And they were not alone. The forest was alive with noise – during the day mostly birds and insects, though some of the insects were as big as her hand. Night was worse. There were the noises Coralen was familiar with: fox and owl and the occasional howl from a wolven – Storm always cocked her head at those. But also the sounds that she had never heard before. Strange clicking, scratching sounds and hissing, usually just out of the firelight’s reach. Once there was a deep basal rumble that she felt reverberate into her feet through the ground. Balur told them all that it was a draig, and reassured them that it was leagues away. And of course there were the notorious Forn bats – a hiss above from wings almost as silent as breath, sometimes a distant screech. So far she had not seen any of the great bats, only the husk-like, dried-out remains of their victims. A deer, a boar, once an elk as big as a horse. After that she’d resolved not to wander in the forest alone, and to ensure her scouts travelled in pairs.

They’d left Gramm’s hold almost two ten-nights ago, the first ten-night making good time, the second proving to be slower going. Even abandoning the wains had not proved the remedy that Coralen had hoped for.

‘How can we travel any further through this?’ Coralen muttered to Enkara, who was walking along quietly beside her.

‘We are nearly there,’ Enkara assured her, wiping sweat from her brow. By Coralen’s reckoning they were well into autumn and approaching winter, but the weather within Forn was surprisingly mild, the thick lattice of branches high above keeping out all extremes of weather, apart from rain, which would still drip from leaves and find the back of her neck with annoying accuracy. They’d been walking since dawn, when the air was cold and they could see their breath misting, and it was not highsun yet, but it didn’t take long to warm the blood when you were forging your way through a forest.

‘Nearly there?’ Coralen said, feeling a flare of excitement. ‘Drassil is that close?’

‘Not Drassil,’ Enkara said, ‘but something else . . .’

‘Coralen,’ a voice called from behind her.

They both stopped and turned, saw movement in the undergrowth and waited.

Dath appeared and Coralen frowned.

He is supposed to be on rearguard.

A figure appeared behind him, a dark blur in the foliage.

Kulla. Coralen rolled her eyes. She was like dark-vine where Dath was concerned.

Dath reached them, breathing hard and sweating heavily. He rested a hand upon his knee, opened his mouth to talk, realized he couldn’t yet.

‘Dath thinks we are followed,’ Kulla said for him.

He nodded.

‘You should be fitter,’ Kulla said to Dath, poking him in the ribs.

‘The Bright Star’s closest friend, you shame him. How could you defend him if you’d had to run a little first?’