And yet, flashes of those necessities still clung frustratingly to this one, the claws of the weak and sorrowful creature this one had long ago sought to kill. While other frogmen had received Mother Deep’s blessing and no longer felt the need for food or for air or for water beyond a body to immerse themselves in, this one still felt knots in its belly, could not remain underwater.
Nor, this one thought irately, could this one ignore the growing pain in its loins any longer.
Quietly, this one crept into an alcove, carved by the crumbling tower as walls fell and endless blue seeped in. This one glanced over its shoulder; if any of those ones had seen it, it knew, there would be shame, there would be pain, and Mother Deep’s blessing would continually evade this one.
As it would continue to evade this one, it knew, after it dropped its loincloth to spill its water in the shallow pool that had formed in the alcove’s corner. To desecrate water blessed by the Shepherds, this one knew, was to displease Mother Deep. This one was not worried, however; Mother Deep was kind, Mother Deep was forgiving, Mother Deep had given this one the blessing of forgetting and a new life beneath the endless blue.
This one was not worried as it let itself leak out into the water with a great sigh.
This one was not worried as it felt the air grow a little colder.
It was only when this one noticed the rope descending from above that it felt the need to scream.
What emerged from its lips, however, was a strangled gargle as the thin, sharp rope bit into its neck and pulled. It felt itself slam against an unyielding surface, felt the rope knot behind its neck tighten. Its own voice fell silent as the yellow stream arced out in a terrified spray, its claws felt so feeble and weak as it raked at the rope.
‘Shh,’ something hissed behind it.
Its vision swam, eyes bulging from their sockets as though trying to escape. It kicked against leather, strained feebly to reach for the knife attached to the loincloth pooled around its ankles. Only as it felt its lungs tighten into pink fists inside it did this one remember the need to breathe.
A need this one never knew again.
Denaos caught the corpse as it slumped to the floor. Quietly, he laid it in the puddle of yellow filth and gave it a quick, distasteful shove. With barely a splash, it rolled over an outcropping and slipped into the black pool. No matter how shallow it might or might not have been, the frogman was well hidden from sight, and Denaos had no urge to see how deep such a pit went.
Instead, he rose and glanced out of the alcove, looking up and down the halls. The faintest traces of sunlight crept in through the faintest scratches in Irontide’s hide, but even such a small source of light was not permitted to live long within the tower. It was consumed by the dark water, pulled below to die soundlessly in the brackish depths that drowned the hall.
The poetry, while not lost on Denaos, would have to wait. For the moment, he was thrilled to find no frogmen, no Abysmyths, nothing that stopped him from making a beckoning gesture. Footsteps, wince-inducingly loud, filled the hall as a pair of shadows slipped into the alcove from around a corner.
‘Well done,’ Lenk whispered as he hunkered into the crevasse. ‘Clean and quiet.’
‘Quiet, maybe,’ Denaos mumbled. ‘Clean, hardly.’ He wrung out a lock of his hair, gagging at the drops of yellow that dropped to the floor. ‘I suppose I deserve it. Silf wouldn’t smile upon garrotting a man while he’s draining the dragon.’
‘What’s. .’ Kataria grimaced. ‘What’s “draining the dragon”?’
‘It’s not important.’ Lenk waved her down. ‘Think, now. Where would they have the tome?’
‘Somewhere they don’t piss, I suppose.’ Denaos sighed.
‘Probably down there.’ Kataria gestured further along the hall. ‘Something’s going on.’
‘What’s going on?’
The shict glanced at him, her ears twitching as though that would be enough. Blinking, she coughed.
‘Oh, right, you’re. .’ She shook her head. ‘Never mind. It’s hard to make out over all the water, but they seem to be. . chanting or something, I don’t know.’ She frowned. ‘It’s not a pleasant noise, I can tell you that.’
‘Chanting is never good,’ Lenk muttered. ‘As if we needed any more reason to grab the tome and get out of here quickly.’
‘Agreed.’ Kataria nodded. She glanced between the two men. ‘So, uh. . which one of you knows where it is?’
‘You might be missing the point of this. If we knew where it was, we wouldn’t be stumbling about in the dark waiting for our heads to be eaten.’ Lenk glanced down the hall. ‘I’ll wager, however, that whatever there is to be found is probably going to be found with the chanting.’
‘What we’ll find is a bunch of bloodthirsty demons,’ Denaos grumbled. ‘And, given that we have the rare opportunity of knowing where they are, we should probably go in the other direction.’
‘Do you have a better idea?’ Lenk held up a hand before the rogue could reply. ‘Do you have a better idea that doesn’t involve running away or soiling ourselves?’
‘Ah, well. . you’ve got me there.’
‘Yeah,’ Lenk grunted. He glanced out of the alcove, then back to Denaos. ‘We’ll continue as we have, with you on point and Kataria covering our. . or rather my rear.’
‘And what will you be doing while I’m sniffing your farts?’ the shict sneered. ‘Put me in the lead.’
‘Fat lot of good that piece of wood will do you in the lead.’ Denaos pointed at her bow. ‘It’s too cramped in here to draw the damn thing, let alone hit anything.’
‘And if you go in the lead, we’ll be found out for sure.’ She twitched her ears. ‘I could hear that splash for ages after you dumped the body.’
‘Well, I’m trusting our enemies don’t have ears the size of Saine.’ He snorted. ‘I seem to be doing a good job of it so far.’
‘Any dim-witted Kou’ru can sneak around and strangle something,’ Kataria hissed. ‘True stalking is a delicate practice, involving equal parts verbal and non-verbal.’
‘Verbal. . you do know the point is to stay silent, don’t you?’
Whatever retort she had was cut off by the sound of legs splashing through the water, however. They tensed as one, waiting for the sound to pass. While it did so, they could still hear the heavy breathing of something just around the corner.
‘Hello?’ it gurgled. ‘Is that one there?’
Before anyone could stop her, Kataria sprang out from the alcove and levelled her bow at the creature.
‘No,’ she replied.
Air split apart, there was a hollow sound, then the sound of something slumping quietly beneath the black waters. Kataria cast a glance over her shoulder at Denaos and grinned haughtily.
‘Case in point.’ She slung her bow over her shoulder. ‘I’ll take lead.’
‘For a fortress, there’s not much to it, is there?’ Lenk murmured as quietly as he could as they crept through the hallway.
Total silence had become unattainable; the water seeping into the fortress had drowned the halls in ever-rising tides. It was all they could do to restrain their fears of something reaching out and seizing them from below as they mucked through the knee-high deeps.
‘I haven’t seen any rooms,’ he continued, ‘no barracks, no kitchens, no mess. .’
They hesitated where the hall forked into two black paths. Kataria glanced up and down both, ears twitching, before gesturing for the two men to follow as she stalked further into Irontide. The sunlight, terrified even to peek a scant ray any further, completely disappeared, leaving them sloshing about in the dark.
‘If rumours can be trusted,’ Denaos replied softly, ‘there used to be sleeping quarters down here.’ He pointed towards the dripping ceiling. ‘Business was conducted further up.’
‘So what happened?’ Kataria whispered.
‘All I know is stories.’
‘And what did they say?’ the shict pressed.
She could feel his morbid grin twist into her back.
‘Supposedly,’ he muttered, ‘when the Navy finally seized Irontide, they made their examples down here.’ He rapped his knuckles against the stone. ‘The smugglers barricaded themselves in here. The Navy responded by punching a hole through the wall with their catapults.’
‘And?’
‘And then. . high tide.’
She paused at that, taking a moment to waste a sneer in the darkness.
‘Dirty trick,’ she muttered. ‘But they’re just stories.’
No reply from the back.
‘Right?’
‘They might be,’ Lenk replied for the rogue. ‘History’s full of worse ways to die and the people who think them up.’ He spared a stifled laugh. ‘I suppose we should take a certain amount of pride in that we’ll probably be experiencing some of the more awful ways first-hand.’
‘You’re a delight,’ Denaos growled softly. ‘Why have we stopped, anyway? At least with the sound of water, I don’t have to listen to you.’
Kataria leaned forwards in the gloom, narrowing her eyes. The two men held their breath behind her, nearly springing backwards when they heard her morbid chuckle.
‘There’s light ahead,’ she whispered, ‘and voices, too. We’re getting close.’
‘What kind of voices?’ Lenk asked.
‘Frogmen.’ She looked thoughtful as her ears twitched. ‘Something else, too.’
‘Abysmyths?’ Lenk tightened his grip on his sword.
‘No.’ She shook her head and frowned. ‘I thought I had heard something else, but I must have been mistaken.’
‘You’re never mistaken,’ Lenk said, quickly correcting himself, ‘when it comes to noise, anyway. What did you hear?’
‘A female’s voice.’ Her frown grew so heavy that it threatened to fall off her face and splash into the murk. ‘It almost. . sounded like the siren.’
‘Aha!’ Denaos grimaced at his own cry. ‘I could have told you. She’s led us to our deaths.’
‘Kat said it sounded like Greenhair,’ Lenk replied harshly, ‘we don’t know if it’s her or not.’
‘How many things in this blessed world of ours sound like some fish-whore?’ the rogue snarled. ‘How many?’
‘I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?’
Lenk hefted his sword, gave Kataria a gentle push to urge her onwards. The shict responded by nocking an arrow, slinking forwards silently. Creeping into the gloom as they did, their steps heralded by the sounds of water sloshing, neither man nor shict glanced over a shoulder to see if the rogue followed.
Denaos had always thought of himself as a sensible man, a sensible man with very vocal instincts that currently shouted at him to turn around and let the others die on their own. It was suicide to follow; if, by some miracle of faith in fish-women, Greenhair hadn’t betrayed them, there might be another siren within the forsaken hold.
He recalled Greenhair’s song, her power to send men, even dragonmen, into slumber. The thought of snoring blissfully at some sea-witch’s tune while an Abysmyth quietly munched his head down to the neck held no great appeal.
