Chapter 1: The Inn Where Shadows Feas

Beneath a bone-white moon, the village of Golden Friars clung to the edge of the lake like a corpse to a cliff. The water, black and still, mirrored the jagged teeth of the mountains that hemmed the town in — a prison of stone and shadow. Even the air here felt old, thick with the iron scent of secrets. And at its heart loomed the George and Dragon Inn, its gilded sign creaking like a gallows rope in the wind.

Inside, firelight clawed at the walls. Shadows pooled in the hollows of oak beams, twisting the faces of the men gathered around the hearth into grotesques. Doctor Torvey, round and ruddy as a butcher’s thumb, leaned forward, his voice a low rasp. “Sir Bale returns tomorrow. After decades abroad. What’s he running from, eh? Or to?”

A log split in the grate, spitting embers. Richard Turnbull, the innkeeper, wiped a pewter tankard with a rag that reeked of rot. “He’s Mardykes blood. That house…” He trailed off, eyes flicking to the window where the lake glinted like a blade. “Bad things follow their name.”

Old Jack Amerald, his wooden leg propped on a stool, barked a laugh. “Bad things? Tell ’em the tale, Dick! The woman and the babe drowned in the lake — the one they say haunts the shallows!”

Silence fell, thick as grave soil.

Turnbull’s knuckles whitened around the tankard. “That was his grandsire’s sin. Sir Bale’s clean of it.”

“Clean?” The Doctor’s smile was a sickle. “Then why’s he skulking back now? The Mardykes curse don’t wash off with time. You know what they whisper — that the lake hungers. That it takes a life every generation to keep the Hall standing.”

William Peers, thin as a shroud, blew a plume of smoke. “Superstition. The boy’s here to mend his debts, not ghosts.”

“Debts?” Amerald slammed his grog on the table. “I’ve sailed seven seas, and I’ll tell you this — there’s worse than debt. That night Harman rowed me over the deep spot, the water went cold as a witch’s tit. No fish. No sound. Just… something down there, watching.”

Turnbull’s gaze darkened. “Enough. That story’s buried.”

But the Doctor leaned in, flame-light pooling in his eye sockets. “Buried things dig themselves up, Dick. Your own father told you — ninety years back, a maid and her child vanished. They found her shawl on the shore, stitched with Mardykes gold thread. And the babe’s cries… folk say you can still hear ’em when the mist rolls in.”

A draft snuffed the candles.

In the sudden dark, the lake’s whisper slithered through cracks in the stone. Hushhh… hushhh…

Turnbull relit a taper, hand trembling. “Aye. My grandsire saw it — the woman’s shape in the reeds, pale as maggots. She drifts, they say, till a Mardykes walks the shore again. Then she… rises.”

The fire guttered.

Outside, the George and Dragon’s sign shrieked on its hinges. Through the warped glass, the men glimpsed it — a silhouette on the jetty, hooded and still, facing the water.

“Who’s that?” Peers hissed.

No one answered.

The figure raised an arm, slow as a corpse stirring, and pointed toward Mardykes Hall.

Then the clouds swallowed the moon.

When the light returned, the jetty was empty.

Amerald crossed himself. The Doctor poured brandy with a slosh. Turnbull stared into his punch, the lemon peel swirling like a drowned face.

“Tomorrow,” he muttered. “Sir Bale arrives at dawn.”

Somewhere in the mountains, a wolf howled — or a woman screamed. The men didn’t dare guess.

And deep in the lake, something ancient and ravenous began to stir.