The boat was a coastal ketch, built to work a day's sail from shore and come home before dark. Someone had taken it across the Abyss anyway.
It had grounded itself against the north mole, too damaged to steer into a berth. The mainsail hung in two pieces. The hull listed to port, and below the waterline on that side, four long gouges ran from bow almost to stern, parallel and evenly spaced, each deep enough to lose a hand in.
Vane stood on the mole and looked at them for longer than he meant to.
Nothing on this coast left marks like that. Whatever had dragged its claws along the hull had done it in passing, the way a cat runs a paw along a table leg, and the ketch had survived only because it was too small to be worth stopping for.
"Vane." Isole's voice came up from the deck, low and urgent. "I need hands."
He went down.
There were five people aboard. Four of them were children.
