IT TOOK the rest of the day for Michael and Rachel to pack every­thing they needed to take with them, and get ready to continue their long journey. Peter insisted that they should start the following morning: he felt confident that they wouldn’t be surprised during the night.

“Travelling by night has its advantages, of course, if you’re being followed: but in this part of Labrador, at this time of year, it’s too dangerous. Especially on horseback. Even though I know the country around here pretty well, we’d be sure to lose the trail. No: we’ll take our chances and set off tomorrow morning. If the men return, Justin will cover for me, after all he only has to tell them I’ve set off to meet my publisher. Which is perfectly true, as it happens. Let’s hope they don’t notice that four horses are missing from the stable…”

“Four horses?”

“Yes. Rachel and you will, of course, ride your own, and I’ll be riding one of ours. And another to carry most of our baggage. That way we’ll be able to travel faster and easier. But we absolutely must have our horses back, some time. Our plan leaves Justin with only one horse of our own, in case he has to go off somewhere. Of course he may be able to borrow another horse from the villagers—many of them are in our stables after all. But there’s a risk.”

More than a small risk, Michael thought, as he and Rachel settled down for the night. Both of them found it hard to sleep: every time there was a noise outside, be it only a dog barking, or a horse stamping its feet in the stables, they started up in great anxiety. They could hear owls hooting in the nearby forest, something they had never noticed up till then—and that kept them awake too. Just before dawn they finally snatched an hour or two of sleep.

It was still early twilight when Peter woke them. “All ready?” he announced. They quickly dressed, ate a hurried breakfast, and wrapped themselves up in their furs: how grateful they were to have them! They bid farewell to Justin, who wished them a safe journey: Rachel flung herself at him and kissed him full on the mouth, passionately if somewhat over-exuberantly. The horses were already saddled outside: they were just loading up the pack-horse when Tim and Big Rachel appeared, leading another horse.

“I’m coming with you,” announced Big Rachel. Michael and Rachel could only gape, utterly astonished. “You’re better off with four than with three, and Tim can spare me for a few weeks. He hasn’t got much work on at the moment, and he’s getting pretty good at keeping house and doing the cooking. If the men return and ask questions, he’ll easily make up a story: say I’m visiting my sick mother in another village.”

Although Michael and Rachel—and Peter too, for that matter—protested that they could have managed quite all right, just the three of them, Big Rachel was insistent. In the end they needed little persuasion: they were after all utterly delighted to have the extra company. And Big Rachel was a good horsewoman, and an excellent cook, well skilled at cooking in the wild. They would be grateful for that.

Tim announced that he had seen the men departing the village, late the previous day, going south. There was a faint hope that they had heeded Peter’s misleading ‘advice’ and set about searching the land south of the Rigo highway. If so, it would take them several days even to reach the crossing point. At any rate, there was a good chance of not encountering them on the journey. But they would need to be cautious.

They bade farewell to Tim and set off. Peter led them south out of the village, back along the road they had come by. After a little less than an hour they reached the fork where the other road joined, from Liapik. They continued south for another half mile, then Peter turned off to the left, taking an almost invisible trail to the east. The ground was stony here, surrounding a small stream, and the horses’ hooves left no imprint.

Michael remembered, with some amusement, how careful he had been to cover their tracks, when they had left the road out of Kentak while being pursued. Clearly he and Peter thought alike!

The new trail was uneven and difficult to follow, but both Peter and Big Rachel knew the way. There were places where they had to dis­mount and lead the horses. And there were many streams they had to cross. Some of them in spate from melting snow—quite treacherous. Peter’s and Big Rachel’s horses, as well as their pack-horse, were more adept at these crossings than Michael’s or Rachel’s, born and bred in Waknuk district, where there were fewer watercourses and snow was less common.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They bivouacked just as dusk was falling, under the shelter of a tree growing against a large boulder. Big Rachel lit a fire and cooked two rabbits that she had shot with bow and arrow, proving herself a skilled hunter—which made Michael envious. At least they enjoyed a hearty meal—better than anything they’d been able to eat while out in the wild, before they came to Ragnarok.

They had also loaded the pack-horse with a tent and some blankets, so they would be able to sleep quite comfortably. But after supper they sat up by their fire, talking long about the recent events.

“Why do you suppose ‘Yellow-Hair’ was pursuing us so far?” muttered Michael, plaintively. This was how he and Rachel had dubbed the farm-hand who was chasing them. “What has he got against me, that he goes after us again and again? After all, we only met once—at Sally’s farm, where he simply ordered me to ‘clear off’. Why should he have thought I was a Deviant in the first place? I only asked if Sally was there. I could have been an old friend, knowing nothing of her thought-shape powers, or her arrest and torture.”

“He was probably working for your local Inspector,” suggested Peter. “Didn’t you say, you saw them side by side at Rachel’s father’s funeral?”

“Yes—but no! The Waknuk district Inspector was firm but fair. He had to enforce the Purity laws, and he was quite strict where local Deviations were concerned—but he wouldn’t have sent out a posse all the way across Labrador, chasing a Deviant who had clearly left the district and was unlikely to return. That wasn’t his style. He wasn’t obsessive in that way. I knew him: he wouldn’t act like this.”

“OK, then. There were others in your district. What about Joseph Strorm, David’s father? There we had, by all accounts, a man obsessed with ridding the whole of Labrador of Deviants. Could he have recruited him?”

“Strorm is dead, you remember. Killed by his own brother, in the Fringes battle. He’d set out in pursuit of his own children almost immediately after they fled. He wouldn’t have had time to recruit Yellow-Hair—if he only did so after Sally and Katherine were arrested. Unless he got at him long before then…”

“Someone else then. I seem to remember, you said that at the episode with Petra’s dead pony, a stranger stumbled on the scene? Someone rather suspicious?”

“That’s right. A man named Jerome Skinner. I never met him: luckily both of us had left the scene before he arrived. But both Sally and Katherine knew him apparently: they said he was something of a busybody in their district. And it could well have been he who brought the Inspector down onto them, got them arrested…”

“Could it be him?”

“No. David described him as a much older man. A pity I never saw him, or got a full description—but the only people who did see him are either dead or out of reach. I wonder if he had yellow hair… or perhaps his wife…”

“You mean, the young man you call ‘Yellow-Hair’ could be his son?”

“It’s possible. And it would explain a lot. There are, I’m afraid, plenty more ‘Strorms’ in and around the Waknuk district, to replace the Strorm who’s gone.”

“Both of you are well out of that benighted place, then. Now, let’s get some sleep, shall we?”

Both Peter and Big Rachel judged that, where they were at present, it was safe enough not to set a watch—and both Michael and Rachel needed a full night’s sleep—so they all piled into the tent. It was cosy, and with the four of them crammed close together inside, it was comfortably warm. Both Michael and Rachel, still feeling the effects of their lack of sleep the night before, fell asleep almost immediately and slept soundly right through the night. At dawn, Michael woke, and crawled out of the tent. Big Rachel was already outside: she’d found a nearby stream and, stripped to the waist, she was busy washing herself. Catching sight of Michael, she turned and winked at him, without apparently any embarrassment. At that moment Rachel also appeared out of the tent. Seeing Big Rachel, she shrugged, pulled off her top, and joined her at the stream. Michael followed suit, a bit shyly. There was no sign of Peter yet.

“I’ll get us something for breakfast,” said Big Rachel at last, drying herself off, putting on her blouse and jacket, and grabbing her bow and arrows. She disappeared off round the far side of the boulder. A few minutes later Peter emerged, looking somewhat bleary-eyed. He went to the stream but merely splashed some water over his face and into his beard. He then re-lit the fire and started heating up some water.

Big Rachel wasn’t long returning. Michael had half expected more rabbit for breakfast, but she was swinging a pair of large pigeons by their legs.

“Best I could manage this time—but it’ll be enough for all of us. And we’ve got some bread and cocoa—enough to last a few days.”

The pigeons took a while to cook over the fire, so the sun was already well up in the sky by the time they’d rolled up the tent, packed, and set off.