Ravast turned back to the hut. ‘We’d best dismantle our abode, Garelko, since it was by our own hands that it was thus raised.’

‘A moment there! Where will I sleep?’

‘Why, Tathenal,’ said Ravast, ‘you can sleep in your boat.’

Garelko laughed. ‘Sweet dreams, Tathenal! Hahahaha!’

‘Very well,’ sighed Tathenal after a moment’s consideration, ‘I will accompany you, to ensure that you are safe, as I alone among the three of us happen to be in my fighting prime. The pup is too wild and wayward and still thinks himself a hero, whilst the ancient man of creaking bones can scarcely lift his weapon.’

‘Ah,’ said Ravast, ‘we can leave the hut then, for the next party of fools.’

‘You confess your spite!’

‘I confess nothing, except, perhaps, a sudden laziness. Now, have we not lingered here long enough? We have a treacherous wife to hunt down!’

‘I shall shake my fist at her most stentoriously,’ said Garelko as he collected his gear. ‘As a bear awakened from its cave, my lips shall writhe and my fangs gnash with eerie clicking sounds. Like a wolf in the deep snows, I shall shake my hide and free the hackles to rise. With all the remorselessness of an advancing crayfish, my pincers shall open wide in waving threat and snippery danger.’

‘Finally,’ said Tathenal, ‘in simile he finds the proper scale.’

A short time later, the three husbands of Lasa Rook set out, once again upon the trail of their wife.

Perhaps it was the dragon’s carcass, but Ravast’s thoughts were soon mired in memories of battle. He had been new to his weapons when Thelomen raiders struck their village. He could remember their blunt-prowed ships driving up upon the pebbled strand, and how armoured figures swarmed over the sides and began running up the slope. The village dogs were in a frenzy, rushing down to challenge them. Most of the beasts were wise enough to harry rather than close, but a few went down to spears, dying loudly, in a mess of blood and entrails. Ravast, rushing to join a line of men and women who’d collected up weapons and, here and there, some pieces of armour or a helm or a shield, had fallen into a gap between two kin. Readying his axe and shield, he only then realized that he was in the first line, the one made up of the most ancient members of the clan. They stood for the sole purpose of slowing the Thelomen advance, thus earning the village’s younger warriors the time to fully arm and armour themselves, whilst youths corralled the children to guide them into the forested crags inland.

The only defender not in his proper place was Ravast.

But it was too late, as the first wave of Thelomen reached them.