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gently. I need not have bothered, Trista’s eyes when she turns to look at me are cold, as hard as flint and quite dry.
    ‘I need to get away from here. The Chief is still alive and blaming me for this.’ She waves her arm to encompass the devastation. ‘If I had the power to do this, I wouldn’t have waited so long.’ I am taken aback by her bitterness until I remember her slave brand. This was not her home but her prison. I don’t suggest we stay and bury the corpses and neither does she.
    She spends a few minutes digging around in the ash and returns with a small sack of grain and some turnips. ‘There was a store below the ground, but there’s not much left.’ We share what there is between us to make it easy to carry.
    ‘You take the lead,’ she says to my surprise, ‘I have done a poor job. I want to go north, away from here, towards Brigantia, and I want to stay clear of your Legio IX. They can’t be too far away and if this is their work they are best avoided.’
    I nod. I couldn’t agree more. Legio IX, my old legion, is indeed to be avoided.

Chapter Seven
    Trista’s Story
    I can’t forget Elen’s face. I didn’t like her – she was sour and vindictive – but it still galls me that she blamed me for what happened. The gods are playing some bitter game of their own in letting the Chief live. He is as unforgiving a bastard as ever drew breath and a vicious, ugly fighter. He is not an enemy I would ever have chosen. He must have found Cerys’ body before the legion arrived. I couldn’t find her among the dead, though I didn’t look too hard.
    The shadow wolf wrinkles his nose at the stench and Morcant is shocked to paleness but doesn’t vomit or otherwise disgrace himself. We don’t linger and to my relief Morcant doesn’t ask me any questions. I ask enough of myself. Should I have warned them? Will the Chief enact the gods’ revenge for my failure as a seeress?
    We walk for a long time. Melting snow drips from every branch and the hard ground has turned to slush. My feet are sodden and the mail shirt weighs me down, but I’m not going to ask Morcant to stop. He seems as anxious as I am to put distance between us and the slaughter at the hall. Finally, he comes to a halt at a sheltered, defensible place between the wood and the river. It’s a good choice.
    ‘This looks a safe enough place to stop. We can refill our canteens, build a fire and dry out.’ I nod. There’s a risk that if I sit down I will never get up again.
    There is very little dry wood here but we find what we can. I don’t wait for Morcant to pull out his tinderbox, but start the fire immediately in my own way. He looks startled but I’m too tired to care. A man who turns into a wolf has little cause to be surprised by my gifts. I boil up the grain on the fire while he peels and slices the turnip. He finds a small twist of salt in the bottom of his pack that helps to make the meal more palatable. Not that the taste matters. I am hungry enough to eat my own shoe leather; it’s doing my feet little good.
    The sky is a pale winter blue streaked with downy cloud and the sunlight is wan but warming. My belly is full and my feet are thawing. I begin to relax until I see the wolf wraith’s alert stance. He has sensed something, I know it.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ Morcant asks. He is quick to put a hand to his own weapon.
    ‘You should know. Your wolf is awake and sensing danger.’
    Morcant’s eyes narrow and he scowls. ‘Very funny. Did you hear something?’
    For a moment I thought I did. The wolf cocks his head on one side. Morcant is about to speak, but I silence him. I thought I heard voices.
    ‘You should pay more attention to the wolf. He’s sharper than you are.’
    ‘Why do you keep talking about a wolf?’ He is obviously irritated. He flares his nostrils and cocks his own head to one side as if aping the wolf. ‘I think I can smell horses – a way off.’
    ‘And that’s because you’re a shapeshifter,