‘Dartun.’ Verain trudged towards him through the thick snow, her arms elegantly extended to each side as she navigated cautiously.

Her eyes shone with excitement. ‘We’ve found two hunters from the Aes tribe just up the way.’ She gestured towards the shoreline. ‘I think they can give news of why this island is deserted, although so far we can’t quite understand one another.’

Dartun took her gloved hands in his. ‘Thank you for telling me.’ He reached for the communication relic, held it beneath his cloak.

She smiled. She may have begun to feel a faint pity for his eccentricities.

Slipping now and then, Verain led him down a bank of snow, and he was forced to clutch thick clumps of ulex for stability. He could see Todi and Tuung still in conversation with the two tribesmen. The natives were dressed in furs. They both carried bows and hunting knives. Their faces were broad and tanned from a life in the sun and snow.

‘Greetings, warriors,’ Dartun addressed them in Sula, the common language of the Aes. ‘The weather has turned for the worse, has it not?’

‘You speak our language, magician,’ the taller man said. They had to be brothers. Dartun could barely tell them apart, but for the high cheekbones of the shorter man. ‘That is surprising.’

‘I’ve used my long life sensibly,’ Dartun replied. ‘So, what news is there on this island?’

The tall tribesman regarded the other, whilst the shorter one nodded imperceptibly, indicating it was him who was the thinker of the two. An icy wind whipped by them suddenly, and both warriors tilted their heads slightly as if to listen for the sounds of the wild.

They’re dressed to hunt – or be hunted… Which?

‘Creatures now stalk this island, magician. They are not natural to any animal group we know of.’

Dartun wondered for a moment if any of his undead could have escaped and strayed this far north, without being directed by his sect. But surely that was impossible. ‘Creatures?’ he queried.

‘That is why we’ve travelled here. Because our people have sent us to keep watch over things, according to the directions of shell readings.’

‘Watch over what exactly? Is this why there’s no one around?’

The tribesman nodded. ‘No one is around because of the creatures. They have snatched the people out of the cities and villages.’

‘What creatures?’ Dartun demanded, growing impatient with the limited vocabulary of Sula.

‘I am not sure if they have a name,’ the hunter responded. ‘They are like creatures of the sea, yet they walk on the land. They are like nothing I can precisely describe.’

Bipedal? ‘They walk upright?’ Dartun marched two fingers across the palm of his other hand. ‘On two legs? But they come from the sea?’

‘Yes, they walk like you and I do, but they have a shell like a lobster – or a crab perhaps I should say. A dark red shell the colour of the dying sun. This makes it difficult for our arrows because they cannot pierce the shell. We have tried to hunt some down, or rather other hunters of our people tried. Our folk were killed very quickly.’

Dartun was amazed at these accounts. ‘Are any of them still around?’

‘It is possible.’ Both men shrugged. ‘They’re too difficult to catch. They have killed so many.’

‘How many?’ Dartun was eager for more as he’d never read of such a creature in any of the Archipelago’s bestiaries. He felt both excitement and a threat, and this sort of thing appealed to his essential nature.

‘Nearly everyone on the island,’ the short man said casually, his voice as calm as if he was describing the weather.

‘Everyone?’ Dartun whispered. ‘But there must be hundreds of thousands on Tineag’l. Surely they can’t all have been killed?’

The tall tribesman grunted a laugh. ‘Tell me, how many people have you seen since you arrived here?’

Dartun saw the truth of what he said, and the concept sickened him, yet there was still some base, primitive reaction that excited him. Such was his constant thirst for knowledge and understanding. A new, unknown race was a sensational piece of information. ‘Please, could you tell me more about these creatures?’

‘We have told you all there is. We are sorry, magician.’ The two of them then headed back to their horses with that same annoying calmness. One added casually, ‘There have been great problems for us with the coming ice.’

Ice. That word again – changing the fabric of the world, changing people’s lives, their homes, their thoughts, bringing an unsettling texture of uncertainty about whether things would ever be the same again.

Ice. That was the reason he was now able to head for the Realm Gates since sheets of it had formed artificial land where previously maps had indicated only water. Could that bridge have allowed a new race to enter the Archipelago? Could these creatures have exited through the same gates that he was hoping to enter?

Dartun regarded his fellow cultists, who had soon lost interest in a conversation where they could understand little or nothing. The three of them were shuffling around idly in the snow, kicking up small mounds with their boots.

Todi noticed him watching them. ‘What’s up, Godhi? What did they say?’

Dartun rubbed his forehead as if to stir himself to some new state of alertness. ‘To be precise, they said that there’s some pretty major shit going on.’

Verain approached, took Dartun’s arm. ‘Should we be worried?’

Dartun explained what he had learned so far, whilst the other three simply stared at him as if he was demented.

Dartun summarized. ‘There has been genocide. The island has been cleansed.’

Their moods darkened considerably.

‘Come,’ Dartun announced, heading towards the dog pack. ‘A little research is perhaps in order.’

Dogs dragged the four cultists skidding along by sled into the nearest township that hadn’t suffered too much from incursions of snow. Settlements located on particularly exposed slopes had been, without their human population, covered completely. Villages had become corpses. Dartun had halted the dogs more than once, thinking that they should have reached a town clearly marked on his maps. He laughed morosely when he realized it was under snow.

Eventually they came to a settlement sheltered under a titanic outcrop of sedimentary rock. Dartun believed the place was called Bronjek, but it now bore little resemblance to the bustling town he had once heard of. The main street was little more than a muddy track, trodden by a thousand pairs of feet and rutted wheels and dog sleds, between wood and metal shacks that appeared to lean against one another for support. Thick shutters obscured most of the windows, but a few of these were open – despite the freezing cold – and that was the first indication something wasn’t as it should be.

The sign on a tavern said ‘Open’, but there was no one to enjoy its hospitality, no hospitality to enjoy, this once-busy street now a ghost of its former self.

There were dark smears across walls, and the odour of urine, something internal now exposed. Blended with the mud, it caused the town to smell like a macabre farmyard. A careful look would discern arcs of blood splattering wooden and metal panels of shacks. Whatever had caused this had visited the place quite recently. The sheer silence and absence of life in the latticework of streets engendered a sinister sensation. There seemed a thousand possible hiding places for those who had butchered this entire community.

Dartun dumped his heavier furs back on the sled in case he had to move quickly, then resumed the investigation. Soon he thought he could hear something. ‘Stay together,’ he urged to the others, and they huddled together like children, clutching various relics that could kill a man in an instant.