He frowned, unsure of what it meant if what they carried hidden in their pack was indeed a piece of the fabled stone.

‘No time to stop, we’re almost home,’ his da called back to him.

I hope it’s not a piece of the Starstone. Look what happened last time – blood, war and death throughout the Banished Lands.

With a sense of unease seeping through him, Drem hobbled on.

Drem smiled to see their homestead appear, the rooftop of their barn visible beyond a copse of oak and alder. It was not as isolated as it had been when he and Olin had left. A handful of fresh-built homes were running along the line of a stream that curled out of thickening woodland to the north and fed into the lake. They passed a fence line belonging to the last of these new homes and turned onto the grass-choked path that led to their homestead. A dog barked and a voice called out. Drem saw a big hound standing in their path, lips curled back in a snarling growl. He was old, scars criss-crossing his dun coat, one ear half-chewed. A voice called out, an old man was hurrying from the porch of a timber house, a hobbling run using a long staff for help. A younger woman appeared a dozen steps behind him. The old man reached his fence, gasping for breath and leaned upon the timber rail for a moment, though he still managed to wave the tip of the spear he was carrying in Drem’s direction. Drem had thought it a walking staff, but the old man seemed to have other ideas as he pointed it at Drem and his da.

‘That your hound?’ Olin asked, keeping one eye on the snapping, snarling creature.

‘It is,’ the woman said as she reached them. She was of an age with Drem, as far as he could tell, hair as yellow as the sun, tied and pinned tight to her head, blue eyes creased with worry as she reached a hand out to the old man.

He snatched his arm away and tutted at her.

‘I’d be grateful if you’d call him off.’ Olin nodded at the hound.

‘Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t,’ the old man said. ‘Who are you? And what business do you have to come creeping about my home?’

‘We’re not creeping!’ Drem said, annoyed at the unjust and inaccurate accusation.

The spear-point levelled at Drem’s chest.

‘That’s our hold,’ Olin said, stepping between Drem and the old man and pointing to their home.

‘No one lives there,’ the old man snapped. ‘Been empty since we came here.’