As if everyone had merely walked away … or been taken.

He shook his head to clear it of such fancies. This was no ghost ship. He and Whellen were here. He returned to the stern and the narrow companionway. Here he found the door to the stores closed and barred. He banged upon it.

‘Open up, damn you! This is Burl! The captain! I order you to open up!’

He waited, but no one answered. He raised his fist once more but froze as he sensed someone there, listening, perhaps pressed up against their side of the door. ‘Who’s there?’ he murmured, lowering his voice. ‘Who is it? Gaff? Are you there?’

Something shifted behind the door, cloth brushing against wood. ‘Gaff is gone,’ came a strangled whisper.

‘Gone? Gone where?’

After a long silence he thought he heard a gasped, ‘Taken.’

‘Taken? By who, man? Who? Answer me!’ He waited, listening. Only his harsh breathing sounded in the companionway, that and the weak creaking of the timbers as the vessel coasted onward over the still waters. ‘Who?’

A voice, speaking perhaps through choking misery, sobbed: ‘Maybe you!’ The sobbing climbed into abject weeping and someone slid down the boards of the door.

Burl flinched away as if the man’s fit were somehow contagious.

He climbed to the deck, perhaps hoping for open clean air, but he was not refreshed. The atmosphere was chill and dead. His breath plumed about him in a cloud. On a hunch, he started up the rigging for the crow’s nest. When he was halfway up the head reappeared above and a voice called, high and strangled: ‘I’ll jump! I swear! Come no closer!’

Burl was angry at himself for not being able to identify the crewman, so choked with terror was the voice. Was it Juth? Or maybe Bolen? ‘That you, Bolen?’ he called.

‘Stop or I’ll jump!’ the voice shrieked.

Burl halted. He raised a hand. ‘All right! I’m stopping. What is it? What’s stalking the crew?’

The man was weeping. ‘I don’t know! Could be anyone!’ The head ducked from sight. ‘So keep away!’

Burl cursed under his breath. Anyone? And why? What’s to gain? A lone person can’t possibly sail a damned ship. It didn’t make any sense.

He started back down the rigging. On the deck a suspicion took him and he ducked into the cabin: Whellen still lay within. He went to the galley and collected a handful of dried biscuits then returned to the cabin, shut the door, adjusted the chair once more to face the entrance and sat, sword across his lap.

He chewed on a biscuit and waited for whatever was stalking the crew to come for him.

Some time later, he jerked awake at a noise – or at least he thought he heard a noise. He thought it sounded like a splash. He straightened on numb stiff legs and reached for the latch. Then he remembered something and stopped to look: Whellen still lay beneath his blanket. Hoar frost gleamed on the coarse wool weave. Burl clenched and unclenched his hands to warm them, then pulled open the door. The iron latch was so cold it burned his fingers.