He dismounted, slung his shield across his back and drank from his wineskin. He secured the small food sack on the saddle for his return and eased the bastard horse out of sight into a small glade in the trees. He hobbled it with enough rope to allow it to graze but not to wander and then searched for a route up the rock surface, slick with running water. Picking out an animal track that weaved its way to the summit, he bent his back into the hillside, which looked to be a thousand feet high or more. Despite the cold air, he was streaked with sweat when he reached the summit. His breathing was laboured. It felt unnatural. How many times before had he paced himself and the men on steeper hills than these?

He had kept watch on the sky, searching for the hawk that had brought Gontrán to their camp. If a man’s mind could grasp that forces of nature existed other than those he could understand, then perhaps that was why men prayed. He raised the Silver Wheel Goddess to his lips. An archer’s token of protection from a pagan goddess was as good a reason to believe in such things as any other.

There was no sign of the hawk.

*

The undulating ground was broken with rock formations and tumbling water in a fast-flowing stream that began high up in the mountains and gushed across moss-laden boulders. The ice-cold water penetrated his boots, but he stumbled across the stream bed, instinct and good luck guiding him across the treacherous, ankle-snapping rocks beneath the surface. He clambered onto the far bank. The dense hillside forests swallowed the light. Blackstone felt his strength slipping away. He looked at his left hand and saw a slight tremor, a sign of weakness creeping throughout his body. How high had he climbed? He drank from the wineskin again, hoping the rough-tasting wine would warm and invigorate him. Blackstone pressed his hand against Wolf Sword’s hilt and steadied himself against a boulder. His eyes followed the contour of the land, which bottomed out into a broad plateau, an uneven land of brutal mystery where waterfalls tumbled from increasing heights, their streams disappearing into the forest. The seething water swallowed any sound except the high-pitched keening of a hawk. Its sudden appearance made him cautious. Was it guide or bait? He raised his eyes to follow its passage on the thermal and felt dizziness claim him. He lifted Arianrhod to his lips again and asked the Celtic goddess to guide him to where Ranulph de Hayle and the witch had made their escape.