'But the things in the water ...'

'We're quite close to sh.o.r.e,' she said uncertainly. 'Quite.'

'Just don't forget I can't hold my breath as long as you,' Bon said.

Leki kept her eyes on him as she dropped her trousers, and in one fluid motion lifted the jacket up and over her shoulders, leaving only her undergarments. He tried not to, but he could not help glancing at her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her flat stomach. His sudden thrill of desire was so out of place that he chuckled.

'Welcome to Skythe,' the lead guard said, and Bon felt a meaty hand strike him between the shoulders.

They fell towards the angry Forsaken Sea, and as he struck the surface he squeezed Leki's hand. The water closed over his head, flooding his mouth and nose and ears, stinging his eyes, the cold s.n.a.t.c.hing his breath away, and he thought of all the stories he had heard of this dreaded ocean. None of them were good, and most involved biting things.

Leki's fingers were long and tight, seeming to envelop his hand entirely, and when Bon opened his eyes she was a pale blur beside him. Above, poor light lit the sea's violent surface, and below and around him clouds of sand and sediment swirled to the sea's pulse. He breathed out gently through his nose, and the bubbles seemed to fall rather than rise. He gasped more bubbles of surprise, then saw that down was up, and the faint light was actually splayed across the ocean's uneven bed. Thousands of fish sparkled with throbbing light, creating a display that was both beautiful and hypnotic.

Leki tugged at his hand and started swimming for sh.o.r.e. Bon kicked, trying to help, but it was her own sinuous movements a body flexing, feet kicking, spare hand sweeping water behind her a that powered them through the water.

Bon started to struggle. His vision darkened, and Leki lifted them up to break the surface. The sudden roar and violence of the sea was shocking, and people shouted for help, and behind it all there was a voice calling- Leki took him down and started swimming again.

A shape waved through the sea towards them. It was a silhouette with fine fins, twisting like a snake and always seeming to dance just out of Bon's view. It might have been as long as his hand or the length of the ship, and then he felt a dull stab on his ankle and the thing was flitting away again.

Leki paused and turned before him, floating effortlessly in the water. She leaned forward and touched his leg, and then Bon noticed the cloud of blood pulsing from the bite. Like shadows cast by the spreading cloud, more snake-creatures were arcing in towards him.

Leki flicked out a hand and caught a creature, and even as it whipped itself around her hand, head thrashing and pale teeth exposed, she bit it in half and shook its spasming parts away from her. She let go of Bon and pushed him back from her, s.n.a.t.c.hing at shapes as silent waves broke above their heads. She kicked as well, each movement shifting her in the water so that she performed a graceful dance as she fought the biting things.

Bon let himself rise, needing to breathe again. Through his blurred vision he could see the roaring waves smashing overhead, carrying vague shapes that might or might not have been his fellow prisoners. And just for a moment he held back, not wishing to subject himself to the violence up there again.

But then Leki was with him once more, grasping his belt and hauling him after her as she surfaced.

Bon gasped in several deep breaths. They were closer to the rocky beach than the ship now, and the vessel was already making sail. A wave smashed over them, Bon spluttered and spat water from his mouth, and a body was rolled past them in the sea's embrace. It was a woman, her dark flowing hair mimicking the blood staining the water around her. Her body was battered, head caved in from some impact. And there were bites.

Leki pulled him down again. As they dived, Bon caught one last glimpse of the waves breaking onto the rocky sh.o.r.e, and the beach beyond. There were prisoners in the waves, some clambering across the rocks towards the beach, a few seemingly as looselimbed as the dead woman. One of them reached sh.o.r.e and staggered up the beach, pa.s.sing the two large, dark shapes seeming to stand guard. They were human-shaped, but something about the way they stood was very wrong. They held long objects, and at the feet of one lay a huddled form. As seawater stole Bon's vision again, he was certain he saw blood darkening the pale sand.

'Bon-' a voice seemed to call, and then Bon's hearing was taken also.

Leki dragged him down and swam again, hauling him against the surge and pull of the undertow. Bon's eyes must have become more used to the salt.w.a.ter a either that or the light here was different, the water kept clear by back-surge from the land a because he could make out more detail. Seaweed waved feathery fronds, some of them twice his height, and forms scampered within shadows. Corals rose from the seabed in elaborate shapes, beautiful echoes of history building upon the dead past and reaching towards unknown futures. Bon had a sudden, overpowering urge to search for evidence of the Skythian War buried deep; perhaps the remnants of an Engine, a mythical tool used by the Ald to conjure magic. Larger creatures haunted the extremes of his vision a swimming, floating, scampering, crawling. One of them rolled across the seabed, and then he recognised the priest, limbs flailing to the sea's urges as his sodden robe and boots held him down, drowned. As Leki took Bon upwards once again, he saw more of those shadowy snake shapes darting in to bite the priest's pale skin. Easy pickings.

They broke surface, and someone shouted almost in his ear.

'-Ugane! Bon Ugane! Does anyone know-?'

'Here!' Bon shouted. Leki glared at him, a transparent film pa.s.sing across her wide eyes. A wave shoved them forward and broke over them, and Leki's hand slipped from his grasp. Bon panicked for a moment as the sea drove him down, and when something grabbed his leg and pulled he kicked out, mouth opening and bubbles rushing past his chest and stomach for the surface.

He breathed in air again and Leki pulled him close. For the first time he saw a flicker of panic in her eyes, and glancing back he saw the looming rocks. Waves smashed across them, and a dead man had been forced into a creva.s.se by the water. He was facing in, but would never see land.

'There he is. Come on!' Leki said, and she kicked against the draw of the tide.

'Where?'

'Bon Ugane!' a voice called again, and then Bon saw the boat riding the waves a few lengths back out to sea. With three great kicks Leki pulled them there, and Bon squeezed his eyes closed against the next wave. Once it had pa.s.sed over them, Leki grabbed him beneath the arms and lifted. Her strength was immense. He rose from the sea as if he were kicking against rock, and the man in the boat dropped oars and reached for him. He clasped Bon by his torn shirt and fell back into the boat.

Bon landed hard atop the man, and the man gasped, winded. The cigar he'd been smoking fell from his mouth and rolled across his shoulder, leaving a trail of sparkling, smoking tobacco that held Bon's bemused attention.

'Up and off me, for the Fade's f.u.c.king sake!' the man said, galvanising Bon into motion. He rolled off and sat up, reaching over the side of the boat for Leki. But she did not need his help. She kicked herself aboard, lifting into the boat with minimal effort, and then she crouched down and stared at the boatman. Water beaded and dripped from her skin, and a tracework of fine bites bled across her left shoulder.

'No need to stare at me like that, water lady,' the man said. He took up his oars and started rowing, cigar clamped firmly between his teeth once more. The smoke seemed to dance around his head in defiance of the strong sea breeze. 'I'm no harm, and if I was I'd have not hauled you from the sea, and if you are going to attack me can you do it now instead of later when I've saved your skins, save me the effort, save us all the effort.' He glanced Leki up and down. 'Nice teats. There's a coat behind you if you want to cover yourself.' Still rowing, he looked ash.o.r.e, past the cruel rocks at the relatively calm beach. 'You should see what I'm seeing, then we'll talk.' He spoke quieter now, and Bon turned to see.

Though the boat rocked and the sea spray obscured his view, the violence taking place on the beach was obvious. One of the tall, heavy shapes held a naked prisoner with one huge hand, and with the other it was gutting the man, hacking at his torso with a knife, sawing, then slashing at the guts as they spilled to the sand. The man must have been screaming a must have a but the sea stole his voice. Once the man's guts stopped spooling from the wound across his stomach, the long-haired guard moved the knife up to his throat, transferring its grip to its victim's hair. The man's arms waved feebly as the guard slashed at his neck, and as his body fell away from his severed head, hands seemed to clasp at the air to hold himself upright.

Bon turned away and leaned forward, trying not to puke.

'Slayers get certain names, the names get executed,' the man said.

'Saves the Ald b.l.o.o.d.ying their hands on Alderia,' Leki said.

'Oh, the Ald's hands are bloodied,' the man said. He had never stopped rowing, but he turned now to look down at Bon. 'You going to puke in my boat?'

'You were calling my name,' Bon said.

'Your name,' the man said. He turned and put more effort into rowing, and Bon saw big muscles flexing beneath the loose clothing. His hat was made of some red-furred creature. He wore three white metal rings on each thumb. Rough and refined a his voice holding a taint of both a the man was an enigma.

'The slayers were ready to kill Bon?' Leki said.

'They were.' The man still rowed hard, glancing back only to steer their way. 'Still are. This is where you two need to trust me.' He glanced across at the beach. The second slayer was keeping pace with them, staring through the spray, and its long spear was now held across its shoulder.

'Why would they want to-?' Bon asked, and then the man dropped his oars.

'Into the water,' he said.

Something on the beach flashed, and a roar louder than the sea swallowed Bon's voice when he screamed. Leki grabbed his hand, the boat tipped, and they were sinking once again.

Maybe this will be the one, Juda thought as he pulled himself down the anch.o.r.ed rope, hand over hand, towards the cave mouth. But even if Bon Ugane wasn't the one, this would be the last time he ever used this route past the slayers. They weren't stupid, and they might have seen him disappearing out here before.

Juda couldn't afford to be clumsy. He was too close for that. To come all this way, wait all this time, to have it undone by clumsiness would be ...

Idiot, he tried to say, but the sea rushed into his mouth and he gagged, coughing and spluttering as he pulled himself towards the underwater cave.

He had to a.s.sume the man and woman were following. Once the slayer had started shooting at them with its pike, there was no way he'd have stayed in the boat, sitting there and waiting to be fried by sh.e.l.lspot poison. He had pulled them out of the water, and only hoped they'd had the sense to go back in, especially after seeing what had happened on the beach. The man a Bon Ugane, the one marked for death a had seemed sickened by that. The amphy accompanying him hadn't. She must have already witnessed some bad things in her life, and Juda wondered whether it was something that would be of interest to him, and his quest. As he pulled himself through the tunnel and up towards the light, he was already thinking that he might have struck it lucky.

Juda crawled quickly from the water and scanned the small cave. It was empty and, for now, safe. The oil lamp he'd lit the previous night still burned, and the food and drink he'd stored was undisturbed. He'd worried that sea things might have come in during the night and eaten it, as had happened before. But fate had smiled upon him.

He picked up the small pistol beside the oil lamp, checked that the steam valve still showed full, and turned around to face the splashing pair.

The amphy came first, pulling Bon Ugane. Her eyes flickered with the clear film that protected them whilst swimming, and it cast a strange reflection from the oil lamp. She took everything in with a glance and stopped, up to her waist in water. The coat she'd tied on at his invitation drooped heavily. Behind her, Ugane wiped water from his eyes and gasped in several deep breaths. Then he saw what Juda was holding and froze.

'Oh, that's nice,' Ugane said.

'Two of us, one shot,' the amphy said.

Juda shook his head, laughing softly. 'The last thing I want right now is to shoot either of you, believe me. But on Skythe, the last thing you want is usually just around the corner.' He waved the pistol slightly, indicating that they should emerge from the water. It brought them close to him a close enough to make a move for the weapon, if they so desired a but Juda thought it inspired trust. And he knew how cold the water was.

'So,' the amphy said.

'So,' Juda said. 'I know Bon Ugane, but what's your name?'

'Lechmy Borle.'

'And I'm Juda.'

'Why rescue us to point a pistol at us?' Bon asked, and Juda could see from his expression that he hadn't seen many guns. Eyes wide, Bon had the face of the eternally curious.

'For all the f.u.c.king Fade G.o.ds, can I just sit down?' Lechmy Borle asked.

Juda smiled. 'You don't look tired.' He looked her up and down. She was strong and wiry like most amphys, wide chest, webbed feet and hands. He'd always found amphy women incredibly attractive, and this one was no exception.

'I'm good at hiding it.' Without his permission she sat, leaning back against the wall and groaning softly.

'So you're our welcome to Skythe?' Bon asked. He went slowly to his knees, sighing as his joints clicked. Not used to exercise, Juda thought. That would have to change if he wanted to stay alive.

'Your unofficial welcome,' Juda said. He nodded up at the cave's ceiling. 'And better than the alternative. I don't have the strength or inclination to gut you both. So what are you here for, Bon Ugane and Lechmy Borle?'

'Sedition,' Bon said.

'Call me Leki. And yes, me too.' Juda noticed Bon glancing at the woman. Perhaps it was his first time hearing why she was being deported. 'Shoot us now if you have to,' Leki continued. 'And if you don't have to, are you going to share that food?'

Juda hesitated for only a moment before lowering the pistol. He unscrewed the steam valve and pocketed it, then dropped the weapon into the bag he'd left there the previous night. He'd only once had to use it in this place, and that was something he did not like to remember.

He plucked a metal case from his jacket's inner pocket, opened it, took out a cigar, and lit it from the oil lamp. Inhaling the smoke, he felt his blood absorbing the drug and smoothing it through his body, and the pressures of darkness receding for a time. But soon even the scamp smoke would not keep his familiar nightmares at bay.

'What are those things on the beach?' Bon asked. 'And why were you calling my name?'

Juda reached over for the food, keeping his head down. The cave was small, and often flooded during high tides or when the Forsaken Sea developed one of its irregular surges. With the three of them inside, it already felt crowded.

'There are plenty of questions,' Juda said. 'But now isn't the time. If you're hungry, eat. If you're thirsty, drink. Scratch your a.r.s.es if you have to. Then we have to leave.'

'Back through there?' Bon said, nodding at the dark water.

'Trust me,' Juda said.

Bon glanced at the bag containing the pistol. Leki raised an eyebrow.

'The slayers were waiting for you,' Juda said.

'Slayers. Nice name,' Bon said.

'Sums them up. And if I hadn't been here today, you'd have met the same fate as the man you saw on the beach.'

'That wasn't just an execution,' Leki said.

'Of course not. It was fun. The slayers are bred violent, have been for decades. The Spike nurture them to serve the Ald. Big, mindless things, they like killing, and that's why they're here.' He handed a small loaf of bread and a chunk of meat to each of them, but took none for himself. Juda had been on Skythe long enough to know how to eat well.

He closed his eyes as they chewed, the clicking of their teeth and their grateful gulping echoing around the small cave. He tried to remember the way up out of the cave, following the route through memory, and frowned as one junction gave him multiple opportunities. Each dark tunnel mouth a wide, narrow, low, or high up on the uneven cave wall a offered nothing familiar. He'd been this way ten times before, in and out, but that part of the tunnels ...

'What is it?' Leki asked. Juda opened his eyes and saw his hands raised before his face, trying to feel this way or that.

'Nothing,' he said. 'Stretching.' But he saw the glance between Leki and Bon, and knew that they would be on their guard.

That was fine. He didn't yet mean them any harm.

'We should go,' he said. 'Once a slayer has a name, they won't rest until they've spilled its owner's guts.'

'Great,' Bon said, spitting breadcrumbs.

'You'll be safe with me,' Juda said.

'Great.' Bon took another mouthful of bread.

Juda picked up the oil lamp and turned towards the rear of the cave. Now he only had to hope that the slayers had not discovered the cave entrance. If they met one in these tunnels ...

'Hurry,' he said. 'Shake your bits and get a f.u.c.king move on. I've been awake since dawn.'

'And what does that mean?' Leki asked, behind him.

You don't want to know, Juda thought. But he said nothing, and as he crawled into the first of the low tunnels leading inland, he heard Bon and Leki scrambling to keep up.

Chapter 2.

shards Sometimes, Milian Mu opens her eyes. Nothing is revealed in the endless darkness, but the action inspires an awareness that is otherwise absent or confused. As part of this awareness, she can sense the incredible time that has pa.s.sed a centuries, perhaps a and feel the weight of rock encasing her in a womb-like cave. With her eyes open, she feels more there than she has been for a long, long time.

But that barely-there existence is preferable to the memories.

Those ancient, terrible memories ...

As Milian sprinted downhill towards the collection of angular stone buildings, a hail of rockbill feathers came at her from the shattered windows to the left of the main entrance. They whistled as they twisted through the air, flights slicked with oil to give them direction, tips glinting with the poison ever-present in their quills. She roared, the air before her blasting with an intense heat haze, and the poisonous feathers a a favoured weapon of the military of her homeland of Skythe a were diverted left and right, or snapped and shredded before her as they fell to the blood-muddied ground. There they merged with a mess of bodies and insides that still steamed in the morning sun. Not everyone had made it to cover, and Milian splashed through the gory mess.

She had been running since early evening, when the strange explosion had rippled across the landscape and freed her from the weak thing she had been. She'd felt the thing worming into her, a terrible intrusion, and for an instant she had been terrified. Daemon within me, I feel its heat, I taste its fury! Then the presence had surged to the fore. It had become her, shredding all but her most basic perceptions and memories. Milian Mu a the holy woman, the wife, the mother a had become a thing meant only for killing.

She dripped with fresh blood, and crackled with blood already dried. Some of it was hers. Her fingernails were torn away, fingers slashed, hands clawed, and there were several deep gashes across her palms where some had tried defending themselves. None of them had succeeded. She and the many others like her killed them all, and seeing herself reflected in her victims' eyes a a similar face, the same pale skin a did nothing to lessen her viciousness.

Milian ran through the next hail of rockbill feathers and knocked some aside, others slipping past her as though the air around her had curved, steering them away. She heard the cries and smelled the fear of those inside, and that drew her on like a fly to raw meat. Inside, a heavy sword swung at her from shadows to the left of the entrance. The weapon was wielded by a tall, terrified man. She grabbed and broke both, merging them together in a wet sculpture of metal and flesh. A flurry of movement in the shadows, a startling illumination, and three burning hay bales came at her. She kicked them back where they had come from, and the stench of burning hair filled the farmhouse.

'Aeon save us, Aeon help us!' someone pleaded to Skythe's known and loving G.o.d, and though Milian could hear the words she did not know them. Her mind was fried and detached. She ran through the smoke and flames and stomped on the burning woman, crushing her skull, taking pleasure from killing the wretch beneath her feet rather than from putting her out of her misery.