Chapter one

The first deaths

Gray mist parted before the prow of the narrow boat, clung damply to our faces, dewed our evening cloaks with diamonds. Gaunt fingers of mist reached across the canal to the opposite bank where the blank stone rear of a villa patched a mass of darkness against the night.

We were a silent company with only the soft ripple of water as an accompaniment. Then Seg said: “A damned spooky night, this, my old dom.”

Seg Segutorio is one of the fey ones of two worlds, and at his words his wife Milsi put her arm through his more securely and pressed closer. Delia responded with one of her silvery-golden laughs and was about to pass a scathing comment on the gullibility of some folk over ghouls and spookies and the Kregen equivalent of things that go bump in the night, when young Fortin, standing in the prow with his boathook, called out.

“Look! On the bank — there!”

We all looked. A man wrapped in a cloak walked unsteadily along the towpath and I was about to inquire with a touch of sarcasm of young Fortin what we were supposed to be staring at when a humped gray mass launched itself through the air.

The man had no chance. Screaming, writhing, he went down into the mud.

A monstrous shaggy shape hunched above him. The impression of crimson eyes, of yellow fangs, of a thick and coarsely tangled pelt, of a beast-form bunched with demonic energy, was followed by the clearly heard crunch of bones breaking through.

The people in the narrow boat set up a yelling. The beast reared his head. He stared out full at us. Smoky ruby eyes glared malevolently. The yellow fangs and black jaws glistened thickly with blood that darkened ominously in that uncertain light.

Seg reached around to his back for the great Lohvian longbow that was not there. We were all dressed for the evening’s entertainment, with rapiers and left-hand daggers. A lady and gentleman do not normally need longbows and war-swords and shields along the streets and canals of Vondium, the capital of the Empire of Vallia.

Kregen’s first Moon, the Maiden with the Many Smiles, cast down her fuzzy pink light upon the slatey waters, and tendrils of mist coiled up to engulf the light. The air darkened.

“Steer for the bank!” I bellowed.

Old Naghan the Tiller put his helm over at once and we glided into the bank. Fortin fended us off and Seg and I leaped ashore.

The poor fellow was dead, his throat torn clean out.

Delia said, “Call the Watch.”

“Can you see the damn beast?” Seg glared about.

In the shifting shards of pinkish illumination, with the mist bafflingly obscuring details, we could see no sign of that monstrous shaggy beast.

Dormvelt, the bo’sun, hauled out his silver whistle — it was a whistle and not a pipe — and blew. The City Fathers, instituted by the Presidio to run many of the day-to-day functions of Vondium, had suggested that a City Watch would be in keeping with the requirements of law and order. The Pallans, the ministers or secretaries, responsible for their various departments of Vallia, had agreed. I was pleased now to see how rapidly the Watch tumbled up, summoned by Dormvelt’s call.

These were not the happy, rapscallion, lethargic Watch of Sanurkazz, who invariably turned up too late at a fracas, with swords rusted into their scabbards. These men were old soldiers, with stout polearms, and lanterns, and a couple of werstings on leather leashes reinforced with brass.

“What’s to do, koters?” called their leader who wore yellow and white feathers in his hat.

Then he saw me.

He knew better than to go into the extravagant full incline, all slavish indignity in a free man.

“Majister!”

“Lahal, Tom the Toes,” I said, for I recognized him for an old churgur of the army. As a churgur he still carried sword and shield. His men shone their lanterns on the corpse.

“A bad business. Did you see a monstrous great animal running off?”

“No majister.” Tom the Toes rattled his sword against his shield. “Larko! If you can’t keep those dratted werstings quiet in the presence of the emperor, then—”

“I dunno, Tom — look at ’em! They’re going crazy...”

Werstings, those vicious black and white striped hunting dogs, are popularly supposed to be tamed into serving humanity as watchdogs and hunting dogs. But most folk eye them askance, knowing with that sixth sense of humans that the dogs are only pretending to be tamed and that they will break out into their savage ways at the first opportunity. Now the two werstings were drawing back their lips, exposing their fangs. They were snarling deep in their throats, guttural and menacing sounds. The hair around their necks stood up and their backs bristled.

Larko held onto the leashes, hanging back, and I’d swear that at any moment he’d be towed along with his heels slipping in the mud.

“The beast’s scent upsets them,” said Delia. “So we follow.”

Trust Delia to get to the heart of anything faster than anyone else.

Tom the Toes, holding himself very erect, huffed and puffed, and got out: “Majestrix! My lady! You are not