your weak breed calls “irony”, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not irony, it’s coincidence!’
‘Arguing languages while you’re about to be skewered?’ The longface shook her head. ‘Your death will be a boon to your race.’
Before she knew what was happening, Asper’s left arm, burning under her sleeve, snapped up to seize the woman by her throat. The voice shrieking inside her mind, begging for control, fell quiet against a violent crackle inside her. The fire in her veins slid through her fingers, up her shoulder and scorched a bare-toothed snarl upon her face.
‘I’m not going to die, heathen.’
The longface’s smile only grew broader, a predator feeling its prey squirm inside its jaws. Without a thought for the unnatural tension in Asper’s hand, she raised her spike and aimed the point directly at the priestess’s face.
‘VERMIN!’
The bellow degenerated into a wordless howl that rent the air. Eyes, white and pupilled alike, turned upwards to regard the massive wall of crimson muscle standing upon the shore.
Gariath’s own dark orbs were fixed upon the longface, apparently heedless of the captive she held, as he unfurled his wings, dropped upon all fours and charged, leaving sundered earth in his wake.
‘Not yet, anyway,’ the longface muttered, dropping the priestess and turning her weapon to face the new threat.
She did not have to wait long.
With a roar, Gariath sprang from the sand, wings flapping, claws outstretched and aiming for a tense purple throat. What he received instead was a vicious handful of iron as she raised her spike to strike at him. He seized it and twisted it away. She was driven backwards by the force of his lunge but did not stagger, her heels digging deeply into the sand.
His free hand came up, claws glistening, and was caught in her grasp. His muscles tensed, eyes widened, if only in momentary appreciation for a hand large and strong enough to hold his killing grasp at bay. A good fight, his toothy smile said without words, a good opponent. And, as he reared his head back, his horns finished the thought.
Not good enough.
His skull crashed against her nose, snapping her head backwards. When he drew away a face glistening with a moisture not his own, his eyes spoke of a deeper surprise. The longface’s grip held firm, her hands unshaking, as she turned upon the dragonman a scowl burning white through the crimson dripping down her face.
She snarled, a noise as vicious and fierce as Asper had ever heard Gariath utter, and returned the gesture, slamming her face against his snout. He reeled and Asper’s breath caught in her throat; Gariath had never reeled before.
He made a long, slow effort of drawing his face back up. And it was with longer, slower and far more unpleasant effort that he drew his tongue across his lips, tasting the red that dripped upon it.
‘Oh,’ he said through his smile, ‘I like you.’
His nostrils flared, snorting a cloud of crimson into her eyes. Her flinch left her unprepared for the head that followed. His skull smashed against hers; she quivered. His horns crushed her forehead; she released him and staggered backwards.
As if infuriated by the sudden lapse in her strength, Gariath drove his head forwards a third time, sending the longface to her knees. His rage-laden howl became the song of a violent choir as he brought his fists down upon her back. She withstood two hammering blows before buckling, collapsing to the earth.
Not nearly satisfied, Gariath fell on her, continuing to rain fists upon her until the sound of meat slapping meat became the sound of thick branches snapping.
It wasn’t until the sound of a particularly moist sponge being wrung reached her ears that Asper finally spoke up.
‘Enough, Gariath.’
‘You’re right.’ The dragonman rose, flicking thick droplets from his hands. ‘This one’s almost finished.’ At an errant twitch from the purple body, he brought his foot up and then down, smiling at the sound of undercooked porridge being spilled. ‘Tough one, though.’
‘There are more of them.’
His eyes lit up with a glimmer that Asper often found charming in children being handed presents.
‘Where?’
‘Later. We need to find Dread and—’
‘Where?’
He stood before her, the stink from his body, and parts of the longface’s body, roiling into her nostrils. She did not turn away, despite the pleas of her senses; his twitching arms suggested that there was only one acceptable gesture to make. And, with a sigh, she pointed out over the sea to the black vessel.
He shoved her aside, scowling across the waters. The ship