Burr came into view, backing toward camp one carefully measured pace at a time, wielding his spear with both arms, butt high above his head and blade low, whipping round in great brush-cutting arcs but sometimes vaulting across the top to strike downward. He approached a tree, and Prim gasped in a breath to warn him that it was going to block his spear. The warning would have come too late. And it would have been unnecessary, as it turned out. His hands went on turning and the blade of the spear kept moving in its gyre and the column of smoke that was the spear’s shaft passed through the tree trunk, or perhaps it was the other way round. Neither spear nor tree, at any rate, seemed to take any note of the other’s existence. But when the spearhead intercepted the face of a wolf on Burr’s other side, the results were very material. It had to be a trick of her vision, Prim thought; but a moment later it happened again. “Where are the lads?” asked Fern, who was striding past Prim toward where Burr was embroiled.

Prim thought she glimpsed a giant raven wheeling above the crowns of the trees. “Watch my back!” she called to Pick, who shouted back “Good idea!” and took after her in a wading and flailing gait.

Mard and Lyne were not as far off as she had feared. Mard was dragging one leg and wielding the sword of Elshield with one hand. Lyne had a short hunting lance that he used in more of a thrust-and-stab style. They were a bit downslope of Prim. She descended to a clear vantage point, drew an arrow, and shot. She missed, but not by much. Lyne saw the arrow’s fletching and glanced up at her. “This way!” Prim called. Noting another wolf off to one flank, she caused it to stop living, then drew another arrow and managed to shoot one that had chosen to crouch, cringe, and snarl in a location where she could get off a clear shot.

The sub-pack that had taken after Mard and Lyne was dwindling in numbers and faltering in resolve. Lyne stabbed another, which ran off yelping horribly. Two others turned tail and followed it. Pick came up behind Prim and reported all clear. She dropped her bow, ran down the little slope, and helped Lyne drag Mard up, both his good and his hurt leg simply trailing behind him on the ground. But he seemed to be bleeding much more heavily from his left arm.

In a short while, all the party had gathered round the fire, which Querc had made so enormous they could hardly come near it. The woods all round were ringing with the cries of wolves. Prim did not speak their language but she guessed its import: “Invaders have come!”

“It would seem more efficient,” Lyne pointed out, “if we could somehow get Spring’s various creations to understand that we are on Spring’s side and trying to bring about changes that Spring herself would probably approve of.”