And now a trio of them surrounded her, their eyes locked on the gleaming arrowhead that drifted menacingly from body to body.
One shot. One arrow was all that kept them at bay, each one hesitant to rush, to force her to choose him to plant the angry metal seed in. After that, they would be upon her faster than she could pull another one free of her quiver.
Her ears twitched, recalling the threats and declarations they had inflicted upon her from the safety of their ship. Those same threats, that same hunger lurked behind their eyes now, dormant for fear that she would see them in their gazes and extinguish them with an arrow.
The sea roared behind her; the terror of humans was an invitation for her. It would be better that way, she knew, to kill one and then hurl herself into the froth. She would die, certainly, but it was infinitely better than the alternative, better than submitting to the human disease.
A bit late for that, isn’t it? she asked herself, resentful. She forced that from her head, though, determined to think.
Options were unsurprisingly limited, however: shoot and die in the sea, shoot and die in the arms of a human . . . skip the third party and just shoot herself?
‘Get down, Kat!’
She heard Asper’s voice first, Dreadaeleon’s second. The instant she recognised the alien babble emanating from the boy’s mouth, she fell to the deck as her assailants looked to the source.
Then screamed.
Fire roared over her head in a wicked plume, the smell of stray strands of her own hair burning filled her nostrils. The stench of burning flesh, however, quickly overpowered it, just as the angry howl of flame overpowered the shrieks of the Cragsmen. She could feel the deck reverberate as feet thundered past her, carrying walking pyres over the railing to plunge into the water below with a hiss.
She got up, patted her head for any stray flames, then looked at the fast-fading plumes of steam rising from the sea.
That works, too.
‘Are you all right?’ Asper’s voice was joined by the sound of bronze on wood as she dragged Quillian to the shict’s position. ‘One moment. I can check you over as soon as—’
‘Oh, yes, sure, be certain to check her over.’ Dreadaeleon wore a look of ire as he walked beside her, one hand folded neatly behind him, the other flicking embers from his fingers. ‘I mean, it’s not like I did something incredible like conjure fire from my own body heat.’
‘Like that’s hard,’ Kataria growled. She pointed out to sea. ‘Those don’t count, by the way.’
‘Don’t . . . what?’
‘Only kills you do yourself count. Wizard kills aren’t real kills.’
‘Real kills?’ Asper looked up, disgusted. ‘These are human lives we’re taking!’
‘We?’ Kataria asked with a sneer. ‘What did you do aside from try to choke me with moral indignation?’
‘I . . .’ The priestess stiffened, looking down with a frown. ‘I can fight.’
‘Don’t waste your breath on a reply, Priestess,’ came a mutter from the deck, ire unimpeded by her barely conscious stagger. Quillian rose to her feet on trembling legs, turning a scowl upon the shict. ‘One can hardly expect in-humans to understand things like mercy and compassion.’
‘What? Your sword is just for show, then?’ Kataria asked, smiling.
Quillian did not smile back, did not even offer a reply.
Perhaps it was the clarity that the hatchet blow had robbed her of that caused the Serrant’s mask of contempt to crack, or perhaps it was that she simply didn’t want to bother keeping it up anymore. But in that moment, the displays of righteous indignation and palls of virtuous disgust fell away from Quillian’s face.
Hate remained in abundance.
It was a pure hate that Kataria had seen before, albeit rarely, a hate that flowed like an ancestral disease. Quillian hated Kataria, hated her mother, hated her father, hated everything with pointed ears as she hated nothing else, not even the pirates swarming about the deck.
‘Go! GO! He’ll kill us all!’
Or running, anyway, she thought as a tattooed blur rushed past her.
The moment of tense readiness collectively and quickly faded into befuddlement as the Cragsmen rushed towards the companions and then, without even looking, right past them. Precious steel was forgotten, wounded men were ignored, terror shone through every inked face. Kataria watched, baffled and wondering whether shooting them in the back counted.
More men rushed past, these ones belonging to the Riptide’s crew. She knew the source of the panic before she even turned about, much less before she heard the screaming.
‘MONSTER!’ one of the Cragsmen howled. ‘RUN, GENTS! THE LOUTS BROUGHT A BLOODY DRAGONMAN!’
Blood-soaked, she thought, would be a more accurate descriptor of the towering creature striding casually after them. A small heap of broken bodies, twisted limbs and ripped flesh lay behind him: the brave and foolish few who had decided he might not be quite as tough as he looked.
Gariath looked as unconcerned as someone covered in gashes and blood could be. Almost bored, she thought, as he stepped upon, rather than over, the bodies before him, continuing a slow pursuit after the fleeing pirates.
That expression gave her the courage to shoot him a pair of scowls. Once for his cold, arrogant stride when he clearly had only about one more kill to his name than she did, if that. Her deepest scowl, accompanied by a matching frown, was for the fact that he walked alone.
Lenk was nowhere to be seen.
‘Stop running, rats,’ Gariath growled. ‘The Rhega were made for better fights than you can offer.’
A body stirred on the deck. A Cragsman, apparently trying to hide amongst his dead fellows, came sprinting off the deck, only to crash back down as a corpse selfishly tripped him.
He did not remain there for long, however.
‘No! NO!’ he shrieked, a pair of clawed hands gripping him by the heels. ‘GET AWAY, BEAST!’
‘Oh, Talanas.’ Asper flashed a sickened look as Gariath pulled the man off the deck. ‘Gariath, don’t.’
The dragonman didn’t seem to notice her, much less acknowledge her words. Kataria stepped forwards, looking past his terrified victim and into his black eyes.
‘Where’s Lenk?’
He looked at her as he might an insect, shrugging.
‘Dead?’ she asked.
‘Probably,’ he grunted. ‘He’s human. Small, stupid . . . not quite as stupid as the rest of you, but still—’
‘Put me down,’ the Cragsman pleaded, ‘please. PLEASE!’
‘Shut up,’ Kataria snarled at him. Her eyebrows rose suddenly. ‘Wait a moment.’ She knelt before him, looking into eyes that threatened to leap from their sockets. ‘Did you kill a silver-haired man?’
‘Looks kind of like a silver-haired child,’ Dreadaeleon piped up.
‘You’re one to talk,’ Asper replied snidely, ‘and he’s not that short.’
‘I . . . I didn’t kill anyone! I swear!’ the pirate squealed.
‘You’re only making this more unpleasant.’ Gariath sighed. ‘Shut up and see if you can’t die without soiling yourself.’
‘How come you didn’t watch him?’ Kataria asked the dragonman.
‘If he can’t watch himself, he deserves whatever happens to him.’ Gariath snorted. ‘Hold that thought.’
‘NO!’ the man screamed as his captor pried his legs apart with no great effort. ‘It’s . . . it’s all cultural! I was pressed into service! Please! PLEASE!’
One by one, groans of impending horror escaped the companions. No one dared to look up, much less protest, as Gariath drew his leg back like a hammer and aimed squarely between the pirate’s legs. Kataria stared for as long as she could, until the sight of the dragonman’s grin finally made her look down.
There weren’t hands big enough to block out the crunching sound that followed.
She looked up just in time to see a flash of red and brown as Gariath tossed the man overboard like fleshy offal. That, she knew, was about as much honour as he would offer creatures smaller than himself. That thought, as well as his massive, suddenly wet foot, kept her tense as she addressed him.
‘We have to go back,’ she said, ‘we have to find Lenk.’
He glanced over his shoulder. ‘No.’
‘But—’
‘If he’s alive, he’s alive,’ he snorted. ‘If he’s dead . . . no great loss.’
He’s right, you know, she told herself. It’s one human. There are many of them. You shouldn’t want to look back, shouldn’t care. It’s one human, one more disease.
She sighed, offering no further resistance as he pushed his way past her, trying to convince herself of the truth of her thoughts as he moved through the companions. No one bothered to stop him. No one she cared about, at least.
‘So!’ Quillian placed a bronzed hand on her hip, unmoving as Gariath walked forwards. ‘The battlefield is further profaned by the presence of abominations? There is hardly any redemption for this—’
‘Shut up.’
The dragonman’s grunt was as thunderous as the sound of the back of his hand cracking against the Serrant’s face. Her armour creaked once as she clattered to the deck and again as he stepped on and over her.
‘What . . . I . . .’ Asper gritted her teeth at his winged back. ‘I just pulled her off the ground!’
‘Don’t encourage him,’ Kataria warned. ‘Come on. We look for Lenk. Gariath handles the rest.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ Dreadaeleon pointed over her shoulder. ‘There’s one part of our problem solved, then.’ He coughed. ‘By me.’ He sniffed. ‘Again.’
She turned, fought hard to hide her smile at the sight of the young man rushing across the deck. That task became easier with every breath he drew closer. For with every breath, she saw the blood on his sword, the uncharacteristic fury in his stride . . .