Swearing, the Daru began gathering foodstuffs and watercasks to load into their dory below. Karsa completed one last circuit of the decks, examining the weapons and armour he had pulled from the grey-skinned bodies. He found the rack of harpoons and gathered the six that remained.

The downpour thickened, creating murky, impenetrable walls on all sides of the ship. Slipping in the deepening muck, Karsa and Torvald quickly resupplied the dory, then pushed out from the ship’s hull, the Teblor at the oars. Within moments the ship was lost from sight, and around them the rain slackened. Five sweeps of the oars and they were out from beneath it entirely, once again on gently heaving seas under a pallid sky. The strange coastline was visible ahead, slowly drawing closer.

On the forecastle of the massive ship, moments after the dory with its two passengers slipped behind the screen of muddy rain, seven almost insubstantial figures rose from the slime. Shattered bones, gaping wounds bleeding nothing, the figures weaved uncertainly in the gloom, as if barely able to maintain their grip on the scene they had entered.

One of them hissed with anger. ‘Each time we seek to draw the knot right—’

‘He cuts it,’ another finished in a wry, bitter tone.

A third one stepped down to the mizzen deck, kicked desultorily at a discarded sword. ‘The failure belonged to the Tiste Edur,’ this one pronounced in a rasping voice. ‘If punishment must be enacted, it should be in answer to their arrogance.’

‘Not for us to demand,’ the first speaker snapped. ‘We are not the masters in this scheme—’

‘Nor are the Tiste Edur!’

‘Even so, and we are each given particular tasks. Karsa Orlong survives still, and he must be our only concern—’

‘He begins to know doubts.’

‘None the less, his journey continues. It falls to us, now, with what little power we are able to extend, to direct his path onward.’

‘We’ve had scant success thus far!’

‘Untrue. The Shattered Warren stirs awake once more. The broken heart of the First Empire begins to bleed – less than a trickle at the moment, but soon it will become a flood. We need only set our chosen warrior upon the proper current

‘And is that within our power, limited as it still remains?’

‘Let us find out. Begin the preparations. Ber’ok, scatter that handful of otataral dust in the cabin – the Tiste Edur sorcerer’s warren remains open and, in this place, it will quickly become a wound ... a growing wound. The time has not yet come for such unveilings.’

The speaker then lifted its mangled head and seemed to sniff the air. ‘We must work quickly,’ it announced after a moment. ‘I believe we are being hunted.’

The remaining six turned to face the speaker, who nodded in answer to their silent question. ‘Yes. There are kin upon our trail.’