Somehow he had made it to shore, though he’d lost his sword along the way – a knife still hung from his belt.

Not that it will do me any good.

He’d lain upon the lake shore for a while, covered in cold, sticking mud, which had eased the pain of his burns, somehow, and watched the chaos and carnage as his warband had been systematically set on fire and slaughtered.

Nothing like fire to cause a good panic. I must remember that.

Slowly a measure of strength had returned to him as he lay upon the lake shore, and the idea of running and living had grown in his mind. So that is what he had done. As the screams of his warband had rung out through the marshes, most of them already fleeing and the hunt beginning, he had dragged himself to his feet and run. The running hadn’t lasted that long, exhaustion seeming to be never more than a few paces away, but he ran long enough to take him into cover.

And he was still trudging on. Occasionally he heard a scream ring out, usually it was cut short, he didn’t know whether it had been the swamp or more human dangers that had finished it – neither thought was encouraging. He walked in the general direction that he thought he’d seen the hound, though he didn’t see it again.

There was a fluttering above. He looked up and saw a black crow circling above him.

I’m not dead yet.

He walked on, slowly the sun sinking into the west until it was just a ball of bronze melting into the horizon. He heard the flap of wings again, closer this time, and looked up. The crow was now sitting on the branch of an alder a dozen paces ahead. It was the scruffiest crow he’d ever seen, feathers poking out at angles, a patch of skin visible here and there.

‘Wait here,’ the crow said to him.

He stopped and stared at it.

Did I just imagine that?

The bird flapped into the air, seeming to take a lot of effort.

‘Don’t leave,’ it squawked down at him.

Usually this would have struck him as strange, but after the day he’d had, he just sat down.

He was starting to doze off when he heard footsteps and a man appeared – a warrior, tall, fair-haired, stern lines to his face and serious pale blue eyes.

Vonn.

‘Father,’ Vonn said.

Evnis stood, not easily, his body stiffening from his brief rest.

‘There was a time when I thought I’d never see you again,’ Evnis said.

‘I have thought of little else but this meeting,’ Vonn replied, a half-smile upon his lips. ‘Though I did not imagine it here, under these circumstances.’ He looked closer at Evnis. ‘Father, you are shivering.’

‘Yes, I am,’ Evnis said, not knowing what else to say.