‘Well, you’re welcome,’ Drem had said, feeling his neck flush red. Not knowing what else to say, he’d turned and left, enjoying the pleasant feeling that was fluttering around inside his belly, and then he’d ridden hard for Kergard, seeking out Ulf the tanner and telling him of the grisly find. Drem had returned to his da while Ulf had sought out Hildith and the other Assembly members, promising to gather men and a wain. Olin didn’t seem to have done much, bits of Calder were still spread about a wide area, but he was on one knee examining the ground.

‘There was a bear here,’ Olin had said as Drem dismounted. Bear-prints were all over the area. But Olin had been frowning, studying the ground.

‘What’s wrong, Da?’ Drem had asked.

Then Ulf had arrived, a score of men with him, some Drem recognized, many that he didn’t. It hadn’t been long before any tracks and clues as to why Calder had been there were trampled away. Drem had stood with Olin as he spoke to Ulf, away from the others as men set to gathering up Calder’s scattered remains and loading them into the wain.

‘Look at the wounds on Calder’s body,’ Olin had said to Ulf.

‘There’s not much left to look at’, Ulf had said bitterly. ‘We must hunt that bear down.’

‘Beneath his ribs there’s another wound, doesn’t look like a bear’s doing, to me. Looks more like a blade,’ Olin said. Ulf frowned.

‘You must be mistaken,’ Ulf had said.

‘Just look,’ Olin had said, and then he was calling Drem and they were leaving.

And now they were home, Drem feeling his extremities beginning to thaw as the fire crackling in the hearth did its work.

His da was standing with his back to Drem, leaning over a bench in their sparsely furnished room, the black iron of the new sword a dull gleam upon the dark-grained timber. He was riveting a wooden hilt of ash to the tang.

‘How’s your shoulder?’ his da asked him, not looking up from his work.

‘I can feel it again,’ Drem said. ‘Hurts like I’ve been kicked by a horse.’

‘Good,’ his da grunted. Drem knew what he meant. It was good that sensation was returning, the anaesthetic of the bat’s saliva wearing off. The first thing his da had done upon returning to their hold had been to wash out Drem’s wound, finding some usque to boil, letting it cool a little and then pouring it into the torn flesh. Drem had been grateful for the numbness then. After that it had been a poultice of comfrey and honey and then off to the barn to let the livestock out, and the paddocks for their two ponies.