“Fuck this,” Corvus shouted, when it became light enough to see. “Enough of orderly and well-planned Questing. There’s nothing for it now but to make a run for the cave.”

“Which cave would that be?” Lyne asked.

“The one we’re heading for,” Corvus said vaguely. Which would have led to further questions had they not just spent the whole night exposed to the storm.

They had crawled under a fallen tree whose branches were stiff-arming it just high enough above the ground that they could wriggle under it. This sheltered them from direct laceration by rain and hail but did nothing to keep them dry. If any one thing had saved them it had been the giantess, who made more warmth than all the others put together. Curled up next to Edda during the long hours of the night, Prim had gone into another of those strange dreams in which it seemed to her that Edda was as tall as a tree, and Prim a thing like a squirrel, nestled in the crook of a bough, wet but warm.

Now, in the light of the morning, Edda was plainly a woman of normal size. Prim feared, though, that she was diminished; she squatted on her haunches to keep off the soaked ground, and wrapped herself in her cloak, and remained still, eyes closed, for a long time as Burr tried vainly to light a fire. Prim was remembering Edda’s cottage on Calla, and her sheep and horses, and the flour she would grind to bake bread. How long had it been since she had taken such nourishment? Did absorbing the whole form of an angel give her some power that she could call upon at times such as last night?

“We are in no condition to run anywhere,” Burr pointed out. “We could march.”

“We need food,” said Pick. “Other than this, I mean.” He waved in front of him a fleck of jerky, his portion of all the food they now had remaining.

“None is here,” Corvus pointed out, “but if we march, as Burr suggests, Mab and I can keep an eye out for things that might be eaten.”

So that was how it went. For much of the morning it rained, but this was plain old ordinary rain, which compared to the storm seemed like no rain at all. Perhaps the sound of it covered the noise they made walking and enabled them to get within sight of another of those horned creatures. They spied it across a clearing. It fell dead. Burr’s response was to flatten himself against the ground. “Get down!” he whispered. “Someone else is hunting here!”