Sam Sykes - Tome of the Undergates

In some part of his mind, he knew this to be wrong. He felt the fear that crept upon him, the terror that the voice was some part of the void to which his mind was slowly being lost. Madness; what else could it be? What else could compel him to fight, to rush into impossible odds? What else could override reason and logic with its own frigid thoughts?

‘ Stop. ’

He obeyed, not knowing what else he could do.

The reason became apparent quickly enough, reflected in the jagged head of a bloodied axe clenched in meaty, tattooed paws. The Cragsman was massive, apparently of the same stock that had bred the giant Rashodd, with grey hair hanging about a grizzled visage in wild braids.

He stood upon defiant legs, regarding the companions with eyes unwary, challenging them to take the mother chain. Lenk looked past his massive shoulders to the chain itself, swaying precariously as leathery bodies twisted over each link.

‘ Reinforcements. ’

‘And this one’s the vanguard,’ Lenk grunted in reply to the thought.

‘Meant for me. .’

Lenk glanced up at the dragonman as he heard the others come to a halt behind him.

‘What?’

‘This is it,’ Gariath whispered, taking a step forwards. ‘This one was made for me.’

‘That’s stupid,’ Kataria said, ‘I can put an arrow in him from-’

‘ MINE! ’

She recoiled, with everyone else, as he whirled on her, teeth bared and claws outstretched. ‘Those other ones were weak, stupid. This one. .’ He turned back to the massive man, snorting. ‘I might die.’

She blinked. ‘What?’

‘More than a chance of that, dear boy,’ the vanguard boomed, hefting his weapon over his shoulder. ‘Defiance of man’s law is our trade, but expunging an abomination is the work of the Gods, I am assured.’

‘Yes.’ Gariath’s eyes lit like black fires, his hands tightened into fists. ‘ Yes. ’ His wings unfurled behind him, tail lashing angrily. His jaws craned open, a roar tore free from his throat. ‘ YES! ’

‘COME, DEMON!’ the Cragsman howled, beating his chest. ‘COME AND TASTE THE-’

His speech was cut short as his body stiffened with a sudden spasm. He smacked his lips, furrowed his brow, as though he had just forgotten what he was going to say. When he opened his mouth to finish the challenge, a faint trickle of red appeared at his lips.

‘Well. . that’s. .’ The light behind his eyes extinguished along with the fire in Gariath’s as the pirate collapsed to his knees. ‘That’s. .’ He groped uncertainly at his chest, seeking to scratch an itch beneath the skin. ‘That’s. . rather …’

He fell face down. A bright-red flower bloomed from his neck, dripping onto the wood.

Denaos’s grin was short-lived as he looked at his companions, wiping clean the long knife in his hands.

‘That one was MINE !’ Gariath exploded in a roar, the deck shaking with the force of his stomp. ‘He was put here to fight ME !’

‘He just crawled over the chain, actually,’ Dreadaeleon said quietly.

‘You gutted him like a fish!’ Asper said, grimacing at the corpse. ‘You killed him as if he was nothing!’

‘Is that. . praise?’ Denaos shook his head. ‘No, no. Of course, you’re whining. Isn’t that typical? I’m demeaned for not killing anyone and the moment I save us all some trouble by indulging in an act of practical butchery, I’m suddenly at fault?’

‘ I never asked you to take a life,’ Asper protested.

‘ You don’t even think that it might be necessary!’ Kataria spat back. ‘If you had your way, we’d all sit around praying to some weak round-ear god for an answer while they sodomised us with steel!’

‘Don’t talk to her like that!’ Dreadaeleon piped up, trying hard not to wither under her scowl. ‘She’s right to have conviction, even if it is in imaginary beings on high.’ He blinked, eyes going wide. ‘Did I say that part aloud or think it?’

A hand cracking against his head made a proper answer.

‘Who told you to even scurry out of your hole, rat?’ Gariath growled. ‘ You were meant to eat filth and drink your own tears. The Rhega ,’ he thumped his chest, ‘were made to kill and die.’

‘Plenty of time for the latter,’ Denaos replied, holding his arms out wide. ‘Humanity didn’t fight its way to the top of the food chain to be condescended to by lizards.’

Well, that figures , Lenk thought to himself. The one time he musters the spine to confront someone, it’s one of our own.

‘ Useless. . ’ the voice muttered.

Agreed. He blinked. No, wait. Don’t talk to it.

‘ Fight. ’

Fight back! Resist! It’s madness, you know it’s madness! You aren’t mad! You can-

‘ NOW. ’

The voice came with a sudden insistence, a frigid howl that drowned out the sounds of argument, the sounds of clinking chains. The voice left no room for fear or for thought as it gnashed its teeth, fangs sinking into his brain, grinding his skull between them, filling his mind with fury.

‘ Command. ’

‘S-stop …’ he whimpered.

‘ Lead! ’

‘Hurts-’

‘ KILL! ’

‘ STOP! ’

He didn’t know how loud he had screamed, but everyone had snapped to attention. He didn’t know what expression he wore on his face that caused them to look at him so.

He didn’t care.

‘Dread,’ he snarled, pointing to the chain, ‘burn them.’

‘Right. .’ the boy said, swallowing hard and moving towards the links. ‘But I need time to-’

‘ NOW! ’

No time even to stutter an agreement, the cold rigidity in Lenk infected Dreadaeleon as well. His fingers knotted together in a gesture that was painful to watch, his lips murmured a language that was painful to hear. Lenk watched him open his eyes, watched the crimson energy flower from behind his eyelids as tiny electric sparks began to dance along his sleeves.

‘ Enemies. ’

‘Right,’ Lenk muttered, spying the hatchet-bearing pirates move to the chain on the Linkmaster . ‘Kat.’

‘Uh-huh,’ she replied, already drawing the fletching to her cheek. The arrows sang in ugly harmony, wailing from her string to catch them in the throat and chest. She wasted no time in turning a smug grin upon Gariath. ‘ I win.’

‘What. .’ Asper asked, her voice as hesitant as her trembling hands, ‘what should I do?’

‘What can you do?’ Lenk replied coldly, his mind focused on other things.

No cry had arisen from the Linkmaster , none of the collective panic that had plagued them upon Gariath’s appearance, not so much as a harsh word from Rashodd. The pirates simply took a collective step backwards, their expressions unnervingly serene. Even Rashodd appeared not at all displeased as failure loomed in his iron-clad face.

Why?

They parted like a wave of flesh, opening up a space at the railing. Lenk’s eyes widened.

The siege engine.

It rolled to the railing, a mass of iron and wood whose immediate purpose he could not decipher. A ballista? Of course, how else would they have got the chain across? Then why weren’t they firing it?

‘What are they waiting for?’

No answer was heard over the sound of Dreadaeleon’s chant as it rose to an echoing crescendo. The sparks that were birthed on his sleeves grew into full electric snakes, crackling eagerly as they raced down his arms and into his knuckles. He extended his fingers, trembling as though they sought to jump free of their fleshy prisons, and knelt down to press two single fingers against the chain.

‘ Yes … ’

It came too quick for anyone to scream, the lightning leaping from his fingers and onto the chain with electric vigour. Men became insects in a hail of sparks, tattoos lost amidst the blackening of skin. They collapsed, fell into the water and were lost to the tide.

‘ Good. ’

‘Gariath,’ Lenk muttered.

The crimson hulk stared down at him for a moment, eyes narrowed, challenging him to give an order. Whatever the others had seen in Lenk that made them obey, he didn’t see it or didn’t care.

Inside his head, Lenk’s mind clenched, as if agitated that the dragonman would not obey. Whether he finally resisted out of inner discipline or pure fear, Lenk kept such ire from reaching his lips. He did not break his stare from Gariath’s black gaze, did not back down.

And when Gariath finally did move to the chain, he did not care why. He looked, instead, to the deck of the pirate ship and their siege engine. He spied the shadow there again, the man with the bone for a head who looked like some displaced spectre amongst the crowd. Again, the man met Lenk’s gaze, again the man smiled.

The dragonman hooked his hands into the mother chain’s clawed head, gripping it firmly. Snorting, he gave it a great shake, dislodging a corpse caught by the wrist in its links, throwing off the pirates who still tried to set foot on it. Lenk watched with narrowed eyes and empty thoughts.

Gariath grunted, muscles straining, wood cracking as he began to pull.

The shadow of a man held up a hand, waved it.

‘ No. ’

Sailors flocked to the railing of the Riptide , roaring challenges at their calm foes.

Two Cragsmen rushed to the engine, pulled a rope.

‘ No! ’

Gariath’s wings unfurled like great sails, the wind filled with a shower of splinters as the chain’s head came tearing loose. With a great iron wail for its lost charge, the mother chain collapsed into the sea and its little linked children followed, clinking squeals, while the Riptide drank the wind and tore away from its captor.

Men cheered. Denaos and Kataria shared an unpleasant cackle at the victory. Dreadaeleon managed a smile, looking to Asper, who managed a sigh of weary relief. Gariath snorted disdainfully, folding his arms over his chest.

It was too soon for Lenk to rejoice, not while his ears were fixed to a sound.

The siege engine came to life without boulders or spears or arrows. It shifted upon its wooden wheels, an iron monstrosity of spikes and blades, swinging back and forth. It sang.

A church bell, he suspected, by the look and sound, but forged from a mould more misshapen than was intended for any godly instrument. Its chorus was no echoing monotone droning, but something of many voices that sang out in horrid, discordant harmony.

A shriek banged against a moan, raucous laughter scraped against agonised weeping, a wistful sigh ground against a violent roar. The bell spoke. The bell sang. And it did not fade from Lenk’s ears, even as the Linkmaster shrank in his eyes.

‘That was it?’

Lenk turned to see scorn in Gariath’s eyes, the dragonman looking down at him with scaly lips pulled into a snarl. The young man regarded him coldly, forcing the horrid song from his thoughts long enough to meet him with an equally contemptuous look.

‘You got to kill someone, didn’t you?’

‘I barely bled,’ Gariath replied.

‘That’s. . a problem, is it?’

Gariath regarded him carefully for a moment before snorting. He turned, forcing Lenk to duck the sweeping tail that lashed out spitefully behind him, and began to stalk along the deck.

‘Don’t call me again,’ he grunted, ‘unless there’s real blood to be spilled.’

‘One wonders,’ Asper said snidely as he passed, ‘just how much blood needs to be spilled before it qualifies as “real”.’