‘I look forward to it,’ said Liska. Then she grabbed Lug by the shoulders and pushed him in front of her, all the way out of the village and on to the giant’s path.

*

They moved quickly, jogging between the trees, the pumas slinking beside them like a shoal of protective sharks. Fishbone had hitched a ride on Liska’s back again. She could feel his paws trembling through the thick leather of her armour. Every time a puma swerved too close to them, he jumped out of his fur. Poor thing, she thought. To her, being around large, carnivorous animals was perfectly natural. And so was the fact that they were really people hidden inside the beastly forms like yolks in an egg.

Lug looked just as scared, but instead at the thought of being eaten by a giant. He was sticking close to Elowen, his fingers twitching, ready to call up his worm magic.

‘Surely we could wait until morning?’ she heard him whisper. ‘It’s so dark in these woods . . . it’s probably night already!’

Lug was right. It was gloomier than before and the shadows drew even closer as they went deeper. Up ahead, the trees turned to pines. Rows of straight, narrow trunks with branches meshed so tight that they seemed almost solid. A wall of needly darkness, wild and deadly. It sucked up the light like a sponge.

Beric stopped just in front of it, his wolves gathering around him.

‘Oh, not in there,’ whispered Lug. ‘Please, not in there.’

‘This is it,’ said Beric. ‘The end of our patch and the start of the giant’s. The path is here: it’s narrow but it runs straight through and out on to the tundra. You can probably make it in time if you’re quick. Should you lose your way, just keep heading north.’

Lug backed away from the pine trees, shaking his head. ‘North? How will we know which way that is? You can’t see the sky, let alone the stars!’

‘Look at the tree trunks,’ said Beric. ‘The moss grows on the northern side.’

‘Thank you,’ said Liska. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

‘Anything for another shapewalker,’ said Beric. He took her wrist in a warrior’s clasp and shook it. Liska looked again at the bank of pines, and the narrow patch of bare earth that vanished in between them. She imagined them running through it, stumbling and tripping as Thresher and her hounds closed in.

Thresher.

‘Beric,’ she said. ‘Before you go – there is something else you could do for us. Something that would really help.’

‘Name it.’

‘We’re being chased. Hunted. By a woman with hounds . . . creatures made from the shadow tree itself . . .’

‘Rot beasts? In our forest?’ Beric curled his lip back in an animal snarl. One which was matched by the four pumas around him.