Sig was almost at the gates when the first man heard her. She guided Hammer off the track, cutting across deep snow, saw a man turn and look straight at her just before Hammer smashed through the post-and-rail fence that enclosed the yard. He was shaven-haired, a vicious smile on his face from laughing at the man at the end of the rope.

The fence fractured with a deafening crack, an explosion of splinters, one piercing the man staring at her, straight through his eye. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Others ducked or leaped away from the noise. Hammer smashed straight into those that remained, a boulder amongst twigs. Bones snapped, flesh tore, men screamed and died, flying through the air in myriad directions. Sig swung her sword, cutting the rope, the man at its end dropping to the ground. He coughed and heaved, body convulsing, hands ripping the noose free from about his neck.

Good, he lives.

There was movement to Sig’s right and she swung her sword, took the head from a man attempting to stick his spear in Hammer’s flank, saw it fly spinning through the air, the man’s body stumbling on a few paces before it collapsed. Another ran screaming at them and Hammer split him open with one swipe of her paw, claws raking him into bloody strips of meat and bone. Hooves drummed, and Sig twisted in her saddle to see Cullen ride into the yard, his spear skewering a man brandishing a sword at him. Cullen left the spear in the dying man, drew his sword and then rode at two more shaven-haired men who were hovering between fight and flight. His mount crashed into them, sent one spinning to the ground, the other swinging his sword at Cullen’s legs, but Sig knew that Cullen was more than their match.

She looked about, assessing for more danger.

None stood before her or close to the tree. Three figures were sprinting away from her and the courtyard, northwards towards the treeline that edged the hold. Rab flapped and landed on a branch before them, dislodging snow in a heap upon the head of one of the men. He looked up and opened his mouth to curse, but then a shape was bursting from the shadows of the trees, a huge, grey-streaked hound, thickly muscled, jaws gaping wide. Fen slammed into the man, teeth clamping around his face and throat, the momentum of his leap sending them both crashing to the ground, rolling in a spray of snow. The man was screaming, battering at the hound as their roll slowed and came to a halt, Fen scrambling on top. A savage wrench of his head, as if it were shaking a caught rabbit, a spray of blood, and the man was abruptly silent.

The other two men had paused a moment, but they were running now.