The shriek was so chilling that Aviel dropped her basket of bitter orange leaves – one of the ingredients for a phial of scent she was making to send to Wilm – in the mud. She gasped and stumbled, looking around frantically. It sounded like a skeet, but Shand’s skeet cage was empty – he had sent his three carrier birds out before he’d left and none had come back.

Another shriek, louder and rising in pitch, approaching rapidly. It was above her! She let out a squawk of fear. The raptor was hurting down in a vertical dive straight at her. And skeets were killers.

It was thirty yards to her workshop and the bitter orange trees were too small to shelter her. Aviel snatched up the basket, knowing it was a hopeless defence against such a creature.

Her heart was skipping all over the place, her breath coming in tearing gasps. Down, down the skeet hurtled, like a condor hunting a rabbit. Hooked yellow beak almost as big as her hand, bloodstained claws that could tear her face off or her throat out, battering wings, evil eye.

It let out another shriek, folded its wings back and accelerated. Aviel’s worn boots settled into the mud and pain throbbed through her bad ankle. She clutched the handle of the basket. Ready… now!

She swung the basket desperately, knowing how little chance she had. The skeet struck, tearing it apart, and shot past, leaving her holding the handle. She hurled it after the bird, missed, then hobbled through the onion patch towards the workshop, knowing she wouldn’t make it. The skeet was already turning. She grabbed Shand’s spade, which she had been using earlier, and raised it above her head.

Aviel was used to avoiding blows; she’d had plenty of them from her father and her six big sisters. But she had little experience in dealing blows out. The skeet swept in again, legs extended, wicked claws spread wide enough to enclose her head. She swiped at it with the shovel but it swerved and she only struck a wingtip. It slashed at her, one claw tearing through her sleeve, and she felt a stinging pain along her forearm.

She dropped the shovel, snatched it up again and flailed furiously around her, cursing the bird with the choicest of her father’s swear words. It turned towards her and she caught a flash of red on its right leg.

“Get away from me, you horrible mongrel beast!” she yelled, sobbing in her terror. “Get away!”

It perched on the leafless branch of a small plum tree, eyeing her malevolently. Aviel gagged. It smelled like the rotting carrion that was its favourite diet.

“What do you want?”

It raised its right leg, then lowered it. A red case was strapped there, and they were only used for the most urgent messages. But Shand had left suddenly a couple of days ago, saying that his granddaughter was in trouble and racing to Gothryme, and she had no idea when he would be back. She had to get the message.

The skeet shot over Aviel’s head, making her flinch, then wheeled around the wooden skeet house, folded its wings and squeezed through the one-way opening. It flapped up onto its perch and glared at her.

It wanted her to remove the message, but she didn’t want to go anywhere near it. When only thirteen Aviel had seen a skeet tear a man’s throat out, then feed on him while he was dying.

Yet Shand had been good to her; when no one else would think about helping an unlucky twist-foot, he had paid off her indenture to Magsie Murg’s stinking tannery, asking nothing in return. He had given Aviel use of the workshop for a modest rent and kept her horrible father, Gybb, who wanted to profit from her good fortune, at bay.

Skeets were malicious creatures; it would attack her for the joy of it, and hungry skeets were doubly vicious. She let herself into Shand’s house, went to the cold-room and cut off a hindquarter of rabbit, which she carried down to the skeet house. She took up a length of broom handle with a spike in the end, spiked the haunch and eased it in through the feeding hole towards the skeet.

It ripped the meat from the bone with its hooked beak and gobbled the pieces. Aviel watched the lumps move down its throat, shuddering. Get the snool over its head, quick!

She unlatched the door, but as she reached out with the snool, a narrow leather bag on a long handle, it shook wildly. If she whacked the skeet on the head it was bound to attack. She calmed herself and tried again. It took four goes before the snool slipped over the bird’s head, and it went still.

Getting the message was the most dangerous part, and Shand usually asked someone to help him. Her heart was hammering and her stomach felt as though something was thrashing around down there, trying to chew its way out.

But delay was risky too. She crept in, small bones crunching underfoot and the stench of putrefying skeet droppings rising around her with every step. Holding the snool on with her left land, she reached out with her right. But the straps of the red case were tightly buckled; it would take both hands to undo them.

Aviel was not going to let go of the snool handle. If she did, the skeet would knock her down and eat her innards. Making sure the door was open behind her, she tied the handle of the snool to the side of the cage. The skeet moved sideways on its perch and the snool slipped up an inch. She froze, then slowly eased it down.

Taking a last step, she unfastened the lower buckle. As she began on the upper one the skeet stepped sideways and the snool slipped up again. Aviel’s bowels turned liquid. She eased the snool down. The strap was very tight and slippery with bird poo. The skeet raised its head and cracked its wings. Aviel panicked and jerked at the strap. The message case came free, but the snool slipped off and the skeet let out a shriek of fury.

Aviel hurled herself at the doorway. The skeet cracked its wings again; it was after her! Agony shot through her bad ankle; she stumbled and fell to hands and knees in the manure, dropping the case. The stench burned the passages of her nose; she scrabbled forward, but as she reached the door the skeet landed, thump, on her back, its claws digging through her coat and shirt into the skin.

She hurled herself backwards, slamming the skeet against the side of the cage. It shrieked and struck at the top of her head with its beak, a tearing pain. Aviel slammed back again and again until its claws relaxed, then staggered out through the open door and around behind it, pulling it hard against her.

Through gaps in the boards she could see the skeet swaying from side to side. They were very expensive birds. What if she’d broken its neck? She crouched behind the door, guilty and afraid, her skull and back and arm throbbing. But after a minute or two it let out another shriek and flew out of the open doorway into the night.

Aviel retrieved the muck-covered message case. Blood was running down the side of her head – the skeet had torn her scalp open. She dipped a bucket into the water barrel outside Shand’s back door and cleaned the muck off her boots, hands and knees, then returned to her workshop and scrubbed her hands with soap and warm water.

Skeet fed on carrion and an infected scalp wound could be deadly. She filled a bowl with hot water from the pot hanging over the fire and fetched a clean rag and a little green olivine jar of ointment.

Among the hundreds of items she had inherited in the workshop was a small cracked mirror. Aviel propped it up against the big mortar and pestle, pulled a stool up to the bench and perched on it, letting out a sigh as the weight came off her ankle.

The top of her head was red and blood had run down to her right ear, clotting her flyaway silver hair into scarlet strands. She dabbed at the wound until she could see it clearly, a hook-shaped tear an inch and a half long.

She smeared it with ointment, which burned like lemon juice in a cut, washed the blood out of her hair and attended to her other injuries. Her belly churned; she felt faint, in shock.

Aviel grated fresh ginger into a mug, added hot water and stirred it, pulled her stool up to the brazier, broke the seal on the message case, then stopped. It felt wrong to be touching Shand’s mail. What would he want her to do? He was a private man; if the message was personal he might be furious, might even throw her out.

The thought of being homeless and penniless again, unable to pursue her dream and forced to take the meanest work of all because no one would give an unlucky twist-foot anything better, was unbearable.

Should she take one of Shand’s horses and try to find him? She had never ridden a horse, and the thought of climbing onto such a great beast and trying to stay on was paralysing.

Surely doing the wrong thing was better than doing nothing. She took out the message and unrolled it. It was from Malien, whom Aviel knew to be one of the Aachim leaders.

As she scanned the letter, which was written in a sloping, elegant hand, a shiver began at the base of Aviel’s spine and wove its way up until the hairs stood up on the back of her neck.

The 27th of Mard was a week ago. Why had the letter taken so long?

The letter slipped from Aviel’s hand. They want an empty world…

The brazier did not seem to be putting out any warmth. She shivered and hugged her arms around herself. Call our allies together, urgently. If it had been urgent a week ago it was far more urgent now. She had to find Shand, wherever he was, and give him the letter without delay.

She had to leave the only home she had ever known and go out into the dangerous world she knew nothing about, but feared with all her heart.