‘I’m not saying you should not train with a shield,’ Gar said, ‘only that I will not.’

‘Why don’t you like using a shield?’ Wulf asked him.

Without saying anything Gar strode to Wulf, grabbed the shield rim wide with both hands and twisted. Wulf yelled in pain.

‘If I twist this shield another handspan your arm will break,’ Gar said matter-of-factly. ‘For a weapon that is supposed to protect you, it can be easily used to defeat you.’ He let go and Wulf stepped away, wincing. ‘The best defence is a good offence.’ Gar shrugged. ‘I’ve seen a shield used well when it is strapped tight to your back.’

‘Halion,’ Corban said.

‘Aye,’ Gar nodded. ‘It can be well used if you use a spin to manoeuvre around your foe, to protect your back and come out of the spin with some momentum for an attack.’

‘Show us,’ Wulf said.

Corban glanced away and saw Haelan, almost jumping up and down beside the weapons court in his excitement.

‘What is it?’ Corban asked him.

‘Storm,’ Haelan gasped. ‘I’ve found her.’

Haelan stood in the courtyard with the tree root, a small crowd about him.

Corban slipped into the hole, his hand appearing and Gar passing him a torch, then Gar disappeared into the hole as well. Haelan heard a muffled protest from Corban followed by Gar’s flat refusal, then silence. More silence, then a rumbling snarl that mutated into a snapping, slavering growl that made the ground vibrate and Pots whine and hide behind Haelan’s legs.

A moment later Gar’s head appeared out of the hole and he climbed out.

‘Don’t think she wants me down there,’ Gar said with as much dignity as he could muster as he stood, dusting himself down.

‘What about Ban?’ Coralen asked.

‘Oh, he’s fine, Storm’s licking him like she hasn’t seen him for a moon.’

‘And is Storm all right? Has she had cubs?’

‘Oh aye,’ Gar said. ‘She’s right as rain. And she’s had six cubs. She’s even letting Corban touch them. Me, on the other hand, she wanted to rip my head off just for looking at them.’

Tahir pulled Haelan away and looked at him sternly. ‘What if you’d got stuck down there?’ Tahir asked him.

Haelan knew the shieldman was angry with him, but proud of him too. He’d been brave, and he’d done something no one else had been able to do.

‘I didn’t, though,’ Haelan said.

‘What if you had?’ Tahir frowned at him.

‘Fools worry, the wise do, as your old mam used to say.’

Tahir blinked at him.

‘You’re getting too clever for your own good,’ the shieldman muttered.

Haelan grinned.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

FIDELE