recently dismissed a looming death as an unfortunate inconvenience.
‘And how are we today?’ he asked with a broad smile. ‘I was slightly worried we’d have to cut your body into six pieces so that you wouldn’t come back.’ He added a knowing nod. ‘That’s what happens when shicts die, you know. They’ll come crawling right out of the grave to rip your eyes out and eat them.’
‘One would hope she’d have the sense to rip out your tongue first.’ Lenk hurled his voice like a spear at the rogue, though Denaos seemed to dodge that just as gracefully as he had the vomit. ‘Maybe she’d like to hear what you—’
‘Well, that’s all fine, fine and dandy.’ Denaos interrupted the young man with a timely spear of his own. ‘Good to know we all emerged from another near-death experience with only one of us nearly dying. A fine score, if I may say so.’
Lenk opened his mouth to retort, but a hacking cough from Kataria shredded that before it reached his lips. Settling for an icy stare at Denaos’s nonchalant expression, he raised the waterskin to her lips, pulling his hand back as she swatted at it.
‘I’m not an invalid, round-ear,’ she growled, shaking his arm off from around her. After a few frenzied gulps, she wiped her mouth. ‘What happened, anyway?’
‘We were hoping you might tell us,’ Asper piped up. ‘Denaos and I came at the sound of screaming.’
‘Late,’ Lenk muttered.
‘Cautiously late,’ Denaos shot back.
‘At any rate,’ Asper continued, ‘we found you unconscious and the whole beach scorched halfway to heaven.’
‘Hell,’ Denaos corrected.
‘What about Lenk?’ Kataria asked.
‘What about Lenk?’
‘He was here. He saw what happened.’
‘I don’t recall.’ The young man offered a helpless shrug. ‘We were hit pretty hard.’
Kataria’s breath caught; she levelled a hard gaze at him.
‘We . . .’
‘Yeah,’ he nodded, ‘you and me.’
‘The demon bashed him good,’ Asper added. ‘He was just coming out of it when we arrived.’
He wasn’t out, Kataria thought.
The visions bloomed in her mind: the onyx sheen of the Abysmyth’s black blood, the surgical silver of Lenk’s sword. They flooded through her with grotesque vividness, matched only by the horrifying sounds that replayed in her mind.
‘MOMMY! MOMMY! IT HURTS!’ She recalled the demon’s wailing voice. ‘MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!’
Lenk had said nothing.
Someone else had.
‘Stay,’ it had uttered through his mouth, ‘we kill.’
Whoever had spoken had leaned over her, stood with flesh grey as stone and eyes blue as winter.
Someone not Lenk . . .
‘Whichever of you did whatever,’ Denaos added with a grimace, ‘someone seems to have hit the demon back . . . rather hard.’
‘The demon.’ Kataria’s head snapped up. ‘What happened to it?’
The Omen hopped across the sand, sweeping bulbous eyes over the chaos. Despite the smoke seeping into the two gourd-like organs, the thing did not so much as blink. It recalled, vaguely, in what served as its mind, that there had been more of it just a moment ago.
Then there was noise, noise that hurt its ears. It didn’t care for that noise, so it stayed away. Now, there were none of it left. It turned about, faced the sea and tilted its head. There was one of it there moments ago, it believed. It chattered its teeth, calling to the other.
All that answered it was the sound of wind and a great, black shadow quickly falling over it.
‘Disgusting,’ Gariath muttered, wiping thick, black fluid off the sole of his foot.
It wasn’t so much the texture of the thing’s blood, reminiscent of a large beetle’s, that irritated him as it was the smell. He cast a dark scowl over the beach: sand still pumping acrid smoke into the air, fighting the stinging salty reek for dominance, as the stinking panoply of electricity, blood and fear congealed into a fine, vile perfume.
With a growl, he gave the Omen’s corpse a kick, sending it spiralling through the air like a feathery, blood-dripping ball to plop at the top of a heap of similar misshapen amalgamations. Gathering them in one spot did nothing for the odour.
With a sigh, Gariath thrust his snout into the air once more, testing it. Nothing but the stink of carnage and fire reached his nostrils. He found his fists tightening of their own volition, his skin threatening to burst under his claws. Every whiff of the air only brought him more of the same stinks, denying him any other scents.
So close, he snarled internally, I was so close. I was right on top of it