‘Won’t his lordship get blisters on those soft hands of his?’ Sati asked with a sneer.

Brida groaned. ‘Don’t be like that, Sats, please,’ she begged. ‘Eron Rush is a good man.’

Sati curled her lip but relented when Cahn, her brother, kicked her ankle. A faint blush stained the young woman’s cheeks and, despite herself, Brida was glad. The twins were her oldest friends, but they both thought her marrying into one of Demesnus’ ruling families was a mistake, a betrayal of the poor weavers and fishers she’d grown up with.

The burden of their resentment bit at her. Brida rubbed her palm over her lips, feeling those calluses that Eron didn’t have snag against her skin. Calluses from wielding the rush-knife, from tying knots, from punting, from weaving. From scratching a living in a city once a centre of learning and power. The birthplace, if legend was true, of Saint Garradan – Gardus Steel Soul – himself!

But despite the care and wise governance of the Rush family, Demesnus was a shadow of its former glory. The city was famous for its weaving and basketry, yet the rushes that supplied their industry were failing, great swathes of them dying year after year, irrespective of their hardiness and ability to spread far and wide along the edges of the river. Some thought they had been harvested too heavily for too long, others that some new parasite or blight had found its way downriver.

Whatever was causing it, times had been especially lean this last year, and a small, selfish part of Brida acknowledged that marrying Eron Rush would put such concerns behind her. The thought shamed her; what about her friends? How would Sati and Cahn fare when they took over their parents’ business? How would Brida’s own family cope without her to cut rushes for them?

Cahn was laughing silently at her distraction, no doubt believing her daydreams had taken a different turn, and she felt a blush, hotter than Sati’s had been, warm her cheeks, both at the implication and her own cowardice at not correcting his opinion.

She checked the binding that attached her rush-knife – a sickle as long as her forearm – to its pole, which was longer than she was tall, and listened to the twins’ good-natured bickering as they waited for Eron to arrive. He’d do so in a flap, Brida knew with a secret smile: he hated being late, but he hated getting up early even more, and to get all the way to the eastern docks on the River Quamus for dawn was more than he could manage.

And then there he was, the mist cutting the brightness of the sun so it didn’t flare in the burnished red of his hair the way she liked. Instead it was dull with moisture, but his eyes were alive – apologetic and laughing both. He faltered a little at the sight of Sati and Cahn, then came resolutely forward with an engaging grin. Sati was at the pole and Brida shot her a warning glare. She wouldn’t put it past her friend to rock the punt as Eron clambered in.

She needn’t have worried. Eron sprang off the quay into the middle of the boat with ease, balancing against its movement with unconscious grace. It impressed the twins. It did something far more interesting to Brida’s stomach, but she swallowed against it and the resurgent blush.

‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ he babbled, snaking an arm around her waist and kissing her cheek, the corner of her mouth. He let go before she could push him away and advanced on the twins, hand out. ‘I’m Eron. Brida’s told me so much about you.’ He patted the satchel slung over his shoulder. ‘I brought supplies so we can stay out all day. Pies, cheese, apples, salted pike. Even some beer.’

Cahn’s mouth dropped open. ‘Well,’ he managed, standing to shake Eron’s hand, ‘that’s a good start.’

Sati was more reluctant, her expression promising Eron all sorts of pain if he hurt her friend. Eron pressed his lips together and gave her a solemn nod, a silent oath. Sati’s eyes narrowed a little, but then she huffed and shook his hand too. Brida released her breath.

‘All right, daylight’s burning,’ she said briskly. ‘Let’s get moving. Sats, you’ve got the pole. Cahn and I will row until we reach the reed beds.’

‘I’d like to do my share,’ Eron said, and sat down at the oar before she could protest. Cahn shrugged and took the other, leaving Brida with nothing to do but navigate and hope they’d all get along. It was disconcerting. It was wonder­ful. Mostly, it was terrifying.

The morning brightened as they moved upriver from Demesnus, Cahn making Eron work hard to match his rhythm. Her fiancé was soon sweating and his smile had become a rictus, but he didn’t complain and he didn’t slow. He was the outsider here, and it seemed he was determined not to embarrass himself.

They all fell silent as they passed a huge reed bed. The tall brown stems were soft, bending over under the weight of their own heads. Brida knew from frustrating experience they would fall apart if she tried to weave with them, and anything she did make would hold a strange, bitter scent unlike anything she’d ever smelt before. Many of the oldest weavers were worried by the unknown blight, muttering prayers to the Lady of Leaves for intervention. Demesnus had enjoyed peace and prosperity for many years, and Brida worried that that time was coming to an end.

‘Hey, Eron. Heard of the River-Watcher?’ Sati broke the silence and they all jumped.

Eron nodded, grave. ‘I have,’ he said solemnly. ‘The spirit of the Quamus. Some say he’s a sort of god. That in return for an offering he will ensure a fruitful harvest from the river.’

Sati’s eyes narrowed. ‘Wrong,’ she said. ‘He’s a spirit all right, and he demands offerings, but they’re to stop him upending your boat and dragging you to the bottom of the river. He eats the unwary, they say. The unlucky. Those whose offering isn’t proportionate to their status.’

Eron stopped rowing and they drifted slowly. Brida stood up, ready to intervene. ‘Then I suppose I should make an offering that’s appropriate, shouldn’t I?’ Eron asked. ‘What would you suggest?’

Sati pursed her lips and Brida groaned inwardly. Her friend’s impulsiveness had got them all into trouble more times than she cared to remember, and she had no idea what Sati might suggest to see how far she could push Eron, the rich man who’d stolen Brida away.

‘Your dignity,’ Sati said.

‘Sats,’ Brida warned, but Eron interrupted.

‘A mighty offering indeed for one so stiff-necked and unfamiliar with the real work done by the good people of Demesnus,’ he said, and before anyone could comment, he stood up and stripped off his coat. ‘River-Watcher, accept my dignity as your offering,’ he called, and belly-flopped into the water.

The boat rocked and Sati flailed to regain her balance, her mouth an ‘O’ of astonishment as she clung to the punt’s pole.

Cahn began to roar with laughter as Eron surfaced and paddled for the side, his mouth tight with pain from the impact and a string of weed clinging to one ear. He hauled him on board and gave the other man an approving slap on the back. ‘I’d say your dignity was well and truly offered, Eron,’ he said approvingly. ‘I’m glad too. If you’d offered the beer instead, well, we could never have been friends.’

Sati grunted, but couldn’t help smiling as Eron shuddered in feigned horror at the weed festooning him. ‘You’re all right, rich man,’ she said after a pause. ‘But best get back on that oar if we’re to get any work done today.’

‘As you command, Lady Sati,’ Eron said.

The twins laughed and Brida felt a knot of tension loosen in her chest. ‘You’re an idiot and I love you,’ she murmured, planting a kiss on his wet cheek.

‘And you’re beautiful,’ he murmured back through chattering teeth. ‘Now get out of my way, woman, and let me row like the man I am.’

They were half a mile from the healthy reed beds when the flat-bottomed punt rocked so hard that Cahn’s oar came up out of the water. Eron yelled in surprise, letting go of his oar to grab the bench and the punt’s side. Sati clung to the pole, pushed deep into the riverbed. Brida, in the square prow, disappeared into the water with a splash.

It was shockingly cold this far out on the wide, swift river, and her disbelief at being knocked overboard – Brida prided herself on her skill as a sailor – meant she just hung in the water for a second. She opened her eyes; they must have hit a submerged branch or something, because there weren’t any sandbanks on this part of the Quamus.

Nothing. Brida kicked for the surface, her troggoth-hide boots threatening to drag her down. Her head broke the surface and she gasped in a breath, looked for the punt. Three worried faces peered down at her.

‘Brida!’ Eron called.

She flailed a hand in acknowledgment. ‘I’m fine. Steady the boat.’ She had both hands on the side when something brushed past her legs – something big, muscular. A long, sinuous shape moved beneath her and the boat, grey and green. ‘Get me out,’ she said and the urgency in her voice had Cahn leaping to her side. He dragged her into the punt. ‘There’s something down there. It’s big,’ she stuttered, shuddering.

‘Get on the oars,’ Sati ordered and Eron slunk back to the bench. They weren’t fishers, weren’t equipped to deal with some of the river monsters inhabiting the Quamus. Rush-knives were one thing, but it was more prudent to just leave the creature to its own devices. They rowed hard, angling for the reeds and the illusion of safety. They didn’t make it.

Sati shrieked as the pole was ripped from her hands and then snapped like a twig. The brown water churned and a grey-green flank turned in the morning sun and was gone – beneath them. The four of them clung to the sides on instinct, riding the next impact, which sent the punt lurching cross-current. Eron and Cahn fought the oars to drag them back on course.

Another impact spun them the other way and they all saw it this time, the muscular body whipping through the water, longer than the punt – a freshwater eel mutated, grown to monstrous size and malevolent intent.

‘Everyone quiet,’ Brida whispered and they waited, oars in the water but not pulling.

‘I think we’re all right,’ Cahn started, but the boat rocked again, the wood echoing to the dull boom of the eel’s strike. A tail flicked up and around, scything towards the men in the waist. Eron grabbed Cahn and jerked him sideways, almost into his lap, and the tail flapped down, smashing the bench where he’d been sitting. It wriggled and was gone.

‘Circling,’ Sati called, her voice throbbing with fear. ‘It’s coming back. Row!’

‘Ship those oars,’ Brida countermanded. ‘We’re going to need them.’ She stood, legs spread for balance, and hefted her rush-knife. The long handle gave her a six-foot reach and the blade had a wicked edge. She watched the river intently, blinking away the freezing water leaking from her hair. The twins both took up their knives and Eron hefted an oar with awkward resolution. They all stared down at the river as the punt slowly spun and began drifting downriver with the current, back towards Demesnus.

‘Port!’ Sati cried.

‘Starboard!’ Eron yelled at the same time.

‘Which is it?’ Cahn demanded, but then the boat shuddered, the planks splintering as the eel drove into the side. ‘We’ve got a leak!’

Brida glanced back. It was more than a leak; water was pumping from between two planks faster than they’d be able to bail. If the eel was prepared to let them bail. She saw its blunt head and square mouth arrowing through the water away from them, and the long, powerful body sliding after. Her heart was in her throat, beating so hard it was difficult to breathe.

‘Twins, take position fore and aft the bench,’ she croaked as it headed for them again. ‘Eron, both oars, row for your life. There’s an island ahead, I’ll guide you in. Sats, port side – Cahn, take starboard. Slash don’t hook. We don’t want to drag it on board or we’re all dead.’

The warm brown of Sati’s face had curdled to sickly grey, but she balanced easily against the rocking, rush-knife poised.

‘Careful, careful,’ Cahn was muttering as Eron grunted at the oars, pulling fast and smooth while Brida threw handfuls of water out of the bottom of the boat. It was covering the tops of their feet already. If the eel managed to hit the same spot again, the punt would come apart.

Even at the height of summer, the sun wouldn’t have been strong enough to cut through the chill she felt as the thing’s back breached the river and she saw, clearly for the first time, that the green speckl­ing wasn’t a pattern on its scales, but rot. Gangrene. Plague.

‘Alarielle save us,’ she breathed and then Sati was swinging, blade winking golden as it disappeared below the surface and beneath the creature’s body to slice upwards, rolling it and opening grey flesh and green putrescence. Blood gouted from its flank and, maddened by its wound or Nurgle’s Rot – for it could be nothing else – it bashed its deformed, monstrous head against the punt over and over, coiling its massive body to flail at the underside.

Brida saw it foul the oar and began to shout a warning, but then the oar snapped in half with horrific force, the handle slamming up into Eron’s face and knocking him off the bench. Cahn grabbed the remaining oar and hit the eel as it passed beneath them again. Brida splashed to Eron and dragged his head up so he didn’t drown. He was unconscious and bleeding.

The Chaos-addled fish rammed them again, staving in three planks so the river poured through the gap. They were going down.

‘Take him,’ Brida shouted at the twins. ‘I’ll keep it busy on the starboard side. Slip out on the other and make for the island.’

‘That island? They say it’s haunted–’ Cahn began, horrified.

‘Go!’ Brida screamed, because their own ghosts would haunt the river if they didn’t. She had the rush-knife in one hand and the broken oar in the other. The eel lifted its head from the water, gills flapping obscenely. It watched her and she watched it, both poised, both waiting. It was just a fish, but there was intelligence there. Malevolence.

The deck rocked as the twins lowered Eron and themselves into the river with the punt between them and the monster and the island only a hundred yards away. They could make it. They would make it. They’d be safe. Brida didn’t let herself think any further than that. The eel’s head lowered so its gills lipped at the water, and she feinted with the oar, swept the rush-knife around instead. She caught the thing with the outside, false edge, knocking it away instead of slicing it open.

It dropped below the surface and Brida felt it pass beneath the boat, felt its intent. There was easier prey to be had. Prey that swam fast – for a human – but was encumbered with an unconscious man.

‘No,’ Brida breathed. She dropped the oar, ripped the knife free from the long handle and dived into the river, wrapping her arms and legs around the eel’s tail as it flashed by beneath. She had time for one breath before it twisted and was on her, head slamming into her leg and teeth just missing flesh.

Brida hooked the sickle underneath the churning body and jerked upwards, felt the bitter edge bite in, and sawed it frantically back and forth. Green blood bloomed in the murky water and the eel thrashed, more concerned now with throwing her off. Brida tightened her legs and arm around it and kept cutting. It was longer than the punt, thicker around its middle than her thigh, and it was all lean, packed muscle. It gave a single, mighty contortion and threw her clear.

Brida struggled to the surface, dragged in air and looked around. The island was only a few strokes away – the eel had brought her right to it. She kicked desperately as Cahn splashed back into the shallows armed with a heavy stick. Then Sati darted past him, grabbed Brida’s hand and hauled. Her knees caught on the riverbed and she kicked, pushed, knife-hand squelching down into the mud. Cahn bellowed and she heard the stick swing down and crack into something with a meaty thud. Water roiled and thrashed and then the big twin raced back, grabbed Brida under her other arm and, together, they got her to shore.

They didn’t stop once they were past the tideline, though Brida had swallowed half the Quamus and could barely breathe. Instead, Cahn threw Eron over his shoulder like a bushel of reeds and they ran. Trees, dripping with moisture and bearded with moss, closed in around them and the rushing of the river, along with its cold breath, faded into silence broken only by their pounding footfalls and rasping breath.

They stopped in a small clearing and Cahn lay Eron on his side. His nose was mashed flat and the lower half of his face was coated in fresh blood, but his chest rose and fell. He lived. Brida let out a cry and dropped down next to him, her hands feverish on his face and chest even as she coughed and struggled for air. ‘Eron? Eron, wake up. Please, Eron!’

Sati and Cahn were pacing the clearing, Brida’s knife in Sati’s hand. She could hear them muttering as they examined their surroundings, poking hesitantly into the undergrowth.

‘Who are you?’

The three who were conscious screamed and spun to the source of the voice: a hunched figure in sweeping brown robes and a deep hood, gnarled hands clutching a driftwood staff. Nothing of its face could be seen.

‘Who disturbs the River-Watcher’s domain?’

‘Alarielle save us,’ Sati breathed, backing away until she almost fell over Brida and Eron. ‘The stories are true.’ Cahn retreated too and Brida stood up so they formed a barrier between the figure and her unconscious lover.

‘Y-you’re the River-Watcher?’ Cahn stuttered. The hood nodded. ‘Forgive us for trespassing, holy spirit. Er, god. We were…’ He trailed off.

‘Were what? Speak! Are you frightened?’ the figure calling itself the River-Watcher asked. Brida’s throat clicked as she swallowed, but none of them said anything. Then the figure laughed and swept back its hood to reveal a face thin and somewhat stern, yet not hostile. ‘I am the guardian of the river and of the people who harvest its bounty,’ he said. ‘You will not come to harm from me, children. I am a friend.’

‘We made an offering,’ Sati began but Cahn elbowed her ribs. Their prank was no offering and they all knew it.

Brida took a threatening step forward as anger replaced the cold of the river upon her skin. ‘Guardian? Then why have you allowed Nurgle’s Rot to infect the Quamus once more? We were nearly killed!’

The River-Watcher’s eyes narrowed and he swept his staff up and across his body. Brida flinched. ‘Then it has returned again,’ he growled. ‘Go to my home, where it’s safe. Along that path there, not far. I will be back once this atrocity has been dealt with.’ He hurried off through the trees before they could respond.

‘What in the realms is going on?’ Cahn demanded when he’d vanished from view. ‘That can’t be the River-Watcher, can it? I mean, not really? It’s just a story,’ he added, almost pleading.

Eron groaned before anyone could answer him. ‘You’re awake,’ Brida breathed, kneeling and using her sleeve to wipe some of the blood from his face. ‘How do you feel?’

His eyes were already blackening from the blow to the face, swelling up until she could barely see the blue of his irises. He groaned again and flopped onto his back, then struggled to sit up. ‘What happened?’

‘The eel… The punt sank and we’re stuck on this island and… and there’s someone claiming to be the River-Watcher.’

Eron stared at her in confused dismay. ‘River-Watcher? That was just a joke. It was just to make your friends like me.’

Brida shrugged, not knowing what to tell him. It was an old story, one every child learnt and believed for a few short years before growing up. Or at least, that’s what she’d always thought. What all of them thought.

‘Look, we’re soaked, we’ve lost our boat and our supplies, and we’re trapped on an island with a madman claiming to be a local spirit,’ Sati hissed, crouching opposite them. ‘Whoever, whatever he is, he’ll have a boat. We can use it to go home.’

Brida hesitated, then yawned, the terror and the cold catching up to her. ‘Should we go where he said? His house?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea,’ Sati said. ‘I say we find his boat and get off this island before he comes back.’ She didn’t make a move towards the shoreline though; none of them did.

‘We can’t steal the River-Watcher’s boat,’ Cahn said slowly and slumped on Eron’s other side, shivering.

‘We should get warm,’ Brida said dully. Eron was already asleep again. She stretched out next to him, huddling close. The twins crowded in on his other side. ‘We’ll have to move soon,’ she mumbled.

They slept.

It was almost dawn when Brida woke, passing from sleep to alert wakefulness in an instant. Her heart was pounding. She lay still, listening. The island was full of the rustles of small animals, insects, the first birdcalls. Eron was still warm beside her but there was… an absence. Slowly, carefully, she opened her eyes. The twins were gone.

Instinct told her to shout for them and shake Eron awake; with an effort she managed not to do either. They’d slept all night. They should have been too scared, too wary, to sleep at all. Brida rolled onto her back and examined the other side of the clearing through slitted eyes. There was a faint glow of firelight through the trees, the barest murmur of voices.

‘Eron?’ she whispered, scanning the trees. ‘Wake up.’ The voices abruptly fell silent, though they couldn’t have heard her from so far away. She reached out without looking, shook Eron’s arm. ‘Wake up now.’

He tensed as he went through the same process upon waking. ‘What’s going on?’ he breathed.

‘I don’t know. I think the twins are over–’

‘Here,’ Sati said loudly and they both jumped, rolled over. She laughed at their expressions. ‘Finally awake,’ she added as Cahn joined her. He held a flaming torch and the smiles they both wore made Brida uneasy. A touch too wide, a fraction too excited.

‘Look at your face!’ Cahn exclaimed, shoving the torch close to Eron and whistling. In its light, Brida could see the swelling and bruising around his nose and eyes was even worse. ‘Not so pretty now, is he?’

‘Sun’s coming up,’ Eron said as they both stood. ‘We should look for a way to get home.’

‘Not yet. The River-Watcher’s making you breakfast – you’ve got to try some, it’s delicious. Come on.’ Sati was beckoning, already turning away towards the crackle of the campfire through the trees.

‘We don’t have time for breakfast,’ Eron protested. ‘Our families will be frantic.’

Cahn’s easy-going smile evaporated. ‘We’re not all so fortunate in our families as you, councilman’s son. If we want to stay here for a few days, that’s what we’ll do. You can swim back for all I care. Swim or drown.’

‘Cahn!’ Brida said, shocked.

The big man shook his head, puzzlement creasing his feat­ures. He forced a laugh and gave a half-shrug. ‘Only joking, Eron, no offence intended. Come on, let’s eat. We’re starving.’

He turned away with the torch before either of them could respond, leaving them in the dawn’s gloom beneath the trees. Eron put his hand on Brida’s arm, stilling her. ‘If they’ve eaten already, why are they hungry? And why did we fall asleep so easily? I don’t like this, Bri.’

Brida licked her lips. ‘Me neither. Let’s get the twins away from this so-called River-Watcher and find a way home. I don’t like it, but we can steal his boat if we have to.’

Eron nodded and they followed their friends to the small clearing near the one where they’d slept. The River-Watcher’s hut stood in a gap between two monstrous, twisted willows whose branches hung down to conceal most of the structure. In the centre of the clearing a small fire burnt in a ring of stones, and around the edge bigger stones were placed as seats. The River-Watcher and the twins were already resting, legs stretched towards the warmth of the fire. All three were eating from stone bowls perched in their laps.

The River-Watcher’s hood was back in place, only the tip of his nose and point of his chin limned in orange firelight. They ate intently, paying no attention to the new arrivals. Two stones had been left free: one between the River-Watcher and Sati, the other between Sati and her brother. On each stone stood a bowl, steam curling gently from its contents.

Splitting us up. The thought came to rest in Brida’s mind like a bird roosting, and once there, it wouldn’t go away. They’re making us sit apart from each other.

‘What’s for breakfast, then?’ Eron asked cheerfully and she shot him a worried glance.

‘Stew,’ Cahn said, his mouth full. ‘Fish stew. It’s incredible.’

‘Eat as much as you want,’ the River-Watcher said, indicating the cauldron on the fire. ‘There’s plenty. Eat until you burst!’ The twins laughed as if they’d never heard anything so funny.

Brida didn’t know what to do. She approached the circle and picked up a bowl, sat gingerly on the edge of the stone, feet gathered beneath her and ready to leap up and away. The bowl was cold despite the steam rising from inside, chilling her fingers.

Eron picked up his own bowl and sniffed the contents, then grinned at the twins and strolled around the circle to Brida’s stone. ‘Shove up,’ he said, nudging her, and she scooted over until they could both – just about – sit down, pressed together at shoulder and hip and thigh. He leant in to kiss her cheek. ‘Don’t eat it.’

The words were more breath than sound, but they sent another tremor through her. She lifted the spoon to her mouth and pretended to eat in a pantomime that would fool no one. The twins were oblivious, scraping the last of the stew from their bowls and then licking their spoons.

‘So good,’ Sati said again. She patted her stomach. ‘Could I…’ She indicated the cauldron and the River-Watcher waved her on. She refilled her bowl and Cahn’s and again they began to eat.

‘You’re not hungry?’ the River-Watcher asked when the sun had risen into the river-mist, diffuse as candlelight through silk.

Eron and Brida jumped. ‘Not really,’ Eron said and touched his face. ‘It seems that breaking one’s nose robs one of appetite. It is no comment on your hospitality, which is excellent and appreciated,’ he added as everyone turned to stare at him. He was using the voice he spoke in when trading – relaxed and friendly, hiding a steel mind behind a façade of benign interest. It told Brida how worried he was. And Eron didn’t get worried; it’s why she loved him, his quiet competence, his calm in the face of challenges. She could see the tremor in this Eron’s hands, the glisten of sweat on his unshaven upper lip.

Not just worried. Scared.

‘And you?’ the River-Watcher asked, and though she couldn’t see his eyes beneath his hood, his gaze upon her was as heavy as lead.

She swallowed. ‘I… no, thank you.’ It wasn’t an excuse – she didn’t have an excuse, had no idea what she could say, but movement from the twins broke the moment. They were at the cauldron again and this time they hauled it off the fire, fingers and palms blistering against the hot metal. Brida clearly heard the sizzle of flesh burning. She gasped.

Sati and Cahn dipped their hands into the scalding stew and pulled up gobbets of fish and vegetables, cramming them into their mouths, bickering and snarling at each other as they fought over the ­choicest meats. Meat…

Brida tipped her bowl into the light and squinted. Grey flesh, tinged here and there with green she’d originally taken for cress or dandelion tips. The eel…

Without thinking, she stood and hurled the bowl as far from her as she could, desperate only to be rid of the tainted stuff. Eron was up a second later, but his bowl sailed through the air and struck the River-Watcher hard in the face so he fell backwards off his stone. Eron lunged around the fire and snatched up the rush-knife from its place near Sati and then grabbed Brida and hustled her backwards.

The twins had stopped eating, poisoned flesh dripping from their mouths and fingers. Very slowly, their gazes switched from the River-Watcher’s prone form to Brida and Eron. As his head came around, she saw Cahn’s eyes were leaking pale green tears. They rose to their feet with an inhuman fluidity, as if their bodies contained thousands of tiny bones like a snake’s.

Eron brandished the knife at them and pushed protectively in front of Brida. There was the sound of cloth tearing. Over it a different sort of tearing – wetter, meatier. To their right, the River-Watcher rose to his – its – feet, the robe splitting and falling from its bloating flesh.

If it had ever been human, it had been aeons ago. If it had ever been beautiful, it was but a maddening, distant memory subsumed in filth. Wide mouths ripped open in its sickly flesh as it grew ever larger, gaping grey lips rimed with rotten blood out of which putrid entrails bulged. The hair on its head was stringy and a shocking blond, the final vestige of its former humanity. Fingers as thick as bulrushes clicked and flexed, ragged black talons punching through the ends and reaching for them.

Its head swelled, cheeks and nose spreading until the eyes were almost hidden. Its throat distended like a bullfrog’s, but no words emerged – instead a tide of pus, acrid enough to sting their eyes, gushed from its mouth onto the grass, blackening it instantly. It beckoned to them.

Brida tore her gaze from Nurgle’s disciple as Eron stiffened. Sati was smiling, a hungry feral rictus. Her fingers stretched and then hooked, the flesh opening at the knuckles and weeping black blood. ‘Hungry,’ she growled. ‘So hungry.’

She took a shambling step towards them, her belly suddenly distended and flopping over her waistband, an empty sac begging to be filled. Next to her, Cahn grunted as one of his eyes exploded, spraying thick, viscous liquid into the fire to hiss and squeal as though it were alive. They advanced; so did the Rotbringer.

Eron flailed his hand back and found Brida’s, gave it a desperate squeeze. ‘Go,’ he yelled as Sati lunged, hooked fingers clawing for his face and screaming her hunger on blasts of foul breath.

He swung the knife, the outside edge smacking her hands away, and then Brida was running, and he was on her heels, and they were racing headlong through the trees blanketing the island, no destination in mind, nothing but to get away, get far away and never look back.

The Rotbringer’s unearthly laughter rose behind them, laughter that bubbled and gasped through a pus-filled throat, great dolloping splats of putrid mirth. Beneath his retching, the drumming of pursuing feet.

‘Head for the river,’ Eron panted as they raced through the trees ahead of the twins.

‘The eel,’ Brida gasped back, but of course it was dead – the Rot­bringer had fed it to her friends. She screamed as a branch whipped into her face beneath her eye. Tears blinded her but she stumbled on, Eron’s fist in her sleeve as he dragged her faster and faster through the trees and around the undergrowth. Ghyran’s voracious plant life seemed as healthy as ever, but Brida didn’t trust anything now. Already Nurgle’s Rot could be seeping into her skin from the cut beneath her eye, could be changing her from the inside out, changing her into a monster dedicated to Chaos. One of Nurgle’s putrescent little pets.

She sobbed and concentrated on running. Thoughts like that would ensure one thing only – that she never left the island alive. The trees grew thicker as they ran, the occasional wink of the rush-knife in a patch of light the only leavening of the gloom. The sound of pursuit had broken up and Brida knew the twins were flanking them – or herding them.

The air felt lighter over to their left, but Cahn was there, his tall, muscled frame appearing in flashes through the trees. That was the direction they needed to move, she was sure of it. She pushed hard until she was level with Eron, then dodged ahead of him and then left. ‘This way,’ she gasped and was gone, Eron’s protest lost in the air behind her. He had no choice but to follow and she prayed to the Lady of Leaves she wasn’t leading him to his death.

Cahn let out a hungry, joyful bellow as they veered towards him. Filthy claws tipped the ends of his fingers and he swiped at them, too far away to cause any damage – yet. He too had a hanging flap of belly just waiting to be filled with their meat and bones, and it slapped against his legs with every stride, hampering his progress, slowing him just enough that they had a chance. She was sure they had a chance.

Sati screeched from their right, far closer than Brida had expected.

‘Eron!’ Brida yelled.

‘Go,’ he shouted, ‘go, go!’

Brida put on a final burst of speed, leaping tree roots and bursting through and over shrubs, hurdling vines that would tangle her feet and hold her fast for the untender mercies of her friends. She could see a splash of grey ahead – the River Quamus. She ducked under a hanging branch, sped over a patch of bindweed, and emerged onto the shore, the long, mud-and-sand spit between the forest and the water. It was empty – no boat, no driftwood large enough to float on.

‘Keep going,’ Eron panted behind her and together they pounded along the mud. ‘Rushes.’ He pointed with the knife for a second and Brida saw them, tall and brown and upright. A huge, thick stand of them right at the edge of the water.

She angled for them, head down and knees pumping, putting all her terror and confusion into the single, simple act of running. The twins’ shouts were fading with distance, but she knew – somehow just knew – that they wouldn’t give up. They might have to walk, or crawl, or even drag themselves along by their claws, but they were coming. They wouldn’t stop; they couldn’t. Hunger, madness, Chaos, drove them.

Eron stopped her at the edge of the rushes and stuffed a flint and steel into her hands. ‘Use the rush heads and stems and build a fire,’ he said. ‘Signal fire, something to drive them back. I’m going to make a raft.’

She hesitated. ‘Rushes won’t support our weight, Eron. We’ll sink in seconds.’

‘Just make a fire,’ he snarled at her, his eyes wild and the knife raised. Brida lurched away, panic drawing an icy finger down her spine. ‘I’ll cut wood,’ he added.

‘You shouldn’t – the Everqueen,’ she began.

‘Then I’ll pray for forgiveness, but without it we die. Now help me,’ Eron insisted. He didn’t wait for her answer, instead running back to the treeline and hacking wildly at the lowest branches.

Brida used up precious seconds watching him and offering a prayer to the Lady for forgiveness and aid, then began ripping the thick fluffy heads from the bulrushes and stuffing them inside her shirt for safekeeping.

She hadn’t gathered many before she spotted a thick shape bobbing in the water – the reed bed was the perfect collection point for driftwood. Brida splashed towards it and began hauling it back towards land. It could form the spine of the raft. Eron dragged over what he’d managed to hack from the trees and they piled it all together. Even with the driftwood it wasn’t much, a pitiful collection of branches that didn’t look as if it would support the weight of a child, let alone two adults.

Still, it was all they had and they were running out of time. ‘I saw strangler vine just up there,’ Brida said, gesturing back the way they’d come. ‘Not far. Give me the knife – I’ll cut as much as I–’

‘I’ll get it,’ Eron interrupted and ran off before she could stop him.

Brida pulled the branches together into a narrow platform ready for tying and then set about making the fire, pausing every few seconds to scan the trees for Eron or their pur­suers. One of Demesnus’ swift trading ships might see it, or even a slow, flat-bottomed rush punt – someone, anyone to rescue them, to tell them it was all right, that they were safe.

The fire was tiny but bright in the early sun when Eron came staggering back, swathes of vines trailing from his arms. ‘Hurry,’ he gasped. ‘I could hear them.’

Brida snatched the vines from him. Movements automatic after so many years weaving, and with a speed born of renewed terror, she lashed the branches together with the vines and pulled them tight. Narrow, so narrow. If they so much as breathed wrong, they’d capsize. And what if there was more mutated river life? Still, the choice was between angry fish and an actual Rotbringer and his… disciples. My friends.

Tears pricked Brida’s eyes but she blinked them back savagely, then blinked again at the shapes scudding through the trees close by. ‘They’re here,’ she hissed and shoved Eron in the back. ‘Lift.’

They dragged the raft into the shallows and it dipped alarmingly beneath the surface before bobbing back up. ‘I should stay,’ Eron said. ‘Make sure they don’t catch up to us.’

‘Shut up and get on,’ she snapped, clambering aboard. He followed as shouts of triumph and then fury erupted behind them. Sitting cross-legged on the almost submerged raft, they used their hands to paddle out of the reeds. ‘Angle across the current. Doesn’t matter how far downriver it takes us as long as we reach shore.’

Behind them, that hacking laughter broke out again. ‘Chase them down, my pretties. One bite and Grandfather’s joy will have them and hold them tight. Let them carry it home within them, nestled deep in their meat and bones to grow and consume them until they too must feed or die. Feed and spread his rot. Faster, pretties, faster! Don’t let them get away.’

Sati and Cahn – or what was left of them – splashed into the shallows and began wading out. As soon as their tainted limbs touched the water, it began to boil with frenzied life – fish and frogs sped away from the approaching pair, some leaping onto the raft in their desperation to escape.

‘Alarielle, Lady of Leaves, please, please help us,’ Brida prayed as they paddled, but the words stuck in her throat when Eron slipped off the raft. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Swap places,’ he ordered, treading water and clinging to the side.

There wasn’t time to argue, not with him in the river and vulnerable to whatever might be down there. Brida slid forward, wincing as splinters ripped into her palms and through her trousers. Eron hauled himself back on, facing the way they’d come, the rush-knife clenched in his fist. A second later Cahn was clinging to the raft, nearly upsetting it.

Eron roared and swung, the blunt edge of the knife chopping into the bloated fingers, mashing them flat. Cahn squealed and vomited blood and half-digested meat across the raft, but Eron hit him again, in the face this time, and he lost his grip.

Sati reared up in front of the raft and Brida lashed out with one foot, kicking her squarely in her keening mouth; her friend hung on and chewed through the thick troggoth-hide heel of her boot as if it were rice paper. She could hear Eron grunting as he lashed out with the knife at Cahn. Sati fell back with a splash as the heel sheared away and then bobbed back up, a rotten apple in a barrel. Brida kicked her again and this time her lower jaw ripped free, flesh tearing. Maggots oozed from the hole and plopped into the water to feed fish and infect them. Brida screamed; Sati sank and didn’t come back up.

‘Ahoy, the raft. Trouble?’

A low-sided fishing boat was tacking towards them. ‘Help!’ Brida screamed with everything she had. ‘Help us!’ Oars slid out to aid the sail and she could see nets and long, wickedly barbed harpoons being passed among the rest of the crew. The distress flag was raised and, in the far distance, Brida saw the yellow sails of Demesnus’ fishing fleet begin to drift in their direction.

The water boiled apart ahead of her and Sati rose again, jaw rehung and slavering with famine and the need to infect. The water around them was alive with diseased fish. Eron slammed into Brida’s shoulder almost hard enough to pitch her into the water, but the knife point came down into Sati’s head and through her skull. She thrashed and flopped, blood gouting into the air and spraying from her screeching mouth before, still writhing, she sank again.

Brida stared after her for a long, disbelieving second before Eron yelled. She turned to see Cahn holding onto the rear of the raft, his massive hands crushing the branches and tearing at the vines, snapping them like cotton. The raft shuddered and the branches began to move apart. Eron threw himself flat on the raft, both arms outstretched to cling to the narrow platform and push it back together, using brute strength to prevent them from sinking.

Brida lunged over him and punched Cahn in the face, bursting his other eye. He disappeared in a swirl of bubbles. She hesitated for a second, then scrambled to the front and began to paddle again, faster and harder than ever before. The fishing boat was near now, but it was slowing – harpoons were jabbing down into the water on all sides as eels and pike – and Cahn – hurled themselves upwards to attack the fishers. One woman was dragged screaming into the Quamus and the water around the boat quickly turned pink.

‘Alarielle Everqueen, I’ll serve you all my days if you lend us your aid,’ Brida gasped. It was a poor prayer, but it was all she had time and breath for as she paddled madly. Shouts and screams erupted from the boat – not just that boat, but all the boats that had come to help – ringing in her ears and drowning out her prayer. ‘Lady of Leaves, hear me. Save us, I beg you.’

Eron was grunting and cursing, the water lapping at his nose and mouth as he lay on the raft and held it together. Sobbing, shoulders burning, Brida paddled on, leaving the battle between the fishers and their prey turned predators behind. The sounds of fighting slowly faded, though whether with distance or because everyone was dead, she didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.

They were trapped in the fastest part of the current, too fast for a broken raft and an exhausted woman to combat when Demesnus slid past, far away across the river. With the last of her strength, Brida tried to reach it, but as the sun slid across the sky and Eron fell silent, it disappeared in their wake, oblivious to their fate.

The sun was low in the sky when the great river began to curve and Brida spotted the telltale sign of a sandbank stretching far out into the river and angled for it. Eventually they ran aground. It didn’t matter that they were on the wrong shore. What did matter was that they were on land and they’d left the monsters behind them. They were safe.

Brida sat and let her head hang to her chest for a while, just breathing as the agony in her arms began to fade. Then she licked the sweat from her lip and crawled off the raft onto the sand. ‘Eron? Come on, we’re safe.’

He whimpered and rolled over onto his back, cradling his arms against his chest. Brida’s heart stopped. Great chunks of flesh were missing from his forearms, a finger gone from his left hand. His flesh was decorated with human bite marks. He’d held on – he’d saved her – while Cahn ate him.

Brida dragged him off the raft onto the sandy bank. ‘Rest, love. Just rest.’ Working quickly, she used the rush-knife to cut off her sleeves and wrapped them around the worst of his wounds. Crude bandages, but all she had.

She made a fire and pulled Eron close to the flames, holding him tight. ‘Sleep now, my love,’ she murmured in a cracked voice as he lay in her arms, shaking and muttering. For what felt like the hundredth time since their ordeal had begun, tears pricked at her eyes. This time she let them come, watching through their veil as the sun set and the world shrank down to orange flames and black night.

By dawn he was raving, and by its first light she saw how the wounds were pus-filled and rotting, how his skin had taken on the pallor of a drowned corpse. Eron’s eyes were milky-green and his lips pulled back from snapping teeth.

Brida was empty. She stood and stepped away, evading the hand that reached to snag her ankle. Hollow, she walked around the dead fire and picked up the rush-knife, returned and knelt before him like a supplicant. ‘Eron? Can you hear me?’

Claws burst from the ends of his fingers and swiped at her; she swatted them away. ‘Eron?’ she tried again. ‘Come back to me.’

He laughed, mad and malevolent. There was no sign of the man she knew and loved, the man she was to marry. Eron was gone.

She was raw, no more emotions left inside her, and she was glad of it. If she could feel, she wouldn’t be able to act. Brida rose up onto her knees and placed the inner curve of the rush-knife against Eron’s neck. She didn’t look into the face she’d once thought to wake beside every morning for the rest of her life. Instead she drew the blade across his throat hard and swift, leaning back from the spray of blood so it didn’t touch her skin.

She counted the beats left to his heart, shuffled back from the final grasping of his hand, not sure whether it was offered in love or hunger. Not willing to risk finding out. What did that make her? As much a monster as the Rotbringer, to deny a dying man final comfort.

But a monster with a purpose.

When Eron was dead, Brida stood and stared back through the mist in the direction of the island. She wasn’t sure she’d ever feel anything again, but she knew what she wanted. Vengeance. If any of the fishers had made it back to Demesnus, the city was already dead, and she wasn’t strong enough yet to fight the shambling, diseased remnants of the rest of her kin. 

Brida needed to be stronger. Strong enough to fight the evil that had taken everything she loved. And she knew who could make her so. Who would raise her up and make her vengeance holy. She had sworn to serve the Lady of Leaves if she was saved, and she had been, though Eron had not. And while his loss was a knife in her heart, Brida lived free of disease and free to take her vengeance in his memory. 

She lifted her hands in supplication. ‘Alarielle, Everqueen, I am yours to command. My life for you, my service in the destruction of your enemies. Forever.’ She felt something, a brush across her senses, as of sunlight dappling through leaves. Acceptance. A binding.

Brida looked one last time at the corpse of her lover, all that remained of her life before, and then she began to walk. There was a Freeguild company camped a few days’ west. She’d make a new future with them. One written in blood.