He bought himself more time to think by taking a long slow pull at his tankard. He peered about the dark timbered hall of the White Hart. It was late; the fire was low in the stone hearth. Only the regulars remained: those few who paid for the privilege of passing the night on the floor among the straw and scavenging dogs. None was paying him and Gerrun any particular attention, so far as he could tell.

So. The Old Bear was pulling together a party to make a strike for the gold fields. Why a party, though? The veteran mountain man could pick it up by himself, surely. Maybe he already had collected some few nuggets here and there over the years … He must’ve found a rich bed – one worth digging up.

Then it came to him: Old Bear was expecting competition. He was betting that soon, perhaps by the end of this coming season, what with spring arriving, these hillsides would be crawling with lowlander and outlander fortune-hunters, raiders and outright thieves. All fighting over the claims or the sifted nuggets and dust itself.

Best to get in early before the rush arrived, then. And he and the Reddin brothers and Old Bear had all walked the Iceblood Holdings before – no coincidence, that. All of them but for Shortshanks here. Or was that so? He studied the man covertly while eyeing the mostly empty benches of the White Hart. Never short of coin for ale was Gerrun Shortshanks, though he worked no plot of land nor laboured for others. And what of his gold earrings? The thick band of twisted gold at his wrist? Thinking of it now, how came he to such wealth? Perhaps this man Gerrun was no stranger to certain high streams in the vales where it was said a few days’ panning could set a man up for years.

He cleared his throat into his fist and murmured, low, ‘All right. Where’s the meet?’

Gerrun smiled and took a deep drink. He wiped the foam from his moustache. ‘Know you the camp up towards Antler Rock? Over Pine Bridge?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tomorrow, then.’

He nodded and finished off his ale. As he rose, Gerrun signed to Ost, the innkeep, for another.