Skoh nodded. ‘You’ve been here a day and you’re that certain?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you have supporting evidence?’

‘It doesn’t match anything I’ve turned up in seven years. And it doesn’t feed. There is no sign of appetite or predation. It simply kills and kills and kills again. That’s the behaviour of a rogue animal, a carnivore that’s no longer killing due to hunger. And it’s the behaviour of a creature alien to this world. May I ask you a couple of questions?’

Skoh set his empty glass down on the table. ‘By all means.’

‘Why do they say it has no eyes? Where did that rumour come from?’

‘All I know about that is that the lack of eyes is a regular feature of the bishop’s hellfire sermons. I presumed it was hyperbolic invention on his part, which has fallen into common rumour.’

‘My other question is this – you know what it is, don’t you?’

Skoh looked at him. His eyes pierced right through Drusher.

‘No,’ he said.

By dawn the next day, there had been another death. A swine herder out beyond the crossroads had been killed in the night, and twenty of his saddlebacks along with him. Drusher went out into the sparse woodland with Skoh, Macks, Lussin and two of Skoh’s huntsmen.

The air was cold and ice-fog wrapped the hillside. It was ten below. At the swine farm, the bodies of hogs and hogherd alike had frozen into the mud of the pens, their copious blood making ruby-like crystals.

In the steep thorn scrub above the swine farm, Drusher stopped the group and handed out the cartridges he’d prepared the night before.

‘Load them into your shotguns,’ he said. ‘They won’t have much range, I’m afraid.’

Macks and Lussin had Arbites-issue riotguns. Skoh had made sure his men had brought short action pump-shots along with their heavy ordnance. Both huntsmen, like Skoh, were weighed down with torso rigs supporting massive autolasers.

‘What are these?’ Lussin asked.

Drusher broke a cartridge open to show them. Little chrome pellets were packed inside in a sticky fluid suspension.

‘Trackers,’ he said. ‘Miniature tracker units. They have a two thousand-kilometre range. I usually use them for ringing birds. In fact I plotted the migration patterns of the lesser beakspot and the frigate gull Tachybaptus maritimus over a three-year period using just these very–’

‘I’m sure you did a great job,’ snapped Macks. ‘But can we get on?’

Drusher nodded. ‘I’ve packed them in contact adhesive. If you see anything – anything – then you mark it.’