Their protests were too soft to hinder the flight of the splintered mast. It shrieked through the air, its tattered sail wafting like a banner as it sped toward the Akaneed, who merely cocked its head curiously.
Then screamed.
Its massive head snapped backward, the mast jutting from its face. Its pain lasted for an agonised, screeching eternity. When it brought its head down once more, it regarded the companions through a yellow eye stained red, opened its jaws and loosed a rumble that sent torrents of mist from its gaping maw.
‘Damn it,’ Lenk hissed, ‘damn it, damn it, damn it.’ He glanced about furtively, his sword suddenly seeming so small, so weak. Dreadaeleon didn’t look any better as the boy stared up with quaking eyes, but he would have to do. ‘Dread!’
The boy looked at him, unblinking, mouth agape.
‘Get up here!’ Lenk roared, waving madly. ‘Kill it!’
‘What? How?’
‘DO IT.’
Whether it was the tone of the young man or the roar of the great serpent that drove him to his feet, Dreadaeleon had no time to know. He scrambled to the fore of the boat, unhindered, unfazed even as Gariath looked at him with a bemused expression. The boy’s hand trembled as he raised it before him like a weapon; his lips quivered as he began to recite the words that summoned the azure electricity to the tip of his finger.
Lenk watched with desperate fear, his gaze darting between the wizard and the beast. Each time he turned back to Dreadaeleon, something new looked out of place on the wizard. The crimson energy pouring from his eyes flickered like a candle in a breeze; he stuttered and the electricity crackled and sputtered erratically on his skin.
It was not just fear that hindered the boy.
‘He is weak,’ the voice hissed inside Lenk’s head. ‘Your folly was in staying with them for this long.’
‘Shut up,’ Lenk muttered in return.
‘Do you think we’ll die from this? Rest easy. They die. You don’t.’
‘Shut up!’
‘I won’t let you.’
‘Shut—’
There was the sound of shrieking, of cracking. Dreadaeleon staggered backward, as if struck, his hand twisted into a claw and his face twisted into a mask of pain and shame. The reason did not become apparent until they looked down at his shaking knees and saw the growing dark spot upon his breeches.
‘Dread,’ Asper gasped.
‘Now?’ Denaos asked, cringing. ‘Of all times?’
‘T-too much.’ The electricity on Dreadaeleon’s finger fizzled as he clutched his head. ‘The strain … it’s just … the cost is too—’
Like a lash, the rest of the creature hurled itself from the sea. Its long, snaking tail swung high over the heads of the companions, striking Dreadaeleon squarely in the chest. His shriek was a whisper on the wind, his coat fluttering as he sailed through the air and plummeted into the water with a faint splash.
The companions watched the waters ripple and re-form over him, hastily disguising the fact that the boy had ever even existed as the rain carelessly pounded the sea. They blinked, staring at the spot until it finally was still.
‘Well.’ Denaos coughed. ‘Now what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lenk replied. ‘Die horribly, I guess.’
As though it were a request to be answered, the Akaneed complied. Mist bursting from its mouth, it hurled itself over the boat, its head kicking up a great wave as it crashed into the waters on the other side. The companions, all save Gariath, flung themselves to the deck and stared as the creature’s long, sinewy body replaced the sky over them, as vast and eternal. It continued for an age, its body finally disappearing beneath the water as a great black smear under the waves.
‘It was going to leave us alone,’ Kataria gasped, staring at the vanishing shape, then at Gariath. ‘It was going to go away! Why did you do that?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Denaos snarled, sliding his dagger out. ‘He wanted this. He wanted to kill us. It’s only fair that we return the favour before that thing eats us.’
‘Gariath … why?’ was all Asper could squeak out, a look of pure, baffled horror painting her expression.
The dragonman only smiled and spoke. ‘It’s not like you’re the last humans.’
Lenk had no words, his attentions still fixed upon the Akaneed’s dark, sinewy shape beneath the surface. He watched it intently, sword in hand, as it swept about in a great semicircle and turned, narrowing its glowing yellow eye upon the vessel.
‘It’s going to ram us!’ he shouted over the roar of thunder as the rain intensified overhead.