“You feed on the living,” Pilgrim finished, resuming his seat on the ash. He flexed his fingers against the lingering sting of the demon’s anger before returning his gaze to the dunes and their shadows. He could still feel them out there in the creeping shadows, but cowed by the sword and what lived within it. A once fearsome horde, now just a lingering stain on the site of their destruction. He felt they must have made for an impressive spectacle when they surged across the border intent on conquest.

You said they deserved their fate, the voice reminded him, sensing the pity swelling in his heart. But then, you would know that best of all, would you not, my liege?

He settled onto his side and slid into sleep to the sound of its mocking laughter.

Three

Chapter Three

The Kraken's Grave

T hey cleared the Whispering Sands shortly after noon the next day. The ash dunes gave way first to a few miles of scrubland populated by stunted gorse bushes and tumbleweed, then to marshland that stretched away to east and west with no apparent end. A greyish mist lingered over the bogs and reed beds, Pilgrim noting the absence of any swarming bugs above the still waters.

“This was once the garden of Alnachim,” Priest informed them as he traced a path to the east, eyes scanning the edge of the marsh. “Field after field of wheat and corn, fed by irrigation channels that carried water from canals dug to his design, water blessed by his own hand so that the crops grew tall regardless of the vagaries of the weather. No subject of the Absolved was ever hungry.”

“Up until the moment he killed them,” Seeker muttered. “It must’ve been a comfort to die with a full belly.”

Priest confined his rebuke to a scowl before returning his gaze to the shoreline, eventually coming to a halt at a place where a road of shattered cobbles slipped from dry land into the marsh. Pilgrim saw his hands tremble before he confined them within the folds of his sleeves.

“No shades await us here,” he told the company, speaking in a carefully measured voice, as if worried it might falter. “Here the danger is more…material in nature.”

“Material?” Player enquired, Pilgrim once again sensing the raised eyebrow that accompanied the question.

“The Absolved loved the creatures of the earth as he loved its people,” Priest said. “Gathering together a menagerie for his delight, and the joy of his subjects. When the kingdom fell they lingered, and were…changed.”

“Changed how?” Book asked, now eyeing the misted bogs with deep suspicion.

“All beasts hunger, yet grow sated when fed. The beasts of the Absolved’s menagerie know only hunger, regardless of how much they feed.”

“It would help to know,” Maisha said, breaking the heavy silence that followed, “what manner of beasts we will encounter.”