Chapter Five
‘Are you sure?’
Rasti whined in reply.
Helm squatted beside her. The terrier had her pointy black nose lifted as high as it could be—somewhere about the level of Helm’s knee—and was sniffing industriously. She had been doing that for a long minute and had finally raised one front paw, indicating east. Helm squinted into the rising sun. They had spent the night hours huddled close together in the lee of a blasted tree, out of the chill wind but all too close to the hunting grounds of the panthera, to judge by the sounds that cascaded around them. Sleep had been impossible, and now at first light, Rasti seemed determined to lead them across the worst of the terrain. Impossible country, Helm would have said in his days as a tribesman. Now with many years’ wandering behind him,
