“No way,” the necromancer said. “I’m not getting in that thing.”

  “And how are ye proposing to travel back across the sea, then?” Rīganī asked mildly, her hands folded across her breast. “Will ye be swimming?”

  “If I have to!”

  Sou Yuet considered the boat, if it could be called that.

  It was, in essence, the trunk of an enormous oak, split in half with the heartwood scooped out. A pair of outriggers, also made of oak, balanced the whole thing. Oars lined the sides. Several of the strongest villagers were gathered nearby, ready to row, nervously eyeing the silent ranks of the Hunt, dark on the pale shore.

  Sou Yuet looked from the giant canoe to the choppy, grey sea.

  “Ye see? Even Yuet’s questioning this thing!” The necromancer kicked the canoe and immediately performed a hopping dance of pain. Oak is a solid wood.

  “The sea is always fierce here, child,” Rīganī said to Sou Yuet, large eyes gentle. “There is no best time to leave, but if ye’re preferring to wait, ye can stay awhile longer.”

  “It’s fine,” Sou Yuet said, with a big smile, hiding their hands in their sleeves.

  “Bullshite. I saw ye shaking,” the necromancer grunted between thumping the ground with her fist and clutching her foot. “Dammit, I already had to be hauled in one of these once. I’ll not be doing it again!”

  Rīganī sighed. “What a pair! Child, ye’re one of the Aes Sidhe, ye know? And Yuet, me dear, ye’re a strong child, a little trip across the water on this won’t hurt ye.”

  The weak smile that Sou Yuet returned suggested otherwise. “Perhaps I could simply… I think I could carry us across with the leaf, with my level of cultivation…”

  “You will not die,” Lady Herela pointed out to the necromancer dispassionately.

  “Oh, right, and that stops me from feeling pain now, does it? No worries, I’ll just sink the bottom of the crushing fecking ocean for eternity, shall I?”

  “You won’t end up at the bottom of the ocean,” Sou Yuet said. “I won’t let you.”

  “Right… Well…”

  “Allow us to accompany ye by boat, lords.” The mage Coll with the hazelnut garland pushed her way to the front of the group, following by another mage. “We can stabilise the boat with our magics.”

  “We would appreciate that, Lady Mage.” Sou Yuet bowed to her. “Shall we?” They held out their hand to the necromancer, and together they stepped into the boat. Sunny shook herself and backed up.

  “Come on, Sunny. It’s safe.”

  “Is it?”

  The lion-dog stubbornly sat down on the rocky shore.

  “This damned hound… Sunny! Come on, ye daft dog.”

  Sou Yuet realised that Rīganī had vanished. As their eyes searched the shore, the rolling clouds approaching over the land caught their attention. “It seems as though the rain is coming again. It rains a lot here, doesn’t it?”

  “Miserable bloody rock in the middle of the sea, that’s why.”

  Sou Yuet smiled at this. “Is that so? Well, you’ll never have to come back to this ‘miserable rock’ again.”

  The necromancer looked away. It seemed calculated to avoid Sou Yuet’s gaze, but her eyes fell upon the land and began to wander, up over the green velvet hills and deep forests, stretching beyond where the rain fell like a soft grey curtain, veiling the land in mist.

  Barely visible to Sou Yuet through the fog, a horse stood at the very top of a verdant hill. She watched them in silence, neither drawing close nor retreating, the stripes on her brown hide shifting as the clouds deepened.

  Sou Yuet laid a hand on the necromancer’s back, between the long locks of black hair. Her body felt cool through the fabric of her tunic. “We can come back whenever you want, cridé.”

  The only response possible was silence. Sou Yuet lifted Sunny into the air with their ginseng leaf, and as the last of the crew climbed into the boat, Mage Coll raised her staff with a shout, the boat pushing off the grey pebbles, into the grey sea, under a grey sky.

  The necromancer continued to watch the shoreline of the place she had been born until it disappeared behind the rain.

  *

  The Hunt skimmed the waves as if they were running across solid ground. The pacing black horses and dogs moved tirelessly in the wake of the boat, despite the increasing toss of the boat as the waves grew wilder. At the head of the boat, Mage Coll rocked back and forth, her staff raised, while another mage stood at the rear, battling the crests and troughs.

  The Ankou sat on the back of Melhih, behind Lady Herela, the pair conversing in absolute silence. Another rider had both Bugul Noz and the kornikaned on their horse, the latter passenger trussed tightly to prevent any mischief on his part. Sunny floated along, her nose working as she sniffed in the direction of the rain clouds steadily gaining upon them. Thunder growled and she growled in return.

  Sweat and seaspray cast a sheen across Mage Coll’s pale face. She muttered unintelligible words under her breath, barely pausing. The necromancer stared grimly into the bottom of the boat as she pulled at the oars. Sou Yuet pressed their hands against the timbers, checking the soundness of the wood. A huge wave crashed over them, drenching everyone immediately, and one of the outriggers creaked.

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  “Feck feck feck feck…”

  “I have it,” Sou Yuet called above the wind, pushing their qi through the oak to the break and binding the wood fibres together. Water dripped down their face, plastering their pale hair to their cheeks.

  Gusts of wind were now howling across the water that had the horses of the Hunt whickering and rearing nervously. Lifting their hands from the deck, Sou Yuet brought Sunny closer, then with a sweep of their arm, raised a bubble of still air around the boat. Although they were still tossing about, no one on board was in danger of being blown away.

  The Hunt, on the other hand, were growing increasingly agitated. Atop the anxiously prancing Melhih, Lady Herela’s pale, skeletal face turned towards them. The Ankou firmly held his wide hat to his head.

  “Go ahead!” Sou Yuet waved her on. “We can manage.”

  There wasn’t much the Hunt could do in this situation. With a sharp nod, Lady Herela urged Melhih forwards, and the horse shot away across the water, the rest of the Hunt a long shadow streaming behind.

  There was no talk of turning back. They were in the middle of the iron-grey ocean now, gripping their oars with dogged, anxious strength. The necromancer’s eyes were screwed shut. Sou Yuet wiped her face and then their own, steadying themselves against the necromancer’s shoulder. They squeezed lightly. “Lady Mage, do you know how much farther we have to go?”

  “I’d say we’ve only gone so far as a quarter of the distance, Monk Yuan.” She dried her face hastily on the sleeve of her robe, not letting her staff drop. Her arms were shaking. “We can’t be speeding up the boat too much, either. It’s a risk to the timbers in this choppy sea.”

  “I can hold the boat together. Please speed our travel as quickly as possible.”

  Mage Coll nodded, calling back to the mage at the other end of the boat.

  Sou Yuet took up position in the middle of the boat and once more infused their qi throughout the wood until the oak timbers hummed with a deep green light. The two mages shouted again and the boat sprang forward, the rowers shipping their oars and slumping wearily over their knees. Only the necromancer kept rowing, the muscles in her arms working furiously against the force of the waves. Eyes unfocused, she still refused to raise her head, but the saltwater was filling the boat. A cracking, a tearing – her oar began to splinter from the force. Sou Yuet slapped their palm to the wood and knitted the fibres. The others began to bail out the water.

  “We’re outrunning the storm!” roared the mage from the rear of the boat. “Hold on!”

  No sooner had he spoke than a huge wave slammed into the vessel, lifting the prow clear from the water until it almost stood on vertically on end. Mage Coll grabbed at the prow with a scream, dangling, as the rest of those on board began to slide rapidly backwards. Relinquishing their control over the boat, Sou Yuet made a fist and slammed it downwards, and air forced the prow back down with a crash that shook the timbers.

  “Come on, ye useless lot!” the necromancer bellowed, hauling people back into place. “Get back to the oars!”

  The right outrigger was beginning to separate under the pressure. Sou Yuet turned their attention back to it as Mage Coll righted herself. She must have hit her face against the boat when it tilted because her nose was bleeding, but ignoring it, she raised her staff again.

  The crew, untangled, bent over the oars again, pulling with energy they didn’t have. Sou Yuet leapt lightly up to where Coll was stood and placed a hand over her face. The damaged tissue in her nose knitted.

  They were moving through calmer seas now, the worst of the storm behind them. Still, it was some time before Sunny shook herself, straining forwards, and they saw small flying shapes in the distance. Land slowly resolved itself from a dark smudge on the horizon to a shoreline.

  Under the mages’ direction, the boat ploughed up the rocky shore and everyone disembarked in an exhausted, limp sprawl, met eagerly by the dogs of the Hunt. Only Sou Yuet and the necromancer were still upright, and the latter was faintly unsteady.

  “Cousin.” Lady Herela hailed them from above an unsettled Melhih. “The Ankou has gone ahead. He senses something amiss in his lands.”

  Glancing around the pebbly beach, strewn with the crew of the boat laying about like stranded fish and the Hunters like shadows, Sou Yuet realised that the Ankou, along with Bugul Noz and the korikaned, were nowhere to be seen.

  The mountains reared like blackened fangs ahead, and the storm was blowing in from behind, so the mages and the boat crew said hasty goodbyes to find shelter until the storm passed, and Sou Yuet and the necromancer leapt on Sunny’s back, beginning the race back to Kantos and another sea crossing.

  They passed through the mountains without sign of the King Unto the Mists. If anything, the fog shrouding the peaks was lighter than before. Up and over they went, the horses and hounds of the Hunt silent in their wake. There was no need for stealth, for creeping through the hazel woods where spring buds were erupting across every bare skeleton of a tree. Rather, anyone foolish enough to be out when the Hunt was abroad quickly scuttled for shelter, hiding, shivering, until the harbingers of death had passed. Once, they caught sight of a stag in the woods, white fur fading into hazel brown, its antlers blending into the surrounding branches, sprinkled with bright green buds.

  No yew arrows rained down upon them as they finally reached the shores of Kantos. Sou Yuet cast the ginseng leaf out over the water, and without a single pause, Sunny raced across the sand and leapt for it. She lay down, her blue tongue lolling, sides heaving.

  Sliding from Sunny’s back, Sou Yuet arrested the necromancer with a hand on her chest as she made to follow. “Stay here. Be ready as soon as we reach the other side.” They grasped the foremost leaflet as the whole leaf shot forwards, the Hunt still wreathed about them like wisps of smoke. The dogs began to bay with nervous excitement.

  “They sense death ahead,” Lady Herela said. Melhih snorted, huge flat teeth bared.

  It was a cacophony of noise that carried them to shore, horses and hounds alike calling. Sou Yuet swung onto Sunny’s back as she lunged forwards once more.

  “How’re ye feeling?” the necromancer grunted.

  “Good,” Sou Yuet replied, wrapping their arms around the necromancer’s sturdy waist. “I feel that I could keep my leaf summoned and moving at that speed for over two days now.”

  A calloused hand covered theirs, rough skin chafing the back of their fingers. “There’s a lot of dead things ahead, Yuet.”

  Sou Yuet squeezed them lightly, silent.

  The rising smell of blood was slightly fishy, the sharp metallic tang of fresh blood dulled by time. They crested the top of a wooded hill and almost careened directly into a scene of carnage.

  Parts of an enormous creature were scattered between the trees. It had been stripped completely of its pelt, its long tail severed and hung from a tree like a parody of meat in a butcher’s shop. Sunny’s lips curled back from her teeth as early flies buzzed in lethargic circles like insectile haloes.

  As Sou Yuet patted her soothingly, the necromancer jumped to the ground and examined what could only be described as the pile of pulverised meat nearby. “It’s the head.”

  “A vouivre,” the Ankou said, rising from the middle of the grisly mess. As he did, a huge pearlescent shape rose with him, a dragon-like creature winged and lithe. Thus reconstructed, the spirit of the vouivre was not particularly beautiful, but it cut an awesome figure. “They usually have scales made of a type of emerald and a type of gold, and eyes like pearls. They’ve all been taken.” He slid between the gore as the Hunt flowed in. “Here. Bugul Noz found this.”

  An object dropped from his hidden fingers into the necromancer’s hand. The remains of an old fan formed entirely from sandalwood, punctured with a pattern of holes and crushed to barely connected splinters.

  Sou Yuet laid a hand on it. “Li. It’s the remains of one of his wood servants.” They looked over the scene of slaughter. “However, this seems oddly bloody for his style.”

  “It does,” the necromancer agreed. “What the feck he’s up to now?”