Sam Sykes - Black Halo

‘Good morning,’ a voice rasped.

The scream that followed was swiftly silenced.

Long-fingered hands snapped over her mouth, drowning her shriek in a tide of leathery flesh. Another hand was under the first and she felt a heavy thumb press lightly against her throat, seeking her windpipe with practised swiftness.

‘Silence is sacred,’ the voice suggested in a way that implied it was no impotent hymn.

Whatever threat not implicit in the voice was frighteningly apparent in the hands, coursing down the palm and into the fingers that slid across her throat. Her breath came in short, terrified gulps. Her heart pounded in her chest, eyes terrified to meet the dark and heavy stare that bore down on her like a bird of prey.

Breath after desperate breath passed and the light ceased to sting. As a face came to the eyes staring over her, breath came more swiftly and confidently. The smile ceased to be so menacing once she remembered well the crooked bent to it. And, at the look of recognition that crossed her face, the hands slipped off her mouth and neck.

‘Not that I’m not thrilled to hear your melodic voice,’ Denaos whispered, ‘but it does get a little tiresome after hearing it for a few days.’

‘A … few days?’ Asper felt her voice scratch raw against a throat turned to leather.

‘A few days, yes,’ Denaos replied, his nod a little disjointed. ‘You took a nasty blow to the head.’ He rubbed a tender spot against her brow, wincing in time with her. ‘Not surprising. Lots of wood flying this way and that. Hard to keep track of, no?’

‘Wood … flying …’ And wet, she remembered, falling like slow-moving hail, herself only one more fleshy stone descending in an airless blue sky. Her eyes widened with the realisation. ‘We were attacked. Sunk! But …’ She felt the sand beneath her, smelled the sea before her. ‘Where are we?’

‘Island. Archipelago, maybe?’ Denaos tapped his chin thoughtfully. ‘Peninsula, coast, beach, shore, littoral … left side of an isthmus. Not sure, lost the map.’ He stared out at the sea. ‘Lost everything.’

‘And … the others?’

‘Lost everything .’

Everything .

The word echoed inside her mind and down her body. Her heart pounded against it, feeling surprisingly light, a familiar weight removed from her chest. She glanced down and saw her robes parted, exposing a generous amount of bosom, a patch of particularly pale skin in the shape of a bird where her pendant had once hung dutifully.

She should have been more alarmed at that, she knew. The pendant had been with her since she had first been admitted to the priesthood. It had seen everything, from her initiation as a novice, to her rise to acolyte, to her full initiation.

It saw Taire , she told herself grimly. It saw the longface. It’s seen my arm. It knows. And now it’s gone .

Perhaps it wasn’t any wonder she was breathing more freely now.

‘I don’t wear my robes like this,’ she muttered. A horrific suspicion leapt from her mind to her eyes and she turned them, wide as moons, upon the tall man. ‘I was out for a few days.’

‘Three.’ He canted his head to the side, looking to some imaginary consultant. ‘Four? Six? No … three sounds right, thereabouts.’

‘You didn’t …’ She grimaced as she readjusted her garments. ‘You didn’t do anything, did you?’

‘Seems a little pointless, doesn’t it?’ He sneered at her blue garment. ‘I’ve already seen you naked.’

‘What? When? ’ She put that thought from her mind, however difficult it was. ‘No, don’t tell me. Just … did you do anything?’

‘I might have. I am well versed in Sleeping Toad.’

She opened her mouth to protest further, but something in his grin caught her eye. It was not the smooth, rehearsed split of his mouth that he so often wore like a mask. It was strained at the edges, frayed, as though the porcelain of that mask had begun to crack, exposing a desperate grin and wide, shadow-rimmed eyes.

She forced her next words through a grimace. ‘You don’t look so good.’

His parched lips peeled off glistening gums like leather in the sun, seeming to suggest that he was aware of as much. His hair formed a greasy frame about his strained, stubble-caked expression.

‘Not so good at sleeping these days,’ he whispered. ‘There could be enemies anywhere.’

‘All this time?’

‘Doesn’t seem that long now,’ he replied.

She furrowed her brow; she had seen him function on three days’ insomnia without any ill effects before. That he would suddenly seem so rabid didn’t make any sense to her until he loosed a long breath, its stale air reeking with old barrels and barley.

‘You managed to save the whisky?’ she asked, crinkling her nose.

‘Wasn’t easy,’ he grunted. ‘Had to do some diving. Had the time, though. Couldn’t sleep, obvious reasons.’ He patted his breeches and smiled grimly. ‘No more knives, see? Felt naked, insecure. Whisky helped me alert stay …’ He trailed off for a moment before snapping back with a sudden twitch. ‘Stay alert.’

‘You could have slept, you know.’

‘No, I didn’t know,’ he snarled. ‘ I’m not the healer here. I didn’t know if you would even wake up.’

‘So, you …’ Her eyes widened slowly this time, the realisation less horrific, but no less shocking. ‘You watched over me all this time?’

‘Not much choice,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You were out. None of the others made it. Dread was absolutely worthless.’

‘Dreadaeleon? He’s alive?’

‘Fished both of you out. You were unconscious. He wasn’t. Had him make a raft with his ice … breath … magic-thing.’ He gestured to the beach. ‘Floated here. He stalked off to the forest shortly after, never came back out.’

She followed his finger to the dense patch of foliage over her head, saw the scrawny figure leaning against a tall tree, in such still repose as to appear dead. Perhaps he was, she thought with a twinge of panic.

‘Gods,’ she muttered. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘What isn’t?’

‘You didn’t check ?’ She turned to him, aghast. ‘You didn’t ask ?’

‘Not the healer.’ The rogue sneered. ‘I couldn’t watch over both of you, and you were the one with breasts. Process of elimination.’

‘How delightful,’ she muttered. ‘I suppose since I’m awake now …’ She made to rise, then paused as she became aware of a sudden pain in her cheek. She winced, pressing her hand to her jaw. ‘My face hurts.’

‘Yeah,’ he grunted, scratching his chin. ‘I’ve been hitting you for the past few days.’

She could but blink.

‘All right … should I ask?’

‘I’ve seen you do it before. Seemed like an easy medical process.’

‘You hit people who are in shock , idiot.’

‘I was a bit startled.’

She sighed, rubbing her eyes. When she looked up again, an unsympathetic sea met her gaze with the uninterested rumble of waves.

‘Lost everything?’ she repeated dully.

‘Does it somehow make it more believable if I say it three times?’ Denaos sighed. ‘Yes, lost everything , up to and including the derelict reptile that got us here.’

‘And Lenk, and Kataria …’ She sighed, placing her face in her hands and staring glumly out over the sea. ‘It …’ She winced, or rather, forced a wince to her face. ‘It had to happen, I suppose.’

‘It did,’ Denaos grunted, casting her a curious eye. ‘I’m shocked you’re taking it so well, though. One would expect you to be all on knees and hands, cutting your forehead for Talanas and praying for their safe return … or at least safe passage to heaven.’