He seemed neither particularly interested in the job he was doing, nor the people looking at him. That fact emboldened Lenk enough to speak, albeit in a whisper.
“I don’t know how comfortable I am with a plan that puts an uncomfortable looking piece of wood in Gariath’s hands,” he whispered to Kataria.
“You don’t trust him?”
“The circumstances of this and the last time we were in a boat are pretty similar. You’ll recall he had a spear that time, too. And that ended with us nearly drowning.”
“He tried to kill you,” the voice whispered, “he’s done it before. He will do it again. So will she.”
“True,” Kataria replied, scratching her chin. “And yet, each of us has almost killed everyone else at some point. I guess I have a hard time holding that against them anymore.”
“Point being, that’s always been by accident,” Lenk said.
“Lies,” the voice countered silently.
“Or by some other weird happenstance,” he continued, trying to ignore it. “Gariath is nothing if not direct. There’s no telling what he might do.”
She cast a sidelong glare upon him. “Men who frequently go into raving, violent fits for no reason are in a poor position to accuse others of unpredictability.”
“I’d rest easier,” Lenk spoke a little more firmly, “if I knew exactly why he’s here.”
“You told him to come.”
“Like that’s ever been a factor in what he does.”
“Well, you wanted him here.”
“Yes, but why-”
“Because he can pound a man’s head into his stomach.”
“I wasn’t finished,” he snapped. He cast a glare over his shoulder, to the dragonman that had yet to look up. “He’s been fascinated with the Shen. He didn’t try to stop them when they attacked us nights ago. I mean, they tried to kill us and he wants to. .”
“Kill us,” the voice whispered. “Betray us.”
“He’s going to. .”
“Destroy us. Murder us.”
“He’s. .”
“Weak. Treacherous. Going to die. We’re going to kill them.”
“He. .” Lenk felt his own voice dying in his throat. “Kill. .”
A pair of hands seized him, pulled him around roughly.
Lenk had never felt entirely comfortable under Kataria’s gaze; her eyes were too green, they hid too much and searched too hard. When they looked over him, seeking something he had no idea whether he even had, he felt naked.
And now that she stared at him, past him, searching for nothing, seeing all she needed to, he felt weak.
“Don’t,” she said, simply and sternly.
“What?”
“Don’t,” she said. “Whatever you’re thinking, no. It’s not. It never was. Don’t.”
“But you can’t-”
“I can. I will. Don’t.”
“But-”
“No.”
He nodded, stiffly. The world was silent.
Until Kataria looked to Gariath, anyway.
“How’s it look?” she asked.
The dragonman held it up, in all its jagged, rusted glory, and gave a derisive snort. “Third most useless thing on this ship.” He set it to the side. “Fourth if I use that bucket of slop for holding something.”
“Like what?” Lenk asked.
“Whatever’s left of you, if we spend another hour out here doing nothing.”
Absently, the young man thought he might have a harder time blaming Gariath for that. Thus far, Kataria’s plan had yielded nothing more than a lot of time sitting in the middle of a great, gray nothingness, learning the subtle differences in aroma between the thorax and the antennae of a giant dead cockroach.
Not that the efforts aren’t completely unappreciated, he thought as he peered over Gariath’s horns.
Dredgespiders, dog-sized and many-legged, glided in their wake. Heedless of the mist’s authority, they capered across the surface of the water, spinning great nets of silk behind them, which they used to trap the floating innards and spirit them away from hungry competitors.
“We can kill her right now,” the voice whispered. “Find Jaga on our own. Easier to infiltrate, easier to navigate. Without her. Everything will be easier without her. Her plan does nothing.”
His eye twitched. “You raise a good point.”
“Hmm?”
He turned back to her. “What, exactly, is your plan? So far, we’ve been doing nothing but hoisting guts into the water and waiting.”
“Oh, sorry,” she replied with a snarl. “I should have asked about your plan for finding the mysterious island of death shrouded in a veil of mist-” she paused, pointed up at their limp sail, “-with no wind.” She folded her arms challengingly. “Since we’re waiting and all.”
“Well, my plan was to bob in the water for eternity while contemplating the choices I had made in my life that had led me to agree to the half-cocked plan of a woman whose natural scent is somehow improved by the perfume of rotting, blood-tinged insect guts,” he snapped back. “Of course, since I had deduced this to be an integral part of your plan, I didn’t want to steal your glory.”
“The plan calls for bait,” she said. “Whether said bait is stunted, ugly, and sarcastic is not specified.”
“But this is?” he asked, making a sweeping gesture around him. “How could this possibly get us any closer to Jaga?”
“The plan does not allow for senseless inquiry!”
“It’s not senseless to question-”
“The plan will not be questioned!”
“Someone has to!” he all but shouted back. “I’ve gone this far on faith that you don’t deserve! I need to know something for me to think that any of this is going to work! Bait? Bait for what? Why does it have to have Gariath’s blood in it? What are we waiting for?”
His voice did not echo. The mist swallowed it whole, leaving only silence. A silence so crisp that it was impossible not to hear the sound of Gariath’s nostrils twitching as he drew in a breath and a scent upon it.
The dragonman rose, gripping the spear tightly as he turned and stared out over the water. Man and shict followed, three gazes cast out upon the long trail of bobbing, glistening guts behind them and the dredgespiders that danced amongst them.
For but a single breath longer.
All at once, the insects scattered silently, scurrying into the mist and disappearing inside its gray folds. The mist seemed to close in, as though the silence had grown too uncomfortable even for it and it sought to draw in upon itself. It was dense. It was dark.
Not nearly dark enough to obscure the roiling ripples in the sea, the massive black shadow that bloomed beneath them, the great crest that jutted from the water and followed the line of bait.
Quickly. And right toward them.
“The answer to all of your questions,” Kataria whispered breathlessly, “is that.”
It came cresting out of the waves, a wall of water rising before it. Through the mist and spray, they could see parts of it: the sharp, beak-like snout, the shadow-dark azure of its hide, and the single eye burning a bright, furious yellow through the water.
“Down!” Kataria shrieked, seizing the railing and holding on.
What else does one do when being charged by an Akaneed? Lenk thought as he followed suit.
Gariath, however, remained unmoving. He stood stoically at the rudder, baring the slightest glint of teeth in a small, deranged smile that grew broader as the great shape barreled closer toward them.
“I knew you’d come back,” he growled.