“Help me, you idiots,” Kataria snapped. “I didn’t go back to get your stupid supplies so I could die for them.”
She seemed less than annoyed when Gariath took her by the arms and hauled her effortlessly from the water, callously dropping her and the stuff she carried to the landing. Steel rattled upon stone, a blade sliding away from her to rest at Lenk’s feet like a waiting puppy.
“You. .” he whispered, reaching down to take it by the hilt with a slightly unnerving gentleness, “went back for my sword.”
“You’re useless without it,” she muttered. She rose up, kicked a sopping leather satchel toward him. “And these are useless without you.”
“The small bag?”
“It looked important.”
“There’s no food in it,” he said, looking at her askew. “There’s nothing in them.”
Except my journal, he thought.
She stared at him intently, as though she could stare past his befuddled eyes and into his thoughts. She snorted, pulling wet hair behind her head and callously wringing it out.
“Important to someone, then,” she said.
“Right,” he said, voice fading on a breeze that wasn’t there.
It wasn’t lost on her, though; her long ears, three ragged notches to a length, twitched with an anxious fervor, swallowing his voice. Her entire body seemed to follow suit, the sinew of her arms flexing as she twisted her hair out, naked abdomen tensing, sending droplets of salt dancing down the shallow contours of her muscle to disappear in the water-slick cling of her breeches.
And amidst all the motion of her body, only her eyes remained still, fixated. On him.
Absently, he wondered if it was telling that he only seemed to notice her in such a way before or after a near death experience.
“Stairs.”
He startled at the sound; Gariath’s voice felt something rough and coarse on his ears. Almost as rough and coarse as his claws felt wrapped around his neck. The dragonman hoisted him up, turned him around sharply to face them: a narrow set of steps, worn by salt and storm, spiraling up around the pillar of rock.
“Right,” Lenk whispered, shouldering sword and satchel alike, “stairs.”
Nothing more need be said; no one needed a reason to get farther away from the water. The mist thinned as they followed it to the top, though not by much. When feet were set upon the smooth, hewn tableau of the pillar, it was still thick enough to strangle the sun, if not banish it entirely.
Perhaps the light was just enough to let them see it clearly. Perhaps there was no mist thick enough to smother it entirely from view. But in the distance, still vast, still dark, loomed an imposing shape.
“Jaga,” Lenk whispered, as though speaking the name louder might draw its attention.
“It doesn’t look like an island,” Kataria said, squinting into the gloom. “Not like any I’ve seen, anyway.” She shrugged. “Then again, I’ve never seen an island with a walkway leading conveniently to it.”
True enough, there it was. However narrow and however precarious, a walkway of stone stretched from the end of the pillar into the mist toward the distant island.
“I’ve never heard of a giant rock that had such a neat and tidy top,” Lenk replied, tapping his feet upon the hewn tableau. “Nor ones with naturally occurring staircases, either. Not that it wasn’t nice of them, but why would the Shen carve any of this?”
“They didn’t.”
There was an edge in Gariath’s voice, less coarse and more jagged, as though he took offense at the insinuation. As Lenk turned about, met the dragonman’s black, narrow glare, he felt considerable credence lent to the theory.
“And how do you know?” the young man asked.
“Because I do,” Gariath growled.
“He knows them,” the voice whispered, gnawing at the back of Lenk’s skull, “because he is them. Your enemy.”
“Well, he would know, wouldn’t he?” Kataria muttered. “Ask a question of reptiles, get an answer from a reptile.”
“He betrayed you once for them.”
Lenk shook his head, tried to ignore the voice, the growing pain at the base of his head.
“The Shen wouldn’t build this,” Gariath said, “because they are Shen.”
“What?” Kataria asked, face screwing up.
“He doesn’t even bother to lie to you.”
“If you don’t know, then you don’t need to know. They didn’t build this. Do not accuse them of it.”
“He defends them.”
“Why?” Lenk suddenly blurted out, aware of both of their stares upon him. “Why are you defending them?”
“He is one of them.”
“How do you know so much about them?” Lenk asked, taking a step toward the dragonman. “What else do you know about them?”
“He will kill you, for them.”
“Why did you even come?”
“You were going to die without me,” Gariath replied.
“And? That’s never swayed you before. But you wanted to come this time, you wanted to see the Shen. You haven’t stopped talking about them, since-” The words came out of his mouth, forced and sharp, as though he were spitting blades. “Since you abandoned us to go chase them.”
One didn’t need to be particularly observant to note the tension rippling between them; that much would have been obvious by the clenching of Gariath’s fists as he took a challenging step forward.
“Consider carefully,” he said, low and threatening, “what you’re accusing me of.”
“Betrayal,” Lenk replied.
“And that forbids someone from coming?” He cast a sidelong scowl to Kataria. “You chose poor company.”
Lenk caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. Shock was painted across the shict’s face, fear was there, too, each in such great coating as to nearly mask the expression of hurt. Nearly, but not entirely, and not nearly enough to draw attention away from the fact that she did not refute, contradict, or even insult the dragonman.
It hurt, too, when Kataria turned her gaze away from him.
“Not about her,” the voice whispered. “Not yet.”
“This isn’t about her,” Lenk said, turning his attentions back to the dragon man. “This is about you and what you came for. Us. . or the Shen?”
Gariath’s earfrills fanned out threateningly. His gaze narrowed sharply as he leaned forward. Lenk did not back down, did not flinch as the dragonman snorted and sent a wave of hot breath roiling across his face.
“Always,” Gariath said, “it has always been for-”
The mist split apart with the sound of thunder and the gnash of jaws. Teeth came flying out of nothingness, denying man and dragonman a chance to do anything before they came down in a crash. A shock ripped through Lenk, sent him crashing to the earth, and when he found enough sense to look, Gariath was gone.
Not far, though.
Roar clashed against roar, howl ground against howl as the Akaneed pulled its great head back from the pillar and whipped its head about violently, trying to silence the writhing red body in its jaws. Gariath had no intention of doing such, no intention of a silent resignation to teeth and tongue.
And no choice in the matter.
The fight came to a sudden halt and Lenk looked up, helplessly, as Gariath squatted between the jaws. His muscles strained, arms against the roof of the beast’s mouth, feet wedged between its lower teeth, body trembling with the effort as he tried to keep the creature’s cavernous maw from snapping shut.
A moment, and everything went still. Gariath’s body ceased to quake. The Akaneed’s jaws grew solid and strong. The dragonman stared down from between rows of unmoving teeth and said something.