‘There is also the problem of fresh water. There is none to be had between the Land and the Spit, which means that all water must be carried. Unfortunately the ships cannot carry water enough for the length of such a journey, but the one certainty of travelling at this time is that it will rain and so the Land ship and the Norse Stormdancer have been fitted with rainwater tanks in the hold.’

‘Would it not have been better to have located the tanks on deck where they can catch rainwater directly?’ I asked.

‘The weight would be too great,’ Tomash said. ‘The ships would be top-heavy. I saw the tanks being put into Dardelan’s Voyager when I was in Sutrium. Rainwater will funnel into the tank through pipes running from huge waxed canvas buckets, and they will fill it very swiftly.’

‘What of the Sadorian ships?’

‘It was Bruna telling Dardelan that Sadorian ships have such tanks that made him arrange for the other two ships to be fitted out with them,’ Sarn said. She glanced down at her notes again. ‘The first stage of the journey ends when the ships come to the tip of the land known as the Spit. It is actually the tip of a long peninsula, which juts out from the end of our landmass and features a great, queer, wave-shaped rock. Most of the peninsula is darklands which eventually run back into Blacklands.’ She gestured to Tomash.

‘As you know, darklands are what we call Blacklands that have regenerated enough to be capable of supporting some mutated forms of plant and animal life,’ Tomash said. ‘There are patches of it here and there all along the black coasts, but since there is no way to tell how badly tainted they are the ships will not be able to stop there. The darklands around the Spit are supposed to be only lightly tainted but they are inhabited by some kind of savage mutant animals. The Spit itself is untainted but it is so salty that little grows there other than wiry dune grasses and low scrubby shrubs. However, there is a spring of fresh water that pools at the base of the wave rock. Further round the coast from the peninsula, the land goes back to black coasts and by all accounts the deadness goes on for thousands of miles until you come all the way back around to the Land and Sador. Of course no one knows for sure since no one has ever gone the whole way round.’

‘Tell me about the Spit settlement.’

‘There is no settlement,’ Sarn said. ‘Shipfolk go there only to get water and to trade. Each day there is a temporary market and at night everyone returns to their ships because the misformed beasts that dwell in the darklands behind the Spit venture out seeking water and prey.’

‘Only at night?’ I asked.

‘They cannot tolerate the sunlight, apparently,’ Tomash said. ‘It burns their eyes and their white skin.’