Boreas Mun cleared his throat and turned the spit again.

‘This sweet fragrance lured you to my campfire,’ he stated rather than asked. ‘Didn’t it, gentlemen?’

‘Indeed.’ The pilgrim tipped the brim of his hat and his voice changed a little. ‘I smelled out the roast from far away, with all due modesty. But I remained cautious. They were roasting a woman on a campfire I approached two days ago.’

‘That’s true,’ confirmed the elf. ‘I was there the next morning, I saw human bones in the ashes.’

‘The next morning,’ the pilgrim repeated in a slow, drawling voice, and Boreas would have bet anything that a nasty smile had appeared on the face concealed by the shadow of the hat. ‘Have you been tracking me in secret for long, Master Elf?’

‘Aye.’

‘And what stopped you revealing yourself?’

‘Good sense.’

‘The Elskerdeg pass—’ Boreas Mun turned the spit and interrupted the awkward silence ‘—is a place that doesn’t enjoy the best of reputations. I’ve also seen bones on campfires, skeletons on stakes. Men hanged from trees. This place is full of the savage followers of cruel cults. And creatures just waiting to eat you. According to hearsay.’

‘It’s not hearsay,’ the elf corrected him. ‘It’s the truth. And the further into the mountains towards the east, the worse it’ll be.’

‘Are you gentlemen also travelling eastwards? Beyond Elskerdeg? To Zerrikania? Or perhaps even further, to Hakland?’

Neither the pilgrim nor the elf replied. Boreas hadn’t really expected an answer. Firstly, the question had been indiscreet. Secondly, it had been stupid. From where they were it was only possible to go back or eastwards. Through Elskerdeg. Where he too was headed.

‘Roast’s ready.’ Boreas opened a butterfly knife with a deft flourish, meant to impress. ‘Go ahead, gentlemen. Help yourselves.’

The pilgrim had a cutlass, and the elf a dagger, which also didn’t resemble a kitchen knife at all. But all three blades, sharpened for more menacing purposes, served to carve meat that day. For some time all that could be heard was crunching and munching. And the sizzling of chewed bones thrown into the embers.

The pilgrim belched in a dignified manner.

‘Strange little creature,’ he said, examining the shoulder blade which he had gnawed clean and licked until it looked as though it had been kept for three days in an anthill. ‘It tasted a bit like goat, and it was as tender as coney… I don’t recall eating anything like that.’

‘It was a skrekk,’ said the elf, crunching the gristle with a crack. ‘Neither do I recall eating it at any time.’