They call a blade like that a seax in this part of the Banished Lands, his da had told him when they’d forged it together.

Drem didn’t care what it was called; he just knew that he loved it, that it felt a part of him, his permanent companion. The bone-antler hilt was worn to a perfect fit for Drem’s fist. He shared the meal between them and they sat eating in companionable silence. They were partway into foothills that led up to a range of snow-capped mountains at their back, but Drem was staring in the opposite direction, out over the landscape that unrolled below them. A great lake dominated the view, its waters dark and shimmering in the setting sun, about it a patchwork of tree and meadow that was tinged with red and gold as autumn slipped into winter. Between Drem and the lake the lights of a large town flickered into life, tiny as fireflies from this distance. A sturdy stockade wall ringed the town, dotted with torchlight. It was Kergard, the most northerly town of the Desolation, built by hard people to survive in a hard environment. Drem liked the look of it all, the colours merging, lights glowing soft and warm like candles. Other lights sputtered into existence beyond the stockade walls, homesteads scattered across the land. Drem’s eyes searched out their own home, a little to the north and nestled amongst the fringes of woodland, though he knew there would be no fires lit, no torches or candles burning at a window.

Home, if I can call anywhere that, when I’ve spent most of my life travelling from one place to the next. This will be our fifth winter in the same place, though, and that’s the longest I can remember staying anywhere since Mam . . .

He was looking forward to returning home after half a year of hunting and trapping in the Bonefells. He liked his life in the Wild with his da – loved it even – but his da was right: winter was almost upon them, and that was not the time to be sleeping on root and rock.

As he stared at the speckled landscape he saw a new cluster of lights appear, further north and east from his home, close to the northern bank of the lake.

‘That wasn’t there when we left,’ he said to his da, pointing.

‘No.’ Olin frowned. ‘Looks like Kergard’s grown. Hope they know what a winter this far north is like. The land won’t be green like this for much longer.’ His da looked from the panorama before them and then up and over his shoulder at the snow-capped mountains and darkening sky, watching his breath mist before him. ‘Winter’s following close behind us.’