Rafe was exhausted. He had run, walked, staggered, crawled his way through the marshlands for over a ten-night. At one point he had collapsed, thought he was just going to lie there until he died, but Scratcher and Sniffer had licked, pawed, nibbled and dragged him back to consciousness. If spring had not arrived and brought with it milder weather he would have died. But instead he lived, and walked.

He was a good huntsman, and even in the horizon-spanning marshes he was able to find his way back, eventually one cool morning finding the river that flowed past Morcant’s Tower, as he had come to think of it.

A pale mist lay over the land, rising up from the marshes to creep a little way up the hill that the tower was built upon. The sun was already burning it away, though.

The dogs ran ahead of him, seemingly as pleased as him to be out of the marshes, and they must have been sighted from the tower, for horns rang out, announcing his arrival.

Figures came out of the gates as he walked up the hill; all he could think about a warm meal and a soft bed. Then the dogs came running back to him, both of them with their ears flat and tails tucked.

He paused and looked at the figures coming out of the gate.

Something was very wrong there – one towered above the other, so either one was a dwarf and the other normal sized, or one was a giant . . .

Elyon’s stones, it’s Rhin. Not the person I most wanted to see. And she’s got a giant with her!

Queen Rhin stood before him, a giant with grey hair and a spear the size of an oar stood beside her.

‘I take it it’s not good news,’ Rhin said.

‘News?’ Rafe said.

‘You’re the only one back,’ Rhin said impatiently, then looked at him quizzically. ‘Has the marsh stolen your wits?’

‘Hungry, thirsty,’ Rafe mumbled.

‘Yes, of course.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Feed him, give him something to drink – not alcohol, he’ll most likely sleep for a week – then bring him to me.’

Rafe was escorted to a huge tent on the meadow beside the tower and enclosure. Tents were everywhere, hundreds of them, warriors in Rhin’s black and gold. Rafe also saw giants, at least a score of them together.

Strange days, strange days.

Scratcher and Sniffer walked with him, but they wouldn’t enter Rhin’s tent, just bounded off together as he walked in. That might have been because of the giant outside the tent entrance – not the one he’d seen earlier, but one that looked even more fierce if possible, a huge axe slung over his shoulder and a moustache that Rafe could have swung from.

It was cool inside the tent, not dark, but dim. Rhin sat at a table, behind her the grey-haired giant that had accompanied her earlier.