Chapter Two
Duncan became aware of the pinpricks of pain on his forehead first, then on his shoulder, and in his confusion thought he was back on his prison ship from Glasgow, where the rats had worked on his flesh while he slept. He smelled the filth and decay of the ship, sensed the slime of the moldy walls. A loud screech stirred him, a second caused his head to roll over, then new spikes of pain pushed open his groggy eyes.
A dead hand, gray with decay, was on his chest, being fought over by several blackbirds as others pecked at his own flesh.
Duncan’s cry of horror came out as a dry, rasping croak. He pulled himself up, grabbing a club to pummel the scavengers, then cried out again as he saw the thing in his hand was no log but the lower half of a decaying human leg. He scrambled
