“My paws, my claws, they, grrr, see something.” He was as still as a furry statue; Tapio was already down behind a clump of alder, his great white stag flat in the marsh grass. Bill Redmede nodded. He pointed with his left hand; drawing the white bear’s attention to a line of alder clumps and the mouth of the stream.

Redmede could not read a bear’s expression, but he knew careful consideration when he saw it.

“We’re quiet,” he said.

“Humans are all, grak, loud,” Blizzard said. One great shoulder rolled up in a shrug. “Go.”

Redmede waved back at Stern Rachel and Long Peter, and they put arrows to bowstrings and began to slip into the high grass of the marsh, their dirty white cotes almost invisible against the pale gold of the dead grass.

They led the way, moving like wraiths, and then there were more men and women crossing the marsh, and then Redmede went himself, slipping back along the column to gain the best ground, and then moving quickly, his head low.

They moved fast, even when being silent—out across the marsh, over the stream at a beaver dam without a single splash, and then into the Alder brake on the other side and up the ridge. Now with the marsh between them and the irks and bears, they went east into the sun. Redmede spread his arms, palms down; his Jacks began to move into a skirmish line, pairs sticking together closely, moving from tree to tree as they entered the open highlands with the bigger beeches. Autumn had killed the hobblebush; hardly a stick cracked as they went, soft-footed, up the ridge.

Then Grey Cat stood, suddenly, erect. The Outwaller gave a call. Redmede raised his horn; he didn’t know what the Cat was doing, but the Outwaller was half mad and all daredevil, and . . .

The Outwaller call was answered, or echoed. Eeeeeeaaaaauuuuuuu.

Suddenly the woods to Redmede’s left exploded in Outwaller calls, and there were painted figures rising from the leaves, and stepping out from behind trees, and close in to Redmede a man in red and black paint rose out of a hollow tree.

But Redmede’s initial impression that they were all Outwallers was mistaken; many were, but there were dozens, hundreds of them; he saw the white of his own cotes and the dreaded green of royal foresters and Outwaller paint.

But the man in the red and black paint had dark skin, and a blue stone dagger slung at his hip, and Bill Redmede knew him. He knew them all; he certainly knew old Wart, who was already slapping Stern Rachel’s back.

He was surprised at how much young Aneas looked like his brothers. Though the man had deep lines on his face, as if his youth had been erased.

Bill Redmede wasn’t much for bowing, or authority, but he managed to incline his head in a polite manner.