Daltann was more difficult to track than she had expected. Normally, Larachis were better at finding their way to the bottom of a flagon than through the woods, but this one had guile. He had left from the west gate of Bree, and made that way until she had lost sight of him. It had taken her an hour of scouring the sides of the road to see where he had turned aside, curling north through stonier ground. The signs were faint; little pebbles with their damp side up upon the rocks, or a little white scuff where a hobnail had scratched the rock. Donos had taught her the art well, but she did not yet have his Ghost's eyes, and several times she lost the trail for hours at a time, only to find that it eventually curved back into Bree, where he had tried to buy a horse, but since the raid upon the inn two months ago, there were scarce any horses to be had in Bree. That much was fortunate.

As she left Bree by the south gate, the snow began to fall again, thick and heavy. She sped her pace, wrapping herself thickly in the black and blue plaid woolen cloak she had woven for herself in the autumn. The snow would be a gift if it stopped soon, but the clouds were heavy laden, and they would more likely hide Daltann's passing than make him leave footprints at this rate. She wrapped her cloak around her and began to move at a slow run. Dangerous, because it would make her sweat, but necessary if she wished to catch her prey. She had his trail, but it was already hours old.

As she pressed on, the snow fell more and more heavily, and the light began to fade. She cursed under her breath, realising that she had lost the trail. No use, now. Time to find shelter and wait for morning. She went into the woods and found a bough of pine that had hung low over the ground, weighted with snow. She checked inside for wolves and found none, so she set her pack upon the ground and went about kindling a fire from wet pine. She did not let it burn for long, since the smoke would give her away if the night cleared up. Instead, she emptied one of her waterskins into the copper boiling pot and waited for the bubbles. When they started rolling up the sides of the bowl, she carefully tipped it back into the skin and corked it before stuffing it down between her legs and wincing at the heat as it warmed her blood. She quickly cooked a few morsels in the embers before dousing them with snow and covering the fire pit back over. The night did become cold and clear, so she slept huddled under as many pine branches as she could find, curled in her thick cloak and hugging the warm bottle to her chest.

She was up at the next dawn, hearing the howling of wolves far off. Her only hope of catching Daltann was to move quickly towards the tribelands and wait, so she left the wilds and made for the road. It was hard going, and she wondered several times why she bothered to pursue this man so, but he had told his men to rape and kill her. She could not let such a thing pass. She could not quite remember the flaring anger she had felt at the time, but she knew that it had been his intention to anger her, taunt her and then have her dishonoured and slain. If Doubak had not shown himself to be better than that, then she might well have been. It takes a great deal of skill to fight against two men at once and live, and even then the way to do it is to try to force them to come one at a time, or to be getting in the way of one another. A properly-trained shield pair, though, was usually too much for a lone warrior, almost regardless of their skill. If she could allow such a thing to pass then she was no only no warrior, but no Haldad and no woman. Other tribes at the least respected that a woman could be as dangerous a warrior as a man, but the Larachis thought of their women as painted things to tupp and rule, and trade between their friends.

Braint stopped. There was shouting ahead on the road. She began to run, staying close to the verge and crouched low. There was a cart there, stopped in the road but headed north, and next to it was...

Hah! You damned fool. You are making this too easy!

She dropped her pack and moved closer, skirting off the road to come at Daltann from behind. He was threatening the driver, demanding that he give up his cart. Moving into position, Braint unlooped her sling from her belt and set a stone in the cradle. She was standing ready to whirl it about when something happened: Daltann took his axe from his belt and made to leap up onto the cart, but something small and black shot out of the cart, and burst at his feet with a flaring gout of flame that swept up over him and set his cloak ablaze. The stone thudded to the ground from her sling as Braint fumbled in shock. Daltann staggered back, screaming, and Braint fitted another stone, whirled, and loosed. It was a good shot – it sailed through the air and clubbed the burning man over the head, so that he fell into a pile of snow.

Standing, Braint raised a hand above her head and emerged from the trees cautiously. She did not know by what device the carter had set Daltann on fire, but she did know that she had no desire to follow suit.

"Peace, carter! Do not attack! I am no bandit"

A black shape climbed down out of the cart, carrying a long, harpoon-like spear, much like those used for fishing in the tribes. He wore a long, ragged black cloak with a fur hem, and his clothing was decorated with broken pieces of deer antler.

"What you want, woman?" She shape asked, in a gruff and accented tongue.

With her left hand, she pointed to the smoking body on the ground.

"I was hunting him. I need to see he is dead."

The man laughed blackly, but kept his spear raised.

"This man is short of friends, I think!"

"This man deserved no friends," she replied, moving warily towards Daltann's body. She was far from sure about this strange man, but she had promised to see Daltann dead, and she meant to. She did not draw her knife until she was upon him, in case the carter thought she meant to attack him instead. Daltann's eyes were rolled back and skin scorched, but he had only burned for a few moments, and he was still shaking and still alive.

"Na siadh dahin!" She snarled, as her knife dipped down and came up red. She wiped it on Daltann's cloak and sheathed it again, before turning to the carter and approaching slowly, with her arms wide and hands empty.

"The woman looks like the man. Same clothes, same metals," the carter said, looking her over.

"Different colours. Different tribe," she replied. "I am Braint, of Cambriani. I bear no blade against you."

"I am Talthur, of Suuri-Hemma, I bear no blade, but spear maybe. Depends on the woman now."

"Suuri-Hemma?" Braint frowned, puzzled. "What people is that?"

"North people. Far north people, people of the snow."

Braint had never heard of such a folk, but this man was clearly no Breelander.

"What did he want, this man?"

"This man wants my cart, to take it South again, but I am going North. I tell him no, he says 'yes' and then he is catching fire." There was a grim laugh from the man.

"How did you do that?" Braint asked, frowning.

"Special magic! This man has his ways, and he has learned more ways from the folk of the south. See!"

With that, the man strode back to his cart and came back with a little fish-shaped pot of dry red clay. A rag was tied about it, which he lit in one strike of a flint. The rag guttered with a hot oil-flame, and he tossed the jar hard against a rock by the road. Braint stepped back in wonder as a great spray of blue-white flame burst out of the shattering pot. The man laughed at her wide eyes.

"It is a good way to keep the cart safe. Good for arguments with angry men." he said, smirking.

Braint nodded, quietly.

"You go back to Bree?"

The man nodded.

"May I come in your cart? It is a long walk through the snow."

The man looked her over thoughtfully, then nodded. Braint suggested that he search Daltann's body while she went for her pack. She might have finished him off, but she had not defeated him and so had no right to his belongings. Talthur seemed pleased by the weight of gold he had off the man, and became cheerful as they climbed back aboard the cart. It was an odd contraption that Talthur had made himself, for the covered wagon had not only an awning but a covered compartment something like a tent at its fore, with a little pot-stove set in it, and seats lined with thick grey deer fur. He had made it like a sled of his people, he told her, though he then had to explain what that meant. Once the flaps were rolled down, it became warm and cosy inside, and allowed the little man to boil water and make a strange, pungent drink made from water, spices and melted deer fat that returned all the feeling to Braint's toes.

It took a little less than a day to travel back to Bree, and the man was as interesting as he was odd to her; unlike anything she had seen in these lands before, and with good reason: the men of the far north rarely left their snow-bound bays, but they had long ago harboured a King of the Numen from the south, and so they had sometimes had contact with that folk and learned much from them. When their Dreamers – shamen, they called them, were initiated, they had to go and find something useful for their clan. Usually it was some piece of wisdom from a vision or a prophecy, but the young Talthur had been intrigued by the references to Naurnen in the old tales from the time of the King. It was an oil, they had said, that was used sometimes to make the water burn so that enemy ships could be sunk. He had taken it upon himself to the far south and discover more, for fire was sacred in the north. He had been to the Kingdom of Gondor and learned much in the way of fire-craft and the making of things that burned, bringing his own knowledge of the odd powders and fumes that were made by the bubbling pools of his homeland, and adding it to the lore of the south. Their war had become too dangerous, though, and necessitated his return by land. He boasted that he knew more about fire than any shaman before him, and this would win him great renown with his people.

Braint told him a little of her own tale; enough to make him angry. The snow-folk did not do such things, he said. It was hard enough for them to live peacefully when the land was such a danger itself, never mind the orcs and trolls and creeping things from the mountains to the east. To fight between clans was foolish, especially to kill children and mothers of a struggling people. Braint was inclined to agree.

The snow had stopped as they grew close to Bree, and as they rolled through the slushy streets, the wet cold seemed to creep in again. She had barely stepped out of the cart, though, before someone rushed at her. She half-turned and began to draw her sword, but then she saw that it was Doubak. His face was red with exertion, and it was clear that he had just run after her from some distance.

"Braint! Haldad! I have news for you! News of your people!"