Nodding, Whiskeyjack dismounted. ‘Keep an eye out,’ he said, though he knew the scouts were doing just that, but feeling the need to say something. The killing field exuded an air of dread, old yet new, and – even more alarming – it held the peculiar tension that immediately followed a battle. Thick silence, swirling as if not yet settled by the sounds of violence, as if somehow still trembling, still shivering. . .

He approached the Rhivi and the sprawl of bones.

The tribal scouts were indeed jabbering.

‘Dead wolves ...’

‘Twice tracks, the touches heavy yet light, wider than my hand. Big.’

‘Big dead wolves.’

‘No blood, agreed? Barrow stench.’

‘Black stone dust. Sharp.’

‘Glittering beneath forearms – the skin ...’

‘Black glass fragments.’

‘Obsidian. Far south ...’

‘Southwest. Or far north, beyond Laederon Plateau.’

‘No, I see no red or brown. Laederon obsidian has wood-coloured veins. This is Morn.’

‘If of this world ,. .’

‘The demons are here, are they not? Of this world. In this world.’

‘Barrow stench.’

‘Yet in the air, ice stench, tundra wind, the smell of frozen peat.’

‘The wake of the wolves, the killers—’

Whiskeyjack growled, ‘Rhivi scouts, attend to me, please.’

Heads lifted, faces turned. Silence.

‘I will hear your report, now. Which of you commands this troop?’

Looks were exchanged, then one shrugged. ‘I can speak this Daru you use. Better than the others. So, for this that you ask, me.’

‘Very well. Proceed.’

The young Rhivi swept back the braided strands of his grease-laden hair, then waved expansively at the bones around them. ‘Undead demons. Armoured, with swords instead of hands. Coming from the southeast, more east than south.’ He made an exaggerated frown. ‘Damaged. Pursued. Hunted. Fleeing. Driven like bhederin, this way and that, loping, silent followers four-legged and patient—’

‘Big undead wolves,’ Whiskeyjack cut in.

‘Twice as big as the native wolves of this plain. Yes.’ Then his expression cleared as if with revelation. ‘They are like the ghost-runners of our legends. When the eldest shouldermen or women dream their farthest dreams, the wolves are seen. Never close, always running, all ghostly except the one who leads, who seems as flesh and has eyes of life. To see them is great fortune, glad tiding, for there is joy in their running.’

‘Only they’re no longer running just in the dreams of your witches and warlocks,’ Whiskeyjack said. ‘And this run was far deadlier.’

‘Hunting. I said these wolves are like those in the dreams. I did not say they were those in the dreams.’ His expression went blank, his eyes the eyes of a cold killer. ‘Hunting. Driving their quarry, down to this, their trap. Then they destroyed them. A battle of undead. The demons are from barrows far to the south. The wolves are from the dust in the north winds of winter.’

‘Thank you,’ Whiskeyjack said. The Rhivi manner of narrative – the dramatic performance – had well conveyed the events this valley had witnessed.