After the merchant had recovered from the general shock of meeting Sig, the sight of a warrior giant seeming to unman him for a moment, and then the added shock of being introduced to Byrne, leader of the fabled Order of the Bright Star, he announced himself as Asger, a merchant trader recently from Kergard, the most northern outpost of the Desolation.

‘There was nothing there but ash and rock when last I travelled the Desolation,’ Sig rumbled. She looked out of the window at the far end of the chamber, which opened out onto a view of the north. The fortress spilt down the hill towards the river Elv, dark and wide, as it curved sluggishly around the hill that Dun Seren was built upon, a hundred quays and jetties jutting out into its waters. A bridge of stone arched over the river, leading into the Desolation, now more green than the grey it had been when Sig had dwelt there. In the distance leaden clouds were massing, creeping their way south.

And bringing snow with them, no doubt.

‘It is thriving now,’ Asger said, still eyeing Sig dubiously. ‘Kergard, I mean. Since the crater became a lake the land has become green again. There are fields and farms, a wealth of furs and skins to be had from the Wild. A good life to be had, if you’re not afraid of some hard graft, and the cold, of course. Or at least, it was a good life . . .’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Things have turned, sour,’ he said. ‘New folks, bad folks, fleeing the goings-on down south.’

‘Then why are you coming south, marching into these troubles?’ Byrne asked him.

‘There’s trouble all over, seems to me,’ Asger muttered, ‘but I didn’t like what I was seeing. Fights in the streets, friends killed, giant bear running amok. Lynchings. It all started with that bonfire in the Bonefells, and Old Bodil’s death.’ He stopped.

‘Bonfire? Like a beacon?’ Sig asked him.

‘Aye, you could say that,’ Asger said. ‘But I didn’t come here to tell you the troubles of the north; I’m sure you have enough troubles of your own to be dealing with.’

‘The Kadoshim are our trouble,’ Byrne said. ‘And they would be your trouble as much as ours, if we were not the shield that seeks to protect you from them.’

‘I’m sure,’ Asger said, though he looked as if he was thinking he’d never once seen a Kadoshim, and hoped he never would.