Not replying, Bered set out down the makeshift trail between the boulders. The three named Wardens accompanied him, each picking his own path.

Tulas slipped down from his horse and followed the captain.

Pulling her gaze away, Sharenas stared out upon the Vitr. Its placid mien belied its evident malice. Rising on her stirrups, she scanned the length of shoreline, first to the west, and then to the east. She frowned. ‘There is something there,’ she said, and then pointed. ‘A shadow, half in, half out of the water. No boulder could long survive that.’

One of the Wardens near her, second in rank behind Bered, guided his horse down to the left, out on to the strand. Sharenas glanced back at Bered and the others. They had reached the two carcasses, and Bered, sword sheathed, was pulling loose the saddle from the dead horse. He’d already retrieved Finarra’s weapons and delivered them to one of his Wardens. Tulas stood a few paces back, watching.

Her chest felt tight, much like after a night with the pipe, and she could feel vehemence in the fumes flowing against her exposed skin. Eyes stinging, she set out after the veteran. Joining him on the strand she said, ‘Nothing untoward with the captain. It seems the creature is finally dead. Let us ride to examine our find, and then we can be quit of this place.’

‘The Vitr yields no detritus, Lady Sharenas.’

‘It seems that now it does.’

The observation made him clearly unhappy. Sighing, he nodded. ‘Quickly then, as you say.’

They kicked their mounts into a slow canter. The sharp sands beneath the horses’ hoofs sounded strangely hollow.

Four hundred or so paces ahead, the object casting the shadow looked angular, tilted like a beached ship, but far more massive than any ship Sharenas had seen – although in truth she had only seen ships in illustrations, among Forulkan books and hide paintings, and scale was always dubious in such renderings, so eager were the artists to magnify personages aboard such craft.

From one of the two spars something like sailcloth hung down in torn shrouds. The other spar was broken halfway down its length, tilted with its tip buried in the sand.

But as they drew closer, both riders slowed their mounts.

Not a ship.

The Warden’s voice was weak with disbelief. ‘I thought them tales. Legends.’

‘You imagine Mother Dark succumbed to invention? She walked to the End of Darkness, and stood on a spar surrounded in chaos. And when she called upon that chaos, shapes emerged from the wildness.’

‘Is it dead, do you think? It must be dead.’

Illustrators had attempted to make sense of Mother Dark’s vague descriptions. They had elected to draw inspiration from a winged lizard that had once dwelt in abundance in the Great Blackwood, before the trees in which they nested were all cut down. But such forest denizens were small, not much larger than a month-old hunting hound. They had been called Eleint.