I stood alone at the prow of the Scaleshaker as we crashed like an ungainly sow through the waves. The others were safe below decks, but I had my wraith-essence to make the experience more palatable, and I didn’t care that the sailors out here with me were staring at me with odd expressions. Yes, it was cold. Yes, I could feel it. But it felt right. I felt right, for once. The world was grey and black before me – grey skies, black seas. When I closed my eyes there was nothing, no sensation but the chill, wetness… Colour, warmth, dryness: these were concepts for the dry land, for those whose feet stood upon the solid ground. Here, we were at the mercy of Wyrda, to whom the drunken captain had dedicated his half-bottle of ice-spirits before tossing it overboard. I hoped that was enough to placate her. The last thing I needed was an assault from She Who Slumbers Submerged. I was painfully aware my magic wouldn’t save us if there was some kind of natural disaster out here. Me and the twins, maybe, if I could get us back to land… but the others? I couldn’t wraith-shift everyone.

I didn’t like boats, I decided. I’d only been out on the sea once, when I’d landed on the Dremmedine to discuss the Redgate situation with Phanar and the others. The ship was already close to Salnifast at the time, and I’d known in advance I was only stopping on it for a matter of minutes. But this… this was different.

The Scaleshaker was a fat schooner. Instead of cutting through the water like a knife it bobbed about like a log on the surface of a river, seeming to sway side to side as much as it plunged forwards. And Northril was different to what I’d seen of the Mundic Sea. It was far darker, for a kick off, even when the sun’s rays managed to pierce the gloom. The waves were scintillating dunes of black crystal, scraping at the hull. The clouds were thick, shapeless sponges of grey felt, clinging in the air just inches overhead, it seemed, so that when I breathed in the wind it rolled in my lungs like it was half-water.

I was stuck between the cliff and the flood. (In fact I would’ve quite liked being stuck between a cliff and a flood – at least that would be to imply I had my feet on the ground.) The air out here made me sick, stifling me, drowning me in its moistness – but the air down in the hold was moist too for other, yet-more sickening reasons. Sweat. Breath. The sweet scent of almost-rotten fruits, barely-cured seal skins and something called zippa, which looked like porridge but stunk of fish, casks and casks of the stuff.

I was rarely eating, now that the ship was on the high seas. Even with copious amounts of wraith-form, the nausea was killing me. I’d managed to keep down water and bread and heavily-salted meat, but anything more extreme in flavour was reintroducing itself to me in the most horrid way imaginable. By now – day four of our voyage – I’d learned a few lessons.

Still, when it was time for the evening meal I headed below to sit with the twins, both of whom seemed to have sturdier sea-legs than me. Perhaps the slow build-up of my own tolerance was due to the insubstantiality, what with half my body held half a dimension away from the constant rolling of the waves. Whatever the explanation, it hadn’t affected Jaid and Jaroan. By the time I got to the hold they were happily stuffing their faces – Jaroan even had some of the zippa for the second time – and I had to sit there trying not to breathe for fear of tipping over my stomach again.

I earwigged instead. Out of the dozen or so other passengers, there was one other mage aboard the Scaleshaker, and she was so full of drop she’d squirt Mud Lane if you stabbed her. I figured her name to be Rellos, or something like that. Her skin was a fabulous ochre colour, her eyes and hair purple, ears with the distinctive part-elf point at their tips. As if her natural appearance wasn’t enough, she wore a rune-spattered robe, belts, necklaces, rings – all of it bereft of a single ensorcellment. Yet I could hardly say that, even though everyone was taking everything she said so seriously. It didn’t help that only half of it was in the Mundic tongue, the rest in the native Telese spoken by the crew.

“… shehaz higa gorach… You know zees? Yilygu? Za vampire? Za vampire ‘az only love in ‘is ‘art for za mortal. Zay see it as a gift, zair blood. I haf met one! Harmonaz in o dae orashaz it mef elent…”

“You should really try this, you know.” Jaroan managed to say it in a condescending tone. “It’s nothing like anything you’ve ever tried.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“No thank you,” Jaid said, the words perfectly polite but her voice brittle as an icicle.

“But you won’t know whether you like it till you’ve tried it.”

“Jar,” I said warningly.

“I’m okay.”

“But I really think you would like it! You like fish – you like porridge –”

“I don’t want any –”

“– no reason not to try it –”

“Jar!”

“– doesn’t taste anything like it smells –”

I applied more wraith to my flesh and, for the first time since boarding the Scaleshaker, I drifted straight up through the planks, onto the deck near the rail, and leaned over the side.

I hadn’t yet eaten, thankfully, so I just brought up a bellyful of fluid.

I stood there, embracing the starboard rail – and it was through blurry eyes that I witnessed the mountain against the clouds, an enormous shadow towering above us through the mist, where there should’ve been only ocean…

“Ysga-vin!” one of the sailors yelled. “Dark elves, cap’n!”

From out of the mist, from the looming shadow, a harpoon the length of an oar came flying, piercing the sailor at the navel and sending his corpse cartwheeling down from the rigging.

“What in – drop –” I muttered even as I threw out shields. I started moving towards the man lying there on the deck, but I could already tell he was gone – he’d landed on his head, and the impact had done a number on the integrity of his skull. For the first time in a long time, I saw a ghost go screaming out of a body to be consumed by nethernal wind.

The narrow chain attached to the harpoon suddenly retracted it with the speed of a counterweight – I followed the hooked spear and its captive body with my eyes. Looking back at the mountainous shadow, watching the thing materialise.

If it weren’t for the preceding events, I’d have thought it a glacier, like from the stories.

But it wasn’t. The sailor was right. It was them.

It was just like they all said about the invasion, back when I was a kid. Mum and Dad didn’t let me go anywhere near the walls, didn’t let me look out to see the seven ‘ships’ anchored in the bay beyond Salnifast. But everyone had heard what they were like, even the children.

So it was I had some vague notion of what to expect as it emerged from the mist.

It was akin to the chariots of the Zadhalites, and maybe zombie-giants, I supposed. A gargantuan warship, its hull rising to the foredeck a hundred feet above my head – but where most sea-going vessels were wooden, this was constructed from nothing but fleshless corpses. Human and elf and dwarf. Fish and bird and mammal. The dark elves didn’t differentiate. This colossus of death was so ancient-looking, I would’ve expected it to have weathered, smoothed, but no – every single skeleton was preserved in its entirety, fused to this world and its bony brethren with purple cords of magic, nethernal cement glowing, pulsing, in every seam. The masts were like Hightown towers, the sails of waxy skin hanging limp, wide enough to cover a city square laid flat.

The bone warship glided closer so silently, with such unchanging speed, it was almost peaceful – the sword-like blade of the prow sliced its way through the sea towards us, Vaahn’s scythe, sweeping in gently to reave away our souls –

Blaaaaaaaaaaa-ha-haaaaaaaaaaa.

The horn’s notes were tremendous, rattling the rails of the Scaleshaker. The organ that produced such a dreadful sound had to be as big as our ship all on its own. Bigger, perhaps. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of Scaleshakers would fit inside the goliath.

A score of small holes appeared in a row, halfway up the hull. Vicious barbs glinted there, then shot forth. But the hail of harpoons that the warship spat at us went rebounding harmlessly from my shields. I had them weaving all about the boat now, protecting the Scaleshaker from harm.

Some of the crewmen were running to their posts, while others were fleeing downstairs and yelling. One of the sailors was clutching his beard and screaming, backing away towards the port rail – surely he wouldn’t be so stupid as to jump in the sea… Though death might be a mercy, considering what the dark elves were said to do with their prisoners.

What they did with them, before they found an eternal use for the remains.

Some of the passengers were stupid-enough to head up with the bravest sailors, as though this were a tourist’s show. The twins were nowhere to be seen, thankfully. Despite their mental states, they retained the Mortenn good sense – or maybe it was just sharp survival instincts. Either way, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I didn’t want either of them to see this.

Rellos, or whatever her name was, appeared on my right side and started pulling spell-components from her pouches – I raised my eyebrows and gave her a nod, which she returned. There was fear in her eyes, but coolness, professionalism too.

Unexpected. I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at back-up, though.

The warship reeled in its hooked spears with what sounded like a single loud, steely rasp. Then, within seconds, the dark elves spat again. More holes opened – more harpoons.

Again, and again. Three dozen this time.

* * *