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spines, dissolving the little resolve they had for their task.
    The Cadere Row mob found themselves ‘escorting’ the Fisher of Fossa along Front Street and into Lamplight Lane towards Nadoce Square. They passed other villagers, foolhardy individuals and circumspect groups busy searching the misty streets for the murderer among them, and each time Domoss gave them a nervous greeting. He did not attempt to draw close to them, or to cry out, clearly aware of the pike in the fisherman’s hand.
    Truly it had not been difficult to intimidate the men of Cadere Row. If they had so chosen, the four mencould have subdued him with their gaffs, but Noetos had counted on them not being prepared to risk a madman’s wrath.
    The whole village, it seemed, was out in the fog searching for him. Why? The Cadere Row mob knew nothing other than the story they had been told. But he’d heard their words of jealousy and hatred. He had never guessed the depth of feeling against him. How little he had fitted into the place he’d chosen to hide in all these years.
    Nadoce Square glowed fitfully under an eerie fog-shrouded light from the tall tapers normally raised for special occasions. With a little prompting Domoss explained that each group had been instructed to report to the Square once their area had been searched. That explains the lights. But having spread the story of his family’s deaths, the Recruiters would not be holding them in Nadoce Square for everyone to see; though there must be at least one of the hooded figures here, coordinating the search.
    Two of them, he decided, after straining his eyes to see through the flame-lit fog. Two Recruiters surrounded by twenty or so villagers reporting their findings, or lack of them, and receiving new instructions. The Hegeoman stood beside them, hands clasped nervously behind his back.
    Beside Noetos the Cadere Row boys knelt, their heads touching the cobbles. He’d promised a swift death for the first to make noise, a slow death for the rest. Clearly they believed him.
    He began measuring times and distances in his mind. Thirty paces—twenty seconds—to the nearest hooded figure. Would he be able to overpower the Recruiter before the villagers intervened? Would they intervene at all?
    The mist swirled. The Recruiter turned to face the shadows where Noetos hid.
    There was something unnerving in that hooded gaze: pale grey robes surrounding a black oval. A sudden blue light flared within the cowl, an echo of the magic the Recruiters had used against him.
    ‘Welcome, Fisher,’ said the high-pitched voice, and the raw power within it nearly jerked him out into the Square. The robe took on a bluish tinge. Power shimmered within the cowl, growing more intense by the second, reaching out, compelling him. He fought it with increasing desperation.
    ‘I feel you there,’ the voice continued, a voice set with hooks. ‘I feel your anger.’ The villagers fell away from the terrifying figure, some making warding signs. At least one staggered as though burned by the fire. ‘I can sense your weakness, your guilt.’ The last word was clearly savoured, the speaker elongating it, drawing it out, casting it like a spell, like a net, looking for purchase within Noetos’s soul. It seemed to the frightened fisherman that a blue tentacle reached across the Square, searching, probing, coming for him. Down into the shadows it came, pulsing with baleful energy; and as it hovered over his head, he knew he should have fled this place, that there were more dreadful powers in this world than he imagined.
    The tentacle struck, crackled like a log too wet to burn, and vanished with a pop. From the Square came a cry of anguish, then silence.
    ‘Still has his little secret with him, then,’ the second Recruiter said. ‘Are you all right?’
    The mist came down more heavily. Noetos thought he could make out a robed figure sprawled on the cobbles, slowly getting to his feet. Beside him the Cadere Row men kept