Garroch stood upright, like a man entranced, like a man walking in his sleep, a troubled sleep, the sleep that started with the beginning of the world.
‘Sit down, you fool!’ said Asa Wolf, who was even older than Garroch, for he knew the language of the otter and the wren.
Mai-Mai the hound stood up with his master. Together they began to walk down the hill.
Barduca and his men stared upwards and smiled. Such a small man! Such a small dog!
Asa Wolf said once more, ‘If you do not sit down, Garroch, I will place a shaft between your shoulder blades!’ He drew his bow.
But Garroch and Mai-Mai kept walking down the hill as though they had not heard him. Then he knew that he was powerless and waited to set an arrow into the breast of Barduca or Isca, or whoever seemed the most dangerous to
