She was almost numb with cold by the time they moved off, and she sat, balanced on her haunches, for a good while longer. It could have been a trap, another one, with someone sitting on the bank above her, waiting for her to emerge, and with her in no state to either fight or run.

She listened. The sounds she recognised – traffic, music, doors, shouting – were absent. The sounds she was now hearing – trees, birds, the slow churn of the river – were alien to her, but she’d rather hear those than anything else. She was alone. Truly alone now.

She still wanted to cross the river, and put broad water between her and her pursuers. It looked, at least from down at water level, a long way. Especially for a non-swimmer. No one was going to help her, no one was going to offer her a reward for just trying. She steadied herself and moved her waterlogged legs out towards the middle.

Her feet lost the bottom quickly. Her head ducked under, she splashed her way to the surface, gasping, and for a moment couldn’t remember which side of the river she’d just left. One bank was a lot closer than the other, so that was decided for her quickly. The current was carrying her, and the one thing in her favour was the trapped air in her closely woven boilersuit.

She floundered, arms and legs moving in contradictory motion, her boots dragging her down, her sleeves holding her up. The current slackened, her foot struck something soft and she grunted, pulling it back fast. But it was only the river bed’s soft mud, and she was able to stand a few metres from shore, sodden, freezing, dirty, scared.

She looked behind her, to where she’d come from. She could see no one, though she knew the wolfman and his gang were able to blend in to the forest in a way that was almost spooky. They could be watching her now, just like they probably had been, all the way from the sea to here. Watching her wade to the far bank and crawl out, lying on her belly like a worm, in the brown leaves and broken twigs and earthy decay.

Where was she going to go? What was she going to do? How was she supposed to do anything?

Something was sticking in her ribs. She rolled over, reached inside, and pulled out the axe. Dalip had been right. It was very rusty. She wasn’t going to throw it away, though. It was all she had.