His sword? ‘What do you mean?’

An easy shrug. ‘It is a powerful weapon. Others might have used it to gather riches, power. But nothing like that has even occurred to you, has it?’

Kyle thought about that – the fact was he didn't have the first idea how to go about such things.

‘Then, what about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

The man took a deep breath, scanned the waters. ‘I'm hunting someone, Kyle. Someone determined to avoid me. But eventually I will corner him. Then there will be an accounting long delayed.’

‘Vengeance?’

A sharp glance, softened. ‘Yes. But not just for me, for a great deal. A very great deal.’

An errant wave sent spray across Badlands who howled his shock. Coots laughed uproariously, his mouth full. A smile touched Traveller's features, though it appeared to Kyle to be the wintry, distant smile of an adult watching the amusing antics of children. Or… what was that word he'd overheard the Guardsmen using when discussing the leader of the race they called the Andii? And the Magus? An Ascendant.

‘Well, perhaps we can help?’

Traveller looked to him, his smile holding. ‘Thank you, Kyle. But no. This is something I have sworn to do. I must pursue it in my own way.’

‘Well, if that is as it must be.’ He rose to go.

‘Kyle?’ Traveller called after him.

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you. And… I'm very sorry. I know you were very fond of him.’

‘Yes. I'm sure you were too.’ Kyle turned away and his eyes met those of Jan, watching from the stern, who looked away, back out over the water, as was his habit.

The next morning Kyle awoke to find Stalker at the tiller, standing, peering ahead, and at the bow Traveller standing as well. ‘What is it?’ he asked Coots. The man was tending the small cooking fire in a metal bowl, cutting up the roots they boiled for a starchy stew. He gave an unconcerned shrug.

‘Some kind of storm ahead.’

At the stern he caught the eye of Stalker, who gestured forward. A dark bruising of clouds darkened the sky. ‘Can we go around?’

The scout merely arched one dusty blond brow. ‘This is my third course correction since dawn. Each time – there it is.’ To one side Jan lay curled up in blankets. Kyle considered questioning him but decided against it; if Stalker or Traveller wanted to, they could do it.

‘What does Traveller say?’

‘He said to stop trying to go around. Just head on north-east.’

Kyle went to the bow. Traveller's gaze was fixed ahead. He was wearing his armour coat beneath his leathers and his sword belted at his side. A sizzling anger rode his taut shoulders and stare. ‘What is it?’

‘Someone's interfering. Someone who should know better than to get in my way.’

‘Who?’

The man looked about to answer but stopped himself, shaking his head. ‘Never mind. Just keep your eyes sharp.’

‘What should we do?’

‘Do? Eat, check your weapons.’

Coots prepared a meal of boiled mush with fish and mouldy old bread. The Lost brothers busied themselves testing the edges of the multitude of blades each carried at belts, vests and boots. Jan had no weapon at all that Kyle could see so he fished around to come up with an old long-knife that he never used and offered it to the man. Jan looked up, surprised and pleased. Then his gaze slid aside and Kyle followed it to find Traveller watching, his face held rigid, unreadable. Jan pushed the weapon through his belt.

The edge of the unnatural cloudbank drew close. The sea curving around its front held its normal swell and trough of tall smooth waves touched by the thinnest of spume at their crests. Beneath the clouds, under the gathering dark of thick shadow, the sea appeared calm, the wind diminished. Traveller turned from the prow. ‘Get down. Secure yourselves. Tie the rudder.’ Stalker roped the rudder's long arm. The brothers twined their arms in taut ropes. Kyle found a secured rope and pushed an arm through. Jan sat against the ship's side, his legs out. Eerily silent, the tall looming wall of darkness rose above them like a cliff, severing the light. The Kite was engulfed.

Loss of headway was immediate. Kyle was thrown forward. Equipment and stores shifted, tumbling. The Kite groaned, planks creaking, the sail flapping loose. Waves surged around them, flooding the freeboard. In the disorienting diffuse light everything seemed flat and distant, colourless. Traveller was shouting something from the prow but his words sounded strange, distorted. Kyle was punched forward once more. Stores crashed over the brothers who roared their anger. The grinding of the keel and planking announced the Kite scraping up on a shore where no shore should be. A savage blow stunned Kyle.

After a time his vision cleared – he'd been disoriented for a moment. Blinking, he stood, steadying himself. A dark plain of mud stretched into the distance to an even darker treeline. Behind them, a sullen sheet of water as flat as black glass but for the wake of their passage. Overhead, dull sky the colour of slate. ‘Cheerful place,’ Jan observed, rubbing his shoulder.

Coots erupted from a pile of stores, cursing, a hand pressed to one eye. Badlands laughed uproariously. Stalker rubbed his hip. Traveller was examining the planking at the prow. ‘Damaged?’ Stalker called to him.

‘Can't say. We're stranded in any case.’

‘Travellers! Greetings!’ someone called in Talian from the distance. Kyle peeked over the side. A man was standing in the muck. A great thatch of black hair framed a long pale face. His robes hung down in the mud and he was either very short or sunk in the slime.

Traveller vaulted the gunnel to land before the fellow only to promptly sink past the shins of his boots. Regardless, he managed to grasp hold of the front of the fellow's robes and twist a grip. The man flailed at Traveller's arm, the long loose cloth of his sleeves – long enough to hang in the mud – slapping wetly.

‘Take us to the scheming rat,’ Traveller snarled. ‘He's finally earned a few choice words from me.’

‘Yes!’ the man squawked. ‘That is, no. No screeching bats here. They're in the woods.’

Startled, Traveller released the fellow, who straightened his robes, smearing mud all over his front. ‘I am come to deliver you to my master, Shadowthrone. You are blessed by his condescension.’

‘Who are you?’ Traveller asked.

‘Whorou?’ the man said, squinting. ‘Damned awkward name. Common enough though, isn't it?’ He stuck out a muddy hand. ‘Hethe.’

Traveller did not raise his. After a time the fellow lowered his, wiped it on his smeared robes. ‘Yes, well. We must be off! Come!’ The fellow waddled away, his robes dragging behind, curls of green-brown mud falling from its trailing edges. After a few paces he turned, beckoning. ‘Come, come!’

‘Aw, for the Lady Thief's sake,’ Coots grumbled. He collected a few stores and skins of water, and lowered himself from the side. His sandalled feet sank entirely beneath the quivering gelid surface. He shivered, gasping. ‘Damn, that's cold!’

The rest followed, dropping one by one into the muck then labouring on after Traveller and their guide. Soon Kyle was almost short of breath as each foot became encased in a leaden weight of clinging mud. Stalker and Badlands had drawn knives and were shaving the layers from their feet and flicking it away. The stink was ripe with the fetid reek of decomposing sea creatures. Kyle had to turn his face away when he reached down to shave off the mud.

‘Damned undignified, hey?’ Badlands said to his brother, and Traveller turned sharply at that, his gaze narrowing, only to snort as if at some joke known only to himself, and set off again slowly shaking his head. The brothers exchanged mystified looks.

Ahead, the mudflats yielded to a climbing strand of black gravel. To the left stretched a dark forest of tangled grey underbrush and squat trees. Their guide was leading them to the right where the shore climbed to eroded hillocks thatched in thick tangled grasses. Kyle wondered if he was falling behind. Either that, or their guide was sinking further and further into the mud, or getting shorter. Most of his robes now trailed him in a long train and his sleeves dragged as well. Stalker and Kyle exchanged uncertain looks.