‘Trapdoor’s under them.’

Ildaer tossed them aside in a few heartbeats to reveal a trapdoor. Ulfilas threw the bolt and lifted the door, hefted his sword and walked down steps into a dark, musty room, pale light leaking in from some kind of grille at the far end of the room.

‘There’s no one here,’ he snarled after searching it thoroughly. Then he saw the open grate and a barrel underneath it and ran back up the steps two at a time. The half-breed girl was nowhere to be seen.

‘He must be close,’ he snarled at his men as he ran out into the courtyard. ‘Tear this place apart.’

He strode to Gramm. ‘Where would he go?’

‘He’s . . . gone, then,’ Gramm breathed. He had the gall to smile. Ulfilas felt a rush of frustrated rage, edged with fear of failing his task.

‘Ildaer, your giant-kin’s bear – he grieves for his rider?’

‘Creach, aye, he does,’ Ildaer rumbled. ‘We raise our bears from cubs, our bonds are strong.’

‘Then have some vengeance for your bear.’ He pulled his knife from his belt and punched it into Gramm’s gut, ripped it across so that intestines spilt about his boots like writhing snakes. He stepped away to the sound of Wulf and Gramm’s screams mingling.

Ildaer barked something in his guttural tongue and the riderless bear shambled forwards.

‘Feasta,’ Ildaer said and the bear sank its jaws into the pile of intestines, eating them with a disgusting slopping, sucking sound that turned Ulfilas’ stomach.

Gramm screamed louder, again and again, Wulf weeping and cursing.

‘Lord Ulfilas,’ a warrior called down from the wall. ‘There is something you should see.’

‘What? It better be to do with the child,’ Ulfilas growled as he strode to the steps. The heat of battle was fading and he felt a chill wind now.

Ulfilas reached the walkway and looked where the warrior was pointing.

It was north-west, beyond the pastures and outbuildings of the hold, towards the river that separated Isiltir from the Desolation. A ship had appeared, sleek-hulled and shallow-draughted, rowing hard, even as he watched a black sail being furled and the mast coming down for the ship to slip beneath the stone bridge that spanned the river. More ships appeared behind it – four, six, until they numbered eight in total.