Meical’s confession still hurt, almost more than he could bear, like a wound that had pierced deep – unreachable, unhealable – but he knew that he could not just hide away in the woods, that he had to go back, if not for his sake then at least for those others who had believed the lie and followed him. And there was more to this God-War than titles and the strategies and games of immortals. There were people. Kin. Friends.

I may not be the great warrior prophesied to come and save the world that I once thought, but I am a man who has lost his mam and da to war. Lost my home, my King, my friends. I will not just walk away from that. Calidus and Nathair are still a great evil, and they still need to be stopped. I will not turn my back on that fight, avatar of a lost god or not.

As he stood, Storm looked northwards, down the incline and into the shade of the trees. She growled. At the same time a sound drifted up to him on the wind from the south. From Drassil. The wild blasts of horns. He strained to listen and thought he heard voices, screaming, the clash of iron.

Beside him Storm’s growl deepened, turning into a snapping snarling, the ridge of her hackles standing. Corban spun around, felt the ground tremble, saw branches shaking as something huge approached through the forest.

He told his feet to move but for a moment remained transfixed to the ground. Then a mass of fur and jaws and teeth emerged from the gloom and the treeline: a great bear with a blond-haired, paleskinned giant upon its back. He was wrapped in fur, a war-hammer slung across his back.

The giant from Gramm’s hold that slew Tukul. Ildaer, warlord of the Jotun.

‘I know you,’ the giant grated at him.

Other bears emerged from the forest, two, four, five of them, each with a rider upon their backs.

Corban snapped a command at Storm as he turned and ran.

CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

CORALEN

Coralen kicked Akar’s feet out from under him, saw him drop and attempt the roll that Sumur had executed so perfectly in front of them all during his duel with Corban, but Akar was a fraction slower and Coralen aimed a little higher, accounting for the attempted roll before it had fully begun.

The result was a dead Akar, or he would have been, if her sword had not been made of wood. He rose with a wince and a courteous nod, which she hardly even noticed. She was thinking about Corban.

I kissed him. Kissed him. And what does he do? Nothing. Even in her head the word was a snarl.

‘Again,’ she said to Akar. She didn’t notice that he looked disappointed to be asked.