He gritted his teeth and pushed against Storm. Pain was pulsing in huge, rolling waves from his leg and chest. He ignored it, pushed again, strained harder. Storm whined, high-pitched, almost snapped at him. Then they were both slipping over the cliff edge, sliding down slick, sharp rocks, falling, then splashing into ice-cold water. The current took them, Corban clinging to Storm, desperately trying to hold her head above the water, spluttering and choking himself. He bounced off a rock, spun, his head ducking under the water, for a moment not knowing which way was up, then he was clear, gasping air.

The water calmed a little, carried them on until the current spat them out onto a rocky shelf, the steep sides rising over them, not much higher than one of the bears they’d been running from. Corban checked Storm, saw she was still breathing, then collapsed against her, utterly exhausted.

He woke with dawn, wet and shivering. Storm’s breath came in a wet rattle. She opened her eyes when he moved, just lay with her head on the rock, too weak to move, looking at him.

He stroked the fur of her cheeks, above her amber eyes, remembered that first day when he’d saved her as a cub, Evnis looming over him, demanding her death. How he’d refused. And since that day she’d been his constant companion, his guardian, protector, friend.

He put a hand on her chest, felt her heart fluttering.

I have to get help for her. She needs a healer. She needs Brina.

His leg felt numb so he risked moving it. Pain erupted and he rolled over and vomited in the river.

Then he was lurching upwards, being dragged, hanging suspended over Storm, her head rising a fraction, eyes tracking him. He lurched up again, dangling in the air, something hooked under his belt.

Another lurch and he was looking at two giants, one with a rope in its hand, attached to an iron hook that it removed from Corban’s belt.

‘You were right to follow the river,’ one said to the other.

‘Let me go,’ Corban coughed.

‘Ha, I think not,’ the giant said in common tongue. ‘You have led us a merry chase. The others are searching for you all over Forn.’

‘We should put a spear through his heart,’ the other one growled.

‘Ildaer wants him,’ the first giant said.

‘What about that?’ The other giant jutted its chin at Storm.

‘I’ll not be going down there,’ the first giant said with a shake of its broad head. ‘Besides, there’s no need. She is finished.’

As the two giants dragged Corban up the slope and through a glade, pain lancing through his leg and chest with every movement, every breath, he heard Storm howl behind him. It was a rattle, weak and fluid, yet long and mournful, and Corban felt his heart was being ripped apart.