‘Tracks leading on into the hills,’ Elgin said. ‘My tracker says ten, maybe twelve of them. Looks like your man was still alive then. He tells me they’re maybe one day ahead of us, so we’ve gained on them.’ He looked at the big hound, the shallow rise and fall of its chest. ‘We should be after them.’

‘A few moments,’ Sig said. ‘Keld will take his axe to me if he hears I left his Fen to die.’ She was rummaging through her pack, crushing dried comfrey and lavender in her big fists, drizzling honey into the mix and packing it into the hound’s many wounds. Fen whined, lifted his head to look at Sig, then slumped back down. Sig wrapped bandages where she could.

‘One man to stay and guard him. Give him water.’ Sig unstoppered her brot bottle and poured some into the strip she’d torn from her cloak, squeezed a few drops into Fen’s mouth. ‘And give him this.’

‘One man to guard a dying hound? Can we spare him, not knowing what lies ahead?’ Elgin frowned.

‘This is no ordinary hound, as you well know. Storm’s wolven blood runs in his veins, and Keld will not be best pleased if we abandon him while there’s breath in his body.’

‘I am not convinced of the wisdom,’ Elgin said.

‘Fen one of US!’ Rab squawked, shaking his wings at Elgin.

‘Trust me on this, and I’ll not forget the favour,’ Sig said, holding Elgin’s gaze. The battlechief rubbed his bearded jaw, finally nodded and bellowed up the slope to his men.

‘Rab, after Keld,’ Sig grunted and the crow leaped into the air, flapping and rising. Sig bent and stroked Fen’s head. ‘Live,’ she whispered, ‘Keld still needs you.’

The hound whined and then Sig was climbing the slope; Cullen was waiting for her at the top. She handed him Keld’s axe. ‘Look after this for Keld,’ she said. ‘He’ll be wanting it back.’

‘I’ll keep it warm for him, maybe crack a few skulls with it before I put it in his hand,’ Cullen said.

Sig crawled uphill through the grass, doing all she could to hide her bulk, her breath sounding to her as if it would wake a sleeping draig. Four of Elgin’s men were with her, the rest back on the path, waiting for the signal. For three days she’d cursed the rain, but now that it had stopped she wished that it was still falling, knowing it would have served to hide their approach better than the clear sky above her, slipping from blue to purple as the sun sank into the horizon.