Witchsign. Den Patrick

with a tiny suspicion of what was to come.

      ‘You had better get below,’ said Romola. The island had cast a shadow over the Watcher’s Wait, crowding out the sky as they passed into the cove. ‘I can’t risk you being seen up here. Go on now.’

      Steiner headed back to the hold and tried to slip in unnoticed, but there was small chance of that. The other children were wide-eyed and full of questions. There were a few pointed comments about being ‘the captain’s favourite’, but the conversation focused on what he’d seen. Steiner answered their questions as best he could, close-mouthed for the main, until he felt the ship slow and the Spøkelsea’s constant motion troubled them no more. All eyes turned upward, staring at the rectangle of grey sky above the hold where soldier’s faces would appear, summoning them on deck, leading them to Vladibogdan.

      The cove was not large and the ship rested in sombre waters, a scarlet shadow beneath granite cliffs. The children were ferried to a stone pier and told to wait by looming soldiers, as if any might be inclined to venture to the black sands and the many steps that rose beyond.

      ‘May Frejna’s eye not find you,’ said Romola.

      ‘And may Frøya keep you close,’ replied Steiner. It was strange to speak of the old goddesses with a person from Shanisrond, but he felt in his bones that she meant every word.

      ‘I didn’t have you as one believing in the old ways,’ said Romola.

      ‘I don’t, but I’ll need all the good fortune I can get, divine and otherwise.’

      ‘You’d best not mention the goddesses on the island,’ warned Romola, ‘or you’ll be severely punished.’

      The Hierarchs Khigir and Shirinov were the last to leave the ship. If either of them was a natural sailor he hid it well. The old men moved slowly to the boats below and were hoisted onto the pier by struggling soldiers. The children watched with wide eyes, barely daring to breathe as the masked men pushed through the press.

      ‘What happens now?’ whispered Maxim.

      ‘A steep climb,’ muttered Steiner, nodding towards countless steps etched in the steep rise. Maxim’s eyes widened but not for the reason Steiner supposed. Shirinov’s gloved hand caught him across the mouth and he felt his lip split in a bright pinprick of pain.

      ‘Silence! You will learn discipline!’ Shirinov’s smiling mask turned to the other children. ‘You will learn obedience. And you will learn that the Empire’s needs come before your own. Always.’

      Steiner’s head swam from the force of the blow, but he did not stagger. He licked his lip and tasted coppery blood, not taking his eyes from the Vigilant for a moment.

      ‘You’d do well to tame that dark look you’re so fond of giving me, boy.’

      ‘The look will be the least of your problems,’ replied Steiner, though he struggled to form the words. ‘And I’m not your boy.’ Shirinov raised his fist again but Khigir caught his arm.

      ‘Plenty of time for that in due course, brother,’ said the Vigilant from behind the frowning mask. Shirinov shrugged him off.

      ‘Thank the Emperor we are finally back,’ added Khigir, then released a sigh. A dozen tongues of fire grew on the stone around his feet. The children squealed but for a few who looked aghast and perhaps guilty. The soldiers ushered them up the stairs with a few well-placed shoves, barking commands in Solska. Many of the children stumbled with the effort of looking at Khigir’s raw manifestation of the arcane as much as from the punishing climb. Shirinov led the procession, while his colleague joined Steiner at the back, the dancing flames at his feet following with every step.

      ‘My sister used to tell tales of such flames,’ said Steiner. ‘She called them corpsecandles.’

      The frowning mask nodded. ‘There is an old tale that on nights of full moon you can see Spriggani venture from the forests. Spiteful people in the dark going about their wicked business.’

      ‘And what business would that be?’ Steiner was already beginning to tire as he climbed the granite steps.

      ‘It’s said that Spriggani enter graveyards, perching on tombstones or cairns.’ Khigir was wheezing behind the mask. ‘The Spriggani sing horrible rhymes and draw out the last vestiges of life from those who have died. Tiny flames emerge and Spriggani capture them under glass, use them to light lanterns.’

      ‘Corpsecandles.’

      ‘This is so.’

      Steiner looked at the Vigilant’s robes and noted they did not singe or blacken.

      ‘And you can make them disappear?’

      ‘Yes,’ replied Khigir, ‘though it pains me to do so.’

      They climbed higher. The cliffs were dead and lifeless crags; no sign of nesting birds or lichen clung to the cracks. Steiner watched Maxim struggling to put one foot in front of the other until one stone step, worn smooth by time, betrayed him. Steiner caught the boy by the shoulder, preventing a long and likely fatal fall. The two boys looked beneath them to the base of the stairs and the black sands of the cove. Khigir took the opportunity to catch his breath, each exhalation amplified by the stifling mask.

      ‘T-thanks,’ muttered Maxim. The Shanisrond boy stared down at the Watcher’s Wait.

      ‘Do not delay,’ said Khigir, gesturing the boys onward. Maxim closed his mouth and bowed his head. They passed beneath a stone arch wide enough to admit four men abreast and struggled to make it much further. Those children who were not exhausted from the climb were mute with shock. The island had been hollowed out around a vast square, steps at every side leading to towering stone buildings carved into the very rock. Steiner noticed none of this, transfixed by the dragon standing before the rabble of children. He did not know it was a dragon, how could he? The Solmindre Empire had banned all icons and images of those terrible creatures. Yet there was nothing else in all of Vinterkveld that the creature could possibly be. Scores of feet high with a serpentine body perched atop powerful hind legs, the creature made a mockery of even the tallest soldiers. The muzzle was split wide to reveal teeth like short swords, the mouth seemingly frozen in a tortured, silent howl. Steiner shivered as he looked into one heavy-lidded onyx eye, where there was a maddened gleam that spoke of hunger and fury. Sheets of flame danced over the dragon’s numberless scales, while the wings rivalled the mainsails of the Watcher’s Wait.

      ‘And may Frøya keep me close,’ breathed Steiner.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       Kjellrunn

       It is easy to assume that the Emperor trusted his power to the Vigilants and the Synod alone, but all organisations are capable of corruption. To Hierarchs tempted to flee the Empire, I say steel yourselves. To Ordinaries turning a blind eye to those with witchsign, I say look to your duty. And to those who resort to assassination, I say abandon your schemes. To err is to invite the attention of the Okhrana, to err is to be hunted by the riders in black.

      – From the field notes of Hierarch Khigir, Vigilant of the Imperial Synod.

      The day let itself be known to Kjellrunn in glimpses and flashes, like sunlight reaching far into the depths of the ocean. Here the sound of a voice in the street outside, elsewhere a maddened dog barking in the distance. She was warm and heavy with darkness, wrapped in blankets and yesterday’s clothes. Her eyes were comfortably heavy-lidded and she’d no wish to rouse herself. Let Marek fetch the water from the well. Steiner could make his own breakfast. It wouldn’t hurt him to sweep the kitchen and stoke up the fire.

       Steiner.

      Something was wrong, something nameless and sour.

      ‘Steiner?’