‘I think we had better go to sleep. We will need your help in the morning to find the place where you discovered the dead calf. My hope is that the Dreadblade can lead us to the asghoul from there. We will leave here at first light.’

They woke to find the world covered in a wet, grey blanket of fog, its cold creeping up around their feet and legs as the horses picked their way across the ground, whickering nervously.

‘It has been like this for days,’ Bortib said, sitting astride his pony.

Astrid shivered. There was something about the fog that made her deeply uneasy. It swirled and eddied, rocks and bushes looming out of it and disappearing again.

They rode in silence until eventually Bortib pulled his mount to a halt. Peering through the miasma, he pointed up ahead. ‘I found the calf near the foot of those hills.’

‘And your daughter was taken from the yard behind your farmhouse?’ Astrid asked.

‘Aye. Saffren was feeding the hens. My wife went to fetch her in for her tea, but she was nowhere to be found. We searched everywhere for her. That’s how I discovered the dead animal out here.’

‘You can go back now,’ Lann said to the man in a quiet voice. ‘This is the place. I can feel it.’

‘I’d rather stay. I can fight. I can—’

‘No. This is no place for you.’

Bortib opened his mouth to argue but Astrid stopped him. Reaching across, she placed her hand on his.

‘Please,’ she said gently when he turned to face her. ‘Go back to your wife and baby. We do not doubt your bravery, but Lann and I stand more chance of rescuing your daughter if we do not have the worry of keeping you safe. We will do everything we can to bring Saffren back to you, I promise.’

There was a pause, and then the farmer gave a sad nod of his head before turning his mount around and moving off dejectedly.

‘The sword speaks to you, doesn’t it?’ Astrid said once the man was gone. ‘That’s why you’ve been so quiet all the way here.’

‘It does. It tells me that the creature is close by.’ He paused, then added, ‘It knows we are coming for it.’

‘How? How can it know?’

‘The sword told it.’ He nudged his horse forward into the foothills. ‘It told the asghoul to be ready.’

‘So much for the element of surprise,’ Astrid muttered under her breath.

After a short ride they spotted a land-hollow up ahead, a small but dense wood of evergreen trees growing up from it. Fog flowed down into that depression in the land, pooling and thickening as it did. With the bottom of the trees hidden, the visible portion of the plants appeared like a wooded island in a bleak, grey lake.