Chapter 158

The first word came down the north road with the bears.

They had gone home in their twenties, as Rhys had ordered, each with a wolf in front who knew the road and a slip of Corwin’s paper in every pocket. The twenty for the long hold on the Kestrel road had been the last to go, because their road was the furthest and the worst. On the ninth morning after the river, half of them came back.

By the time I got to the north gate, in Nana’s shawl because I had not stopped for my coat, they were standing in the road outside it in men’s shape, snow to the knee, and the wolf who had gone with them was standing in front with his hackles still half up.

The one who spoke was the big lad I had seen by the ford stones, turning his hands over. Rhys said his name was Orrin. His mother was called Hesk, and he had told Corwin so three times running, as if he were afraid it might go again.

“We went up past the Thrale turn,” he said. He spoke slowly, in the deep careful voice of