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The Deepshriek’s head dangled in the wind, eyes shut,Akaneed i that it was about to be lost with every other piece of flesh on board In fact, Lenk had the presence ofthis

No tih time for one word

‘Scream,’ he whispered

And was obeyed

The head’s jaws parted, stretching open iaze golden withfor but a moment before the thunder that followed

The head screa before its vocal fury, ripped the waves apart as the sky rippled and threatened to become unseamed The blast of sound aze flickered beneath the water The dark, sinewy shape grew fainter, its agonised growl an echo carried on bubbles as it retreated below the water

‘I got it,’ Lenk whispered excitedly ‘I got it!’ He laughed hysterically, holding the head above his own ‘I win!’

The water split open; a writhing tail lashed out and spitefully slapped the hull of the boat His arht to hold onto his balance, and when he looked up, the Deepshriek’s head was gone frorasp

‘Oh …’

The eyes appeared again, far away at the other side of the boat, bright with eager hatred The sea churned around it as it growled beneath the surface, coiled into a shadowy spring, then hurled itself through the waves Lenk cursed, then screamed

‘Down! Down!’

He spared no words for Gariath, who stood with ar lions folded behind his back, as he raised his hands to the sky Though he could spare but a moment of observation before panic seized his senses once more, Lenk noted this as the only tionh he were at peace

He was still s when the Akaneed struck

Its roar split the sea in half as it caainst the boat’ssound as splinters hurled the froth The cost the flying wreckage, their shapes fleeting shadows lost in the night as they flew through the sky

Air, Lenk told hi above him Air Air Instinct banished fear as fear had banished hate He found hi as he scras, he pulled himself free and hacked the stray strealance brought no sign of his coh barely, bobbing upon the water in the wake of thecalmness The rations and tools it had carried floated around it, winking beneath the surface one by one

‘Get to it, fool,’ the voice snarled ‘We can’t swim forever’

Unable to tell the difference between the cold presence in his head and his own voice of instinct, Lenk paddled until his heart threatened to burst He drew closer and closer, searching for any sign of his coloo into the water

Green eyes closing … one by one

Later, he told hi wooden corpse Survive noorry later His inner voice became hysterical, a frenzied smile on his lips as he neared Just a little more Just a little reat blue pillar tore itself free from a liquid wo his horror It wasn’t until several breathless moments had passed that Lenk noticed the fact that the beast now stared at hi yellow eyes, whole and unskewered

‘Sweet Khetashe,’ he had not the breath to scream, ‘there’s two of them’

The Akaneed’s ansas a roar that matched the heavens’ thunder as it reared back and hurled itself upon what re in reckless flocks Lenk watched in horror, unable to act as a shattered plank struck hiave way to darkness as his body went nu

Unblinking as he slipped under the water, he stared up at the corpse of the ship, illurave with hiot how to focus and his lungs forgot their need for air He reached out, half-hearted, for the sword that descended alongside hioing to die

‘No,’ the voice spoke,‘No, you won’t’

The seawater flooded into his mouth and he found not the will to push it out The world changed fro echo

‘I won’t let you’

Three

ONE THOUSAND PAPER WINGS

Poets, she had often suspected, were supposed to have beautiful dreaold that blinded their closed eyes, iht they should take the poet’s breath away before she could put them to paper

Anacha drea stalls andcows She dreamt of wheat and of rice in shallow pools, dirty feet firly cotton breeches hiked up to knobby knees as grubby hands rooted around in filth She drea instead of the silks she wore nohen she covered herself in ood dreahtmares had men clad in the rich robes of money-lenders, their brown faces red as they yelled at her father and waved debtor’s clained his name on the scrolls and the men, with their soft and uncallused hands, helped her into a crate with silk walls She would drea with the bathwater as women, too old to be of any desire for clients, scrubbed the h flesh and the calluses froht She used to cry every night

That was before Bralston

Now she dreaht she met him, the first poem she ever read It was painted upon her breasts and belly as she was ordered into her roo to make the dye run

‘Do not cry,’ the older women had hissed, ‘this is a member of the Venariuenerous with their gold as they are with their fire and lightning’

She couldn’t help but cry the moment the door closed behind her and she faced him: broad-shouldered, slender of waist, with not a curl of hair upon his head He had smiled at her, even as she cried, had taken her to the cushion they would sit upon for many years and had read the poetry on her skin He would read for many days before he finally claimed what he paid for

By then, he needn’t take it

She began to yearn for hi over to find his warm brown flesh in her silk sheets To find an e she was unused to; a strict schedule was required to keep his ers wrapping about a scrap of paper, however, was new

Fearing that he had finally left her the farewell note she lived in perpetual terror of, she opened her eyes and unwrapped her treers frohtly wrinkled for in her pal up at her, offended at her fingers wrinkling its paper wings Without an apology for it, she looked around her rooht befuddlement

In silent flocks, the cranes had perched everywhere: on her bookshelf, her nightstand, her washbasin, her mirror, all over her floors They stared down at her ary, blood-red eyes, their beaks folded up sharply in silent judgement