Path of Revenge by Russell Kirkpatrick Page A

twenty years ago now, he had swum there in half the time to win a wager, but he had been younger then and had not already run himself to a standstill. There were no fishermen on the harbour today, though the weather promised a good catch. Noetos wondered at that. Most of the fishermen he’d met at the celebration last night had told him they would be staying ashore to watch the candidates being tested, but he had expected one or two of the Cadere Row mob to be on the water, Testing or no Testing. But there were no boats, no one to give him a ride back to shore.
    He dragged himself out of the water and onto the rough rocks of the reef, the dark line that might as well have been another cliff to the Fossans, and lay there, completely exhausted.
    It was only then, stretched out on the rock above the booming surf, clothes drying in the late afternoon sun, that shock set in. For a long time he shook uncontrollably, his thoughts indistinguishable from nightmares. His daughter returned to him hideously changed, maimed and pallid as a ghost, to unfold a story of suffering and torture. The touch of her cold hand on his still remained, and he curled his hand into his chest as though nursing a burn. Anomer and Opuntia betrayed by the Hegeoman, the man to whom his wifebelieved they owed their good fortune—her lover, he admitted—and now in the hands of the Recruiters. Soon the reason why Arathé had sought out a certain fisher-family would be known to them. He imagined their questioning, could see his wife and son suffering torment at their cruel hands. Swords, knives, blue fire. But one vision more than all the others dominated his mind. A robed shape, limbs splayed, a knife in her back. He could not begin to encompass the sorrow welling up within him, and behind that treacherous sea of grief, making ready to spring on him, the dark storm-clouds of anger and guilt gathered.
    Spray from the breakers began to spatter his tunic. The tide had risen, the sun hovered close to the cliffs, and soon the rocks would be covered by swirling green water. Nothing short of the tide could have washed the deadness from his limbs and the torpor from his mind. He raised himself to his elbows and looked back at the familiar view: the Cliffs of Memory to his left— how aptly named, he thought bitterly—and the embayment in which Fossa huddled, more like a spider in a knothole than ever, a blackness in front of him. He would not swim towards that hated place. Instead, he would break into a certain storage shed at Cana Bay and see what he could find.
    Diving from his rocky perch, Noetos the fisherman swam away from the reef and, under a sky darkening with gathering clouds, began the slow strokes towards Dog Head.
    Much later that evening a damp figure came walking cautiously down The Dog, the path that led from Cana Bay to Fossa. There was a more polite name for it—and another far less polite—but the Fossans had called it The Dog for generations, after the low promontory that could be seen from the path. For a time the darkness seemed on the brink of rain, but theclouds had lowered and now the cool air swirled with fog. Late in the season for fog, Noetos thought, wondering if the unusual weather would make his task easier or more difficult. He shrugged his shoulders, telling himself it didn’t matter. What could be more difficult than the already impossible?
    A moment later he fell into a crouch, then scurried towards the deeper shadows as the muffled sounds of human speech came from the lane ahead of him. Four villagers emerged from the grey blankness, wrapped up against the thick mist, silhouettes with smoky breath, voices fading in and out with the mysterious thickening and thinning fog always brought. They each carried a stick of some kind. Fishing pole? Not a night for the flatfish. No, they carried gaffs from their boats.
    Intent on his own hunt, the man in the deeper shadows realised that the villagers—Cadere Row men, by the sound of