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have been a hundred miles away.
    If I wanted to escape, I would need to head the other way. And it was no good trying to skirt the camp – that was where the sentries would be.
    I had to go
through
the campsite.
    I remembered the goatherd’s icy eyes and the hand clenching his sword hilt, and shivered. If he caught me running he would have all the excuse he needed. I would be dead before the Wolf had time to ascend.
    Make sure he doesn’t catch you, then
, I told myself as I headed back down the slope. I pressed myself into the shelter of the prison wall, judging the distance to the nearest tent.
And stop wasting time
. I took a deep breath and ran flat out for the canvas wall, dropping down into a crouch when I reached it, heart thundering. No shouts. No arrows. Good so far.
    The thump and slosh of the waterskin against the small of my back seemed deafening as I scuttled, crablike, from shadow to shadow, zigzagging through the outer ring of tents. Only the brilliance of the starlight allowed me to avoid tent pegs driven into the earth, casually abandoned camp chairs, washing pails and kicked-over campfires. But that same brilliance would betray me in an instant if anyone happened to glance my way.
    When I reached the edge of the camp, I stopped for a moment, huddling in the grass against the wall of a small tent to catch my breath. Beyond this tent, there was an open area where the ground climbed gently towards the forest. I had to make it across that emptiness to get away. All it would take was one sentry to glance up at the wrong moment and—
    I imagined the arrows thudding into my back and shivered again.
    I found myself straining to hear something, any noise at all, from the camp. Whenever I had come across groups of soldiers in Uskaand they had been noisy, rowdy men, needing little excuse to shout, swear and brawl. This camp seemed eerily quiet in comparison. None of the tents even had a lamp burning in them as far as I could see.
    Enough hesitating
, I told myself.
Go. Go now!
    My muscles bunched in readiness for the last burst of speed I would need to see me away. But instead of running I froze.
    Someone was singing. The deep golden voice echoed and carried through the still night air, until it seemed that he might be standing right beside me. The song was hauntingly familiar. It was an old folk song – a song that my ma had hummed all her life. Sometimes, when I was very small, she had sung it to me at night as she tucked me into bed.
    “Farewell, my love, our time has come,
    Long though I might to stay;
    Our time has come, my one true love,
    The world calls me away…”
    Slowly other voices, male and female, began to join the first. The sweet, sad notes of a wood flute wove in among them, and a drum took up the slow rhythm of the melancholy song.
    My scalp prickled. But it wasn’t fear this time. Longing was what I felt now, longing and loneliness, like a lost wolf listening to a strange pack howling in the night. Close by, so close, but utterly untouchable. A family I could never be a part of.
    I lifted my gaze to the frosty stars, letting their light fill my eyes and remind me that sometimes it is better to be alone. Safer. For everyone. I took a firm grip on my blanket and waterskin, and ran from the hill-guard camp into the darkness.
     

I
look back. Always. I cannot help myself.
    The wolves are rivulets of darkness streaming over the snow, like blood, black in the starlight. Silver teeth flash. Silver eyes spark. They know I am looking.
    They raise their faces to the moon, and their high, eerie song fills the night. The wolves call to me. They call my name.
    And they have my father’s voice.

Five
    T
he villagers left me in the barn in chains for two days. No one would cross the threshold to bring me food or water. When the thirst became too great, and the burning tightness of my throat threatened to close it forever, I managed to drag myself close enough to the wall to lick the moisture from the