Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos by Cameron Hopkin (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

well first and brush your teeth. Bathe twice and be completely clean-shaven above and below. Don’t miss a single hair. If you do, you’ll be punished. Do not expect to return until morning.”

She strode into the darkening night, not bothering to wait for the lad to formulate a response. He would be there. He would bend to her and serve her needs. That was simply the way of it. Renna spoke, and others obeyed. And soon enough, everyone would know it.

Chapter 4 An Incomplete Conversation

Gamarron had never liked ships. The idea that he was separated from a vast expanse of darkness by only a thin skin of chitin and spinegut flesh was unnerving. He vastly preferred having solid ground beneath him. No one on the ship knew this, of course. He was not such a child as to let himself gasp for air or retch over the rail like so many mainlanders did. He did not even allow his heart to deviate from the one beat per breath to which his masters had schooled him so many years ago. His pupils did not dilate, he did not sweat more than normal; anyone observing him would see a perfect example of poise and peace. Yet still there was a gnawing in the pit of his stomach that said this is not right. It was this ocean. It was too much. Humans were meant to be on land. His hands wanted to pluck at the soft demonsilk of his robes, to adjust his body, to ease the tension – but he remained perfectly still and watched the dark waves.

His companion was not helping matters. The Pacari boy Kest did not grouse or moan as one might expect from a lad of his years not trained to the koda, but his quiet was marked with sighs, grimaces, and dark looks in his direction that grew more frequent as their voyage dragged on. Gamarron had not been pleased by the Granaal chief’s choice of a tracker for his journey, but when he questioned the man privately, the stone-skinned Beast Rider chief had assured him that the boy was more than the equal of any of his grown men; he was unique. “He’s the best of us,” said the fat-bellied rhino rider fondly. “He just needs to not be quite so sure of that for a time. He’ll serve your purpose.” When he had suggested that such a special boy ought not be exposed to the dangers he would face, the chief had given him a bewildered look. “If he can’t survive a bit of danger, he’s no good to us no matter what he can do. No, northerner. Take him. I’ll send no other.”

And so Gamarron had taken the boy and left the tribe a hefty sum in demonbone knives and needles. He was spending his wealth far faster than he had intended, but it could not be avoided. Haste was needed if any of his people were to survive the coming onslaught from this insane new demon lord. He would sell the precious robes of a koda master right off his back and swim back to the northern isles if it could get him the help he needed an instant sooner. His hands itched even more strongly at the thought of the other holdfasts coming under the same kind of attack he and his had suffered… but training prevailed, and he did not move a finger.

He shifted his gaze to the boy, who seemed to share the aversion to their small cabin that Gamarron felt. They spent their days wandering the aft deck of Serpentslip, the Seafarer rig that he had hired back in Megalith. The captain required a few chores of them as a condition of their passage, but they were light tasks: peeling tube pods for mealtime or washing sheets and clothes. As such, much of their time was left empty, and they wandered the deck, doing their best to stay out of the sailors’ way. There was no paucity of other tasks with which they could have helped, but the Seafarers guarded their ship’s secrets jealously. Gamarron knew a thing or two about secrets, and he was content to let the sea folk keep theirs.

Almost as if he’d heard the thought, Kest said softly, “What kind of ship has no sails?” The young man did not look at him; he never did if he could avoid it. Gamarron blamed himself for the boy’s antipathy. Had he simply taken the time to watch, to listen, to understand what was happening when he met with the tribe, he could have avoided witnessing the young man’s shame. He might have even prevented it from occurring – who could say whether the chief might not have had a different response to the boy’s unorthodoxy had he not been flushed with battle rage? The lad could have stayed home, and he might have been assigned a tracking companion with a little less genius and a little more experience. It is this haste I feel, this relentless haste! It will be the death of me. His own feelings baffled him. He had been in dire straits fighting the demons for most of his life, but never had he felt so driven. He could feel a pull inside his chest that bordered on a physical sensation.

Schooling his thoughts to stillness, he looked to the spot above the ship where a Mainlander vessel would have masts. There was nothing there. The profile of the Seafarer schooner was low and lean and entirely lacking in tree trunks pointed skyward. In fact, there was very little wood in evidence anywhere; the entire hull of the ship inside and out was coated in a reddish shell not unlike a lobster’s. “There is no wind,” he said neutrally. “What good would sails do?”

The boy rolled his eyes, clearly thinking him an idiot. “We still keep moving, though, don’t we?”

Normally, such teenage arrogance would provoke a wry kind of humor in Gamarron,