The body of the tending woman now cascaded fear, it showed in her face and gushed from every pore. She backed away. He could smell it like he could smell the forest. It was fear of him and fear was good. It told him when a prey was beaten. But she had tried to save man-packbrother and he found himself unable to bring her down. A vestige of thought swam through his crazed mind and he bolted into the open, another howl blasting from his mouth, his body racked, muscles glowing with rage, the blood on his mind and the forest in his nose.

But outside he scrabbled to a halt on the cruel stone. Outside was fire and shouting in the dark. Outside was chaos and confusion. Humans ran everywhere and the overpowering scent of the hated ones whose flesh he remembered assailed him, mixed with the rotting stench of death. A mass of the humans, those untainted with the scent of the hated, ran towards an opening in the walls. Beyond it, the prey he desired.

Thraun ran hard towards the opening, his savage barks scattering the humans whose inbred terror of the wolf had them leap from his path. He could feel their alternate fear and relief as he ran past them, intent on the one prey, the strong-scented ones whose blood he had tasted and desired to taste again. He cleared the opening and, sniffing the air as his legs blurred beneath him, drove straight to where he knew his prey waited, a third and final howl marking his grief at the loss of man-packbrother.

Thraun ran towards the flickering light of a fire. Around it, the hated men were standing and he could feel their anxiety and incomprehension of the noise and flame the pack-humans had caused. His blond-flecked brown body slipped through the dark unnoticed, the noises covering his footfalls and the growls quiet in his throat.

Prey.

There was no desire to stalk. The pack were far away, the forest colours dim in his memory and his animal brain ablaze with the anger of something taken that could never be returned.

At a dead run from the shadows he pounced, leaping high, taking his first prey in the throat, his jaws ripping for blood, his paws braced on the shoulders. The man fell under the force of the leap but had no fight in him, his life already flowing from the tear under his chin. Thraun lapped hungrily at the blood, careless of its spurting and flashing over his muzzle and coat. Lost in desire, he didn’t hear the other men surround him but he felt the sharp slap as one of their metal sticks bounced from his impervious hide.

He turned and the four of them stumbled backwards, scared words tumbling from their mouths combined with frantic pointing with their arms at where one had struck him. Thraun crouched, yellow eyes smouldering contempt for their helplessness, jaws dripping the blood of their companion, his body tensed.

The men backed away further but they could not escape, not all of them. Thraun sprang again, paws thumping into the chest of his prey, snout firing hot breath over his face. His jaws snapped together, ripping the flesh off one cheek. The man screamed. His companions struck and pulled at Thraun who stepped back, lashed a claw into the prey to silence him then begin to circle, tongue lolling.

One of the prey turned and ran, shouting as he went. Thraun watched him briefly but let him go. The other two stood knowing they could neither fight to win nor both outrun the wolf. At a word, they split and ran in opposite directions but Thraun had already chosen his victim. He loped after him, through a narrow way with sheer stone walls rising either side, and ended his whimpering life far from the light of the fire.

And later, sated in mind and body, the passing of man-packbrother avenged, he cleaned his paws, muzzle and chest and trotted back to where Will lay, the lust clearing from his mind where one word pulsed at him.

Remember.

Ilkar feared for a time that the tumult wouldn’t subside. The grain store was packed with men, women and children of all ages and their automatic move away from the sundered doors was reversed immediately they saw it was not Wesmen framed in the opening.

It sounded as if all of them were talking, crying or shouting at once and he worried briefly that they would be crushed in a stampede for the open air. He shouted for calm, his voice joined by Hirad’s and The Unknown’s, all three Raven men now with swords sheathed, aware that Denser would alert them to any approaching danger.

Inside, the grain store was gloomy but not dark. Half a dozen low-wicked lanterns lit its cavernous stone-arched space and, to his left and right, Ilkar could see areas set aside for food and washing. And though the smell of sweat and stale air within was strong and pervasive, the lack of raw stench told him that at least they were not forced to urinate or defecate where they stood and slept.

At the front of the crowd, younger men stared back at him, their faces tired and angry, their voices lost in the morass of sound. In the centre, Ilkar recognised the unmistakable aura of a mage and strode forward to speak with him. His movement caused a ripple through the crowd which swayed back instinctively and Ilkar could only guess at the treatment they had sometimes received at the hands of the Wesmen. And their fears were based in ignorance. Every day, some of their number were taken from the store and never returned. Ilkar knew where they lay and the realisation that these people, his people, did not, twisted his stomach and re-ignited his anger at the plight of Julatsa.

But the bodies lying outside the College were something he couldn’t ignore and they represented a real risk to the rescue if the subject wasn’t handled correctly.

The mage, late middle-aged and puny, tufted red hair sprouting from a narrow head, bore an expression of enormous relief but Ilkar didn’t let him speak, beckoning him forward. They met and shook hands a pace in front of the crowd.

‘Your name?’ asked Ilkar.

‘Dewer,’ replied the mage.

‘Good. Dewer, I am Ilkar and this is The Raven. We’re here to get you out of this. All of you. But we don’t have much time.’

Dewer gaped. ‘The Raven?’ There were tears in his eyes.

‘Yes. Look, I must have quiet. The Wesmen are close and we have to leave now. Who’s in charge?’

‘I’ll pass the word for quiet,’ said Dewer. ‘Speak to Lallan while I hush everyone.’ He pointed at a tall slim man in his late fifties. He wore fine deep green clothing and a burgundy shirt, dirty and torn now but the quality still shone through. His face was drawn and tired yet proud and he stood tall, refusing to be bowed by the abrupt change in his circumstances. Ilkar walked quickly over to him where he stood a little further along the line, beckoning The Unknown and Hirad to join him.

‘Lallan,’ said Ilkar. The two shook hands briefly. ‘I’m Ilkar, and these are Hirad and The Unknown Warrior.’

Lallan nodded. ‘I recognised you as you came in.’

‘It is very important that your people listen to us and follow our instructions. If not, there could be a slaughter,’ said Ilkar.

‘How many of you are there here?’ asked Hirad.

‘Three thousand four hundred and seventy-eight,’ said Lallan without pause. ‘We started with more but the Wesmen have been taking away the very old, very young and some women.’

‘I know, and that is something we have to deal with now.’ Around Ilkar, a ripple of excited conversation was followed by a wave of hushing sounds and then almost complete silence.

‘Impressive,’ said The Unknown.

‘We decided early that discipline was important,’ said Lallan. ‘I’ll speak first, then I’ll introduce you, Ilkar. They’ll listen if I ask it.’

The four men stepped away from the crowd and towards the door. Denser chose the same moment to sweep down to the doorway, release Erienne from his arms, kiss her and step back into the sky. Erienne ran in, breaking the silence of the crowd, their murmur a vocalisation of their anxiety.