‘If he’s got only one arm,’ Gariath whispered, ‘that will keep him busy, right?’

‘Yes, but-’

The dragonman didn’t wait. Hurling Togu at the long-face, he howled and fell to all fours, charging after the squealing green projectile. The females made no movement to intervene as Sheraptus lifted a hand and casually waved it.

The air quivered with force. A gale unseen and unheard spawned from nothingness and swept over the deck, striking both Togu and Gariath from sky and deck alike and sending them hurtling over the ship. Lenk stared in astonishment as his companions’ roar ended in a brief splash. Sheraptus didn’t spare nearly as much shock, glancing disinterestedly over the ship’s edge and then back to Lenk.

‘Well?’ he asked. A moment later, recognition dawned on his face. ‘Oh, it’s you. Still alive?’

Lenk nodded weakly, only just beginning to pull himself from his shock.

‘I assume my females are dead, then?’

Another nod. Sheraptus regarded them carefully before canting his head to the side.

‘And?’

Lenk recoiled, having expected nearly any other response.

‘And … what?’ he asked.

‘Did you need something else?’

‘What? We …’ He shook the confusion from his face, replaced it with as steely a resolve as he could manage. ‘We came for our friends.’

‘That hardly seems fair,’ Sheraptus said, looking offended.

‘Fair?’ Lenk asked, the incredulity of the statement shocking him into inaction.

‘I left close to two fists of females on the beach and you killed them all,’ Sheraptus said before gesturing to the deck. ‘You killed three more here and who knows how many more in Irontide.’ He frowned. ‘I take twoof yours and you come onto my ship and make such a ruckus as to draw me out of enjoying them?’

‘Of … of course we did.’

‘Fascinating. Why?’

‘Because …’ Lenk blinked, his face screwing up. ‘ What?’

‘Kindly don’t live up to your stereotype. You know exactly what I mean. To have come here, you would have to be led here, thusly you knew what awaited you. It would have been more pragmatic to flee … yet you came here, into a ship brimming with my warriors under my limitless control, into certain death. For what? Twofemales? You could have found more somewhere else.’

Kataria, he thought.

‘ Duty,’ the voice insisted.

‘What is it you hoped to accomplish, then?’ Sheraptus asked.

‘Realistically?’ Lenk replied.

‘Of course.’

The young man shrugged, seeing no particular point in lying. ‘The idea was to keep you busy until the other fellow who was with us could sneak into your cabin and escape with the females.’

Sheraptus nodded, seeing no particular point in reacting. ‘And ideally?’

‘Kill you and render the rest of the situation something akin to making gravy.’

‘I apologise to say that the metaphor is lost, though I grasp the meaning,’ Sheraptus sighed. ‘No matter how lofty the goals, no matter how staunch the ideal, it always ends in base instinct: eat, breed, die. It’s so …’ He glanced at a nearby female and frowned. ‘The sole difference between you and them is that you try so hard to deny it.’

He waved his hand. Bows creaked, arrows levelled at the companions as his eyes smouldered with burning contempt.

‘I’m not sure there’s anything to be learned from you, sadly.’

‘ Now,’ the voice said inside Lenk’s head. ‘ NOW!’

Lenk’s hand slipped into the burlap sack, fingers wrapping around thick locks as he pulled the object within free. Strings sang, arrows flew as he held the severed head aloft and spoke a word.

‘Scream.’

And it obeyed.

The air shuddered in an explosion of sound as the mouth found a macabre life and sprang open, eyes flaring with golden awareness. The arrows found no soft flesh, but a wall of noise that shuddered out of him and tore the air apart, sending the missiles twisting away, scattered like rats before a flood.

With a shriek unheard, Dreadaeleon hurled himself to the deck as Lenk turned, levelling the head and the quavering wail tearing itself free from its mouth towards the surrounding longfaces. In great waves, it swept over them. Hands were clenched to bleeding ears, shields rose in futile defence, the truly unprepared were sent sprawling over the railings, their screams lost in the shrieking onslaught.

Unable to bear it any longer himself, he lowered the head. His ears rang; his heart throbbed as the echoes of the shrieking lingered in the sky on distant, fading thunder. Dreadaeleon rose on shaking legs, breathing heavily. The longfaces rose not at all as they groaned and bled on the deck.

All save one.

‘You didn’t mention that in your plan, I note,’ Sheraptus said, twisting his little finger inside his ear.

‘Surprise?’

‘You are adorable.’

Sheraptus flung his hand out, the wave of force rippling from his fingertips to strike Lenk and hurl him towards the mast. He struck it with an angry cracking sound, letting out a breathless cry before he collapsed, unmoving.

As Dreadaeleon stared at his companion’s unconscious body, he began to feel it. His breath sought to flee his lungs, his eyes his head, his legs out from under him, regardless of whether or not the rest of him decided to come. It was painfully familiar: the same sensation that had driven him into darkness a week ago, rendered him helpless only an hour before, showed him to be nothing more than an impotent weakling …

In front of Asper, he added mentally, twice.

He felt it now — that sensation of power, that great light that never extinguished, that unnatural presence that made nature go still. He felt the burning stare, from eyes and stones alike, and knew that the curiosity behind it was all that kept him conscious at the moment.

‘Little moth?’ Sheraptus asked, a smile tugging at his lips. ‘I thoughtthat might be you. Apologies, between the screaming and the distraction, I hardly noticed you.’

‘Don’t talk to me,’ Dreadaeleon hissed, painfully aware of his breaking voice.

‘That would make me a terrible host.’

‘You’re a heretic, a renegade,’ the boy snarled. ‘You disregard the laws of magic, the laws of the Venarium. You will be stopped.’

Sheraptus stared at him for a moment. ‘By you?’ He held up a hand. ‘No … no, don’t answer that. Don’t even think about it, if you can help it. The strain might put you under. Again.’

‘That last time, you … you cheated,’ Dreadaeleon growled. ‘Somehow, I don’t know. That’s why you have to be stopped.’

‘I have to be stopped because you don’t understand how I did it? How will you ever learn?’

‘Shut up,’ Dreadaeleon snarled.

His voice came with all the conviction of a constipated cow, the pressure around him threatening to shatter his jaw. Breath came harder; standing came with great difficulty. But he still breathed. He still stood. He forced his fingers straight, levelled them at Sheraptus. He forced his eyes open through the sweat dripping down his face. He forced the words to a mind that sought to shut itself down, into lips that sought to seal themselves shut. Electricity, however faint, danced in blue sparks on his fingertips.

‘Really?’ Sheraptus asked, levelling fingers of his own. ‘You know how this will end.’

‘I do,’ the boy grunted.

‘You want to go ahead with it?’

‘I do.’

‘For your … Venarium?’

‘Not them.’

Sheraptus glanced over his shoulder, towards his cabin, and smiled. ‘Ah, I see. The tall one?’

‘If you touched her …’

‘I did,’ he said, turning his smile upon the boy. ‘There’s more to her than you could know, little moth. There’s more I will learn from her. And I will do it slowly.’

It was a scream that tore itself from Dreadaeleon’s lips: unfocused, angry, wild. The electricity that launched from his fingers was no different, snaking out in a wild, twisting tongue. It was only the sheer inaccuracy of his aim that allowed the sparks to fly past a purple hand meant to ward it off and lash against a shoulder.