‘Oooop,’ he says, then he too falls silent.

Cautiously, still breathing hard, we lean over the edge of the opening and look back into the den. It is full of wolves. None of them look at us; they’re all too busy with each other. They’ve formed a circle around the pups and they’re leaning in, nuzzling and licking the little ones. One of the adult wolves lies down next to the pups and gathers them towards her with her muzzle. Two pups start to feed greedily. Another female lies down and feeds the other pups nearest her. It’s amazing; the pups are so little but they just know what to do. One by one the wolves lie down together, paws and ears and tails and bellies and backs and muzzles all mingled until the floor of the den is carpeted with grey fur.

Only one wolf stands alone, on the edge of the pack. He’s huge, his fur is dark, one of his ears is torn. That was the wolf who leaped at me, I’m sure of it! He sniffs the air and looks back towards the tunnel, back towards Deadman’s Cave and the mother wolf we killed.

I bite my lip. ‘I think that one’s the alpha,’ I whisper.

Harby looks at me, his eyes puzzled.

‘That wolf!’ he says, pointing down.

Now the wolf is looking up at us, his eyes gleaming dully. Instinctively I duck away but he doesn’t seem worried by us or scared or angry. He just watches us watching him, like there’s nothing left for him to do.

I think of my own home, my own family, my own pack, and my whole body hurts, inside and out. I feel the searing pain of the claw cuts on my shoulder, the sharp sting of my bleeding knee, and the raw ache right in the pit of my belly. The world blurs as my eyes fill with tears.

I want my mum.

I turn my face away and stare out across the valley: we’re on a little rocky platform, so high up we’re above the treetops whose leaves glow golden in the sunshine. Steam rises from the forest in swirling wisps and the air is noisy with birdsong. Right over on the other side of the valley and higher even than us, I can just see the tip of the Spirit Stone, rising out of the trees – kind and familiar amidst all this strangeness. ‘Home,’ I murmur.

I wipe my eyes and watch some tiny bright green birds that I’ve never even seen in my world. They swoop and twist joyfully in the air before darting into their nest holes in the cliff just above us. I smile a little smile. Below us in the cavern I hear the shuffling of the wolves. How can somewhere so beautiful be so full of dangers?

As I gaze up at the nests, a cold realisation suddenly clutches my heart. The little platform we’re on is about the size of Lamont’s trampoline, it juts out from the cliff face like one of those little foldy-down tables you get on a train. I cautiously get to my feet and peer all along the cliff: there’s no path down from here; no way up from here either – the cliff is sheer and impassable.