Their juicy … meaty nature.

His sword was in his hands unbidden, glimmering with the same hungry intent as his fever-boiled eyes, licking its steel lips with the same ideas as he licked his own rawhide mouth.

The monkey swung tantalisingly back and forth, back and forth, bidding him to rise, stalk closer to the tiny beast, his sword hanging heavily. It wasn’t until he was close enough to spit on it that the thing looked at him with wariness.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he growled. ‘This is nature. You sit there and swing like a little morsel on a string, I bash your ugly little face open and slurp your delicious monkey brains off the ground.’

The beast looked at him and smiled a human smile.

‘Now, doesn’t that seem a bit hypocritical?’ it asked in a clear baritone.

Lenk paused. ‘How do you figure?’

‘Are you not aware of how close the families of beasts and man are?’ the monkey asked, holding up its little paws. ‘Look at our hands. They both suggest something, don’t they? The same fleeting, insignificant, inconsequential lifespan through us both …’

‘We are notclose, you little faeces-flinger. Mankind was created by the Gods.’

‘That sort of renders your point about “nature” a bit moot, doesn’t it? Gods or nature?’ The monkey waggled a finger. ‘Which is it?’

‘That isn’twhat I meant and you know it!’ Lenk snarled, jabbing a finger at the monkey. ‘Look, don’t argue with me. Monkeys should notargue. That’s a rule.’

‘Where?’

‘ Somewhere, I don’t know.’

‘What is the desire to be shackled by rules, Lenk? Why did mankind create them? Was the burden of freedom too much to bear?’

‘And if monkeys shouldn’t argue,’ Lenk snarled, ‘they damnwell shouldn’t make philosophical inquiries.’

‘The truth is,’ the monkey continued, ‘that freedom isjust too much. Freedom is twisting, nebulous; what one man considers it, another does not. It’s impossible to live when no one can agree what living is.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Thusly, mankind createdrules. Or, if you choose to believe, had them handed down to them by gods. This wasn’t for the sake of any divine creation, of course, but only to make the thought of life less unbearable, so that these thoughts of freedom didn’t cripple them with fear.’

‘Shut up!’ Lenk roared, clutching his head.

‘We both know why you want me to be silent. You’ve already seen this theory of freedom in action, haven’t you? When a man is free, trulyfree, he can’t be trusted to do what’s right. The last time you saw someone that was free-’

‘I said …’ Lenk pulled his sword from the ground. ‘Shut up.’

‘He attacked a giant sea serpent and caused it to sink your boat, killing everyone aboard and leaving you alone.’

‘ Shut up!’

Lenk’s swing bit nothing but air, its metal song drowned out by the chattering screeches and laughter of the creatures above. He swung his gaze up with his weapon, sweeping it cautiously across the branches, searching for his hidden opponent.

Back and forth, back and forth …

‘It’s very bad form to give up the argument when someone presents a counterpoint,’ Lenk snarled. ‘Are you afraid to engage in further discourse?’ He shrieked, attacked a low-hanging branch and sent its leaves spilling to the earth. ‘You’re too good to come down and fight me, is that it?’

‘ Now,’ a voice asked from the trees, ‘ why is it that you solve everything with violence, Lenk? It never works.’

‘It seems to work to shut people up,’ Lenk replied, backing away defensively.

‘ That’s not a bad point, is it? After all, Gariath isn’t talking anymore, is he? Then again, neither are Denaos, Dreadaeleon, Asper … Kataria …’

‘Don’t you talk about them! Orher!’

He felt his back strike something hard and unyielding, felt a long and shadowy reach slink down toward his neck. He whirled around, his sword between him and the demon as it stared at him with great, empty whites above a jaw hanging loose.

‘Abysmyth …’ Lenk gasped.

The creature showed no recognition, showed nothing in its stare. Its body — that towering, underfed amalgamation of black skin stretched tightly over black bone — should have been exploding into action, Lenk knew. Those long, webbed claws should be tight across his throat, excreting the fatal ooze that would kill him.

‘Good afternoon,’ Lenk growled.

The Abysmyth, however, did nothing. The Abysmyth merely tilted a great fishlike head to the side and uttered a question.

‘Violence didn’t work, did it?’

‘We haven’t tried yet!’

The thing made no attempt to defend himself as Lenk erupted like an overcoiled spring, flinging himself at the beast. My sword can hurt it, he told himself. I’ve seen it happen. Even if nothing else could, Lenk’s blade seemed to drink deeply of the creature’s blood as he hacked at it. Its flesh came off in great, hewed strips; blood fell in thick, fatty globs.

‘Is the futility not crushing?’ the creature asked, its voice a rumbling gurgle in its rib cage. ‘You shriek, squeal, strike — as though you could solve all the woes and agonies that plague yourself and your world with steel and hatred.’

‘It tends to solve mostproblems,’ Lenk grunted through a face spattered with blood. ‘It solved the problem of your leader, you know.’ His grin was broad and maniacal. ‘I killed her … it. I took its head. I killed one of your brothers.’

‘I suppose I should be impressed.’

‘You’re not?’

‘Not entirely, no. The Deepshriek has three heads. You took only one.’

‘But-’

‘You killed one Abysmyth. Are there not more?’

‘Then I’ll take the other two heads! I’ll kill every last one of you!’

‘To what end? There will always be more. Kill one, more rise from the depths. Kill the Deepshriek, another prophet will be found.’

‘I’ll kill them, too!’ Lenk’s snarl was accompanied by a hollow sound as his sword sank into the beast’s chest and remained there, despite his violent tugging. ‘ ALL OF THEM! ALL OF YOU!’

‘And then what? Wipe us from the earth, fill your ears with blood and blind yourself with steel. You will find someone else to hate. There will never be enough blood and steel, and you will go on wondering …’

‘Wondering … what?’

‘Wondering why. What is the point of it all?’ The creature loosed a gurgle. ‘Or, more specifically to your problem, you’ll never stop wondering why she doesn’t feel the way you do … You’ll never understand why Kataria said what she did.’

Lenk released his grip on his sword, his hands weak and dead as he backed away from the creature, his eyes wide enough to roll out of his head. The Abysmyth, if it was at all capable of it, laughed at him with its white eyes and gaping jaw.

‘How?’ he gasped. ‘How do you know that?’

‘That is a good question.’

The Abysmyth’s face split into a broad smile.

Abysmyths can’t smile.

‘A better one, however,’ it gurgled, ‘might be why are you attacking a tree?’

‘No …’

Words could not deny it, nor could the sword quivering in its mossy flesh. The tree stared back at him with pity, wooden woe exuding through its eyes.

Trees don’t have eyes. He knew that. Trees don’t offer pity! Trees don’t talk!

‘Steady.’ His breathing was laboured, searing in his throat and charring his lungs black inside him. ‘Steady … no one’s talking. It’s just you and the forest now. Trees don’t talk … monkeys don’t talk … people talk. You’re a people … a person.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Steady. Things are hazy at night. In the morning, everything will be clearer.’

‘They will be.’

Don’t turn around.

But he knew the voice.

It was her voice. Not a monkey’s voice. Not a tree’s voice. Not a voice inside his head. Her voice. And it felt cool and gentle upon his skin, felt like a few scant droplets of water flicked upon his brow.