They could see figures now, crowding the high forecastle. Tall, though not as tall as Karsa, and much leaner.

‘Not human,’ Torvald muttered. ‘Karsa, I do not think they will be friendly. Just a feeling, mind you. Still...’

‘I have seen one of them before,’ the Teblor replied. ‘Half spilled out from the belly of the catfish.’

‘That beach is rolling with the waves, Karsa. It’s flotsam. Must be two, three thousand paces of it. The wreckage of an entire world. As I suspected, this sea doesn’t belong here.’

‘Yet there are ships.’

‘Aye, meaning they don’t belong here, either.’

Karsa shrugged his indifference to that observation. ‘Have you a weapon, Torvald Nom?’

‘A harpoon... and a mallet. You will not try to talk first?’

Karsa said nothing. The twin banks of oars had lifted from the water and now hovered motionless over the waves as the huge ship slid towards them. The oars dipped suddenly, straight down, the water churning as the ship slowed, then came to a stop.

The dory thumped as it made contact with the hull on the port side, just beyond the prow.

A rope ladder snaked down, but Karsa, his sword slung over a shoulder, was already climbing up the hull, there being no shortage of handholds. He reached the forecastle rail and swung himself up and over it. His feet found the deck and he straightened.

A ring of grey-skinned warriors faced him. Taller than lowlanders, but still a head shorter than the Teblor. Curved sabres were scabbarded to their hips, and much of their clothing was made of some kind of hide, short-haired, dark and glistening. Their long brown hair was intricately braided, hanging down to frame angular, multihued eyes. Behind them, down amidships, there was a pile of severed heads, a few lowlander but most similar in features to the grey-skinned warriors, though with skins of black.

Ice rippled up Karsa’s spine as he saw countless eyes among those severed heads shift towards him.

One of the grey-skinned warriors snapped something, his expression as contemptuous as his tone.

Behind Karsa, Torvald reached the railing.

The speaker seemed to be waiting for some sort of response. As the silence stretched, the faces on either side twisted into sneers. The spokesman barked out a command, pointed to the deck.

‘Uh, he wants us to kneel, Karsa,’ Torvald said. ‘I think maybe we should—’

‘I would not kneel when chained,’ Karsa growled. ‘Why would I do so now?’

‘Because I count sixteen of them – and who knows how many more are below. And they’re getting angrier—’

‘Sixteen or sixty,’ Karsa cut in. ‘They know nothing of fighting Teblor.’

‘How can you—’

Karsa saw two warriors shift gauntleted hands towards sword-grips. The bloodsword flashed out, cut a sweeping horizontal slash across the entire half-circle of grey-skinned warriors. Blood sprayed. Bodies reeled, sprawled backward, tumbling over the low railing and down to the mid-deck.

The forecastle was clear apart from Karsa and, a pace behind him, Torvald Nom.