A long coloured cart with rainbow-hued covering was pulled into the church by a dozen or so wretched creatures chained to the wagon shaft. A stoat sat on the driver’s platform. He slashed at the haulers savagely with a long thin willow withe.

“Gee up, put yer backs into it, me beauties!”

The cart was followed by a rabble of ill-assorted vermin: stoats, ferrets and weasels, garbed the same as their comrades who were already waiting with Slagar. They wore broad cloth sashes stuffed with a motley assortment of rusty daggers, spikes or knives. Some carried spears and curious-looking single-bladed axes. Slagar the Cruel hurried them along.

“Come on, shift your hides, get that door back in place quick!”

The driver jumped down from the cart.

“They’re all here, Slagar,” he reported, “’cept fer that otter. He wasn’t strong enough to carry on, so we finished ’im off an’ chucked his carcass in the ditch, then covered it with ferns. The ants an’ insects’ll do the rest.”

The hooded fox gave a bad-tempered snort. “So long as you weren’t spotted by any creature. News travels fast in Mossflower. We’ve got to stay hidden now until Vitch gets back.”

The twelve captives chained to the wagon shaft, mice, squirrels, voles, a couple of small hedgehogs and a young female badger, were in an emaciated condition.

One of them, a squirrel only a few seasons old, moaned piteously. “Water, please give me water.”

The stoat who had been acting as driver swung his willow cane viciously at the unfortunate squirrel.

“Water? I’ll give you water, you little toad. How about a taste of cane, eh? Take that!”

Slagar stepped on the end of the cane, preventing the stoat swinging it further. “Halftail, you idiot, what d’you want, slaves to sell or a load of dead flesh? Use your brain, stoat. Give the beast a drink. Here, Scringe, give ’em all a drink and some roots or leaves to eat, otherwise they’ll be fit for nothing.”

The ferret called Scringe leapt to do Slagar’s bidding.

Halftail tugged at the willow cane to free it from Slagar’s paw. The hooded fox held down harder so the stoat could not budge it.

“Now then, Halftail, me bucko, I think you’re getting a bit deaf lately. I thought I told you to keep inside the woods with that cart?”

Halftail let go of the cane. “Aye, and so I did, wherever possible,” he said indignantly. “But have you tried hauling a cart and twelve slaves through that forest out there?”