Master Quell and that swampy witch, Precious Thimble, were huddled together at the back, at the barred cellar door, doing Hood knew what. Glanno Tarp was missing-he’d gone with the horses when they went straight and the carriage went left, and Reccanto was pretty sure that the idiot had gone and killed himself bad. Or worse.

As for that corpse, Cartographer, why, the last Ilk had seen of it it was still lashed to a wheel, spinning in a blur as the damned thing spun off its axle and bounded off into the rainy night. Why couldn’t the demons go after it? A damned easier fight-

Repeated blows were turning the door into a shattered wreck, and one of the arms angled down to slash deep gouges across Mappo’s back, making the Trell groan and groaning wasn’t good, since it meant Mappo might just give up trying to hold ’em back and in they’d come, straight for the man hiding under the table. It wasn’t fair. Nothing was fair and what was fair about that, dammit?

He drew out his rapier and clutched the grip in one shaky hand. A lunge from the knees-was such a thing possible? He was about to find out. Oh, yes, he’d skewer one for its troubles, just watch. And if the other two (he was pretty sure there were three of ’em) ripped him up then fine, just fine. A man could only do so much.

Gruntle was shouting something at Mappo, and the Trell bellowed a reply, drawing his legs up under himself as if about to dive to one side-thanks a whole lot, you ogre!-and then all at once Mappo did just that, off to the right, slamming into the legs of the Boles and Faint and taking all three down with him.

An explosion of wood splinters and thrashing arms, clacking fangs, unclean hair and terribly unreasonable expressions, and the three screeching women plunged in.

Two were brought up short pretty fast, as their heads leapt up in gouts of greenish uck and their bodies sprawled in a thrashing mess.

Even as this was happening, the third woman charged straight for Reccanto. He shrieked and executed his lunge from the knees, which naturally wasn’t a lunge at all. More like a fleche, a forward flinging of his upper body, arm and point extended, and as he overbalanced and landed with a bone-creaking thump on the floorboards the rapier’s point snagged on something and the blade bowed alarmingly and so he let go, so that it sprang up, then back down, the pommel” crunching the top of Reccanto’s head, not once, but twice, each time driving his face into the floor, nose crackling in a swirl of stinging tears and bursting into his brain the horrid stench of mouse droppings and greasy dirt-immediately replaced by a whole lot of flowing blood.

It was strangely quiet, and, moaning, Reccanto rolled on to his side and lifted himself up on one elbow.

And found himself staring into the blank, horrible eyes of the woman who’d charged him. The rapier point had driven in between her eyes, straight in, so far that he should be able to see it coming back out from somewhere beneath the back of her skull-but it wasn’t there. Meaning-

‘She broke it!’ he raged, clambering on to his feet. ‘She broke my damned rapier!’

The demonic woman was on her knees, head thrust forward, mouth still stretched open, the weight of her upper body resting on the knocked-over chair that had served as pathetic barricade. The other two, headless, still thrashed on the floor as green goo flowed. Gruntle was studying that ichor where it slathered the broad blades of his cutlasses.

Mappo, the Boles and Faint were slowly regaining their feet.

Sweetest Sufferance, clutching a clay bottle, staggered up to lean against Rec-canto. ‘Too bad about your rapier,’ she said, ‘but damn me, Ilk, that was the neatest fleche I ever did see.’

Reccanto squinted, wiped blood from his streaming nose and lacerated lips, and then grinned. ‘It was, wasn’t it. The timing of a master-’

‘I mean, how could you have guessed she’d trip on one of them rolling heads and go down on her knees skidding like that, straight into your thrust?’

Tripped? Skidded? ‘Yes, well, like I said, I’m a master duellist.’

‘I could kiss you,’ she continued, her breath rank with sour wine, ‘except you went and pissed yourself and there’s limits t’decency, if you know what I mean.’

‘That ain’t piss-we’re all still sopping wet!’

‘But we don’t quite smell the way you do, Ilk.’

Snarling, he lurched away. Damned overly sensitive woman! ‘My rapier,’ he moaned.

‘Shattered inside her skull, I’d wager,’ said Gruntle, ‘which couldn’t have done her brain any good. Nicely done, Reccanto.’

Ilk decided it was time to strut a little.

Whilst Reccanto Ilk walked round like a rooster, Precious Thimble glanced over worriedly at the Boles, and was relieved to see them both apparently unharmed. They hadn’t been paying her enough attention lately and they weren’t paying her any now either. She felt a tremor of unease.

Master Quell was thumping on the cellar door. ‘I know you can hear me,’ he called. ‘You, hiding in there. We got three of ’em-is there more? Three of ’em killed. Is there more?’

Faint was checking her weapons. ‘We got to go and find Glanno,’ she said. ‘Any volunteers?’

Gruntle walked over, pausing to peer out of the doorway. ‘The rain’s letting off-looks as if the storm’s spent. I’ll go wilh you, Faint,’

‘I was asking for volunteers 1 wasn’t volunteering myself.’

‘I’ll go!’ said Amby.

‘I’ll go!’said Jula.

And then they glared at each other, and then grinned as if at some private joke, and a moment later both burst out laughing.

‘What’s so funny?’ Precious Thimble demanded, truly bewildered this time. Have they lost their minds? Assuming they have minds, I mean.

Her harsh query sobered them and both ducked, avoiding her stare.

The cellar door creaked open, drawing everyone’s attention, and a bewhiskered face poked out, eyes wide and rolling. ‘Three, ya said? Ya said three?’

The dialect was Genabackan, the accent south islander.

‘Ya got ah three? Deed?’

Quell nodded. ‘Any more lurking about, host?’

A quick shake of the head, and the tavern keep edged out, flinching when he saw the slaughtered bodies. ‘Oh, darlings,’ he whispered, ‘ahm so soory. So soory!’

‘You know them?’ Quell asked. ‘You know what they were?’

More figures crowded behind the keep, pale faces, frightened eyes. To Quell’s questions the whiskered man flinched. ‘Coarsed,’ he said in a rasp. ‘Our daughters… coarsed.’

‘Cursed? When they come of age, right?’

A jerky nod, and then the man’s eyes widened on the wizard. ‘You know it? You know the coarse?’

‘How long have you had it, host? Here, in this village-how long have you had the curse?’

‘Foor yars now. Foor yars.’ And the man edged out. ‘Aai, their heeds! Ya cart erf their heeds!’ Behind him the others set up a wailing.

Precious Thimble met Quell’s eyes and they exchanged a nod. ‘Still about, I’d say,’ Precious said under her breath.

‘Agreed. Should we go hunting?’

She looked round once more. Mappo was dragging the first naked, headless corpse out through the doorway. The green blood had blackened on the floor and left tarry streaks trailing the body. ‘Let’s take that Trell with us, I think.’

‘Good idea.’ Quell walked up to the tavern keep. ‘Is there a constable in this village? Who rules the land-where in Hood’s name are we anyway?’

Owlish blinks of the eyes. ‘Reach of Woe is war ye are. Seen the toower? It’s war the Provost leeves. Yull wan the Provost, ah expeect.’

Quell turned away, rubbed at his eyes, then edged close to Precious Thimble. ‘We’re agreed, then, it’s witchery, this curse.’

‘Witch or warlock,’ she said, nodding.

‘We’re on the Reach of Woe, a wrecker coast. I’d wager it’s the arrival of strangers that wakes up the daughters-they won’t eat their kin, will they?’