‘Your prize,’ Swain said.

‘No, you can’t,’ Haelan blurted. ‘Orgull gave it to you.’

‘That is fair,’ Trigg said. ‘I’d have won it anyway.’ She stooped and picked up the weapon, wiping its shaft clean on a hay bale.

A horn call echoed through the barn, all of them looking to the entrance. Swain strode away.

They stood outside, the horn call ringing out again.

‘What’s that about?’ Haelan asked.

‘Look,’ Swain said, pointing north, across the river towards the Desolation.

Haelan stared, frowning. In the distance a cloud hovered low over the land.

‘What’s that?’ Haelan asked.

‘Dust. Look to the land beneath it,’ Swain replied.

At first Haelan saw nothing, then he caught movement. A line of riders emerged from the wasteland, approaching Gramm’s hold, metal glinting in the sunlight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ULFILAS

Ulfilas felt a wave of relief fill him as he saw the river come into view, a dark, shimmering vein winding across the land. Beyond it was Isiltir. And goodbye to this pox-ridden land of ash and stone. And giants. And bears.

‘It is always good to return home, after a long journey,’ King Jael said to him as they cantered down a gentle slope, the hooves of two hundred mounted warriors raising a cloud of dust behind them.

‘Aye, my King.’

‘And a successful one,’ Jael added, quieter this time.

The meeting with the Jotun had gone well enough. No one had died, and King Jael’s spirits had seemed much improved on the return journey. Ildaer, the Jotun’s warlord, had appeared most impressed with the gift of ancient weapons that Jael had given him. Impressed enough to hunt down a runaway princeling, though? Ulfilas wasn’t so sure about that. And he couldn’t shake the sense of wrongness about the situation. Giants were the enemy, as they had always been, for time without end. Ulfilas had grown to manhood beneath the shadow of Forn Forest, where the threat of giant raids had been very real – admittedly the Hunen, a different giant clan from the Jotun but giants were giants, warlike, savage and not to be trusted. So making deals with them was just wrong.

But who am I to judge? These are strange days . . .

‘What’s wrong?’ Jael asked him.

‘I was thinking on the wisdom of making alliances with giants,’ Ulfilas said.

‘A polite way of saying I’m a fool,’ Jael replied. He smiled, but there was a sharpness in his features, no warmth in his smile.

‘Never, my King.’

‘I hate giants,’ Jael said. ‘And wish every giant clan dead, have dreamed that since the Hunen slaughtered my mam and da, burned out my home.’ He paused, the flare of his nostrils giving away a measure of his anger. ‘But I wish to be king more.’

‘The greater good, then,’ Ulfilas said.