‘It sounds to me as if the Kadoshim are making weapons,’ Sig said. ‘Which would make a good deal of sense. They have their acolytes, and a lot more of them than we thought, but they still lack the numbers to win this war. They need something to tip the balance in their favour.’ She looked at them all. ‘During the War of Treasures, the first war of the Starstone, when the Seven Treasures were forged from it, the giant Clans did something similar. They bred new species: wolven. White wyrms. Draigs. Living beasts, but they were also weapons of war, used in battle. The Kadoshim are doing the same, but taking it a hundred steps further, using dark magic and evil intentions to create mutated half-breeds.’

‘Why here?’ Drem asked.

‘Because it’s the Desolation, free of the Ben-Elim’s rule, and their watchful eye,’ Keld said.

‘Aye, and do you think it’s a coincidence that this is happening where the Starstone fell?’ Cullen asked. ‘I don’t. That’s why they’ve built a mine. They’ve been searching for a stray bit of starstone. They know the only way to free Asroth from his gaol is with the Starstone.’

‘And my da gave it to them,’ Drem whispered.

‘No, lad,’ Sig rumbled. ‘He was murdered, and had it stolen from him. That’s a different thing entirely. And one that requires vengeance.’

Drem liked the way Sig said that. Not just as if she meant it, but as if it had already happened, was inevitable, and it was just the doing of it that was left to happen.

‘There’s just one other thing I need to ask you about,’ Sig said. ‘You saw a giant bear, stabled at this mine. And you think it’s the one that killed Olin.’

‘Aye,’ Drem nodded.

‘And you saw a figure, like a man, but bigger. As big as me?’

Drem looked her up and down, closed his eyes, remembering the shadowed figure in the feast-room of the mine.

‘Maybe,’ he nodded.

‘They have a rogue giant?’ Keld said.

‘Sounds like it,’ Sig growled. ‘Perhaps it was him, or her, who hit Drem when Olin was killed. And then took the Starstone Sword.’

Drem nodded thoughtfully.

That would make sense of the abductions, the bear killings and sacrifices. Bear, giant and Kadoshim, all working together.

A thought hit him.

Fritha’s hold, smashed by a bear, and leather in the hound’s jaws. Surl the hound bit the giant, which killed it and old Hask, and abducted Fritha to take her back there, to the mine, to be experimented upon. She is one of their Feral things, now. It could have been her body parts upon that table, or she may have been one of the things that threw itself at the cage bars.

The thought of it made him feel physically sick. Beautiful, kind Fritha, reduced to some creature consumed with bloodlust and used as a weapon.