With the help of some of the other workers, Orlof got the boy safely inside the farmhouse. The men were already in a fearful state. They had found Gord Fetlanger’s mangled body earlier in the day, and now here was his son in a condition that suggested he’d almost come to the same end. There was talk among the men of leaving the place before whatever it was that had killed their former employer returned, but Orlof quickly put a stop to that, pointing out that the young boy, not their own safety, had to be their main concern right now. But the cattlemen were more used to caring for calves than boys, and they exchanged worried looks, wondering what would be the best thing to do for the lad. Their concern increased when the boy stirred, crying out that he had seen a man-wolf with death in its eyes that chased him into the Dark Wood, where a crow that was a fire-wielding woman had killed it.

‘He’s delirious,’ reasoned Orlof, noting the rising panic in the men. Eventually, with no other recourse open to him, he sent one of the men to fetch Fleya the witch.

‘You did well to come across him when you did,’ Fleya said to the rancher after he’d recounted his side of the tale. She stood in the doorway of the bedroom, looking down at the figure of the boy lying on the pallet.

‘I was looking for a lost calf.’

‘And you found one,’ she replied.

At the sound of their voices, the boy stirred from his sleep. They watched as he opened his eyes, a tear falling from them when he realised the world was still hidden from him.

‘Will his sight come back? Can you heal him?’ Orlof asked, his voice low so as not to upset the boy too much. The woman was silent for a long moment. When she asked to be alone with the boy, the cattlehand left, but not before reassuring Lann that he would only be in the next room and that he should call out if he needed him.

The witch sat unspeaking beside Lann. When the silence was finally broken it was the boy, not the witch, who spoke, his voice little more than a whisper.

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘Gord? Yes, child. He is dead.’

‘I knew it. I should have—’

‘Hush now,’ Fleya said, placing a hand on his. ‘You could not have saved him.’

‘How can you know?’

‘I have the gift of future sight, Lannigon Fetlanger. Do you think it beyond me to peek into the past too?’

‘What was it, that terrible creature? Not man or wolf, but something of both.’ He sensed her stand up and move across the room to where the window was.

‘Do you believe in the monsters of old? The creatures from the Void that roamed this world when the gods did?’