Az had been in the deepest sort of sleep. The kind where dreams become a world of their own, full of their own awakenings. Becoming aware of the presence, he fought his way to the surface, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of his sword.

“You have drawn your blade, Sir,” said the stranger, smiling. “You are part of our story now.”

Over him stood a woman of middle age, her shaved head beneath the hood of a coarse brown robe. Beside her was a girl of perhaps seventeen, pockmarked and yet beautiful – the scattered marks a strange constellation dotting her solemn face.

“Are you the one they call, Azazel?” asked the woman.

Still seated in the dirt, his back to the bark wall of a drinking-hut, Az sheathed his sword. He looked from one to the other, blinking the world into focus. Slowly, he climbed to his feet, feeling his coin purse through his shirt as if checking to be sure that it was no less empty than it had been the night before. He cleared his throat. “I am,” he said. “And who are you? Some widow, come to accuse me of the murder of this girl’s father?”

The woman’s smile broadened. “Could you call me a liar, if I said that I was?”

Az shook his head. “No. Though she looks too pale, I’ve not been to the north in many years. You would have had to carry the grudge for quite some time.”

Indeed, both women were pale. With blue-grey eyes, they had the distinct appearance of those from the remotest villages of the far north. They lacked the dark hair and pigmented skin of those from farther south, where people from across the earth were once said to have lived and mixed, back before the change in scale made travel from such great distances unimaginable. Before the oceans had grown almost twenty times their size, and the waves twenty times their height. Back when a person’s stride might be measured in feet, and not inches.

“I am no widow,” said the woman. “And this girl is not my daughter. But we have come to the south in search of a killer. Not one to blame, but one for hire.”

Az frowned. His head throbbed, and his empty stomach felt as though it might touch his spine. “And so, someone in this hamlet has pointed you to me?”

“Sir, a drunk sleeping in a laneway, with nothing but a sword at his side, could hardly have any other profession. Soldier or brigand, your trade would be the same. But no, you are more well-known than you might think. The headman of our village sent for you by name. He is Dain, son of Potam. He fought with you at Logside.”

The words brought on a torrent of painful memories. Men, women, and children, smoked out of the tunnels below the great downed tree, skewered on hardwood spits, or beaten senseless and tied with ropes of braided fiber – set aside as the living spoils of war. He shuddered. The events surrounding that day were not ones that Az could recollect with pride. “I don’t remember him,” he said.

“Ah,” said the woman. “But he remembers you. And we were sent to find you, and offer you this.” She turned to the young woman by her side. “Show him.”

The girl reached inside the sleeve of her robe, slipping a pouch from where it sat, tied just above her elbow. Opening it, she showed Az its contents – nearly a dozen small, gold coins.

Az looked on the coins with weary eyes. He had accompanied traders west overland from Heartsbend, acting as a guard. Arriving in the hamlet two nights before, he’d received his pay and gone straight to the drinking-hut. Too miserly to spend a cent on anything but drink, he was now left with an empty pouch and a stomach in knots. Such was his pattern. To attach himself to some party, work soberly until the job was done, then drink until his pouch was empty – and so begin again. “And who is it you feel is so in need of death that you would risk coming all this way, with all that gold, to find me?”

The girl tucked the coins back in her sleeve and the woman spoke again. “Nyxia, the high-priestess of our village, once a healer of the sick, reader of flames, and diviner of bone, has now become an eater of men. Four months ago, she took to the forest, saying nothing to anyone. Not long after, young boys began to disappear, followed by the men and women sent looking for them. Some of her ritual-sites have been found, and it is clear she has departed from her senses, become a necromancer and a cannibal – reading the corpses to better find new victims. No one in our village dare face her, fearing that to spill her blood will bring ill-fortune on themselves and their kin.”

“And where is all this happening? I would have thought such a strange story would spread quickly.”

“We are from Burrowstone, three days walk north of Willowsroot.”

“That is quite the journey. It must have been expensive to hire a ship to take you all the way to Donnshallows.”

“It would have been,” said Eris. “But we came on foot.”

“But that is almost a month’s walk from here…” Az looked down at the women, irritation spreading across his face. “Your story makes no sense. Even if you were sent for me by name, how could you possibly have found me? Am I supposed to believe you checked every village and bar until you stumbled upon me sleeping here?”

“Nyxia is not the only one in the north who knows how to read bones, or the ritual flames. I am Eris, I was her apprentice.” The woman gestured to the girl beside her. “This is Rhea, she is my apprentice now.” The woman smiled. “She is the one who found you. Using a… trophy… that our headman brought back from Logside – all those years ago.”

Az turned from the woman, searching the girl’s face for any sign of the lie he was sure they were spinning. But the girl was solemn and unreadable. “And so, I come north with you, kill one old woman, and that bag of gold is mine?”

“No.” said Eris. “This is but the advance. Rid us of the ghoul who stalks our woods, torturing and eating our children, and we will build you a manor. Give you land and tools. Make you a rich man, honoured, and set for life.”

Az closed his eyes. “Alright,” he said, “but first, buy me a drink.”

And so, he joined them. He was hungry. Many hardened men would deny selling themselves for the sake of a meal. But, as far as Az could tell, most did. Perhaps all, though he could not speak of those he had not met.

Taking possession of the coins, he separated the small denominations from those of gold, tucking them quickly away and keeping them out of sight. Then a drink to ease his head, meat and bread to sooth his stomach, and a bath in the river - his eyes never leaving his belongings on the bank.

The women waited not far away, relaxed, apparently unconcerned by the possibility he might try and run off with their gold. When he was fed and bathed, they accompanied him to get a new overcoat of grey-squirl, some rat-leather boots, and a new waterskin. Then, the three had all loaded up their packs, put the setting sun to their left, and silently walked for the few hours that the fading light would allow.

They followed a tiny path. There was no proper road that ran up the bank of Wideriver Lake, the people preferring to travel by water. Az had offered to pay for passage all the way to Willowsroot, a small city of perhaps ten thousand, but Eris had refused. She insisted that they would not be safe in the company of others. In fact, they had no intention of entering Willowsroot at all, but would bypass it, getting their supplies in the surrounding area, and avoiding people wherever possible. It was certainly strange behavior, thought Az, but not so strange as handing him that bag of gold – more than he otherwise could have hoped touch in a decade. There was little doubt that these women had tricks up the sleeves of those robes and had not told him one-tenth the truth.