Tome of the Undergates - Sam Sykes

She should have run then. Some part of Kataria knew that was a good idea. But that part was far away now, bleating impotently against the howling within her.

Kataria could feel the roar, rather than hear it. Something forced undiluted rage from her heart, through her veins and out of her mouth. Something bit her muscles with sharp, angry teeth. She went taut, hard, her blood straining to feed her fury as her ears folded against her head in a feral display.

And through her bared teeth, her flashing canines, she could only say one thing.

‘No clansman is left behind,’ she snarled. ‘EVER!’

Xhai didn’t seem to notice, far more concerned with the foot that crashed down upon her face as she tried to rise. Kataria swept upon her, straddling her waist and seizing her by the jaw.

The sound of bone cracking upon the stone did not cause her to relent, could not drown out the roar. What dwelt within her screamed long and loud, sent its victorious, unpleasant laughter rushing into her ears and past her teeth. She brought her fist up and down, pumping with feral rhythm against the Carnassial’s bony cheek.

So loud and proud did it call, so fierce and feral did it roar, that she never even noticed that her foe was growling instead of flinching. She did not see that the netherling barely bled from her wounds. She did not see the metal-clad fist rising.

‘ENOUGH,’ Xhai shrieked.

The iron was a blur, crashing against Kataria’s jaw and sending her reeling to the floor. Her foot was a spear, kicking the shict hard against the ribs and sending her curling, her howl abandoning her in an agonised cacophony.

Where is it, she asked herself, where is the howling? I can’t hear it any more. . I can’t. .

There were many things that she could not.

She could not feel a heavy weight straddling her back, cold iron wrapping about her wrist and twisting her hand behind her back. She could not even roar in pain any more. When her arm was wrenched up so that her wrist pressed against her shoulder blades, it was a weak, meagre whimper that came out of her lips.

‘Stop.’ A second hand seized her by her braid and pressed her face forwards against the stone. ‘Do not taint the fight with weakness.’ She could feel Xhai’s smile bore into the back of her head. ‘I knew somewhere in this stupid horde of weakness, someone could fight. Naturally, I found it in a female.’

How, Kataria asked herself, how am I supposed to kill her? What was I supposed to do? The howling within her was silent, offering no answers. WHAT?

‘Don’t misunderstand, of course,’ Xhai continued, ‘I’m still going to kill you, but I’ll. . regret it. That is the word for it, yes? But not yet. I need you to speak.’ She rubbed the shict’s face in the salt water. ‘Your brains have yet to leak out onto the floor, so use them. Tell me what I want to know or I’ll wrench your arm off.’

‘Then do it.’ Kataria’s voice, weak and foreign to her own ears, did nothing to convince herself, let alone her captor.

The Carnassial’s derisive snicker confirmed as much. ‘Obey and I leave you whole. I understand whatever weak deities you overscum worship frown on followers in pieces.’ She pulled her prisoner’s face up that she might better hear the snickering spike being driven into her ear. ‘That’s all up to you, though.’ She pressed the shict’s face back to the stone. ‘Where is the book?’

‘I. . we don’t know.’

‘There are more of you, are there?’ The Carnassial snorted. ‘Odd that so many weaklings would congregate in one place. Were you all drawn here by some stink?’ The woman snarled, twisting the shict’s arm further. ‘Or were you sent?’

Kataria could hear her own bones creaking, feel her own fingers grazing the nape of her neck.

‘G-Greenhair,’ she half-growled, half-whined, a wounded beast. ‘S-siren-’

‘The screamer?’

Xhai’s recognition should have alarmed Kataria, would have alarmed Kataria if not for the fact that there was no room for panic or fear left in her. Nor was there any room left in the netherling for mercy, for as Kataria pounded the stones for mercy with her free hand, her captor merely let out a contemplative hum.

‘She is too loose with her allies,’ the white-haired woman muttered.

Whether out of mercy or out of boredom, she released Kataria’s arm and rose up and off her. Kataria gasped, biting back the scream in her throat. Her arm felt weak and useless, freedom a sudden unbearable agony. Straining to keep from shrieking, straining to keep her breath, she struggled to rise. Even her free arm ached, groped about with blind fingers.

It was by pure chance that she felt a handle amidst the salt water. It was with pure fury that she wrapped trembling fingers about it. It hurt to grin, but she couldn’t help it. Apparently, she thought as she looked into the blade of Denaos’s fallen dagger, he’s good for something.

‘After all, she chose you two weaklings rather poorly.’ The woman’s voice was only slightly harsher than the sound of her blade being jerked free from the stone. ‘I must admit, I was surprised.’ Kataria heard the whisper of air as the blade was raised. ‘Still, for a female, you are weak. Are all your kind?’

‘No.’

Xhai whirled, the great wedge of metal slicing off the scantest of hairs atop Kataria’s head as she drove the knife forwards. It found flesh and drove deep into the netherling’s hip. Kataria’s cry of joy was as short as her foe’s cry of anger.

Run.

She did, but the effort was hindered by a desperate limp. Still, she reasoned, if her pain was only a little less than that of having a dagger driven through a hip, she should be able to get away.

Unfortunately, she realised as a gauntleted hand clasped upon her shoulder, things rarely went as they should.

Stone struck her back, air was struck from her lungs as Xhai shoved her against the wall. With scarcely any breath left to scream, much less to marvel at the ease with which the netherling hefted the great chunk of metal, Kataria gritted her teeth, folded her ears against her head and hissed as she raked the woman’s metal-clad wrist.

She wasn’t quite sure what she hoped to accomplish. The unstable twitch that consumed the woman’s eyelid suggested she was as far beyond intimidation as she was beyond mercy.

‘Clever, clever little runt,’ the netherling snarled. ‘Cleverness never prevails against the strong. The netherlings are strong.’ She slammed Kataria against the wall again. ‘Semnein Xhai is strong.’

There was no room left for fear or pain within Kataria. She had done her part, she told herself, fought as best she could. The knife and arrows jutting from the woman testified to that. The netherling would remember her, long after she killed her. She tried to take comfort in that, but found it difficult. As difficult as she found it to keep a defiant face directed at the Carnassial. Her neck jerked involuntarily, drawing her attention back to the stone slab that loomed with granite smugness at the end of the hall.

‘Lenk,’ she whispered, though she could no longer hear her own voice, ‘I’m sorry.’

She expected the blow to come then: a quick, sudden sever that she would never feel, perhaps swift enough to allow her to stare up at her own neck as the rest of her rolled across the floor. The blow did not come, though. Reluctantly, perhaps afraid that the netherling was simply waiting for her to watch it come, Kataria turned back to face the woman.

What she saw was a black hilt jutting from the Carnassial’s collarbone, her face contorted in a sudden agony, iron rattling in her trembling arm. A sudden splitting of flesh drew Kataria’s eyes down to the gloved hand wedging a second blade into her flank. The woman staggered backwards as a pink face marred by a black eye and split with an unpleasant grin rose over her shoulder.

‘What was that about cleverness?’ Denaos hissed, twisting the knife further.

The female shrieked, whirling about to bring her sword up in a frenzied circle. The rogue was already out of reach, retreating nimbly as another dagger leapt to his fingers.

Xhai roared, hefting her sword as she stepped towards her new foe. Like a sparrow, the dagger danced off his fingers, tumbling lazily through the air to impale itself in the netherling’s knee. Her foot collapsed under her, she fell to one knee.

She seemed shattered in that moment, swaying precariously as a hand pressed against her as though straining to keep pieces of her from falling apart. Her wounds seemed to bloom all at once, life coagulating in the contours of her muscles. The mask of fury slipped off her face, exposing a slack-jawed, incredulous mockery of a warrior.

‘What. . I’m. .’ She touched her knee, eyes widening at the sight of red smearing her fingers. ‘I. . you can’t. .’ She tried to rise, her voice caught in her throat as she winced. ‘It hurts.’ As though this were something alien to her, she looked to Denaos. ‘You hurt me.’ ‘It’s what I do,’ he replied casually.

‘Impossible. I am. . unscarred.’ She rose to shaky feet. ‘I could kill you. . both of you!’ She jerked a dagger free from her side, hurling it to the floor. ‘I will kill you! All of you!’

Xhai hefted the sword and buckled under its weight, choked by an agonised whimper. The Carnassial, so strong and relentless, became a weak and meagre thing, Kataria thought. The fact that she still held a massive wedge of iron, however, kept the shict from savouring her pain. Instead, she retreated cautiously, eyeing her bow.

‘Stay back!’ Xhai roared, holding up a hand as she trembled to her feet again. ‘Stay away from me!’ Her eyes darted between them, crazed, before settling upon Denaos. ‘I will. . kill you.’

Her voice hanging in the air, her blood pooling beneath iron soles, she spat a curse in a harsh, hissing language. Her sword groaned as she dragged it behind her, Denaos’s dagger still lodged in her collarbone. She limped over the fallen Abysmyth into the watery passage and vanished into the gloom.

The air left Kataria in a sudden sigh as she collapsed to her rear. She could hear nothing but the pounding of her own heart and the lonely drip of salt water falling from the ceiling to dilute the sticky red smears on the floor. She felt the sweat of her body cold upon the stone, she felt her breath come in short, ragged bursts.

‘Sons of the Shadow,’ Denaos gasped, crumpling against the wall. ‘I thought she’d never leave.’ He glanced down to his belt, ominously empty. ‘Pity. . she took my best knife with her.’

‘If you’d like, I’m sure she can come back.’ Kataria resisted the urge to laugh, pressing a hand to her sore ribs. ‘How do you feel?’

‘About the same as any man who’s been beaten by demons and purple harlots in the same day. How do I look?’

‘About the same.’

‘Yeah? You should take a look at yourself before you decide to sling stones.’

Kataria didn’t doubt his claim. She didn’t need eyes to know the extent of her injuries. She could feel the purple bruise welling up on her midsection, the blood dripping from her nose, the lungs that threatened to collapse at any moment. She smiled, hoping the gesture was as unpleasant as his grimace would suggest.