Thomas notches the arrow. He holds the bow down. Looks at Riven. Looks at the giant. He draws the bow, feeling that top-heaviness. It is an ugly bow, he thinks, unloved, rough. Perhaps that is perfect for this last thing he has to do? He raises it, holds the string to his cheek, his arms fluttering with the effort, and just as Riven scrambles past the giant up the far bank, he looses.

He misses.

But the giant pauses. He takes two staggering steps to his right, arches his back and drops the pollaxe.

‘God in heaven!’ Perers murmurs. ‘That was some shot.’

The giant tries to scrabble at something caught between his shoulder blades. He can’t reach it. He falls to his knees, then on to all fours. Riven turns back – perhaps the giant has shouted something?

‘Get an arrow!’ Thomas yells at Perers.

His eyes are fixed on Riven, who hesitates by the fallen giant, and for a moment Thomas thinks he might help him. But then Riven snatches up the pollaxe, turns and runs. The giant collapses in the snow.

‘Find an arrow!’ Thomas screams. He looks about too, but keeps one eye on Riven who is moving northwards along the far bank, scrabbling through the bare-branched undergrowth, slipping in the snow, leaving a trail of bloody footprints.

He is getting away. He is escaping.

Thomas casts aside his helmet and runs along the valley top, shadowing Riven. The ground is too steep to descend.

Perers follows.

‘My bow,’ he says.

Thomas ignores him. There is a great pile of corpses blocking his way, and there are caltrops scattered on the ground. He scrambles over them, still watching the shrinking figure of Riven, still looking for another arrow. He finds one, but the head is bent and curled back on itself. It will never fly true. He throws it aside. Runs on.

It is dusk now.

He will soon lose Riven in the dark.

He begins a prayer. ‘Pater Noster, qui es in caelis . . .’ Then he gives it up. Prayers are for later.

On the far bank Riven’s run is clumsy with fatigue as he stumbles through the trees, scrambles along the banks and wades through the river’s broken water where the valley walls press too steeply.

At last Thomas finds an arrow, sticking out of the ground in a rare patch of sodden earth. He pulls it out and runs to a spot between two low trees on the lip of the plateau.

Riven will pass below on the opposite bank any moment.

He notches the arrow and takes his stance.

The wind here is fitful, uncertain, blustering around the valley, gusting up the rise. He will have to be careful. He has but one shot, and then it will all be over.