Netok jogged up from the river bank, a two-handed axe in his grip. He halted at his sister’s side. ‘Something is loose,’ he growled, his small eyes darting.

‘And still close,’ Hetan nodded. ‘Flank your brother.’

He padded off.

Gruntle strode up to her. ‘That barrow ... you’re saying a spirit or ghost’s broken free.’

‘Aye.’

Drawing a hook-bladed sword, the Barghast woman walked slowly towards the carriage. The captain followed.

Stonny trotted her horse back to take a defensive position beside Keruli’s contrivance.

A savage hole had been torn into the carriage’s side, revealing on its jagged edges what looked to be sword-cuts, though larger than any blade Gruntle had ever seen. He clambered up to peer inside the compartment, half dreading what he might discover.

It was empty – no bodies. The leather-padded walls had been shredded, the ornate furnishings scattered. Two huge trunks, once bolted to the floorboards, had been ripped loose. Their lids were open, contents spilled out. ‘Hood take us,’ the captain whispered, his mouth suddenly dry. One of the trunks contained flat slabs of slate – now shattered – on which arcane symbols had been meticulously etched, but it was the other trunk whose contents had Gruntle close to gagging. A mass of blood-slick ... organs. Livers, lungs, hearts, all joined together to form a shape all the more horrifying for its familiarity. When alive – as he sensed it must have been until recently – it had been human-shaped, though no more than knee-high when perched on its boneless, pod-like appendages. Eyeless and, as far as Gruntle could see in the compartment’s gloom, devoid of anything resembling a brain, the now-dead creature still leaked thin, watery blood.

Necromancy, but not the demonic kind. These are the arts of those who delve into mortality, into resurrection and undeath. Those organs . . . they came from living people. People murdered by a madman. Damn you, Buke, why did you have to get involved with those bastards?

‘Are they within?’ Hetan asked from below.

He leaned back, shook his head. ‘Just wreckage.’

Harllo called out from the driver’s bench. ‘Look uptrail, Gruntle! Party coming.’

Four figures, two leather-cloaked and in black, one short and bandy-legged, the last one tall, thin. No losses, then. Still, something nasty hit them. Hard. ‘That’s them,’ he muttered.

Hetan squinted up at him. ‘You know these men?’

‘Aye, only one well, though. The guard – that grey-haired, tall one.’

‘I don’t like them,’ the woman growled, her sword twitching as she adjusted her grip.

‘Keep your distance,’ Gruntle advised. ‘Tell your brothers. You don’t want to back-brush their hides – those cloaked two. Bauchelain – with the pointed beard – and Korbal Broach – the ... the other one.’

Cafal and Netok rejoined their sister. The older brother was scowling. ‘It was taken yesterday,’ he said. ‘The wards were unravelled. Slow. Before the hill was broken open.’