Sam Sykes - Tome of the Undergates

‘They call it a companion ship; it’s used for foraging on islands. Supposedly, it can be manned by two men.’ She winked. ‘Considering we’ve three men, two women and one dragonman, we should have an advantage.’

He merely grunted at that, unaware of her resentful scowl. Lenk would have at least groaned.

‘Five humans are two and a half times as worthless as two humans,’ he muttered.

‘ Four humans,’ she replied, twitching her ears.

‘Pointy-eared humans are still humans.’ He didn’t even bother to dignify her threatening bare of teeth with a glance. Instead, he merely kept a disdainful eye upon the craft. ‘This is a stupid idea.’

‘I thought you wanted to chase the demon.’ She knew that speaking so coyly to a creature whose arm was the size of her waist was not, by any race’s standards, a good idea. Still, she was hungry for a reaction; Lenk would have insulted her back by now. ‘Scared?’

He turned to face her, not with any great need to rip her face off, and regarded her through cold, dark eyes. She tensed, ready to leap aside at the first sign of an angry fist. Instead, he merely grunted, ignoring her flicking tongue as she shot it at him. Her sigh was exaggerated and bored, not that he likely heard it.

‘Fear is something for lesser races,’ he rumbled. ‘It’s the only gift their weak Gods gave them, since they sought to deny them intelligence.’ He thumped a fist against his chest. ‘The spirits gave no gifts to the Rhega . I’ll hunt the demon down.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘It was meant for me.’

‘Meant,’ she paused, cocking a brow, ‘for you?’

‘I don’t expect you to understand.’

‘You’d expect a human to understand any better?’ It was with some form of pride that she noted the crew, standing as far away as possible from both shict and dragonman.

‘I wouldn’t expect anyone but a Rhega to understand.’

‘Yeah, well, there aren’t any Rhega around.’

For the first time, she hadn’t intended any offence. Yet, for all her previous prodding and attempts to incite him into a reaction, her innocuous observation caused him to whirl about and turn an angry gaze upon her.

Obviously.

His step shook the ship as he thundered forwards. The teeth he bared at her, she noted, were far bigger and far sharper than hers. She resisted the urge to back away, even as his hands tightened into fists. Retreat, more often than not, tended to be viewed as even more of an insult by the dragonman.

‘ You don’t have the right to utter that word.’ He prodded a claw into her chest, drawing blood and sending her staggering backwards. ‘The Rhega tongue was not meant for your ugly lips.’

‘Then what am I supposed to call you?’ Her attempt to draw herself up seemed rather pitiful when she noted that the top of her head only came up to the middle of his chest, five times as broad as hers. ‘Dragonman? That human word?’

‘There are many human words.’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘All of them are equally worthless. Rhega words are worth more.’

‘Fine.’

He ignored her challenging scowl as she rubbed at the red spot beneath her collarbone. They both looked towards the sea, observing the bobbing craft.

‘So,’ she broke the silence tersely, ‘what is it you think you’re meant to do with this demon?’

‘Kill it.’

‘Well, naturally.’

‘A Rhega ’s kills have more meaning.’

‘Of course they do. It doesn’t bother you that you couldn’t harm it before?’

‘Hit something hard enough, it falls down. That’s how the world works.’

‘You hit it fairly hard before.’

‘Then I’ll have to hit it harder.’

She nodded; it seemed to make sense.

‘Riffid willing, we’ll do that.’

‘You should save the names of your weak Gods,’ he snorted. ‘The more you utter them, the less likely they’ll be inclined to send you their worthless aid. Besides,’ he folded his arms over his chest, ‘ we won’t be doing anything. I will kill the demon and if your Gods aren’t useless, they’ll kill you quickly and get you out of the way.’

‘Riffid is the true Goddess,’ she hissed, ‘the only Goddess. ’

‘If your Gods intended to cure you of your stupidity, they would not have made you that way in the first place.’

She sighed at that, though she knew it was futile. Gariath’s response was hardly unexpected. To credit his objectivity, she grudgingly admitted, he had equal disdain for any God, shict, human or otherwise. His interest in theological discussion tended to begin with snorts and end in bloodshed. It would be wiser to leave now, she reasoned, before he decided to end this conversation.

And yet, she lingered.

‘So,’ she muttered, ‘what’s got you in such a sunny mood today?’

His nostrils flared. ‘There’s a scent on the air. . one I haven’t sensed in a long time.’

His face flinched. It was such a small twitch, made smaller in the wake of the rehearsed growl that followed, that he doubtlessly hoped no one would notice. But nothing escaped a shict’s attention. In the briefest of moments, concealed behind the subtlest of quivers lurked the mildest ruminations of a frown.

His eyes shifted suddenly. They did not soften, as she might have expected, but rather seemed to twitch in time with his face, as though desperately remembering how to.

‘It doesn’t stay.’ His voice was distant, unaware of her presence beside him. ‘It goes. . it returns. . then goes again. It never stays. When it does, it is. . overwhelmed, drowned out by other stinks.’

One eye rolled in its socket, so slowly she could hear the muscles creak behind it as he narrowed it upon her.

‘That, too, would be remedied if you weren’t here.’

Even Kataria was surprised by herself when she leapt forwards. She drew herself up, tightening, tensing and baring teeth in an attempt to look imposing: an effort she clearly took more seriously than he.

‘Don’t you go threatening me , reptile,’ she spat. ‘You seem to forget that I’m not a human. Don’t act like I have no idea what you’re talking about and don’t forget that no one else even has a hope of understanding what you’re going through.’ She jabbed a finger against his chest, narrowly hiding a wince behind her mask of ire. ‘ I’m the closest thing you’ve got to one of your own.’

A silence hung between them, an eternity of inaction. The world seemed to fall silent around them. Gariath regarded her indifferently, his shadow choking her slender frame. He took a step forwards, closing the distance between them to a finger’s width.

Like a great mountain sighing, he leaned down, muscles groaning behind leathery skin. His nostrils flared as he brought his face closer to hers, sending the feathers in her hair whipping about her cheeks. There was thunder in her ears, her instincts screaming to be heard over the pounding of her heart and the tension of her muscles, screaming for her to run.

The cacophony was such that she barely even heard him when he whispered, ‘Is this the part where I’m supposed to cry?’

The thunder stopped with her heart; her face screwed up.

‘Wh-what?’

‘After this delightful little chat about racial harmony and standing tall against the human menace, are we supposed to be charming little friends? Am I supposed to break down in your puny arms and reveal, through tears, some profound insight about the inherent folly of hatred as you revel in your ability to bridge the gap between peoples? Afterwards, will we go prancing through some meadow so you can show me the simple beauty of a spiderweb or a pile of deer dung or whatever it is your worthless, stupid race thinks is important?’

‘I. .’ His words had struck her squarely in the belly, leaving her breathless. ‘I don’t-’

‘Then don’t .’ He growled. ‘Twitch your little ears, if you want. Talk about your Gods as if they’re any different from their Gods, if it’s important to you, but never make the mistake of thinking you and I are anything alike.’ His eyes narrowed to angry obsidian slits. ‘In the end, you all look the same to me. Small, weak. .’ His tongue flicked out between his teeth, grazing the tip of her nose. ‘ Vermin. ’

He punctuated his words with a blast of hot air from his nostrils. In an instant, he rose up before her, seemingly even taller, broader and redder against the clear blue sky. She felt herself take a hesitant step backwards as he turned about slowly.

Whatever retort she might have had buzzing inside her mind was swatted aside like so many gnats as his tail came lashing up in a flash of crimson. It slapped her smartly across the cheek, sending her sprawling to the deck. Even the sound of her body hitting the wood was an insignificant whisper against the thunder of his footsteps.

‘You’ve been squealing those same threats for ages now!’ she shrieked after him, rubbing the red mark across her cheek. ‘If we’re all so beneath you, why not kill us all now?’ Her words were little bee-stings against his leathery back. ‘Why do you linger around us if you don’t like us?’

He paused and she sprang to her haunches, ready to move should he decide to give her more than just a kiss of his tail. Instead, the dragonman merely shuddered with a great breath and spoke without turning around.

‘If you’re desperate to prove yourself as more than human,’ he rumbled, ‘prove it to someone lesser than yourself.’

The sea of humanity parted before him as he strode across the deck, sailors practically climbing over each other to get out of his way. The hulking dragonman seemed unperturbed by it, growing taller with each frightened gaze cast his way as he lumbered towards the far side of the ship.

It was with grudging envy that she watched him, for as Kataria stood at the other end of the deck, she was all too aware of the great wall of round-ears that separated her from the only other non-human aboard. Her ears twitched, picking up concerns she couldn’t understand, humour she couldn’t comprehend, whispers she wasn’t privy to.

In Gariath’s wake, the humans had re-formed into a great mass of their own race, leaving her sitting beside the railing, alone.

Stupid, stinking lizard. Her thoughts immediately turned to scorn. Acts like he’s so much better than everyone else. As if being large enough to strangle anyone who disagrees with you is reason enough to act as though you’re beyond reproach.

She bit her lower lip; that actually did make sense.

Regardless , she countered herself, he has no reason to treat me like that. He has no reason to look down on me like I’m some filthy. . human!

Her anger shifted from the dragonman to the sailors bustling about the deck, each one occasionally glancing over his shoulder to see how close she was to them and make room accordingly.

Cowards.

Cowardice was the way of their race. Her father had said as much and now she knew it to be true. She recalled the aftermath of yesterday’s carnage. The crew of the Riptide, her humans had prevailed over the other, filthier humans with her help. While they screamed, she laughed. While they fumbled, she shot true. While they had soiled themselves, it was she who had pulled Lenk, one of her humans, away from danger.

She had deserved their respect from the very beginning as both a warrior and a shict. Now, her very presence demanded it.