What are we going to do? She was walking with a spear in her hand, the same one that she had used to kill the Vin Thalun. Now, though, she was using it as a crutch to keep herself upright. Her grip on its shaft tightened. Sweat ran down her face, dripping into her eyes, stinging, her lungs heaving, the aching in her legs a constant companion. They were following a fox trail. Animals know the way through the forest better than I do, Maquin had said to her. Better to trust them than try cutting a new way through the undergrowth. Blessedly, the ground levelled beneath them, to one side a cliff rising steep and sheer, pines crowding close on the other. A new sound made itself known, growing with each step. Running water.

Maquin pulled up in front of her and grabbed her about the waist as she stumbled past him, her legs not instantly obeying the order to stop. She was glad he did.

A ravine opened up in front of her, a river roaring through it some distance below. She fell to her knees, sucking in great lungfuls of air.

‘What are we going to do,’ she asked.

‘Well. If the dogs weren’t onto us I’d say we climb down this ravine and swim for a bit. Come out a few leagues downriver. It would take a huntsman a ten-night to pick up our trail again, if ever they could find it.’

‘Let’s do that, then.’

‘No point. They’ll know we’ve used the river, and with those hounds they’ll pick up our scent and trail again within a day; we’ll be back to square one.’

Hunted again. Death breathing down our necks, again.

‘I am sorry to bring this upon you.’

‘Well, I’ll not deny, you’re proving to be a great deal of trouble.’

‘So what do we do?’ Fidele felt that old companion squirming in her belly. Fear. I cannot be caught. I cannot go back to Lykos.

Maquin reached inside his bag and pulled out the ball of twine he’d taken from the woodcutters’ hut.

‘Got to kill those hounds.’

Fidele crouched behind a tree, peering back down the track in the twilight.

The sun was setting behind the treetop canopy, its last rays dappling the ground pink and orange. Fidele thought she saw movement.

Please Elyon, let it be Maquin.

He had set out his plan to her – if it could be called that – and left her soon after. Fear had been steadily filling her since then, like the drip of ice melting into a bucket.

No. I will not die scared. Or live scared any longer. Maquin is right. There is nothing I can do other than face it. She gripped her spear tightly.

A figure emerged out of the gloom: Maquin sprinting towards her and skidding to the ground beside her.