The horse’s gusting breaths stirred her awake – she had been dozing, falling into something formless but strangely warm. Blinking, she studied the beast. It was no longer fighting, simply lying on its side, chest heaving with each breath – but now the exhalations came in a spray of frothy blood.

Ribs. Punctured lung.

She pulled free her sword, worked her way down on to the level track. Using the weapon for support, its tip driven into the thick ice, she forced herself upright. With most of the snow melted or swept away, she could now see the full reach of the ice – and it made no sense. The track was actually slightly humped where the horse had slipped and fallen, and yet upon either side the snow was thin upon gravel-studded mud.

It wasn’t easy to bring a four-legged animal down. The sweep of ice stretched longer and reached wider than a horse’s stance, even at a slow trot.

‘Do you delight in its suffering?’

Threadbare swung round, lifting her blade, but both efforts left her gasping in pain.

A woman stood before her, fair-skinned, golden-haired. She was thin, almost gaunt, as if trapped in a body eternally lost in adolescence. Dressed in linen and wearing boots that seemed woven from grass, she stood as if indifferent to the cold.

As the stranger was unarmed, Threadbare turned back to her mount. She readied her sword as she looked for the throbbing jugular in the animal’s neck. But a hand settled on her uninjured shoulder, and the woman’s voice rode a warm breath that caressed her jaw. ‘It was a question in truth. But now I see, you would end its ordeal.’

‘I’m hurt,’ Threadbare said. ‘I won’t be able to make a deep cut. It needs to be right.’

‘Yes. I see that. Shall I help?’

‘I’m not giving you my blade.’

‘No. Of course not.’ The woman’s hand slid away, and then she stepped round, placing herself between Threadbare and the dying beast. Lowering herself into a crouch, she rested a hand upon the horse’s neck. For a moment, it seemed as if the animal lost all colour, until even its sorrel coat looked grey, and then the illusion was gone. And, Threadbare now saw, the horse no longer drew breath, and its eyes were closed.

‘How did you do that?’

The stranger straightened. ‘I learned much regarding mercy,’ she said, now smiling, ‘from a Warden friend. Did my act please you?’

‘Does it matter? It’s done. I was riding east.’

‘Yes.’

‘I need to deliver a message.’

‘But now your message will be too late. Besides, you are injured, and a storm is coming, which will add to your suffering.’

Threadbare stepped back. ‘If you would end mine as you did the horse’s, then I’d rather you didn’t.’

The woman tilted her head. ‘If the horse could speak, would it have said the same?’

‘It was dying.’

‘So are you.’