‘I don’t know,’ her mam said. A silence. ‘We may have to get her out of Drassil.’

And then sleep was pressing in upon her again, Riv fighting it, but her mam and sister’s voices faded . . .

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: DREM

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

DREM

Drem woke with a start. A beam of daylight pierced a gap in the wall of the barn where he’d slept, motes of dust floating in the sunlight. A goat was nibbling at his breeches.

‘Off,’ he breathed, pushing it away.

Outside there were the sounds of splintering ice, the crunch of snow. Voices, whispered.

Drem’s eyes snapped open, fully awake now, and he eased himself up to a sitting position, clamping back the groan that wanted to escape his mouth.

They’re here.

He gripped his spear and levered himself stiffly to his feet, picked up his bundle of weapons and crept to the barn door.

Figures were in his yard, wrapped in fur, heads close together, whispering, the glint of steel in their hands. Other shadows moved at the edges of the yard, creeping around the sides of his cabin. Someone’s back shifted along the barn door, pressed against the crack he was peering through, cutting off his vision.

Counted eighteen. Heard more. That’s not good.

He thought about tiptoeing out the back of the barn, hiding, fleeing. He recognized the fear jolting through him that prompted these thoughts, thrusting them to the foremost of his mind. The logical voice in his mind managed to see them for what they were. A knee-jerk reaction. One that he would not listen to.

He’d made his decision. To stay and fight. If he’d run for Dun Seren, they would have caught up with him in the Wild, and he’d have less chance there than he had here. He thought of his da, closed his eyes a moment, breathed in long and deep, then blew it out slowly.

The figure moved away from the door and he saw Wispy Beard, head freshly shaved, though he hadn’t done a very good job of it, clumps of red stubble catching the sun. He signalled with a hand motion, sent three men towards the front door of Drem’s cabin, others spreading loosely through the yard.

Wispy’s in charge, then. No Burg or Kadoshim. That part of my gamble’s paid off. Just wish he hadn’t brought so many with him.

A scream rang out, distant, from the back of the cabin.

Drem smiled.

Nails and old knife blades frozen into the window frames.

A splintering crunch, yells, changing to thuds and screams. Much closer than the first ones, and higher pitched, communicating a much greater degree of pain.

Drem peered through the crack in the barn door, saw the three men Wispy had sent to his front door had disappeared, a great big hole in front of the steps to his cabin porch.