Curious, Kyle crossed to the spot which appeared no different from any other patch of needle-strewn ground. Then he noticed how the dirt was darker here, far wetter than the surrounding earth. He knelt and brushed aside the leaf bracken and litter. Something gleamed amid the dirt. He dug deeper into the dark wet humus. A layer of it came away in a swath. Below gleamed a black smooth face of buried ice. Kyle flinched backward in shock and surprise. His hand throbbed, numb yet tingling. How like the Stormriders – but different. Theirs had been an alien cold, seemingly anathema to flesh and blood as he knew it. This was not so alien. Frigid, yes, but somehow far more comprehensible. Like … well, like a snow-capped mountain peak: formidable and inhospitable, but also majestic and awe-inspiring at the same time.

‘Little brother,’ Cull called, sounding far away.

Kyle shook his head and blinked to clear his vision, as if emerging from a dream. ‘Yes, sorry. Coming.’

Towards late afternoon, they exited the forest to push through the tall weeds and saplings of what had once been cleared land. Fields, Kyle decided, now abandoned – or neglected – to fall back to the forest from where they’d been taken. The fields climbed a rising slope that allowed a magnificent view of the haze-shrouded lowlands.

Cull led him to the burnt ruin of what once must have been a very long hall. Only the butt-ends of its huge logs had escaped the fire, many as broad in girth as a large shield. Its fieldstone foundation lay as a mute line of rock among the weeds. The Iceblood waved to the fallen shell. ‘Behold, Greathall.’

Kyle did not reply at once. He took a wondering breath. ‘Very … impressive …’

Studying the wreckage, Cull nodded his solemn agreement. ‘Yes. Very impressive.’ He motioned Kyle onward. ‘Come. We find wife.’ He led the way round the ruins to the rear. Here was a much more modest structure: a cabin of smaller logs, chinked, with a sod roof. Smoke curled from a roof-hole.

‘Ho! Wife!’ Cull boomed out.

A crash such as a dropped plate or bowl sounded from within. The door of adzed planks was thrust open. A woman of a scale to match Cull emerged, towering and broad, bearing an even greater tangle of wild unkempt auburn hair. She wore a tanned leather jerkin, trousers and moccasins, and a knife the size of a shortsword was sheathed at her side.

‘You!’ she called, glaring.

Cull raised his hands defensively. ‘Now, now …’

She started for him, a hand raised as if to clout him on the head. Cull backed away. Spying Kyle, the woman halted, surprised. ‘Who is this?’

‘He—’

‘A lowlander? You bring a lowlander here!’

‘I—’

‘Are you an even greater fool than everyone knows?’

‘We—’

She turned on Kyle. ‘What is your name?’

‘Ah, Kyle, ma’am. I don’t have to stay. I could just—’