Another line of raking fire as the wing-talon gouged into his arm again, and then the bat’s head lurched forwards, fangs sinking into Drem’s shoulder.

He screamed, loud and echoing, new strength fuelling his body, and he ripped the bat from his flesh, blood trailing a crimson arc, the creature frenzied, jaws gnashing, red-lipped, and then, abruptly, its head exploded, blood and bone and rancid skin raining down upon Drem, in his eyes, his mouth, up his nose.

He coughed and spluttered, hurled the bat corpse away, its wings still twitching, wiped clots of blood and bone from his eyes and saw his da standing over him, framed by snow in the canopy above.

Drem rolled onto his side and vomited bile onto the snow, where it steamed in the frost-filled air. A hand under his arm and he was standing, his da checking him over.

‘Just my shoulder,’ Drem said, shivering at the thought of those long fangs in his flesh. Strangely, it wasn’t hurting, even under his da’s probing fingers it felt numb, just a faint echo of what he expected.

‘Can’t feel it,’ he mumbled.

‘That’s the bat’s saliva,’ his da muttered. ‘It numbs, like willow bark or skullcap. They usually attack prey that’s sleeping, can drain you dry without you feeling a thing.’

‘Is it dangerous?’ Drem asked, panic stirring that the numbness would spread, stop his heart and lungs from beating, or that he might die of some infectious disease.

‘Let’s get you home, clean it out properly.’

‘Aye,’ Drem agreed enthusiastically.

Fritha was sitting with her hound; the animal was still breathing, its head on her lap.

‘Will he live?’ Fritha asked, a tear rolling down her cheek.

‘Depends how long that thing had been feeding on him,’ Olin said, crouching and stroking the hound’s neck. ‘Get him home, clean his wound, feed him up.’ Olin shrugged. Then he looked past Fritha, eyes fixing on something beyond the hound. He stood, walked slowly forwards, examining the ground.

‘Get the ponies,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘We’ll see if we can get that hound up across one of their backs.’

Drem turned to find the ponies but had only taken a few steps before he felt a hand upon his arm. It was Fritha.

‘Thank you,’ she said. He opened his mouth to say something but she leaned forwards and kissed him on the cheek, a gentle brush of lips on skin, a hint of honey on her breath. Compared to the cloying stench of blood that was hovering around his face it was like a whisper of heaven.

‘Let’s get those ponies,’ she said and walked on, leaving him standing there, the beginnings of a smile twitching his lips.

Neither of the ponies had gone far; Drem’s was standing and stripping bark from a tree trunk, Olin’s remaining almost exactly where it had been to begin with.