiveness are rivers that run in different directions.’

He caught her staring at his shirt and followed her gaze. Even after he had brushed himself off, the forest proved less than willing to let him go: all manner of burrs, thorns and leaves clung to his garments. He glanced back up and she met his gaze, smugness leaking out of her every pore.

‘Perhaps you’d like to take a moment to rest,’ she said, leaning against a tree and folding her arms across her chest.

Reeking, pointy-eared know-it-all.

Despite having led the way through the underbrush, Kataria was completely free of scratches; nothing more than a slight smear of sand marred her flesh. He focused on it unconsciously, observing the sole discoloration to her pale skin, shrinking and growing with each unhurried breath she took.

Arrogant little. .

A breeze muttered through the canopy, parting the branches to allow a shaft of light through the greenery. As though the Gods had a flair for the dramatic, the beam settled lazily on Kataria, turning her shoulders gold, setting her hair alight, making the sandy smudge glisten.

Thinks she’s so. .

The sunlight clung to her, he realised, upon a skin of perspiration. Even as the dirt painted her body bronze, the sweat caught the sun and bathed her skin in shimmering silver. In the moments between the fluttering of the leaves, she looked like something that had sprung from the forge of the Gods, brightly polished metals, rough edges and brilliant, glimmering emeralds.

‘What are you looking at?’

He stiffened up at that, going rigid as though he had just been rudely awakened. The reaction did not go unnoticed as Kataria tilted her head to the side, eyeing him as she might a beast, her body tense and ready to flee. . or attack.

Not the ideal response.

Now’s your chance, he told himself, you’ve got to talk to her and you’re alone together. Start with a compliment! Tell her about that forge of the Gods thing, she’ll like that!

‘You look like-’

Wait, WAIT! He bit his tongue as her face screwed up in confusion. She’s a shict; she doesn’t believe in the Gods, just Riffid. Does Riffid use a forge?

‘I look like what?’

Damn it, damn it, damn it. He clenched his teeth. To the pit with this, just say something.