Threetrees grinned happily up at him, wobbling slightly back and forward. West wondered if it was the first time he had seen the old warrior smile. He jerked a thumb down the hill. 'Tul's having a piss. And singing. I'm drunk as fucking shit.' He fell slowly backwards and crunched down into the snow, arms and legs spread out wide. 'And I been smoking. I'm soaked. I'm wet as the fucking Crinna. Where are we, Dow?'

Dow squinted across the fire, mouth wide open, like he was looking at something far away. 'Middle o' fucking nowhere,' he said, waving the pipe around. He started cackling, grabbed hold of Threetrees' boot and shook it. 'Where else would we be? You want this, Furious?' He thrust the pipe up at West.

'Alright.' He sucked on the stem, felt the smoke biting in his lungs. He coughed brown steam out into the frosty air, and sucked again.

'Give me that,' said Threetrees, sitting up and snatching the pipe off him.

Tul's great rumbling voice came floating up out of the darkness, horribly out of tune. 'He swung his axe like… what is it? He swung his axe like… shit. No. Hold on…'

'Do you know where Cathil is?' asked West.

Dow leered up at him. 'Oh, she's around.' He waved his hand toward a cluster of tents higher up the slope. 'Up that way, I reckon.'

'Around,' echoed Threetrees, chuckling softly. 'Around.'

'He was… the Bloody… Niiiiine!' came gurgling from the trees.

West followed footprints off up the slope, towards the tents. The smoke was already having an effect on him. His head felt light, his feet moved easily. His nose didn't feel cold any more, just pleasantly tingling. He heard a woman's voice, laughing softly. He grinned, took a few more crunching steps through the snow towards the tents. Warm light spilled out from one, through a narrow gap in the cloth. The laughter grew louder.

'Uh… uh… uh…'

West frowned. That didn't sound like laughter. He came closer, doing his best to be quiet. Another sound wandered into his fuzzy mind. An intermittent growling, like some kind of animal. He edged closer still, bending down to peer through the gap, hardly daring even to breathe.

'Uh… uh… uh…'

He saw a woman's bare back, squirming up and down. A thin back, he could see the sinews bunching as she moved, the knobbles of her backbone shifting under her skin. Closer still, and he could see her hair, shaggy brown and messy. Cathil. A pair of sinewy legs stuck out from under her towards West, one foot almost close enough for him to touch, its thick toes wriggling.

'Uh… uh… uh…'