journal, that he slept little, that he bathed only in the morning, that he made water only when at least two hundred paces from anyone else. What made him think the way he did, however, was a mystery.
All she knew was what he had told her: something had happened in his youth, his parents were no longer alive. She absently wondered what he was like before.
‘So much the better,’ Quillian grunted at the shict’s silence. ‘I’d rather not know how you degenerates think.’ She swallowed another piece of fruit. ‘Argaol, I hear, has taken Rashodd alive . . . to use the bounty to cover his losses.’
‘And the other pirates?’
‘Disposed of, not that you care.’
‘The world will make more humans.’
Quillian stared hard at her for a moment before snorting and turning about.
‘One moment,’ Kataria called to her back. ‘That phrase can’t be enough to make you irate. Tell me,’ she tilted her head curiously, ‘why is it you hate me, my people, so much?’
The Serrant paused, her back suddenly stiffening to the degree that Kataria could see every vertebra in her spine fusing together in contained fury. Then, with a great breath, her back relaxed and the woman seemed smaller, diminished. She ran a hand down her muscular flank.
‘For the same reason I wear this crimson shame,’ she replied stiffly. ‘I was there ten years ago.’
‘Where?’
‘I was at Whitetrees,’ she muttered, ‘K’tsche Kando, as you call it.’
Kataria froze twice, once for the name and again for the woman’s utterance of the shictish tongue. Red Snow. She offered no scorn for the woman any more; she could find none within herself. Her hate was no longer misunderstood, no longer unacceptable. Quillian had stood with the humans at K’tsche Kando.
She had good reason to hate.
‘Given that, and my inability to do it myself, I dearly wish you had died today.’ She set the remaining apple upon the railing. ‘Your due, should you get hungry later. Expect nothing else from me.’
She was gone before Kataria even looked at the fruit. She glanced at it for a moment before a smirk crossed her face. Plucking up the fruit, she sprang over the railing and glided nimbly across the timbers. As she neared Lenk, she rubbed the apple against her breeches and gave it a quick toss.
Her giggle was matched by his snarl as the fruit caromed off his skull and went flying into the water below. He whirled, a blue scowl locked upon her, as he rubbed his head.
‘You’re supposed to catch it,’ she offered, smiling sweetly.
‘I’m not in the mood,’ Lenk muttered angrily.
‘To catch fruit? No wonder you got hit in the head.’
‘I’m not in the mood for your . . . shictiness.’
‘You never are.’
‘And yet,’ he sighed, ‘here you are.’
‘Call me concerned,’ she said, smiling. She cocked her head, regarding him for a moment. ‘What are you thinking about?’
‘The creature,’ he replied bluntly, scratching his chin.
‘What else?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Worrying about things you can’t help makes your hair fall out, you know.’
‘Someone has to worry about it,’ Lenk snapped, glaring at her. ‘Someone has to find out what it was and what can kill it.’
‘And that’s your responsibility, is it?’
‘I’ve got a sword.’
‘You can put it down.’
‘I can also get my head chopped off. What’s your point?’
‘Do you really need to think about this now? The thing is gone.’
‘For the moment.’
His hand slid up unconsciously, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. He had left it below after cleaning it, he recalled. His shoulder reacted to the pressure of his fingers, a sharp pain lancing from his neck to his flank. Asper had plucked the splinters from his flesh, though the wounds still ached beneath their makeshift bandages and salve. Still, such a pain felt minuscule against the sensation that clung to his throat like a collar.
He could still feel the creature’s claws, its digits like moist leather wrapped about his neck, tightening as it lifted him from the deck. At the thought, his legs even felt weaker, as though the thing still reached out from wherever it had retreated, seeking to finish what it had begun.
‘You’re hurt?’
He blinked; Kataria’s question sounded odd to him, considering that she had seen him be smashed against the timbers, hoisted up and nearly strangled in a webbed claw. In fact, it sounded rather insulting. His hand clenched involuntarily into a fist. Her jaw loomed before him, suddenly so tempting.
He snorted. ‘Yeah.’
His shoulder suddenly seared with a lance of pain as she laid a