One woman did not even reach the sleeper's body, but was struck aside with a dull thud as she approached. Adalina's mother landed a blow on the limb that held Lien before another black root reached around her chest like a snake constricting its prey. As her mother's voice cut out, Adalina reached the creature. She held the knife pointing down and rammed it into the leg that encircled Winilind. The grip loosened and her mother fell free, but the beast hissed and reared up to face her directly. Its rough skin looked like blackened bark pulsating as the sleeper breathed. This close, she could see two tiny, black eyes above the jaws that locked onto her and made her skin crawl. She would have expected to feel warmth from a creature so big, but instead its presence felt cold. The circle of thin teeth that constituted its mouth opened. Even as its legs warded off other attacks and kept Lien secure, it moved others around to grasp at Adalina. She raised her knife to strike again, to land one last blow before it descended upon her.

  A heavy weight struck her shoulder and threw her sideways.

  As she fell, Adalina stabbed. The knife met something soft and a human voice shouted. She felt the warmth of another body pressed against hers. Blonde hair blocked her eyes and, when she hit the ground, a hand cushioned her head against the fall. She rolled away and sprang up, knife raised in readiness for another attack.

  Erlends stood before her, blood issuing from a gash in his cheek that ran down his square jaw and dripped into the braids of his beard. Still shocked, she brandished her knife at him. For a moment she thought he smiled but he quickly turned and advanced toward the sleeper. With one hand he drew the sword from his back and with the other he waved to draw the creature's attention.

  Someone grabbed Adalina’s arm and hauled her almost off her feet. When she regained her balance and looked again at the sleeper, it was from behind the spear wall. They had stretched themselves as thinly as they could to pull in the splintered group.

  "Mother! Mother!" she cried, looking frantically among the bodies pressed around her. She tried to push herself back through the line of spears toward the sleeper.

  "Stay back!" commanded Otmer. The huge builder thrust her behind him and blocked her path.

  She peered in dread between the bodies in front of her. Some stood, while others lay on the ground. Beyond the spear line, Lien remained in view. She crawled desperately on her hands and knees, seeking an exit between the legs that imprisoned her. The sleeper kept her trapped like an animal in a cage. Had she been bitten? It's using her as bait. The wicked creature’s attention turned entirely toward Erlends.

  Adalina had never seen a Sullin fight before. The blonde warrior moved almost as quickly as his terrifying adversary. He jumped forward and provoked a tiny moment of surprise. As the sleeper reacted, his sword struck a thick limb halfway up and severed it in a clean cut. The severed section thrashed on the floor before it slithered away. The sleeper hissed and a black mist filled the air around it, obscuring the monster, Lien and Erlends from view. Beside her, someone huge pushed past and through the line of spears.

  Adalina heard Erlends shout and strike again. As the mist cleared, she saw that Heridan now attacked the sleeper from behind. He moved less quickly than Erlends but somehow managed to evade attack, as though he could sense from which direction any assault would come. The two warriors danced back and forth – taunting, tempting and lashing out when the time was right. While Erlends struck with flurries of shallow cuts, Heridan put his full force into single, mighty blows. The sleeper allowed Erlends to attack one of its legs while it used another to grip his knee and pull him off balance, but Heridan used the moment to his advantage. He hunched almost onto all fours and scrambled forwards. When he rose, he crouched beside Lien under the very belly of the beast. He raised himself with his sword pointing up and bellowed as he thrust deep into the flesh. Black, sticky blood pumped down the side of the blade and coated him from head to foot. Two men with spears found the courage to move out and pull Lien back amongst the clan. As the slick, wet form of the terrified woman was carried past her, Adalina saw that Lien still held an arm around the bundle on her front, though she could not hear the baby crying.

  Heat fanned up behind her and the orange light of torch fires passed from one hand to another, replacing the spears in the wall that protected them.

  Erlends and Heridan now swung and cut with gleeful abandon. Adalina could not tell which of the thrashing, twisting limbs on the forest floor were still attached to the creature’s body. It attempted to hide itself with the mist but, as it hissed, only tiny jets of the substance issued from its glands. That which had, only moments before, appeared terrifying and invincible, now evoked in Adalina a mixture of pity and revulsion. Erlends placed a boot on the defenceless body and drove his sword into the sleeper’s jaws.

  Adalina looked around, her mind numb. She heard her own heartbeat against her eardrums. The sweet smell of sleeper blood, like overcooked onions, filled the air. The clan began to transition from combat to recovery but she stumbled in a daze, unable to occupy either state of mind. When two men passed her, carrying the prone form of her mother into the centre of the circle she snapped back to attention. She saw the shadows of sleepers retreating through the trees and among them the outline of a man. Was he laughing? Was he dancing?

  “They took Fero!” someone shouted.

  “Let him go,” replied another.

  “Let me stop him! Please let me stop him!”

  A young woman called Halga wailed as two others restrained her.

  “Let him go, Halga. He’s in their world now. Let him go.”

  The last voice was her father’s. When she looked around, she barely recognised him. The new spear he carried dripped black with blood. She had never seen him use a weapon before. His thin, scholar’s face and neat clothes were spattered red and black. He carried himself in the same way that Heridan did after he had killed something – or someone – like he felt invincible. These times, she realised, would change them all.

  Three sleepers had taken part in the ambush, but only one had been killed. Seven dead Hallin and more wounded lay in rows, as though the wounded were queuing up to join the deceased. Winilind lay amongst the injured. Without Elder Mildred barking orders at them the healers bustled and fumbled. They bumped into one another as they rushed from one body to the next, struggling to decide who to treat first. Without thinking, Adalina began to prompt and guide each person until the frenetic activity settled into focussed work. When she reached her mother, she found her placed apart from the others under a hastily built shelter. When did my family become so important? She stooped to kiss her cheek. She smelled of scursleaf and slept soundly, but Adalina stared at the red bandages around her chest.

  She forced herself to walk away and wandered through the makeshift camp. The trees were thick and the light low. Aimar’s fire roared dangerously high, and others had started fires of their own to combat their dejection and misery. A perimeter of Hallin hunters and Sullin warriors stared nervously into the darkness while Heridan and Erlends paced together around the circle, telling jokes and slapping each other on the back. Adalina had not heard his belly laugh in a long time and, though she smiled at the sound of it, the sight of him in such confidence with Erlends unnerved her. The man saved my life, she thought, I should be grateful enough to thank him. But she kept out of their way. She had lost Heridan’s homehold in the fight and, though she knew he would understand, she did not want to tell him. She knew what he kept inside it. Instead, she sought out Lien.

  She found her and Thilo with Halga, the young woman whose new husband had been lost. Her heart sank to see that Lien was not holding her baby, but then she saw that he lay on his back on Thilo's knees. The infant slept and Thilo stared at him as though he were a child of the gods come down from heaven. His swaddling was black but they'd wiped his face clean and a dribble of milk ran down the corner of his mouth. Adalina wondered at Lien who must have hunched, bruised and shocked, to feed her child only moments after a struggle for her life. Now the shepherd folded herself over Halga and her long fingers ran through the black hair that matted over the tears and muck on the young woman’s face.

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  “He was a good man,” said Thilo, distractedly, still staring at his son. “He’s in the next world, now.”

  “What’s the next world for him?” Halga wailed. “A nest under the ground, a place in the earth to rot alive? I should have gone after him, I should have pulled him away from them.”

  Lien pursed her lips and shot Thilo a hard look. He placed the baby against his chest and excused himself. Adalina felt for him. What else could he say? She took his place and Halga looked round.

  “We were only together five months, Ada. Do you think he’s forgotten me already?"

  Adalina knew this grief. It was the same cruel suffering of not knowing whether she had lost Oli and Ingo, or not. Knowing that the worst had probably happened, but not with enough certainty for her heart to give up hope. It was torture. But this torture was not necessary for Halga. A hardness crept over her. She knew what the widow needed to hear.

  “Halga, did you ever see Fero dance before?”

  The woman lifted her head and her eyes widened.

  “Never,” she replied. “You know how shy he is.”

  “And did you ever hear him laugh like that?”

  “Not like that, no.” Halga shivered and Lien shuffled closer, nodding at Adalina with a mixture of relief and respect. She understood that Adalina had the strength to tell the woman what she needed to hear.

  “That’s because it wasn’t your husband out there, Halga. Fero was killed when the sleeper bit him. You know this.”

  Halga nodded and swallowed. “I know,” she rasped, and fresh tears welled in her eyes.

  “You should prepare for the funeral, Halga. Fero deserves one, whether a body is there to be burned or not.”

  As she walked away, she wondered: do Oli and Ingo deserve a funeral, too?

  With no elders present and Luthold overseeing the instructions of the oracle, an assumption emerged that he would perform the funeral rites. He was crouched by his wife’s side, watching her broken chest rise and fall when Aimar came to prompt him.

  “It’ll be dusk soon. The pyres are ready. There are six, plus an empty one for Fero.”

  Aimar shifted his weight from one foot to the next. Torvald, who stood beside him, prodded him in the side and he swatted the hunter’s finger away.

  “Is that all?” Luthold asked.

  Torvald prodded Aimar again and the craftsman cleared his throat.

  “We were wondering, Luthold...”

  “Yes?”

  Aimar looked down at his feet, then up at Luthold with a pained smile.

  "Since we’re having a funeral, might it be a good time to honour your son, and Heridan's, too?”

  Luthold froze. Aimar drew back a little and watched him, as though he were another sleeper threatening to wake and attack. Torvald investigated the bark of a tree beside him. Luthold felt hot and irritable. Why did they put this to him now? Fero was a dead man. They had seen him dance away into the distance, his mind destroyed by the creature’s venom. How was this the same as Oli and Ingo, whose deaths had not even been witnessed? And yet, he had seen Oslef’s oracle with his own eyes – a reading bought with blood. They were leaving their home for that reading. Could he indicate now that he did not trust it? Did he not trust it?

  Luthold looked down at Winilind and for a moment envied her, that she could sleep through this decision. Then the solution presented itself.

  “Thank you both, but I can’t hold a funeral for my son while his mother sleeps."

  Aimar opened his mouth, hesitated, then nodded and left with Torvald. It was a decent excuse, but not one which would hold for long – he hoped. Several of Winilind's ribs were broken but they would have to bring her around soon, however much pain it meant. They could not safely keep her sleeping with scursleaf for long.

  He walked toward the centre of their camp to where the new fire burned. When the clansfolk saw him, those who were not on watch gathered in a loose cluster. They stretched back farther through the trees than he could see. Even so, they suddenly looked so few. The trees would always outnumber them. The darkness would always be wider than what little light they made. He looked for Adalina and saw her settling next to Oli’s friend, Pasha. He could tell that his daughter was working her magic on the scared child. Increasingly, whenever he worried that he’d forgotten something, he'd find Adalina taking care of it in her natural, unassuming way.

  The six pyres lay in a pit, deep enough to prevent the flames from reaching the trees. Their feet pointed west and their heads east. Propped up slightly, they would face the sunset as the flames caught. Luthold waited until shafts of red light cut between the trunks. The clans, Hallin and Sullin alike, looked up at him expectantly. Oslef had taught him how to perform the rite. He recalled the elder’s words. ‘You have to choose the first name that comes to you,’ Oslef had said. ‘Speak quickly, without hesitation.’

  Luthold began, finding it easier than he’d imagined to speak a name without thinking first, without worrying who would expect which honour.

  “Heridan shares humility, in the name of Terlos.”

  The warrior rose, took a handful of soil and sprinkled it slowly, one after another, over the bodies of the fallen. If he felt any slight at being chosen to share humility, he did not show it.

  “Aimar shares truthfulness, in the name of Hurean.”

  The craftsman came with a smouldering branch, which he touched to the kindling around the bodies.

  “Lien councils caution, in the name of Sindrah.”

  The shepherd passed her child to Thilo and walked between the feet of the bodies and the setting sun, casting a long shadow over them as she passed.

  “Torvald offers experience, in the name of Manafel. Algar brings courage, in the name of Maralon. Beresa reminds the fallen of our love, in the name of Farlean.”

  Each came forward with the appropriate offering: leaves from the forest floor, a stamp on the ground beside their ear and, finally, a drop of water on their chests. He let them return to their seats and sit in silence for a moment before he continued:

  “No one comes in the name of the Lost Daughter. Without looking, she sees. Without listening, she hears. The lightless star guides you into the next world. Fero, Ajuta, Thusk, Gunda, Rolan, Taro and Tara – do not linger!”

  As he spoke the final words Algar and Finn, who sat waiting beside the bodies, fanned the flames with their shields.

  “It’s not our custom to sleep before the dead have left us,” Luthold declared loudly. “But many are wounded and all of us are exhausted. Rest, so we can depart as soon as we are able. It does not do to linger in the middle of a path.”

  He heard mumbles of agreement and relieved thanks at the permission to sleep before the fires had died. Before the gathering broke up, however, Erlends stood and thumped against the side of a wooden barrel for their attention.

  “Sleep if you will, but let me extend another invitation. It’s our custom to cool ourselves with drink after the heat of battle. I’d like to pay homage to a few men and women, and then share our only barrel of spirit with anyone that wants it.”

  The clan mumbled their approval, more loudly this time. Luthold squinted and focussed on the small barrel. From where had a people fleeing the destruction of their home procured wine? Would they really have saved it from among their possessions? Had they robbed it from another clan, or from some poor trader on the river? Wherever it had come from, it had everyone's attention.

  “Heridan!”

  Erlends turned to the warrior and raised a cup in his direction.

  “No man could take down a sleeper alone, but we did it together.” Proud calls of praise came from the listeners. When they died down, he added: “That’s what we Sullin do – you were raised by our kind, after all – we defy fate!”

  The Sullin, and some Hallin, roared in approval.

  “And to the seven slain – what an example they set us. They didn’t lie down and let bad luck be the ruin of their clan.”

  He waited for applause and cheers and when he got it, he moved on.

  “And finally.” He grinned and pointed to the red wound on his cheek. “To one of the few people who can claim to have landed a cut on me.”

  As Erlends spoke, he looked to where Adalina sat. He smiled and she smiled politely back. She'd removed some of her outer layers after the fire was lit and his eyes raked over her from top to bottom. Luthold’s arms and legs stiffened and his face flushed in anger. Erlends continued:

  “I caught up with you all just in time, and found this young one in midst of battle, like a true daughter of Maralon. Anyone would think she had been raised by the Sullin... Or that she belongs amongst us. If I hadn’t crossed her path, she might be one of the heroic fallen. But we are fortunate that we still count her among the living.”

  All eyes turned to Luthold. It was true, the man had saved his daughter. What else could he do but thank him? And yet, he felt undermined by Erlends' toast and offer of drink. He felt uneasy about the Sullin chief's newfound admiration, or ill disguised lust, for Adalina. As before with Aimar and Torvald, a response came to him.

  “Who knows, Erlends, perhaps if you had not stopped her, the sleeper would have fared as badly as you did!”

  The Hallin roared with spirited guffaws and Erlends uttered a grudging laugh. When the Sullin chief sat, Luthold saw his second in command, Marlo, scuttle to his side and speak closely in his ear, while other Sullin began sharing the spirit. Erlends nodded as Marlo spoke, then looked up at Luthold with a glint in his eye, as though something he just heard gave him great satisfaction. For now, Luthold wanted to ignore it. He looked to his daughter, who met his gaze and smiled. It was a smile that said: 'I'm right here beside you.'

  Despite all they had gone through and despite the dangers of the path to come, he felt lighter.