With exaggerated care because his hands were numbed with cold and shrivelled by salt spray, he worked the combination lock and lifted the lid. Unrolling the now-wet fleece packing, he assembled his zephyrscope and arktant.

Bringing the rubber eyepiece to his eye, he trained it on the ­twinkling dot of Sigendil. The night sky might vary from realm to realm, and even within a realm, and with the movements of Ulgu-Hysh within the aetheric cloud, but the beacon star of Azyr was a fixed point in every sky. With one eye on the High Star, he manipulated the sliders on his arktant to account for the position of the local constellations.

‘Can you hold this thing steady?’

‘Ha!’ Tharril barked, rowing.

‘Bokak,’ Jonsson swore, as a sideswipe wave spoiled his measurements.

‘What are you doing?’ Thalia asked.

‘Taking a position, girl.’

‘Why?’

‘Because!’

‘I thought Kharadron lived in the sky.’

Jonsson sighed. ‘Aye, girl, we do, seeking our fortunes on the aether winds.’ He leant across the open chest and winked. ‘But every now and again, some careless soul drops something.’

‘You are looking for treasure?’

‘It won’t look for itself.’

The girl sniffed, with the iron rectitude of the very small. ‘No one takes from the sea.’

‘Good. It’ll still be there then.’

‘No one takes from the sea.’

‘What about these?’ Jonsson nodded towards the nets and buckets full of splashing fish.

‘That’s what the sea gives.’

Her deathly earnestness brought a snippet of a smile to Jonsson’s face. ‘A sour face like that aboard an aether-ship is almost always a sign of something trapped in the ear. Very serious if left untended.’ He reached out as though to tug on her ear, but then pulled his hand back with a flourish at the last moment, presenting her with a copper comet and a toothy grin.

She frowned.

‘Hah!’ said Jonsson, slapping his thigh. ‘Would you see that? Somebody raised this girl right.’ He passed one hand over the other, the copper coin disappearing. Then he unfurled the palm of the crossed hand to reveal a larger, golden coin. The girl’s eyes lit up, as if in reflection. ‘A quarter-share, from the aether mints of Barak-Thryng, girl. Legal tender under any of the six great admiralties.’

‘Take the coin, spratling,’ grunted Tharril. ‘Afore he makes it disappear again.’

Jonsson winked as the girl scraped it off his palm.

‘What’s that?’ she said.

Jonsson followed her gaze down.

‘Now that,’ he said, patting the hard object that lay safe beneath the second layer of fleecing, ‘is something that will really amaze you.’

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A Black Library Publication

A Black Library Publication

This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by François Coutu.