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Now, she heard her own heart It ift, erratic, uncertain, conflicted

Light

Unpleasant

Terrifying

‘Sister,’ Naxiaw said, furrowing his brow ‘What is wrong?’

You, she thought You’re wrong Your heartbeat is too steady You’re too sure of yourself You know everything a shict should know and you hear the Howling like it was another shict You’re probably hearing this right now because the Howling is … isn’t it?

She said none of that Instead, she shook her head and spoke words that none of her faht, erratic heart

‘I don’t know’

Naxiaw looked certain, as though he were about to speak with the voice of the Howling and whatever he were to say next would assure her of everything She watched eagerly as he stared back at her, then said nothing, looking down at the floor of the hold

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘they are almost here’

‘Who?’ Kataria asked, confusion overriding despair

‘You cannot hear thes to stare at the floor thoughtfully ‘They have been following this ship for hours now They are waiting for soers ran over the wood His ears, six notches to a lobe, perked up She heard it, too: the groaning of wood, a cry of protest that it kneas useless as soainst it Naxiaw looked up at her, his eyes keen and his face dire

‘And now,’ he whispered, ‘it has co struck it froh the floor, past Kataria’s feet and into her heart The ship’s groan becaed rents veined the wood and bled saltwater

Naxiaw leapt up and back, putting hi crack in the floor He’s trying to protect me, she realised Who … no one’s done that for ht should have caused her less distress than it did

She herself took a step backwards as another great blow shook the ship Fro crack, she heard thees, each one bri with purpose, each purpose rife with death

Another blow and the floor erupted into a spray of splinters, the crack beca clear, salty blood onto the floor And at the centre, like a black knife, the ar in a great webbed claw

‘Not them,’ Kataria whispered hat breath she had left

‘What are they?’ Naxiaw asked

His question was answered as another webbed fist punched through the hull, ripping the wound into a great, gaping hole Claws sank into the wood, gripped tightly and hauled an immense black shape onto the floor

A skeleton wrapped in shadow, croith a wide head sporting vast, gaping jaws, it pulled itself free fro under a cowering flame, it rose from its knees, each vertebra visible beneath its black skin as it rose to its full, iht On webbed feet, it slowly turned about and levelled the head of a black fish upon the two shicts

The Abysmyth stared at Kataria, its eyes wide, white and ee,’ it said, its voice choked with the voices of the drowned, ‘I looked upon the pristine creation and saw a floating blight Mother bade ony of the faithless longfaces upon her endless blue And within the black boil, I found the lost and the lonely’ It extended a great webbed hand, glistening with thick, viscous ooze ‘Co nightmare from you’

‘Run,’ Kataria said as much to herself as to Naxiaw, ‘run’

‘What is it?’ the greenshict asked

‘Salvation,’ the Abysmyth answered

‘The Shepherd has co water ‘The faithless tremble The fainthearted cower Fear not, fear not …’

‘For I aestured to the wound ‘Rejoice’

And, as one, they cah the hull like a brood of tadpoles Glistening bodies, bereft of hair or pallor, rejected by the great blue body of the sea and vo needle teeth, colourless eyes The frog the choir

‘We have coes Sinners Everyone’

‘Run,’ Kataria said, grabbing Naxiaw by the arm ‘RUN!’

Naxiaw heard and did not question, following her as they sprinted for the stairs leading to the deck Struck breathless froasps of air

‘Hoe escape?’ the greenshict asked

‘The shore isn’t far fros … they cao in?’

‘We don’t have a whole lot of choice, do we? The ship will go down in a few , anyway’

‘Then im I trust you, Sister’

Soht with a pain in her chest I … I need to I have to go back for him

‘Wait!’ she cried as they neared the companionway ‘I have to …’

He paused, looked at her curiously What could she say? That she had to stay on this sinking tofaces, for the sake of a hureat disease? How could she tell him that? How could she tell herself that, after all the tie, hear this cohtness?

How could she ask herself why her heart beat different than his?

She could not say that, any of that

‘I have to do what Iup to the deck, ‘for my people’

Someone’s words

Not hers

Thirty-Four

MOTHER AND CHILD

Gariath was not dead yet