He knelt and peered through the trees, looked down at the ground—bare brown earth, and patches of white snow, and piles of wet pine needles, and… he stopped breathing. There was a footprint near him. Half in mud and half in snow. The snow was melting and falling, melting and falling off and on. A print wouldn't have lasted long today. That meant it was made recent. The Dogman sniffed the air. Not much to smell, but it was harder to smell anything in the cold—nose all pink and numb and full of cold snot. He crept the way the footprint was pointing, looking all round. He saw another, and another. Someone had come this way, no doubt, and not long ago.

'You're the Dogman, ain't you.'

He froze, heart thumping like big boots upstairs all of a sudden. He turned round, to look where the voice came from. There was a man sitting on a fallen tree ten strides away, lying back against a thick branch, hands clasped behind his head, stretched out like he was near asleep. He had long black hair hanging in his face, but one eye peered out at the Dogman, watchful. He sat forward, slowly.

'Now I'll leave these here,' he said, pointing at a heavy axe half-buried in the rotten trunk, and a round shield leaning near it. 'So you know I'm looking to talk, and I'll come on over. How's that sound to you?'

Dogman raised his bow and drew the string back. 'Come on over if you must, but if you try more 'n talk I'll put an arrow through your neck.'

'Fair enough.' Long Hair rocked himself forward and slithered off the trunk, leaving his weapons behind, and came on through the trees. He walked with his head stooped over but he was a tall bastard still, holding his hands up in the air, palms out. All peaceful looking, no doubt, but the Dogman wasn't taking no chances. Peaceful-looking and peaceful are two different things.

'Might I say,' said the man as he came closer, 'in the interests of working up some trust between us, that you never saw me. If I'd had a bow I could've shot you where you stood.' It was a fair point, but the Dogman didn't like it any.

'You got a bow?'

'No I don't, as it goes.'

'There's your mistake, then,' he snapped. 'You can stop there.'

'I believe I will,' he said, standing a few strides distant.

'So I'm the Dogman, and you know it. Who might you be?'

'You remember Rattleneck, aye?'

'Of course, but you ain't him.'

'No. I'm his son.'

Dogman frowned, and drew his bowstring back a touch tighter. 'You'd best make your next answer a damn good one. Ninefingers killed Rattleneck's son.'

'That's true. I'm his other son.'