‘I can guarantee you if we decide to go this route, the only spine you’ll be seeing is your own as some Abysmyth ... Deepshriek . . . or whatever rips it out and force-feeds it to you.’ He cast a glance about the circle. ‘Listen, I hate to reinforce your beliefs in my cowardice as much as I hate to be forced to be the voice of reason again, but let’s consider a few things.
‘First of all,’ he held up a finger, ‘we can’t harm the Abysmyths and it’s a decent bet we won’t be able to harm something with an even weirder-sounding name. Secondly,’ he gestured over his shoulder towards the carnage at the other end of the beach, ‘someone else seems to have tried to “cleanse” them without much luck.’
‘You speak of the longfaces,’ Greenhair replied.
‘Seems they get around, too.’ Denaos rolled his eyes.
‘I witnessed them . . . from afar. I saw the fire and ice they wrought upon the land.’ She leaned back, as though reminiscing fondly. ‘They were tall, powerful, skin the colour of a bruise and eyes the colour of milk. There were many, females all but for one male, the one who slew the Abysmyth with a spear of ice.’
‘I take it these longfaces didn’t take the tome.’
‘No. By that time, the servants of the Deepshriek had taken it into their temple.’
Lenk paused, stared hard at her. ‘What temple?’
She regarded him unflinchingly. ‘I will show you.’
‘Well, that’s . . .’ Denaos could not find the words to describe the sight looming before him. ‘That’s . . . uh . . .’
‘Impressive,’ Lenk muttered.
‘Ominous.’ Dreadaeleon nodded.
‘Vile.’ Asper blanched.
‘Yeah,’ the rogue said, ‘something like that.’
Like the hand of some drowning stone giant, scraping futilely at the sky as he took his final breath, the granite tower rose to claw at the orange clouds above. A plague of algae scarred its great hide, holes riddling its weathered skin like rocky wounds.
Brackish waves licked against the tower’s base, rising and falling to expose the sturdy reef it had been wrought upon. Each time the waves recoiled from the stones, a jagged chorus of rusted spears, blades and spikes embedded in the rocks glistened unpleasantly with the fading sun.
Stomachs writhed collectively as the companions stared upon the impressive mass of impaled corpses in varying stages of decay held fast by the red spikes. Amongst the panoply, a few protrusions impaled incautious sea creatures; many more bore arms with fingers, legs with toes, bodies swaddled by clothing.
Lenk still had trouble believing they hadn’t seen it before. Even ensconced on the far side of the island from where they had crashed, the thing was imposing enough to command attention from miles around.
‘This is their temple,’ Greenhair explained with a shudder. ‘They conduct their rites and sermons within.’ She narrowed her eyes upon the tower. ‘Mortals once lived here, long ago. In those days, they called it “Irontide”.’
‘And they aren’t here any more?’ Asper pointedly turned her head away as the waves recoiled once more. ‘Who . . . or what drove them away? The demons?’
‘Other men.’ Denaos spoke before the siren could. ‘Irontide has a rather colourful repute amongst certain circles.’
‘Circles that begin and end in activities I’ve doubtless no pleasure in hearing about,’ the priestess muttered. ‘But do go on.’
‘Fair enough.’ The rogue shrugged. ‘As you probably know, the main export of the Toha Nations is rum, that being the only place in the world the drink’s made. As a result, Toha was quick to extort as much tax gold as they could from other nations desiring the drink. Seeing a profit to be made, pirates were quick to sell illicit barrels of the stuff for far cheaper.
‘Towers of this design,’ he gestured for emphasis, ‘were originally storehouses and protection against the Toha Navy.’ He pointed to the stone-scarred reaches of the tower’s battlements. ‘You can see there what the Navy’s catapults thought of that.’
‘First, they were for protection. Then they were used to make examples.’
‘Disgusting.’ She grimaced. ‘What a vile trick that so many lives should be wasted over a drink that has no purpose but to turn good people into sleazy harlots and swillers.’
‘That’s not entirely fair,’ he replied brusquely. ‘The same, after all, could be said of any faith.’
‘You’re actually comparing a house and faith of the Gods to smuggling?’
‘They seem fairly alike to me. Crime and religion are the only two things that people