River of Thieves by Clayton Snyder

Author:Clayton Snyder [Snyder, Clayton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-18T22:00:00+00:00

This is the Chapter About an Asshole

He sank beneath the waves, spilling a viscous cloud of red. Blood ballooned out from the wound in his neck like ribbon pulled from a child's stuffed toy. Had it been any other time, any other place, any other person, he'd think it beautiful. Instead, he gagged on the taste of sewage runoff, fish, and blood. His lungs burst for air, and despite himself, he sucked in a breath, trying desperately to breathe. All he got for his trouble was a lungful of brackish water and a parasite that thought to itself what the fuck, but quickly settled in.

The waters around Tremaire were frightening, even to a Harrower. The wizards in the tower dumped failed experiments there, the Harrowers sometimes using the lake as a testing ground for horrors they dared not unleash on land. Flakes of white silt and the loose scales of something floated by him, and he thrashed to escape. He wanted to reach out to his brothers and sisters in the Hive, to let them know he was dying, to avenge his death. He knew it didn't matter. Harrowers were by nature solitary creatures. If by some miracle you managed to get them to work together, by hook or crook, it was always a short partnership. No, a Harrower was about a Harrower, and little else.

He thrashed again, sending little fish scattering in his wake, and reached toward the surface. His gift burned just below his chest, trapped now, as he was, and he knew even if he tried screaming the Sorrow, there would be no escape. He would simply bleed out and die, sinking to the bottom like a whale, more chum for the deep dwellers, bones bleached and alone.

His vision flickered. They say your whole life flashes before your eyes before death. Each flicker of darkness came to him with a crackle and a snap. His lungs burned, and his ribs threatened to shatter with the effort of holding the lake out. He had little strength left. He screamed into the water as the dark claimed him, the sound causing the wound in his neck to pulse like a mouth, vomiting crimson threads into the gray water. In his last moments of conscious thought, he supposed it was true. Everyone's like a book. When we're opened, we're red.

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