When he sighted his prey, he stopped only to consider how she might die.
She, for it reeked of womanhood, was pale, beyond even the ghostly sheen of the pointy-eared human. She was so pale as to appear insubstantial, as sunlight shimmering on the sea. Hair the colour of a healthy tree’s crown cascaded down her back, its endless verdancy broken only by the large, blue fin cresting her head.
The Abysmyths have such a fin, he thought resentfully.
She was a mess of angles, frail and delicate and wrapped in a wispy sheet of silk that did barely anything to hide the glistening blues and whites of her skin. Through a nose little more than a bony outcropping she exhaled a fine mist. At her neck, what appeared to be feathery gills fluttered.
As vile as she was to behold, the sight of the young boy with stringy black locks in her hands was far more disgusting.
The wizard lay with his head in her lap, a look of contentment creasing his face, as though he were a recently suckled infant. And, as though soothing an infant, the female creature ran webbed fingers through his hair. Through lips a pale blue, she hummed a tune unearthly, one that carried over waves as it carried through the boy, sending both into comatose calmness.
What might temper the sea, however, could not cool the blood of a Rhega. She sought to sing him deaf; his ear-frills twitched. She sought to sing his eyes shut; they widened. She sought to carry his bloodlust from his shoulders; he vowed to set it upon hers with two clawed fists.
The fate of the boy was irrelevant; whether she cradled his ensorcelled breathing body or his ensorcelled corpse, she would find herself in a far deeper sleep than she had put him into.
Gariath’s wings unfurled like red sails. His hands clenched into fists so tight as to bloody his palms. His terrifying roar seized her weak song and tore it apart in the air. Upon all fours once more, he charged, levelling his horned head at her frail, angular mouth.
It would feel good to kill again.
Lenk staggered as he stumbled over a tree root, kicking up damp soil and leaves. With a sigh, he glanced down at the earth; whatever modest trail had been present was now nothing more than a smattering of dirt and tubers. If there ever was a trail there at all, he thought to himself, discouraged. How Kataria routinely made it look so easy, he would never know.
Which begged another question . . .
‘Why aren’t you in front?’ he asked over his shoulder.
The shict started at his voice, as she had started at every sneeze, cough and curse to pass his lips for the past half-hour. She quickly composed herself, taking a gratuitous step backwards, placing her even further away from him.
‘It’s good practice,’ she replied quickly. ‘You need to learn this sort of stuff to survive.’
‘Not so long as I’ve got you around.’
‘Well, maybe I won’t always be around,’ she snapped back. ‘Ever think of that, dimwit?’
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ The question came with a sigh, knowing full well that whatever she wished to tell him, he wished not to hear. ‘You’ve been skittish ever since we left the corpse.’
‘Imagine that,’ she sneered, ‘near-death experiences leave me a bit jumpy.’
‘Sure, jumpy.’ He glanced down to the bow drawn in her hands. ‘Are near-death experiences something you’d like to share? Because you’ve had that damn thing drawn and pointed at me for the past half-hour.’
‘Don’t you blame me for being cautious.’
‘Cautious is one thing,’ he replied. ‘You’re just being psychotic now. And while I’ve never begrudged you that before, I have to ask,’ he tilted his head at her, frowning concernedly, ‘what’s wrong?’
Her reaction did nothing to reassure him.
She shifted nervously for a moment, hopping from foot to foot as she glanced about the forest clearing as though noting all possible escape routes. She did not lower her bow, nor relax her grip on its string. She had all the anxiety of a nervous beast while at the same time regarding him as though he were some manner of bloodthirsty predator.
He knew he ought not begrudge her such a mannerism; she had only barely survived the Abysmyth’s touch. Surely, he reasoned, fear and panic were reasonable reactions. But towards him? Towards the man who had saved her? Towards the man who thought of her as not just a shict?
He found his hands tensing of