Three more days of sail, augmented by the powers of Ole, and the mainland was back in their sights, that dark strip of land a stark reminder of the horrors in their pasts. 

The drizzle had finally relented, giving way to a damp cold that promised snow by the end of the next month. Ulstea had confirmed this cruise would be the last of the year, and everyone was looking forward to wintering in Havnoy again, where Seacrow would be blocked into the harbour by sea ice but her crew would be sat at firesides, with a jug in their hands and warm food in their bellies.

‘Scavengers to me,’ the Commander snapped, and soon his cabin was filled with the ten of them, dressed in heavy coats and slung about with their varied weapons and equipment. Jenta had been issued with a pistol and a long knife, showing a bit more promise with those than anything heavier. Still, she had been given strict instructions to let someone more experienced take the lead if it came to a scrap.

‘We need to make this one quick and sharp,’ he told them. ‘Silt deposits will keep us at fifty yards, so you need to take the launch. There is no indication of what, if anything, you will find, but the carronades will stay on the fort and ready to bark. Savvy?’

‘Yessir!’

Business as usual, then.

*

The fort was an imposing structure, entirely consuming the islet on which it was built. Facing downriver was a thick, tall wall with revetments of grey stone strung between fat round towers with a commanding view of the river. Sparrow could only feel tense as it loomed ever larger, the only sounds in the launch the swish and splash of the oars and the puff and grunt as Stork and Goose pulled at the lengths of wood.

Her eyes flicked from the dark gunports, to the tattered purple flag at the pole above the fort, and back again. Seeing the royal standard had caused pause for thought as Seacrow made her approach, but a flurry of signal pennants from the ship had gone unanswered. Sparrow could only sit, hands gripping the cold wood of her carbine until her knuckles were stiff and pale, expecting any moment the clap of thunder and rain of death.

‘Look at that big bastard,’ Grouse nudged her, training her musket on the distant north bank. There was a Frekir, clearly a huge specimen even with the range, standing at the water’s edge. It seemed to be watching them, the pinpricks of its eyes following the boat with unwavering malice. ‘Glad they can’t swim.’

Sparrow could only agree. It was another peculiar quirk of the invading monsters but they had an aversion to open water that could only be described as fear and loathing, and a fortuitously placed canal or pond had saved more than one expedition from ending in disaster. She shivered, grateful when their course put the fort between it and them. With no access to the land, there was little risk of the monsters having got into the fort from that direction, and any fortunate enough to have landed behind those walls during The End of All Things should have long since starved.

‘Aware the fore,’ Scops warned from the prow of the boat.

They tensed, ready to disembark, as it crumped alongside the small wooden jetty before the firmly closed double doors.

‘Not dead yet,’ Finch commented as he leapt out.

‘Good start,’ Robin added brightly.

There had been no sign of life at the walls, the ports, or the gunslits as they docked, and that was perhaps a more unsettling effect than the growl of a Frekir or the pop of muskets. What lay within was still a deadly unknown.

‘Scops?’ Goose queried.

The petite Thaumaturgist closed her eyes and cast out her senses over the structure. Sparrow had no idea of the extent of her abilities, but it was likely she could envelope the entire fort and then some. After a few seconds, Scops returned to them and shook her head.

‘Nothing but ghosts.’

An uncomfortable expression crossed Goose’s face. ‘Ghosts? You mean Sjel?’

A shake of her head and a brief shrug was all he received in response. Sparrow glanced at Peacock, whose face was almost forcefully blank. This was clearly mage business. Best not to pry.

‘How do we get in?’ Stork asked.

Goose nodded at Puffin, who cracked her knuckles and hit the gatehouse at a run, seeming to find adequate handholds in even the smallest cracks, swarming up the wall with impressive speed. She hooked her fingers in a gunslit, threw herself upwards and had both hands on the parapet. A pause, a heave, and she was over and out of sight.

The Scavengers waited, listening intently for any sign of distress. A tense minute later, a clonk, a scrape, and a defiant creak heralded one of the heavy doors being opened. Puffin’s pale face appeared in the gap, unminding of the cautious weapons pointed at her.

‘Deser’ed,’ she told them, ‘No’ a peep.’

‘Alright, good job,’ Goose said. ‘Team up an’ sweep, me left and Scops right. Ware th’ fore an’ go.’

The big man disappeared through the gap and Sparrow was on his heels, carbine up and ears pricked, with Grouse and Peacock to either side and Puffin just behind. The mage had given no indication of alarm so far, and Sparrow trusted his abilities of detection, regardless of how irritating he was.

The fort was imposing but deceptively small, taking only a few minutes to search at the Scavengers’ frantic pace, that uncomfortable feeling only growing with every foot covered. Shot was still piled in neat pyramids by the wall guns, the armoury stocked with regimented rows of muskets, their metalwork dulled by neglect but otherwise functional, and the barracks beds were dressed and military-neat, if under a blanket of dust. Crossing the path of Scops’ team brought the news that the kitchens and stores were empty of food, not rotted but completely bare.

At the last, the only section of the fort not searched was the war room. Its doors were closed but after a cautious push they proved to be unlocked, allowing the team into the rich, wood-panelled chamber, with a map of the area pinned to the wall behind a polished oak desk, the air within stale and heady with an old perfume, sweet and sickening in consistency.

With the desk was a chair of matching finery, the gloss and upholstery forever ruined by the dark stain of long-dried organic matter that had run down it to pool into the carpet in a thick crust. Slumped in the chair was a figure wearing the rotted remnants of Forsaran military uniform, reduced to tattered strips of cloth and unwoven gold braid, the occupant now little more than rat-gnawed bones.

‘Lunn’s teeth...’ Goose breathed, sweeping off his cap and clutching it to his chest. They had all seen bodies of varying age and disrepair, from the young and the old and everything between, and human bones especially had become just another feature of this broken world in which they lived. Something about this one, an aspect of dignity in death as wan light filtered through the barred and curtained window in the far wall, brought a hush to them. A hush quickly interrupted by violent retching from back in the corridor.

Not nearly all of us are so jaded, Sparrow reminded herself.

When a draught stirred the motheaten strips of fabric at the window, allowing light to pass over the chair, the silhouette of a figure could be seen still sat up in the chair, faint as a shadow on an overcast day but still noticeable. The hairs on Sparrow’s arms pricked up and she fought the urge to bolt from the room.

‘It’s just… sat there,’ Grouse whispered.

Other Sjel they had found, if this was even one of them, had been far from static, writhing and shivering as they strove to escape whatever nightmare gaol they had become imprisoned in. They were prone to lashing out, unseeing at things around them, their unnatural limbs burning whatever they touched like a potent acid.

Sparrow glanced at Peacock, the mage transfixed on the sight of the form, his face a mask of neutrality, betrayed by a sombre turn to his coffee-brown eyes, then back to the tableaux.

Tearing her eyes from the corpse and its shade, likely a species of officer, she noticed on the table surface a crystal tumbler almost opaque under a film of dust, and a like-wise covered dispatch envelope. The placing of the sealed leather folder was too deliberate, too neat, for her to let go.

One eye on the shadow, Sparrow took a careful step, then another.

‘Sparrow…’ Goose hissed. ‘What’re you doing?’