Vanth believed she had seen everything during her short and brutal life, yet finding a seven-foot satyr standing over her bed, dagger raised above the place where her head should have been, surprised even her.

  She had slipped back inside the Obsidian Citadel easily enough, even with her stiff limp and uneven gait. As the first gold of dawn began to spill from the horizon and glance across the roof tiles and chimney pots of the harbour, Vanth was making her slow way up the citadel’s twisting inner staircase. There should have been a guard stationed before the entrance but that night the post had been taken by Ruan, a man well known for drinking entire pots of the local teahouse’s special brew whilst on duty. All Vanth had to do was wait, concealing herself behind a wall overshadowed by the thrusting shard of the citadel, until Ruan felt one of his frequent urges to relieve himself. As soon as he disappeared to drop his breeches beside an empty cart, Vanth stole across the courtyard and pulled open the heavy doors as quietly as she could.

  When she finally reached her room, something made her pause in the doorway. The hair rose on the backs of her arms and saliva filled her mouth. A tangy odour of sweat and grease drifted back to her from the shadows. There was a stranger in her quarters. As soon as she thought the words, Vanth could see the satyr, materialising from the half-dark like an apparition. He was brandishing an unremarkable dagger, the handle wrapped with filthy leather bindings. Great ridged horns spiraled from his head to cast a ghoulish shadow on the ceiling. Behind him, a lone candle flickered, slowly guttering away to nothing in a wall sconce.

  Vanth edged closer, silently drawing her own daggers from her belt. The satyr was shaking his head at the empty bed. She almost laughed. She had failed yet again to make her bed the previous morning, and her bundled bedsheets and crumpled pillow had been mistaken for a small sleeping form.

  The limping Salt Sword was able to reach the centre of the room before the satyr realised she was there. He whirled around with a snarl, hair flying back from his face in long black locks.

  “You're a long way from Nymed, satyr,” Vanth said, her initial amusement hardening to fury in the space of one well-trained heartbeat. “And I’ve never seen a satyr wielding such an ugly blade. What business do you have here?”

  The murderous look in the satyr’s eyes shifted, the determined mask of his face softening. “You can see me?”

  Vanth wondered what he meant. She thought of Gwin sitting across from her in the Leafling’s Half, telling her she was tainted with moon-blessed blood, and pushed the memory away. There would be time to analyse and agonise over the satyr’s words later.

  “How dare you creep into my private bedchamber?” Her outwardly calm voice was laced with threat. “Were you to kill me as I slept? Was I to be assassinated in my undergarments? Perhaps you meant to climb atop me first and split me with your filth?”

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  With a guttural roar that rolled through the room like a churning wave, the horned intruder lunged towards her. Vanth sprang away, grabbed her crumpled bed sheets and flung them across the satyr in one deft move. The satyr stumbled as he groped to tear the sheet from his face. One corner snagged on the tips of his horns and he ripped the thing free, bellowing with anger.

  They faced each other across the room, the satyr trembling with fury. Vanth smiled at him, provoking another enraged roar. She knew she easily outmatched him, even with an injured leg.

  “Hush now,” she said, tightening her grip on the daggers in her hands. “Do you wish to wake the entire citadel?”

  She brandished the weapons before her. The black enamel handles were studded with blood-red glass that glinted in the candlelight, specifically designed to inspire awe and fear in a Salt Sword’s victim. The satyr moved uncertainly, no longer sure how to proceed.

  “Surely you would desire that?” he said. “Why not wake your fellows yourself?”

  “I need no help taking down an oversized goat.”

  “Then let pride be your downfall,” the satyr spat.

  He thundered across the room, head lowered to spear her with his horns. Vanth jumped aside once more, clipping the side of his head with a dagger hilt before driving a boot into his calf. She gritted her teeth when a spasm of pain tore through her right leg. The intruder spun around, disorientated and bleeding from his left temple. Snorting, mad eyes wide and white, he aimed a kick at her chest. The satyr’s great muscled leg and heavy cloven hoof would have shattered her easily, but Vanth anticipated this. She dropped to the floor, rising beneath the satyr to plunge one dagger deep into his thigh. He cried out before crashing to the hard flagstones.

  The satyr refused to relent. He twisted where he lay, struggling to rip the quivering blade from his flesh. He’d barely grasped the hilt before Vanth was upon him again. She jumped up and landed on his broad, bare chest, both booted feet planted firmly on his heaving rib cage. The effort was agony; her torn muscles were screaming, but Vanth was determined not to show any weakness. Her dark eyes blazed as the satyr reached up to slash at her with his own dagger, still clenched in his free hand. Summoning every scrap of strength she had left, Vanth drew her arm back and struck him squarely in the face, flooding his chest with bright blood. The satyr reeled, the dagger falling from his hand to clatter uselessly across the floor.

  “Do you yield?” Vanth demanded.

  The satyr looked up at the woman still standing atop his chest, his face contorted with pain and hate.

  “Yes,” he managed. “Yes, I yield, you poisonous wench.”

  Vanth released him, stepping down from his chest to grip the hilt of the dagger still buried in his leg. As she pulled it free, he spasmed with pain but bit back his cries. The satyrs were renowned for their bravery, even in defeat. Vanth wiped her blades on the tightly curled hair of the satyr’s good leg, then moved to open a plain wooden chest at the side of the room. She pulled out a length of rope.

  “I should kill you and leave your body on the beach for the gulls to fight over,” she said. “But it strikes me that if you were a simple thief, here to root through meagre valuables, you could have found far easier locks to pick.”

  She grabbed a handful of the satyr’s long hair and pulled him up into a sitting position. He grunted deep in the back of his throat.

  “You must have a good reason for daring to break into the Obsidian Citadel.”