Vilmar scowled, lips forming no reply. His black eyes met the upturned amber gaze of Rogen, seething. Then he sniffed the air, turned, and marched on, wordless.

The hunt continued, the tension between them thickening. Amron kept a few paces behind the hunter, as he had for some time now, shambling along, limping on his right leg. He had taken no tonic for the pain today, and refused to touch the Frostblade lest he must. It wasn’t much helping his mood, he knew. The throbbing pain, the bickering fools, the fact that they had been going for hours, now, and were going further and further from the city of King’s Point with each passing minute.

I should never have come, a large part of Amron thought. Vilmar had not said it would be so far as this, and for all he knew, King’s Point might have come under attack during his absence.

“Five minutes, Vilmar,” he said. “And don’t bloody lie to me again.”

“Lie?”

“You said they were close. A short march through the woods. That we’d be there and back within a couple of hours.”

“Things change. That’s the hunt. Creatures move, Amron. And we are on the way back to the city now. I thought your sense of direction was better.”

“How can it be in these woods?” The canopy was so thick in places that they could barely see the sky, and even if they could, the sun had been blotted a long time ago by the clouds. A few hours from now dusk would be setting in. He needed to get back by then. “And what do you mean, on the way back? Are you giving up, then?”

“No. They were moving, like I told you. We have reached the last place I saw them, but they have continued on toward the coast since then. Toward you, Amron. They are drawn to your blade. To him.”

For once Rogen Whitebeard did not disagree. “He is not wrong, my lord. The grulok is not like other creatures. Where a drovara or fellwolf is driven by hunger and fear and rage, by the need to survive, the grulok is designed only to serve. They are emotionless, single-minded. If they have awoken, as Vilmar claims, they will look to serve Vandar, their maker. They will find and follow his champions.”

A dark smile appeared behind Vilmar’s black beard. “The ranger has some wisdom, it seems. Perhaps you are not so useless, after all.” His smile broadened, brown teeth in a black bush of beard. “Now come. They have passed through this way. Look here, at these trees. At this undergrowth. Does it not look trampled to you?”

Rogen nodded. Amron wasn’t seeing it himself. “It looks much the same as the rest.”

A disappointed sigh broke through Vilmar’s lips. “Have you forgotten everything I taught you? We used to hunt often when he was a boy,” he said to Whitebeard. “But since then, it has been knight this, and lord that, duels and courtly duty. You are no hunter, Amron Daecar.”

Amron rolled his eyes. There were few people who could make him feel like a boy again, and the burly old huntsman was one of them. “I still hunt, Vilmar. Though…mostly by horseback.” And not for a time now, he thought. Hunting has always been a peacetime fancy, and his days of peace were done.

“Aye. Boar hunts and bear hunts. Trifling creatures, and no threat. Leave Wolfsbane in the stables and go on foot, just you. That is a real hunt. Man against beast, alone in the wild.” Vilmar looked him up and down, shaking his head. “And without this armour. It makes you soft.”

Amron was weary of this. “I fight dragons, Vilmar. Without armour I would stand no chance. Not even Varin would have. So spare me your lectures. And find these bloody gruloks.”

The rain was starting to drizzle down again, pattering upon the leaves as they passed the elms and ash, the woods thickening, opening, thickening again, sometimes blotting out the fading light, sometimes breaking into clearings where little ponds and marshy bogs had formed. Knowing now that they were at least heading in the direction of the city, Amron did not carry through on his threat to give Vilmar only ten minutes. That said, he had to trust the huntsman was telling the truth. For all he knew, they were still going directly north, right into the heart of the Wandering Wood, mile after mile from the coast.

There were more rocks and boulders here, in these parts, and some larger stone formations as well that looked, from certain angles, to have been carved by an ancient folk. Once or twice Vilmar stopped them with a raised hand, then crept closer, sniffing the air in that way of his, ears twitching like a cat, to study this boulder or that. Each time he would shake his head and return to them. “Sometimes it can be very hard to tell. And the light…it is fading.”

A short while later, they came upon a thatched cabin, its roof falling through, one of its wooden walls gone to rot. With the rains falling more forcefully, they took cover for a few moments, sharing food from Whitebeard’s pack, drinking from their skins. “This has been harder than I thought,” Vilmar confessed to them. “These creatures are elusive, big as they are.”

“How big are they?” Amron asked. Most mythical stories about the rock sentinels of Vandar claimed they could reach heights of over twenty feet. Some even said up to thirty, and he remembered a picture book he had cherished as a boy that painted a grulok as a true colossus, well over sixty feet in height, and their king as well, the book had said.

“It depends,” Vilmar growled in answer. “From what I saw of them, they ranged in size. The biggest was perhaps eighteen or nineteen feet, though they often walked stooped, so it was hard to tell.”

“And there were half a dozen of them, you said?”

“At the last I saw. But first, just one. Others joined later, all moving south. They must have some sense of one another. There could be many more out there, Amron. Searching for one to serve.”

“They found one,” the king said, taking a bite of salted pork, chewing. “Janilah Lukar.”

There was a frown on Vilmar’s face. “How do you know this? Why have you not spoken of it until now?”

“I have only just realised, Vilmar.”

Rogen’s lupine eyes showed understanding. “The wounds…to Drulgar…” he said.

Amron nodded. He had seen those slashes and cuts to the titan’s neck and shoulders himself, and Elyon had described them in greater detail having walked upon the monster’s back. It made a deal of sense to Amron that Janilah, in his new-found guise of dragonslayer, as the rumours said, had been joined by a few gruloks himself, and that the Warrior King and his giant servant-soldiers had battled the Dread and Eldur already, before they flew from the east.

“It would seem likely they were made by gruloks,” Amron said to the ranger.

He swallowed his mouthful of pork, washing it down with a draught from his waterskin. If he was right about all of that, he wasn’t certain it was good news. That the Dread could be wounded by these creatures, yes, that was positive, and that they were indeed helping to defend Vandar’s realm, that too, but more than likely Janilah Lukar had been killed in the confrontation, and if that was the case, the Mistblade may have been taken. Without it, we can have no hope of restoring the Heart, he thought. We will have to win the war with its fragments instead.

He hitched his waterskin back into place on his belt, turning his eyes out through the door of the old cabin. The rains were washing down heavily now, and did not look like they would relent any time soon. “Do we need to be here, Vilmar?” he asked.

The huntsman was still looking at him with that twisted frown on his brow. “Meaning what?”

“The gruloks. If they came to Janilah, as I think they did, then will they not come to me? You said it yourself…they were moving south, toward the city. To me. Why do I need to be here?”

“Because they slowed, Amron. I told you that. They are shy, unfamiliar with this world. The gruloks fell asleep when their master and maker died. They do not know our kind, nor half the other creatures of this world. I thought it best you come to them first. This was their world before it was ours. You must show them the proper respect.”

Amron walked over to the door, hanging loose on its hinges. He looked out through the falling rain, into the trees. His eyes narrowed, peering, searching. “I understand, Vilmar. And you’re right. What if I were to wait here, alone? Away from all others? Would they come to me then?”

“They may. But we’re on their trail, Amron. Even the ranger knows it. We’re close.”

You’ve said that a hundred times. “And how close to the city are we?”

“A few miles, three or four. Hard to know for sure.”

Whitebeard agreed. He too had a remarkable sense of place. “We can be back in an hour at a good march, my lord.”

“Then I’ll wait here for them. If it’s as you say, and they are here to serve, then they will come to me. Both of you should go.”

“Go? My lord, I do not think that wise. There are Agarathi here, as you say. And other perils. It’s my duty to watch over you.”

“And you will. From the trees. I do not mean for you to return to the city, Rogen. Just give me some space.” He turned to look at the two men, the bear and the wolf, standing side by side in that old musky woodchopper’s cabin. Vilmar, the great black shadow. Whitebeard, tall and lean, with that wolfish face and glowing eyes. “Go. Move into the trees outside and watch from there. And try not to bicker too much. You might scare them off.”

There were no arguments this time, and indeed the nod that Vilmar the Black gave him suggested he thought it was a good idea. They trundled out through the door, ducking into the rains, fading quickly into the trees the way they had come. There was an old tree-stump stool at one side of the cabin, strong enough to bear Amron’s weight in the plate armour he was wearing. He picked it up, moving it over to the doorway, setting it down on the threshold where the rain splashed down at his feet. Then he drew out the Frostblade, his aches and ails at once assuaged, to let its great white light spill out through the trees. Setting it across his lap, its kaleidoscopic mists rising, he sat down, and waited, listening to the calming sounds of the falling rain, to the soft and distant peals of thunder, crackling from far away.

The minutes began to tick by, the small clearing outside the cabin illuminated by the Frostblade’s light. Beyond, the trees were spaced apart and shadowed, thick with brambles around their boles, thorns and bushes of holly. He closed his hand around the dagger at his hip, enhancing his senses, listening. The rains grew louder, deluging down, crashing through the leaves and the branches, splashing wildly against the forest floor.

“Did you do the same, Janilah?” Amron whispered, staring out. “Did you sit, as I am, awaiting them? Did you know that they would come?”

Despite the Warrior King’s treacheries, despite ordering his son Aleron’s death, he had to see Janilah as an ally in this fight. Be well, he thought. Be alive. Live through this war, old king, and I shall deal with you when it’s done.

A shift of shadow in the woods caught his eye, movement behind the trunks. He searched through the sound of the rain, heard the crunch of wood, the sucking of mud, a heavy sound of grinding rock, stone rubbing against stone. He sat up at once, wondering how much time had passed. No more than five minutes or so, he guessed, maybe ten. They were close, as Vilmar said.

He released the dagger in his left hand, closing the fingers of his right around the Frostblade. Instinct told him to stand, to remove his cloak, to shift it from his shoulders, show himself in his armour, silver and gold and glowing. Glorious, like a great warrior of old. Worthy of their aid.

He removed the leather boots he had worn over his sabatons, placing them aside, and stepped out from the cabin. Rainwater washed down through his greying black hair, soaking it to the scalp, trailing through the tangles of his beard. His silver-blue eyes peered out, narrow. Through the trees he could see them more clearly now, the giant shapes, swaying, advancing.

He held the Frostblade to his side, drawing upon its power. Ice-armour formed about him, crystallising, hardening, twinkling with colour. It was not for protection that he did it, but purpose. Show them who they want to see. Show them a man to serve.