‘It came out of nowhere,’ Astrid whispered.

If Lann was shaken by the experience, he didn’t show it. When he spoke, his voice was calm and assured. ‘Thanks for the warning,’ he said. ‘But we were lucky it materialised behind me and not you.’

‘We should proceed together,’ she told him. ‘That way we can keep an eye on each other’s backs.’

He nodded his agreement, then paused, frowning, and she guessed the blade was speaking to him again.

‘The girl,’ he said, nodding off to his left. ‘She’s this way.’

They set off again, cautiously moving through trees that seemed even more sinister now, their branches recalling the asghoul’s antlers.

Astrid was aware something was watching them. The armlet tingled against the skin of her arm, alerting her to the monster’s presence. Sometimes she thought the thing was to her left, sometimes to her right or behind her, as if it were shifting around, waiting for its moment.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lann come to a stop, his body tense. The bangle prickled a warning at the very moment the snap of a twig behind her told her she was the one in danger this time. Dropping her shoulder, she threw herself into a forward roll and was able to avoid the asghoul’s deadly claws as they raked the air where she’d just been. Pulling the string of her bow and unleashing the arrow before she was even back to her feet, she was rewarded when the projectile found a home in the creature’s shoulder, the hit accompanied by a terrifying screech that echoed through the trees. The second arrow was nocked and almost loosed when the creature winked out of existence again.

Lann was quickly at her side, the concern on his face clear to see as he took in the sight of blood leaking from her left boot. The monster had caught her foot as she rolled away. Astrid felt sickeningly dizzy for a moment as the pain of the wound swept through her.

‘It’ll be fine,’ she said, doing her best to give him a reassuring smile. ‘And I’m not the only one bleeding now. The monster has one of my arrows in it.’

‘At least we know it can be hit. And it’ll be warier now.’

They carried on, picking their way through the mist. Astrid’s heart was hammering in her ears. Despite her trust in the armlet to give her a moment’s forewarning, her wounded foot meant she might not react quickly enough when the monster next appeared. In all her time out with the huntsmen in the forests near her home, she’d never felt as if she were both the hunter and the hunted at the same time. And never had she stalked so deadly a prey.