Tome of the Undergates - Sam Sykes

‘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.

‘I’ll be even less of a prize when we’re done.’

‘We are done,’ Denaos replied. He rose from the stones, knuckled the small of his back. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here, Kat.’ He gestured to the great stone slab. ‘We couldn’t lift that even if we weren’t both half-dead.’

The realisation hurt worse than any of her wounds. He was right, of course. Staying behind was lunacy, a short period of contemplation and repentance before a demon or another netherling stumbled upon her. And, as she heard her next words, she knew there would be much to repent for.

‘I’m staying.’

He looked at her, frowned.

‘He’s not a-’

‘I know.’

Quietly, he nodded. He plucked up her bow and quiver from the floor, giving a quick count before tossing it to her.

‘Thirteen arrows left,’ he said. ‘Unlucky number for round-ears.’

‘Shicts, too.’

‘Mm.’ He lingered there, watching her readjust her weaponry. ‘It seems a shame to leave you after you threatened to kill me for leaving earlier.’

‘You’ll get over it.’ She gestured down the hall. ‘Go. Don’t choose now to pretend we’ve got camaraderie.’

He nodded, turned. ‘I’ll bring back the others.’

‘No, you won’t.’

‘I might.’

She made no reply, merely staring at her arrows. He paused at the edge of the water, looking over his shoulder at her.

‘What are you going to do, anyway?’ he asked.

‘Something.’

He slipped into the water without a sound, vanishing. The sound of carnage was quieting now, nothing more than whispers of pain on a stale breeze. A pity, she thought, there might be no one left to come and kill her.

That might be less painful, she reasoned, than living to see the shame of waiting for a human she had dared to call her own.

Twenty-Eight

So … that’s why it’s called the Deepshriek.

The musing flitted through Lenk’s brain, swimming on a ringing cacophony and disjointed panic. He could feel laughter echoing in the water, crawling over his lobes on skittering, shrieking legs. Even through such a wretched fury, however, the voice was clear and cold.

‘Air,’ it commanded, ‘we need air!’

Eyes snapped open, aching reverie was banished. The water was thick and oppressive around him, clung to him with a lonely desperation and smothered him with black liquid quilts.

Not nearly black enough, he noted, to obscure the horror barrelling towards him.

The Deepshriek’s six golden eyes, alight with wicked glee, were a stark contrast to the shark’s glimmering onyxes, just as the fiend’s great white teeth were a terrifying comparison to its dead stare.

‘AIR!’ the voice shrieked.

Fear fuelled his legs, tearing his body from the foggy trance. He struggled, kicked, thrashed as though he were on fire. He pulled himself up to the shimmering green light above him. The water moaned frothily as he shattered the surface, begging him to return, groping with lonely liquid claws.

It shuddered beneath him at the passing of the shark. That was a fleeting terror; for now, he sought to fill his lungs with every stale breath he could. It was only after the danger of drowning had passed that he felt the first pangs of cold fear.

The liquid trembled in sympathy. Six golden eyes peered out of the blackness, three fanged grins pierced the gloom. A great, axe-like fin broke the surface of the water, drifting with a casual menace before vanishing again.

‘Toying with us. .’ The voice, its need for breath satiated, was a fiercer cold than any fear. ‘Take us to land.’

‘Right,’ he muttered in reply.

He spied the decaying stone ledge hanging over the water, reaching with fumbling hands. Breath burned in his lungs as he flailed, struggling against the fierce water. His heart thundered in his chest, sending ripples upon ripples. Undoubtedly, he thought as he felt something pass him, it did not go unnoticed.

The outcropping grew closer.

He yearned for a sword, leather, something solid to wrap his hands around. A man with a sword was a man with a chance, however thin either might be. A man with a sword had a satisfying death to look forward to, a shrug of the shoulders and a knowledge that he had done all he could. A man without a sword was nothing more than. .

‘Bait,’ the voice suggested in response to his thoughts.

He ignored it. The outcropping was within arm’s reach.

His hand shot out desperately as a chorus of twisted laughter filled the air. He snapped his head about, regarding the three feminine faces snaking high above the water, staring back at him with broad grins and wide, excited eyes. More distressing than that was the great grey fin jutting between their stalks, looming over Lenk’s head.

‘Oh, damn,’ he whispered.

He saw the crimson first, the thick red upon the darkness, before he felt the teeth sink into his thigh. His scream was short and stifled. The shark, unsympathetic, continued to swim, deaf to his agony as it dragged him through the murk. Lenk threw back his head, opened his mouth to scream again.

‘Bad idea,’ the voice snarled.

The shark dived. Darkness filled Lenk’s mouth as the green firelight waxed and grew fainter above him. He was pulled deep, to the bottom of the foetid pool, leaving a crimson cloud behind. He flailed, pounded the shark’s head, raked at its rock-hard flesh with painfully human hands. The sheer futility did not occur to him. He was well past the point for logic to be of any use.

The shark’s teeth dug further into his flesh in response. He screamed, his voice lost on bubbles and blackness, and through thoughts clouded by pain he wondered why the demon simply hadn’t sheared through his leg.

The beast twisted, turned sharply upwards to bring him to the surface. He was spared a choked gasp, a triumvirate of giggles, before the shark angled sharply and pulled him under.

It’s. . he realised, it’s tasting me.

And it did so with macabre discerning. It chewed on him thoughtfully, fondled his thigh with a thick tongue, saliva cold even in the brackish depths. The three heads shifted, licking their own lips, sharing their grey host’s experience with water-choked enthusiasm.

And Lenk continued to strike it, still. The liquid slowed his fists, pulled at him, defending the demon even as impotent as his assault was. And yet, such a futile fury was all that kept him alive. When he ceased struggling, when panic faded, the abomination would become bored.

Hunger, if the thing did indeed eat, would not be far behind.

But his body was running out of fear to fuel his survival. His lungs tightened, vision darkened. A chill seized him, as though the water seeped into his very skin, drowning his panic, consuming fear and replacing it with numb resignation.

This is how it ends. The thought was a sigh on a wisp of bubbles, a slowing of his fist. Eaten by a shark with three heads. His strike was an infant’s against a stone wall. It’ll make a good story, at least.

His thoughts were faint against the creature’s laughter. All sounds were fading, drowned by the water rushing into his ears. Even the sound of his heart groaning, ready to burst in a sloppy eruption, was but a distant whisper.

It wouldn’t be long. And, as the water reached to caress his mind with liquid tendrils, that didn’t seem such a bad thing.

‘Fight.’

The voice, colder than all the water and pain coursing through him, muttered from a distant corner of his head.

‘Kill,’ it uttered, faint, like someone screaming from behind a great wall of ice, but growing stronger.

‘Kill!’

As water reached from without, something reached from within. A hand with fingers of frigid mist snaked through his body, expelled the invading liquid. His heart went hard, stopped beating. The fear that such a reaction should cause was gone, the need for air less desperate. The pain in his leg was gone, the limb felt numb even under the saw of teeth.

‘Kill!’

The numbness spread to his entire body, a coldness that quieted the demands of his flesh, silenced the shrieking laughter. He could not feel his arms moving, but saw his fingers guided by something not himself. They slid down with focused precision to the shark’s side, sank into something soft and fleshy. He did not know the beast’s weaknesses, but whatever moved his limbs did, and it seized them, merciless.

‘KILL!’

Lenk felt his hands dig into the ridges of the gill slits. He felt an impassive, uncaring strength course into his grip. He felt flesh tear.

A gout of red wept in the gloom. The shark’s groan was long and echoed through the blackness. The heads above went into a snaking, writhing agony, sputtering through the cloud of blood that drifted into their faces. The jaws relinquished him to the water and he watched the thing twist sharply, retreating into the darkness.

He remembered air, the taste of it in his lungs. He saw the green light shimmering above him. But the strength that coursed through him, the rivers of ice that replaced his blood, would not let him go to it.

Instead, his legs became as lead, pulling him to the bottom. He did not resist, did not feel fear at such a thing, did not hear the cry of his body for breath. All thoughts were gone, retreated from the voice that muttered in his brain, hidden in some forgotten corner of his mind.

His eyes were jerked, forced upon a glimpse of metal in the darkness. He swam to it, heedless of his bleeding, heedless of his need for air. He felt the massive demon swoop over him, heard it scream, but ignored it. Only silver existed.

His fingers groped the rocky bottom of the pool, the glint of silver vanishing as his shadow fell over it. He caught something in the darkness, a strap of some kind. Unthinking, he took it in one hand and reached again. His hand felt a familiar hilt, a leather-bound grip in his own.

Lenk remembered his sword.

‘And now, we are strong.’ The voice spoke to him with what sounded like an attempt at soothing reassurance. It would have caused Lenk to cringe, if not for the smile he felt creep across his face. ‘Kill,’ it commanded.

And, in the death of sound that existed between the blade sliding from the rocky floor and the tightening of his hand around its hilt, Lenk answered.