People stare at me as I trudge down the village’s only street. Their expressions aren’t friendly, but that’s still a good sign. A bad sign would be houses abandoned, or even burning. The people here aren’t happy to see me, but they don’t feel guilty enough to run.


    Part of the reason for the unfriendliness is that I’m a stranger, a mud-spattered outsider coming to disrupt a small community. Part of is definitely due to the collared ghoul shambling along behind me, squat and simian. Most of it is because of the uniform I wear and the authority I carry. They know who I represent, they know what I’m here for, and they know they can’t do anything about it.


    Someone must have run ahead of me when I was first seen, because the village leader is waiting outside his house already, cap in hand and standing well in advance of the small group of villagers here to gawp and glare. I come to a stop in front of him, easing my pack off my shoulder and onto the least muddy patch of the road.


    “Adjudicator.” He keeps his eyes down, focused on getting through the conversation as quickly as possible.


    “Mayor. How long since the last assessment, and how many dead?” It’s a small place, but a remote one, making it difficult to estimate how much time I’ll need to spend here. With luck, I can be heading South again by tomorrow at the latest, to drier roads and clearer skies.


    “More than two years back — maybe three. Only six dead though. They’re all laid out as required.” One hand stops kneading his hat band to gesture loosely to one side, indicating the low roof of the undercroft and the heavy hatch closed over it.


    “And how recent was the last one? I’ve been on the road for several days now.” Behind me, Rutger snuffles loudly, his foreclaws clicking on the cobbles. He knows what villages mean, and they’re only one step behind battlefields in his estimation. The mayor’s shoulders hunch further, and I catch a few muttered words from the onlookers.


    “Only a few days ago — Jansen’s daughter. She caught a fever, and—”


    A man — Jansen, presumably — pushes out from the knot of villagers. “You won’t touch her!” A few strides bring him closer to me, though he still stops well short of the mayor. His mouth works for a few moments before he finds the words. “I know the law, and I obey it. But if that thing touches my Jeanie, I’ll kill you.” A shriek comes from the villagers, a rustle of skirts as someone faints or falters. Softer now, the bravado already failing, he repeats himself. “I’ll kill you.”


    He’s a large man, with broad shoulders. Probably a strong one, once, before age and grief weakened him, turning muscle to flab and wrinkles. Still, it’s an empty threat and we all know it — a word for me would unleash Rutger and have everyone on the street dead in a hundred heartbeats; by the time his hands were around my throat, his entrails would be on the ground.


    By law, the dead belong to the state. No matter how rich, how gifted, how cherished, their flesh and blood and bones and spirit are a national resource of utmost importance. A corpse might be used in rituals, raised into service, or repurposed as fodder, but we all serve in death. It is one of the most immutable laws.Stolen novel; please report.


    For a moment — a moment — I consider killing Jansen. I have the right to do it, and no one would dare say a word against it. Had he spoken like that to one of the Dead Lords, his entire village would already be on their way to the charnel pits, Rutger unleashed to drench himself in blood and terror. Even as nothing more than one of their lackeys, I am accorded a certain respect.


    The street is silent, the villagers aghast, only waiting for death to come. Jansen stares at me, his courage gone, his face filled now with worry. Who has he risked, with this defence of his dead daughter? How much does he wish he had stayed with his remaining family, avoided my rebuke? Other adjudicators, ones I have known, would have killed whatever children he had left in front of him, made him beg for forgiveness over their corpses.


    But cruelty is not required of me, only obedience. It costs me nothing to spare his daughter this, and I have no appetite for blood. I turn my attention back to the mayor. “What about the second most recent?”


    He stammers a moment, still half expecting the axe to fall. “A few weeks back, I think? A labourer who fell behind a plough. They just kept on going.”


    “Very well. Open the undercroft.” I turn my back on the villagers and walk towards the low building, hearing the gasps of released tension spring up behind me, Jansen’s still shaking voice offering comfort to someone, apologies for the danger he caused. The mayor follows along behind me, clutching an iron key. I hear his breath catch in preparation, but he does not manage to speak.


    Once the key is turned, it takes two men — Jansen and another whose name I do not care to learn — to lift the heavy hatch and reveal the stairs. Cold air, thick with the strong smell of herbs, rushes out past us. Ice magic: an enchantment worth more than this entire village, set years ago so that the state would not see its most precious resources wasted. There are barrows like this in every hamlet and along every road, storehouses for the Dead Lords’ art.


    I beckon to Rutger before I descend the ladder and the ghoul lopes towards me, using all four limbs in a lopsided run. A week since the last village, and he is eager. Like many of the lesser dead, he is more dangerous when starving, and it is in everyone’s interest to keep him fed.


    Four of us descend the ladder, but only Rutger and I leave the base of the stairs to walk among the dead. Cold air continues to blow from the far end of the long room, past the wooden tables that bear corpses in various stages of decomposition. A death in the last few days means that new bundles of herbs have been hung about the space, a welcome mask to whatever stenches lurk beneath the sharp green smell. The magic keeps things cool, but that simply slows, rather than stops, the rot. Luckily, the Dead Lords have little interest in freshness.


    I guide the ghoul past the first occupied table, a small form covered in a white sheet. The second body is older, brutalised by being dragged for miles behind dead horses, but this means nothing to a ghoul. At my command, he lunges down towards the broken skin and begins to feed. Over the grunts and snarls and wet ripping noises of the dead feeding on the dead, I hear retching and the quick rattle of retreating feet up the ladder. I keep my back turned and walk further into the undercroft; my training has made many horrors commonplace to me, but I still would not choose to watch it.


    Unlike my abominable companion, my work does not require recency. The Dead Lords have the luxury of a long perspective; it is not important that the law is swift, just that it is certain and unflinching. Partly by habit, partly because it keeps me further from the grotesquery of a feeding ghoul, I begin my work with the oldest corpse.