Prologue
The shallows of the water danced amid a shimmering haze in the autumn daylight, gentle waves caressing the sands as they washed onto the shore. A few hours ago, when they’d still been up at the top of the high hill, they could see the old ruined boathouse still cresting the horizon, a mournful monument to the lost village around it. Old Medger said the ghosts of all the dead souls still lived in these villages. The Shadow might have taken their bodies, purged their worldly forms of all the good, but it would never take their essences. And Old Medger was right, Rhiannon reflected. You could feel those ghosts, at every forsaken hovel on the long road from Canad. They weighed heavy on the ground.
They’d since descended the hill, making their camp at the top of a narrow isthmus. From her perch on the soft grass, Rhiannon could hear the gentle whisper of each lightly lapping heartbeat from the indolent water. This was a tidal lake. It was connected, somehow, to the Grey Sea, which had been the southern border of Belchet at its greatest extent and which had never been conquered by even the boldest wayfarers.
It was Captain Kenton’s idea to set up camp so close to the shore. Tobit preferred the crest of the hill, where they could nestle in the folds of an old coppice to keep out of the wind. There’d be a ready supply of kindling, too, for fires, and dead trees burned the best. Dall liked the hill, too. You could see much further from up high. If the darkness got too thick, they’d know to run. As it was, they were taking a huge chance. They might not see the encroaching shadow until it was almost upon them, and if it crept up the isthmus unnoticed and cut off the old Ayre completely they’d have to swim for it. Nobody could outswim the Shadow.
For Rhiannon, the biggest advantage the top of the hill had over their lowly camp was the view. Down here, the horizon line was in the middle of the water. There was nothing to look at. The only option was to talk. Not that the others were pleasant conversation. She’d shown enough fight the day she’d buried a knife in Whetton’s chest to scare anybody else away from trying to get too familiar with her, but it didn’t stop them making jokes.
How else were they to get their release? Behind the walls of the Firth, or any of the other cities, women were like gods. Men like Captain Kenton would never dare crack a joke like that in the Firth. The Queen and her enforcers would see him dead for that, every bone broken―but first they’d strip him of his position, so his children would receive no pension. One queen had died birthing the child her rapist had left inside her. There was no place for tolerance now.
But life amongst the Rovers was a man’s life. Only three of them had been women, of the fifteen who’d set out with Captain Kenton. Wandering Mary had wandered right into a grimalkin’s den, half a day from the South Gate. Birgit was married to Ludlow, the thick-skulled brute who always skulked around behind Kenton, so despite her slight build she was protected. Which left Rhiannon. Strong enough to keep the lechers at bay, so long as they didn’t jump her, but not strong enough to ward off their jokes.
She spent her time with Medger. He’d lived through the days of the Squabbling Sisters and bathed in the blood they wrought, and always liked to joke that their wars had taught him to fear a woman angered. In his younger days he’d been married first to a man from Frevissey, then a woman from the docks, then a person from the Royal Guard, and having tasted the breadth of the gender spectrum had come to the conclusion that he didn’t really like people all that much. Now, he was old and poor. His eyesight had begun to fail, and his joints often plagued with gout, but he could not afford to retire. A man his age would be begging in the backstreets even fully sighted. Blind, he might as well jump from the Minaret. Rhiannon kept his secret, and helped him when he needed it, and in return he made sure she always felt comfortable.
Old Medger was in many ways the grandfather she wished she’d had. Her actual grandfathers were of a baser form of man. One was a drunkard who’d been defeated by the alcohol when Rhiannon was four. The other was a wife-beater who’d been defeated by Rhiannon, when she was seven. Well, it was the knife that had done most of the work. She’d just pushed it into his gut until the carpet was coated in his blood.
There were six of them sat on the shores of the sea as the afternoon meandered along into twilight, and dusk gave in to night. Three more were lying in fresh graves beneath the soil of Alfred’s Port, in the shade of the crumbling market hall, where sickness had claimed them. The others had gone off with Captain Kenton, in pursuit of a lead the Captain had claimed to see. A spire of smoke, far south. Ludlow was the only other to see the smoke, and he’d swear he saw the Queen shitting upwards if that was what Captain Kenton claimed to have seen.
Ludlow was cooling his blistering feet in the water, smoking from a long pipe with his jaw set to warn away anybody who might dare to try to talk to him. No doubt he was worried about his wife. Birgit and Ludlow never did anything apart from one another. But an overextended knee as he disembarked from the rowboat that morning had left Ludlow hobbling, and he’d stayed behind to rest it up. Birgit had shoved a proverbial finger up his arse when he asked her to stay with him. She’d been away for a good few hours now. In her absence, he seemed bereft.
The group they were following was a known rabble. Sixleaf, their leader, had open disdain for the Queen and the authorities. He’d apparently become a Rover because it put him at less risk of being sought out by the Royal Guard than if he were a poacher. Sixleaf’s gang never found a thing that hadn’t already been found. They were hated across the breadth of the Firth, and the Queen would probably have left them to their fate were it not for the intervention of Frey Renton. He had a young nephew out with Sixleaf. It was unacceptable, in his eyes, for any effort to be spared in tracking them down. So Kenton and his gang had turned right back around, not even two days after returning to the Firth, and gone south.
Like, a long way south.
Most of the time, even the hardiest Rovers stayed north of the mountains, in the protection of the Beacons. On the rare occasion somebody crossed Manon’s Pass, it was to the fields immediately south, where some crops still bore fruit and some foolhardy farmers still hoped to settle their claim. Even the blackened ruins of the ghost fort known now only as Shadow Hold were well beyond the normal reach of the Queen’s men. The crones spun stories of Shadow Hold as though it was the edge of the world. Following Captain Kenton’s lead, they’d gone about fifty miles south of the edge of the world.
It was only earlier this morning, paddling his weathered oar in the murky waters around Alfred’s Port, that Heath had first given voice to the question they’d all been thinking: “what in name of Matheld is Sixleaf doing this far from home?”
Rhiannon liked Heath, as men went in Kenton’s gang. When he laughed along with the others’ jokes, it was with a whisper of discomfort, an uncertain look Rhiannon’s way, and he was never the one to make the jokes. He had ruddy cheeks, not dulled as the youthful roundness of his face took on a mature edge. Sometimes when he laughed, his eyes would close and the tip of his nose would twitch just a bit. That only happened when Rhiannon was the one who made him laugh.
She liked Heath, but she couldn’t talk to him, not for very long. They had nothing in common.
Nothing except the man in the fog.
She’d sworn not to talk about him, not to even think about him. She didn’t like to think about him anyway. It was better to pretend the whole incident had never happened. That way she could pretend she wasn’t completely crazy.
Captain Kenton returned just as Tobit put some sausages on the fire. They were yesterday’s leftovers, already well-cooked. If they charred them enough, the burnt taste was strong enough to pretend they weren’t thoroughly stale.
“Captain.” Tobit was the first to rise in respect to Kenton. The rest all did the same, standing wherever they were. Even Ludlow rose unsteadily to his feet, quaking as he did so. He was going to need a cane or something, or he’d never make it back to the Firth. His foot was too bad. If it had been somehow infected, even a cane wouldn’t be enough.
The first thing Rhiannon noticed was the fact that Captain Kenton was on his own. He shouldn’t have been. Four of their hardiest had set out with him earlier. Birgit, Small Jack, Joscelin and Danvers. There was nothing all four together couldn’t handle, and certainly not without a fight. If they’d run into a band of grimalkins, or even a bilidou, then perhaps one of them would have been hurt. But the others would be here, bloodied perhaps, carrying the wounded man between them. Kenton didn’t seem to have a scratch on him. Whatever had separated him from the others, it had ignored him completely.
The second thing Rhiannon noticed was the fact that Captain Kenton’s eyes were wide, the pupils completely black. He walked like a drunk man, stumbling slightly on each step. His ankle rolled horribly as he trod awkwardly on a loose pebble, between the two tall conifers at the edge of their camp, but he walked on without reacting.
Tobit looked put out that Kenton had ignored him, but went back to his cooking. The others gathered around, no doubt ready for dinner. Rhiannon went across to Medger.
“The Captain looks drunk,” she said. “You reckon he found a cache?”
Medger shook his old head. “Kenton has one of them iron constitutions. This whole lake could be hard liquor and it wouldn’t get him drunk. Believe me, lass, I’ve seen him―”
“Outdrink a whole division without batting an eye,” Rhiannon finished. “You’ve told that story a hundred times, old man.”
“It’s worth telling a hundred times then,” said Medger.
Captain Kenton skirted around the edge of the camp, hugging close to the shoreline. Ludlow, still on his feet, began to hobble towards the Captain. He was going to ask about his wife, no doubt. Kenton was lucky that Ludlow had that injured foot. Fully fighting fit, he’d have had the Captain by the throat for leaving Birgit out alone.
Rhiannon turned her attention to Ludlow, keeping a keen eye on his reactions. She hoped he’d get angry. If he was angry, it was good. It meant Kenton had just abandoned the others. If Ludlow didn’t get angry, it meant there was a reason Kenton had come back alone. The others probably wouldn’t be coming back any time soon.
As he got within arm’s reach, Ludlow opened his mouth to speak. Kenton met him with a raised arm, shoved him with full force. Ludlow landed in the water with a splash.
“What’s Kenton playing at?” murmured Medger.
Ludlow pulled himself up, drenched. The water flowed off him like a waterfall. He tried to turn around, but he didn’t get very far along. Kenton was on him again, shoving him to the ground, and this time he stayed there. His hand was kept firmly on Ludlow’s head. Ludlow writhed and wriggled and tried to cry out, but it only created bubbles. He lashed his arms out wildly. Beat them against Kenton’s legs. Nothing made any difference. Rhiannon was frozen in place watching, and Medger too beside her. It wasn’t until Ludlow fell still that she regained her sense of where she was.
Medger was the first forward. Good old Medger, he took the lead and Rhiannon followed. Kenton, apparently oblivious to their approach, started walking towards the centre of the camp. Medger went off after him, as fast as he could go. Rhiannon wanted to go too, but she couldn’t ignore Ludlow. He’d need help, medicine. She ran to him, fished in the water until she could pull his head above the surface. He wasn’t breathing. His hands were clammy, his body cold. One eye had filled with blood, turning red. The poor man had popped a blood vessel fighting back.
And he was dead. Kenton had killed him.
Rhiannon rose in anger. It was a good job Medger had gone on ahead. If she’d been the first one to get to Kenton, she’d have killed him. She didn’t hold with murderers. Not ever.
When they’d made the camp, Joscelin and Dall had put up a little armoury. It was a specialty of theirs; Dall had an aptitude for whittling, and somehow he could always find a few pieces of wood going spare. Joscelin was organised almost to a fault. Between them they’d gathered the party’s weapons in one place, and there were some lethal ones there. Rhiannon had her eye on a dirk with a bloodstone blade that had changed hands several times already. It had left the Firth in a pouch around Wandering Mary’s waist, and Two-Tom had laid claim to it when Mary met the grimalkin. When Two-Tom died, Tobit took the dagger. Now, it had found its way into Kenton’s hands. It was just there for the taking, right where Dall had put it, and beside it was a fearsome steel spear. Kenton took that, too.
All eyes were on Kenton now. Tobit’s sausages were well and truly forgotten. Old Medger was only a few paces behind Kenton, striding with purpose. “Captain, you need to―”
The spear was dripping with blood when it came out the back of Medger’s head. He stood still and lifeless for a second, held in a deathly inertia, and then he fell. The blood pooled on the grass around him and began to snake towards Rhiannon.
She screamed.
That was a mistake. Kenton had forgotten her, but he turned straight away.
Shit.
Behind him, Rhiannon could see the rest of them making a silent flight. None of them would care to rescue her. She was a woman, and unclaimed. Better that they left her to die. If she was lucky, Kenton would kill her quickly, and there’d be none of her around to feel it come the morning when Tobit came back to get the fuck he’d always talked about getting.
She backed off a step, but the water seeping into her shoe told her there was nowhere to run. They’d told Kenton not to camp here. No doubt Dall was expecting it to be the Shadow that would creep up on them, trap them at the tip of the Ayre. He certainly wouldn’t have expected Kenton to be their death.
She stood rooted in fear for a minute. Kenton seemed to regard her for a second, then drew his arm back and threw. In the darkness she didn’t see what he’d thrown until too late. The bloodstone dagger embedded itself in her shoulder blade, right in there, and it was all she could do not to cry out in pain. She’d never been stabbed before. She was always too good; nobody could get a hit in. Why had nobody told her it hurt so much?
Kenton busied himself over Medger’s body, retrieving the spear from the old man and sliding his brains off the blade with a finger. With a trembling hand, Rhiannon reached for the dagger in her shoulder. Just touching it made it quiver slightly, and that shot a jolt of fresh agony all through her. Had she somehow offended the Gods, that they saw fit to prick her with so many invisible needles? Still, the dagger was her only weapon. She gritted her teeth, screwed her eyes tightly shut, and yanked on the hilt. One firm tug, and it would be out. She screamed afresh when she pulled at it, and as soon as it was free she threw up from the pain.
And then Kenton was upon her, and she had no time to worry about her shoulder any more.
She backed off another step, and her leg gave way. The water was frigid, and its salty sting battered at her shoulder and brought the fury afresh. She swam, as best she could. In childhood, she’d spent time in the Canad with the other kids. They’d race down the river, from the Queen’s Beacon down to the Broken Beacon, a full four miles. Rhiannon never finished. She’d get a hundred metres or so, then she’d start to tire, and so she’d splash pitifully until a passing guard took pity on her and dove in to pull her to the shallows.
There’d be no passing guard to help her now, but she couldn’t give up. She had to get to the Broken Beacon, even if it killed her.
She trod water for a time, just to keep her shoulder dry. She wasn’t sure she could handle the pain again.
Fortunately for her, Kenton had apparently lost interest. He followed her as far as the waterline, and stood there for a time. She expected him to follow. He’d outswim her easily, and she’d be dead before she got out of sight of the shore. But he never came.
Slowly, Rhiannon began to meander further out into the water, tentatively feeling for the bottom with her feet. One of her shoes had come off at some point, and the other was loose. She kicked it away. It would only get waterlogged, and weigh her down. Fur was great for cold weather, less so for water. And in any case the sand writhing between her toes took her back to a younger time, to a happier time. She could almost pretend she was back home, if she closed her eyes.
Kenton had disappeared at some point. She didn’t remember him leaving. One second he was there watching her, and the next there was no sign of him.
Rhiannon breathed a sigh of relief. If she could just tread water for a few minutes longer―until she was sure it was safe―she could get back to dry land. There, maybe, she could rest.
And in the morning, if Kenton didn’t come back for her while she slept, she could start to figure out what to do next.
Her shoulder still ached badly. Whether it got infected or not was out of her hands, at the moment. Better to take a chance on that than be certain of death. That would be another problem for the morning.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and started to wade back to shore. Each time her feet touched the sand, she counted another step. A hundred and I’ll be there, she told herself. A hundred and fifty, tops. And now the count was at thirty. Forty. Fifty.
At fifty-six, she didn’t touch sand. Her toes curled around something cold, clammy, staid. Whatever it was, it withdrew quickly. Her heart raced. Some sort of fish, maybe? There were said to be some pure horrors in the seas. Old Governor Balkett had been brought beneath the waves by forces unknown, those centuries ago, along with most of the men of the colony―and that was in the waters of the Firth, far friendlier than the southern seas. Toothless old grandmothers warned away from the high mountain lagoons even as they sucked on their own gums, because something lived in the water there. And Alfred’s Port had once been a respectable settlement, its harbour on the same waters Rhiannon now swam in. The people who lived here hadn’t just decided to abandon their home for no good reason.
But it wasn’t a fish, of any form. She knew that when her feet brushed against the same thing again. Those were fingers, the knuckles all hairy. Those fingers were attached to a hand. And that hand grabbed.
Everything happened before Rhiannon’s brain could process the last thing. By the time she made the connection, Ludlow was looming up out of the water in front of her. His eyes, open, were dead and glassy, and they belied no flicker of recognition. If they even saw her, they had forgotten her. A hand clasped around her ankle, and she kicked and cried and wriggled until she thought Ludlow would have to let go. His wrist would be broken if he didn’t.
Then again, did dead men fear broken wrists?
There was a name for creatures like this, the dead come back to life. Shadowburnt. Ordinary people corrupted entirely by the Shadow, condemned to serve on even in death. Shadowburnt were worse than any grimalkins or bilidous or monsters of the sea. If she weren’t careful, Rhiannon might even find herself becoming one of them.
The more she struggled, the tighter Ludlow’s grip got, and suddenly it was Rhiannon’s turn to fear for the structural integrity of her skeleton. Her ankle felt like it might pop off in Ludlow’s hand.
And then she was free, and she kicked to get further free. Her head went below the water, and the pain from the salt seeping into her shoulder made her dizzy, and when at last, frantic, she kicked back to the surface, she couldn’t see any trace of the shore.
There was only black darkness on all sides, ready to swallow her up if she wavered. And she would waver, sooner or later. Her tired muscles would give up and long for sleep, and she’d drift beneath. But that was only if Ludlow didn’t catch her first.
The night was suddenly frigid.
