‘Vidar; where’s Vidar?’ Drem asked, stepping close to the iron bars. Sten twisted his head, bones clicking. Muscles bunched in his shoulders and back, unnaturally large between shoulder and neck, taut as knotted rope.

‘Vidarrrrrr gone,’ Sten groaned, eyes flitting to the table behind Drem. He slumped, like a sail with no wind, then suddenly grew, swelling, and hurled himself at the iron bars of his cage, clawed hands clutching at Drem, snagging in his torch, his cloak. Drem leaped backwards, stumbling and falling into the snow. Sten pounded and snarled and smashed at the iron bars, a feral fury sending an explosion of dust and fragments of stone from where they were buried into the rock face.

All along the boulder things swarmed to their cell bars, crouched things, things on all fours, looking like huge, mutated wolven, bears, badgers, other creatures of the Wild. And then there were things that stood like men, or half-men, bodies unnaturally muscled, furred in parts, bones elongated. At one cage a bairn stumbled forwards, feet stretched and clawed. It wrapped its too-long jaws around an iron bar and shook it, saliva and blood dripping down the iron in long streaks.

Drem staggered to his feet, backing away, spear levelled at the cages as his torch sputtered and went out. His hands shook. Horror and fear swept through him, threatened to overwhelm him.

Behind him the bear roared in its pen, the door rattling, a loud crack as it swiped a paw at the lock. Voices shouted. The guard groaned in the snow.

A horn blew, further away, faint and distant. Beyond the enclosure, from the direction of the lake.

Drem ran, blindly, no destination in mind, just away from these creatures of nightmare. He kicked the rousing guard in the head as he raced past, then rushed into the darkness. In moments he was at the encampment wall, felt a wild moment of panic, feeling trapped, knew that if he was found he’d be thrown to those things in the cells, or worse, turned into one of them. He saw a set of stairs that climbed the palisade and sprinted up them, slipped on half-frozen snow, righted himself and reached the top.

He turned and stared back into the compound, saw figures holding torches running to the boulder, one thrusting his burning torch into a cell, a high-pitched scream rang out. Something else moved close to the bear pen, a tall figure, wreathed in shadow.

Too tall, can’t be a man.

He felt sick, his stomach threatening to empty itself, cold wind snatching at him. He put a hand to his neck, found that his cloak and undergarments were torn, right down to his bare skin.

Sten’s claws.

He shivered.