Hardest elk pit I’ve ever dug. And the first one I’ve set spears into.

All the men in the yard were alert now, anxious, weapons gripped tight, staring at Drem’s cabin. Two men climbed over the railings to either side of the steps. The crunch of the snow that Drem had decided to leave thick on the porch. A different type of crunch as one of the men trod on a bear trap, iron jaws snapping shut, shredding flesh and breaking bone.

Another ear-splitting shriek.

The last man at the door, kicking it open. Wood splintering.

The creak of rope, and then the man in the doorway was flying through the air, a wooden post the size of a tree trunk swinging in the open door.

Time to move.

Drem slipped the bolts on the barn door, padded back behind the baggage ponies he’d brought in from the stables. With a great shout, he slapped one on the rump, another and another, sent them neighing and bursting through the barn doors as they exploded outwards into the yard, men turning, yelling, leaping out of the way, slipping, sliding, falling in the snow and ice.

Men went down, trampled, the sound of screams, bones splintering, the horses bolting left and right, some to the paddock, some for the yard’s gate and the track away from Drem’s hold.

Men were groaning, rising from the snow, others turning to stare at the barn. One at least lay motionless in the courtyard. Drem stood just inside, set his feet and hurled his spear, saw it punch into a man’s chest, hurling him onto his back, an eruption of blood, bright on the snow.

Men shouted, saw him. Started to move.

Still too many.

Drem reached to his bundle of weapons set on a crate beside him, gripped a short axe, hefted its weight and threw it. A man went down in a spray of teeth and blood.

He gripped a knife handle, again taking a moment to gauge its weight, then hurled it at the men crowding the open gateway. A scream, a man stumbling, another axe and knife hefted and thrown. Then they were too close and Drem was running towards the back of the barn, stopped by a barrel of lime water that had been left from tanning last year’s furs, swept up his fire iron and struck sparks.