Tome of the Undergates by Sam Sykes Page B

crept through him. In one long, cold breath, he felt the numbness sweep up his arms, into his chest.

    Into his mind.

    Deny!

    The thought grew stronger, louder with every twitch of his hands, every fingerbreadth he gave to the blade. It echoed through his head, down into his chest, into an arm that involuntarily broke from his opponent’s grip and sought his fallen blade.

    Through shut eyes, he could see the moment dangling off his opponent’s sword.

    He felt it drop.

    ‘ KILL! ’

    Blue flashed, pitiless and cold, behind his eyelids. Eyes not his own stared back into him. Teeth that were not his clenched. Fingers that were not his gripped a hilt. The thought did not leap to his mind, did not whisper inside him.

    It had a voice.

    It spoke.

    Lenk felt something move, a snap of cold air that sent his hair whipping about his face. He opened his eyes and stared down the long steel blade of a sword he didn’t remember swinging, life dripping down it, upon which the Cragsman’s shock was violently etched.

    He looked up, just as surprised as his opponent, and met the man’s eyes. No fear this time, no moment of futile hope and extinguished life. The pirate stared at him with eyes that could reflect nothing, the blow having come too swiftly to grant him even the privilege of a horrified death.

    He mouthed, ‘No fair.’

    And fell to the deck.

    The numbness did not flee from Lenk’s limbs, but rather seeped into his body, as water disappearing into the earth. He felt suddenly weak, legs soft under a body suddenly unbearably heavy, breath offensively warm and jagged in his throat.

    Slowly, he staggered to his feet. Slowly, he felt the sun again, heard the din of battle. But the warmth was faint, the sounds distant. He could feel the chill, he was aware of it as he was of his own shadow. It seeped away, dissipated into blood that began to run warm, leaving only a single thought given a voice behind.

    ‘ More. ’

    ‘What?’ he gasped, his own voice suddenly alien to himself.

    ‘ More. ’

    ‘I . . . I don’t—’

    ‘MORE, YOU IDIOT! THERE’S MORE COMING!’

    Argaol’s roar came from the helm with desperation. Lenk glanced up to see four sailors locked in combat with a pair of Cragsmen, desperately trying to keep the blade-wielding pirates away from their captain with their staves. The dark man himself looked directly at Lenk, pointing to the railing.

    He shrieked, of course, as he usually did when addressing the young man, but Lenk didn’t hear him. He didn’t need to as he saw two more tattooed men leap from a boarding chain onto the deck. Instead of rushing towards the battle to aid their fellows, they instead cast wary looks about, hungry eyes and bare feet immediately setting off for the companionway.

    Evenhands.

    ‘Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn .’

    A curse for every step as he charged after the boarders. Ironic, he thought absently as he pushed his way through the melee, that moments ago he was ready to leave the Lord Emissary to die. Then again, it was hardly surprising; so long as he had been hit in the face once today, he might as well get paid for it.

    Which wasn’t likely to happen if his employer was gutted below decks.

    ‘Protect the charter, boys!’ Argaol roared to his own crew. ‘Protect the Lord Emissary! The Gods demand it and smile on us for it!’

    Lenk’s pace was quick as he leapt over bodies, side-stepped brawls, darted around stray blades. The battle raged with no clear victor; he passed corpses both familiar and tattooed. But the sailors held, the Cragsmen had not overrun them yet, and the two boarders were not as swift as Lenk was. For a moment, he felt a rush of victory as he drew closer.

    For a moment, he thought that maybe the Gods did smile upon him.

    That belief died with the sudden twist of an ankle and a shriek as he recalled that the Gods loved irony far more than they loved their servants. He hit a patch of red-tinged seawater, his