Erik forced a smile and gave a shrug. ‘I was unable to sleep and went out for a walk.’ He paused, narrowing his eyes at his cousin. ‘Besides, I might ask you the same thing. It is a strange time to be out wandering around the shipyard.’

‘Yes. Yes, it is a strange time to be about.’ Kelewulf said, attempting his own smile. ‘I, too, was unable to sleep.’ He reached out a hand, touching the hull of the vessel next to him. ‘They are fine things, these new longships. They will allow the people of Stromgard to launch raids further afield than ever before.’

Erik nodded. ‘Well, I should be getting back. To try and grab a morsel of sleep before the dawn, eh?’

He was almost out of the door when his cousin called out to him again.

‘I can make you up an infusion that will help you sleep. I shall bring it to your rooms tomorrow.’

And with that, Kelewulf had turned and walked away, leaving Erik alone in the darkness.

Dreuvn Val … and Beyond

12

The journey from Faun Forest to Stromgard was full of wonders for a boy who had never strayed from home. Despite the urgency of their trip, and the need to make good speed, Lann couldn’t help but admire the views and sights afforded him during that first day’s hard ride, and he bombarded Fleya with question after question about what they saw. At the end of the day, tired and saddle-sore, they stopped on the crest of a hill overlooking a wide valley below.

Having set the ponies to graze, Lann joined his aunt on a rock, where he sat chewing on an apple and looking down on the valley beneath them. It was eerily silent; no birds sang in the skies overhead, and nothing could be heard from the banks of trees that stretched out on either side.

‘It’s so quiet,’ he whispered.

‘This is Dreuvn Val,’ she said, nodding down at the landscape. ‘A terrible battle was fought here many years ago in which the Volken people defeated a great army from the West.’ She was silent for a while, her eyes roaming the geography of the place as if seeing things that were invisible to her nephew. ‘The enemy, the Hasz’een, was a fearsome warring race that had destroyed all the peoples they’d come up against in their march east across this world.