Wood thumped on either side as oars were readied. Heboric stumbled from the hold hatch, his tattoos glowing like phosphor, his eyes wide as he swung to Gesler. ‘You’ve got your crew, Corporal.’

‘Awake,’ Felisin muttered, stepping away from the main mast.

Kulp saw what she had seen. The severed heads had opened their eyes, swiveling to fix on Gesler as if driven by a single ghastly mechanism.

The corporal seemed to flinch, then he shook it off. ‘Could’ve used one of these when I was a drill sergeant,’ he said with a tight grin.

‘Your drummer’s ready down below,’ Heboric said from where he stood peering down into the rowers’ pit.

‘Forget the sails,’ Stormy said. ‘Rotted through.’

‘Man the steering oar,’ Gesler ordered him. ‘Three pegs to port – we can’t do nothing but run.’ He raised the whistle again and blew a rapid sequence. The drum started booming in time. The oars swung, blades flipping from horizontal to vertical, then dipped down into the sluggish water and pulled.

The ship groaned, crunching through the meniscus of crust that had clung to the hull. The Silanda lurched into motion and slowly eased round until the rapidly approaching storm cloud was directly astern. The oars pushed slimy water with relentless precision.

Gesler looped the whistle’s thong around his neck. ‘Wouldn’t the old Emperor have loved this old lady, Kulp, eh?’

‘Your excitement’s nauseating, Corporal.’

The man barked a laugh.

The twin banks of oars lifted the Silanda into a ramming pace and stayed there. The cadence of the drum was a too swift heartbeat. It reverberated in Kulp’s bones with a resonance that etched his nerves with pain. He did not need to descend into the pit to affirm his vision of that thick-muscled, headless corpse pounding the gourds against the skin, the relentless heave and pull of the rowers, the searing play of Hood-bound sorcery in the stifling atmosphere. His eyes went in search of Gesler, and found him standing at the sterncastle alongside Stormy. These were hard men, harder than he could fathom. They’d taken the grim black humour of the soldier further than he’d thought possible, cold as the sunless core of a glacier. Bloody-minded confidence . . . or fatalism? Never knew Fener’s bristles could be so black.

The mad sorcerer’s storm still gained on them, slower than before, yet an undeniable threat nonetheless. The mage strode to Heboric’s side.

‘Is this your god’s warren?’

The old man scowled. ‘Not my god. Not his warren. Hood knows where in the Abyss we are, and it seems there’s no easy wakening from this nightmare.’

‘You drove the god-touched hand into Stormy’s wound.’

‘Aye. Nothing but chance. Could have as easily been the other one.’

‘What did you feel?’

Heboric shrugged. ‘Something passing through. You’d guessed as much, didn’t you?’

Kulp nodded.

‘Was it Fener himself?’