‘Frost,’ he muttered, unsure to who.

‘What?’

‘Give me cold!’ he said with sudden vigour. ‘Lots of it!’

Sparing no more than a curious glance for the boy, Bralston complied. His chest grew large with breath before it came pouring out of his mouth in a great, freezing cloud. Dreadaeleon looked within it, seeing each shard of ice, each flake of frost, and the potential within them.

He extended his hands, fingers making minute, barely visible movements as he began to shape the cold within the cloud, drawing freezing particles into flakes, flakes into crystals, crystals into chunks. He could feel the wind of Sheraptus’ cyclone, the scorn of the longface’s stare as he looked upon his prey. He could feel the roar of the Akaneed rumble through the deck as the serpent lurched forward.

But the feel of cold was stronger, kept him focused as he melded chunks together, breaking them down and rejoining them in an instant, forcing them into one immense whole. His coattails had just begun to sway from the wind of the cyclone when he finished his creation, forming the frost into a freezing blue spear the size of a large hog.

And with a thrust of his hands and a shouted word, he let it fly.

Flakes tailing behind it, the icicle fled through the sky, screeching against the night. The Akaneed had just opened its mouth to let out a thundering howl when the freezing spear’s wailing flight was punctuated with a gut-wrenching sound.

Dreadaeleon watched with more glee than was probably appropriate as the spear punched through the back of the creature’s head, its red-stained tip thrusting out through blue flesh. He held his breath as the Akaneed swayed, first away from the ship, teetered precariously as it seemed likely to fall back into the ocean, and then …

His eyes widened, heart raced.

‘Move,’ he said.

‘Agreed,’ Bralston confirmed, seeing the same thing.

Dreadaeleon felt himself seized by powerful hands as the Librarian wrapped his arms about his torso. He then felt the sensation of his feet leaving the deck as Bralston’s coat became wings, pulling them both aloft.

From above, the boy beamed as his plan took shape. The joy he derived from Sheraptus’ scowl was compounded for the sheer fact that the longface’s eyes were upon him.

And not on the immense weight of a dead, serpentine column that came thundering down on his ship.

Dreadaeleon thought he might break out cackling when the longface turned about in time to see it.

Whatever happened next was lost in a crash of waves and the thunder of splinters as the Akaneed’s head smashing down upon the deck like a blue comet, punching through the wood, ploughing through the hull, vanishing beneath the waves that rose up to claim the ship.

‘Well done, concomitant,’ Bralston said.

‘That probably did it,’ Dreadaeleon said, smirking to himself as he watched the corpse of the ship groan and begin to sink. ‘He’s dead.’

‘We must assume so, for lack of any better information.’

‘Then let’s go down there and be certain.’

‘When the Laws are violated, there are no certainties.’

‘What do we do now, then?’

‘The Venarium will want a report,’ Bralston replied. ‘My orders,’ he paused, ‘ ourorders will dictate the next course of action, my immediate discretionary input accounted for.’

‘We won, then,’ Dreadaeleon whispered. ‘Or … wait, there was something I was supposed to do, wasn’t there?’

‘There were others on the ship, I believe. I see them back on the beach,’ Bralston replied. ‘Associates?’

‘Yes, but there were …’ Dreadaeleon shook his head. ‘It’s still hard to think.’

‘There were tremendous amounts of energies released tonight, more than most members are equipped to handle. Take some pride in the fact that you are still conscious, if not totally aware, concomitant.’

‘Right …’ Dreadaeleon nodded. ‘Right, I feel …’

That phrase lingered on the night wind as Bralston swept about, leather wings flapping and bearing the two wizards towards the shore, neither of them taking any note of a pair of solemn blue eyes staring at them from a great wooden corpse.

‘I guess,’ Lenk whispered, ‘that’s that.’

Through the groan of wood, the splintering of the ship’s ribs and the roar of great, gushing wounds filling with salt, he could hear a reply.

‘ You’re surprised?’

Was the night cold or hot, he wondered? Should he feel as warm as he did at the sound inside his head?

‘I … came for them, didn’t I? I came for her. And she just-’

‘ Left you. But it wasn’t just her.’

‘No, they all did, didn’t they?’

‘ Distractions.’ The night turned freezing. ‘ As we already knew.’

‘I remember … I trusted them, once, didn’t I? Towards the end there, I was enjoying their company. We were going to go back to the mainland together. Things were going to be all right, weren’t they?’

‘ Not your fate.’

‘ Not our duty.’

‘I suppose not.’

Water was seeping up around him, licking at his boots. The mast behind him started to groan; its foundations shattered, it protested once, then came crashing down to smash into the ship’s cabin. The world was crumbling beneath him and he stood facing the cold darkness below, alone.

‘So what now?’ he asked.

‘ We kill.’

‘ It ends.’

‘Conflict.’

‘ Tell me,’ the voice, fever-hot whispered. ‘ How far has killing gotten you?’

‘ Do not listen,’ another, bone-cold, protested.

‘ All fighting ends eventually.’ Fire-hot. ‘ And by the end, what have you got but a heap of corpses? No one left to speak to, to lay your head upon, and it grows so heavy …’

‘ Trickery. Lies.’ Snow-cold. ‘ We have survived before. We survive, always.’

‘ You’ve been killing for so long, fighting for so long. Even when you had the option to leave, you turned to fighting, and this is where it has brought you: alone, abandoned but for voices in your head. It’s time to listen to reason. It’s time to give up. It’s over.’

An inferno.

‘ Ignore. Do not listen. Survive.’

A mild chill.

His hands fell to his side, sword from his hands, clattering to the drowning deck. The air turned to iron in his lungs, forced him to his knees. The water was not as cold as he expected, rising up around him and embracing him, a thousand tiny, lapping little hands, welcoming him into their fold, assuring him that theywould never abandon him.

‘ Rest now. Your wounds are great. Your head is heavy. You’ve done enough.’

A blanket of shadow, warm and comforting, fell over him, bidding his eyes close, bidding him to ignore the pain in his shoulder. He felt numb of his own volition, burrowing into his own body, leaving the rest of him senseless to a pair of massive hands being laid gently upon his shoulder.

‘ You’ve fought so hard and for nothing. Let this be the end.’

He felt the fingers on his face, but could not feel the cold of the palms that pressed against either side of his head. The water was up to his waist now, the shadow engulfing him completely. Soon it would be over. Soon it would end.

And there would be no more pain.

‘ NOT OUR TIME.’

Blood cold, brain frozen, muscles spasmed. His sword came to his hand, arm flew from his shoulder, found flesh and bit deeply. The screams were a disharmonic chorus, ringing from within and without a head that boiled and a body that froze.

He leapt to his feet, turned around.

And they were everywhere.

Bone-white hands, grasping railings and hauling up glistening hairless bodies onto the deck. Rivers of flesh pouring out from the companionway, glistening black eyes wide and needle-filled mouths gasping. Boiling out of the ship’s wounds, knotted clots of skin and teeth on salty, dark blood.