The girl threw the hammer down on the ground and booted Crummock in his shin. 'You can carry it yourself then, y'old bastard!'

'Ah!' he squawked, laughing and rubbing his leg at once. 'Now I remember you, Isern. Your kicking's brought it all back in a rush. You can take the hammer, so you can. Smallest one gets the biggest load, eh?'

'You want the axe, Da?' The smaller lad held the axe up, wobbling.

'You want the hammer?' The girl dragged it up out the brush and shouldered her brother out the way.

'No, my loves, all I need for now is words, and I've plenty of those without your help. You can watch your father work some murder soon, if things run smooth, but there'll be no need for axes or hammers today. We didn't come here to kill.'

'Why did you come here?' asked Dogman, though he wasn't sure he even wanted the answer.

'Right to business is it, and no time to be friendly?' Crummock stretched his neck to the side, his arms over his head, and lifted one foot and shook it around. 'I came here because I woke in the night, and I walked out into the darkness, and the moon whispered to me. In the forest, d'you see? In the trees, and in the voices of the owls in the trees, and d'you know what the moon said?'

'That you're mad as fuck?' growled Dow.

Crummock slapped his huge thigh. 'You've a pretty way of talking for an ugly man, Black Dow, but no. The moon said…' And he beckoned to the Dogman like he had some secret to share. 'You got the Bloody-Nine down here.'

'What if we do?' Logen came up quiet from behind, left hand resting on his sword. Tul and Grim came with him, frowning at all the painted-face hillmen stood about, and at the three dirty children, and at their great fat father most of all.

'There he is!' roared Crummock, sticking out one great sausage of a trembling finger. 'Take your fist off that blade, Bloody-Nine, before I piss my breaks!' He dropped down on his knees in the dirt. 'This is him! This is the one!' He shuffled forward through the brush and he clung to Logen's leg, pressing himself up against it like a dog to his master.

Logen stared down at him. 'Get off my leg.'

'That I will!' Crummock jerked away and dropped down on his fat arse in the dirt. Dogman had never seen such a performance. Looked like the rumours about him being cracked were right enough. 'Do you know a fine thing, Bloody-Nine?'

'More'n one, as it goes.'