Read Black Halo for Free Online Page B

watched the unfurling discomfort in the boy. A smile far more unpleasant than his gaze crept across his face as the two men shared a discreet and wholly wicked nod between them.
    ‘Give me your bandana,’ Denaos said, turning towards Asper.
    ‘What?’ She furrowed her brow. ‘Why?’
    ‘I smudged the map. I need to clean it.’ He held out his hand expectantly, batting eyelashes. ‘Please?’
    The priestess pursed her lips, as though unsure, before sighing in resignation and reaching up. Her robe pressed a little tighter against her chest. Dreadaeleon’s eyes went wider, threatening to leap from his skull. Her collar, opened slightly more than modesty would allow at the demands of the heat, slipped open a little to expose skin glistening with sweat. The fantasies thundered through Dreadaeleon’s head with enough force to cause his head to rattle.
    She undid the bandana, letting brown locks fall down in a cascade, a single strand lying on her breasts, an imperfection begging for practised, skinny fingers to rectify it.
    Lenk watched the reddening of the boy’s face with growing alarm. Dreadaeleon hadn’t so much as breathed since Denaos made his request, his body so rigid as to suggest that rigour had set in before he could actually die.
    ‘So … you’ll do it, right?’ Lenk whispered.
    ‘Yes,’ the boy whispered, breathless, ‘just … just give me a few moments.’
    Lenk glanced at the particular rigidity with which the wizard laid his book on his lap. ‘Take your time.’ He discreetly turned away, hiding the overwhelming urge to wash apparent on his face.
    When he set his hand down into a moist puddle, the urge swiftly became harsh enough to make the drowning seem a very sensible option. He brought up a glistening hand and stared at it curiously, furrowing his brow. He was not the only one to stare, however.
    ‘Who did it this time?’ Denaos growled. ‘We have rules for this sort of vulgar need and all of them require you to go over the side.’
    ‘No,’ Lenk muttered, sniffing the salt on his fingers. ‘It’s a leak.’
    ‘Well, obviously it’s a leak,’ Denaos said, ‘though I’ve a far less gracious term for it.’
    ‘We’re sinking,’ Kataria muttered, her ears unfolding. She glanced at the boat’s side, the water flowing through a tiny gash like blood through a wound. She turned a scowl up at Lenk. ‘I thought you fixed this.’
    ‘Of course, she’ll talk to me when she has something to complain about,’ the young man muttered through his teeth. He turned around to meet her scowl with one of his own. ‘I did , back on Ktamgi. Carpentry isn’t an exact science, you know. Accidents happen.’
    ‘Let’s be calm here, shall we?’ Asper held her hands up for peace. ‘Shouldn’t we be thinking of ways to keep the sea from murdering us first?’
    ‘I can help!’ Dreadaeleon appeared to be ready to leap to his feet, but with a mindful cough, thought better of it. ‘That is, I can stop the leak. Just … just give me a bit.’
    He flipped through his book diligently, past the rows of arcane, incomprehensible sigils, to a series of blank, bone-white pages. With a wince that suggested it hurt him more than the book to do so, he ripped one of them from the heavy tome. Swiftly shutting it and reattaching it to the chain that hung from his belt, he crawled over to the gash.
    All eyes stared with curiosity as the boy knelt over the gash and brought his thumb to his teeth. With a slightly less than heroic yelp, he pressed the bleeding digit against the paper and hastily scrawled out some intricate crimson sign.
    ‘Oh, now you’ll do something magical?’ Lenk threw his hands up.
    Dreadaeleon, his brow furrowed and ears shut to whatever else his companion might have said, placed the square of paper against the ship’s wound. Muttering words that hurt to listen to, he ran his unbloodied fingers over the page. In response, its stark white hue took on a dull azure glow before shifting to