They ate well. Gerrun carried a haunch of venison wrapped in burlap and leather. The cold allowed it to keep for longer than usual. Old Bear pointed out plants and roots that could be boiled or cooked in the fire. They slept huddled up next to the embers and took turns keeping watch.

Orman came to look forward to his time standing through half the night. The sky seemed so very clear from this extraordinary height. So high were they, and the Salt range was so very steep, that he thought he could even make out the glimmering reflection of the Sea of Gold, far to the south. He felt that he could reach up and touch the stars. It was cold, yes, but it was bracing and enlivening. He did not know how to say it exactly, but he felt strong. His senses – his hearing, his sight, even his sense of smell – all seemed keener than before.

On the fourth night a ghost came to him. It emerged from the trees and walked straight up to him. As it came closer he felt a shiver of preternatural fear as he realized that it was certainly not human. Very tall and broad it was, even more so than the Icebloods. It wore clothes of an ancient pattern: trousers of hide, a shirt that was little more than a poncho thrown over its head and tied off with a coarse rope. Hides were similarly tied around its feet. It carried an immensely tall spear, which Orman realized was the bole of a young tree topped by a knapped dark stone that bore an eerie resemblance to the spearhead of Boarstooth.

The figure stopped in front of him. Its hair was a great unkempt mane twisted in leather. Beads and pieces of bone hung within it. The face was long and broad, the jaw heavy. The teeth were large, the canines especially pronounced. For some time it stood regarding him in silence. Orman wondered if it could see him at all. He saw now that the figure was female, thought its hips were not broad and its chest not especially prominent.

‘I am come to give warning,’ she suddenly announced, startling him.

‘Warning?’ he managed through a dry and tight throat.

‘A time of change is coming,’ she continued as if he had not spoken at all. ‘Old grudges and old ways must be set aside, else none shall survive. Pass this warning on to your people.’

My people? ‘Why me? I am not – why speak to me?’

‘You carry Svalthbrul.’

Svalthbrul? Ah. He looked to Boarstooth and she nodded. ‘I am sorry,’ he began, ‘I do not know how old you are, but much has changed—’

She looked away, to their surroundings, scanned the night sky. She shook her head. ‘The stars remain. The mountain remains. Little has changed.’

‘But …’ He stopped himself as she turned away and started walking.

‘They will come before summer,’ were her last words over her shoulder.