‘How was the Hunting, Mister Clave?’ asked Annie, setting down two steaming tankards of honey mead on a dark wooden table scarred and stained from many years of use. Fort Town’s one and only tavern was dim and mostly empty for now. She didn’t mind the lack of light, she’d always been able to see well in the dark, nor did she mind the lack of patrons. It would be full soon enough and that would bring its own troubles.

  ‘Poor, young Annie. Very poor. The herds are moving further and further south,’ said Clave, running his fingers through black, unruly hair, as he leaned back in his chair and stretched out long, lanky legs.

  Annie noticed that while the boots were immaculate, the pants were travel stained. ‘So the rumours…’ said Annie, holding the tray to her chest like a shield.

  ‘Seems like they might have some substance,’ he said, taking a deep pull from the tankard.

  Annie watched him savouring the mead on his tongue. A look of pleasure on his face. ‘What will we do, Mister Clave?’

  ‘What we always do, young Annie, survive.’

  She nodded, chewing her lip; her aunts and uncles had been talking amongst themselves about the idea of moving closer to Central, the largest City in the Centre Lands. Her Pa had just laughed and said, This here is where we put down our roots, and it naught does the plant any good to pick it up and move it somewhere else where the soil’s different and don’t suit; it’ll just wither and die.

  She was thankful for that because the thought of moving to Central turned her heart to ice. She looked over at the other hunter seated at the table and noticed he’d not touched his mead; his eyes had that far away look he got when he was riding the wind, but he was also looking rather faded, almost see through around the edges. ‘Is Mister Andreyez all right? He looks… kind of strange.’

  Clave laughed, curling long thin fingers around the tankard. ‘Don’t worry, young Annie, he always looks like that when he’s riding the winds.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘For sure.’

  ‘So it’s normal for him to look a bit see through round the edges?’

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  Clave paused mid swig, and Annie saw his demeanour change. He became harder and serious, like he had suddenly come into sharp focus, so sharp it would cut you if you got too close. ‘Ah, no, not really. Good observation skills there, young Annie.’ He placed his hand on Andreyez’s shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. ‘Time to come back, Andreyez,’ he said, his mouth close to the man’s ear.

  ‘A northern storm’s a comin’, it’s a fierce one,’ said Andreyez, eyes as grey as an overcast day refocusing on the world around him. He acknowledged Clave and Annie with a nod of his head as he wrapped his hands around the tankard and gulped down the mead.

  ‘How bad?’ said Clave.

  ‘Bad. Biggest I’ve seen for a long while. The ghost wolves runnin’ with it are howlin’ somethin’ fierce.’

  Annie gasped, clutching the tray even tighter, staring at them both with wide frightened eyes. Northern storms were bad, but so much worse if the ghost wolves were running with them. They caused so much death and destruction. Fort Town had been built to withstand the northern storms, and had been reinforced with rising of the ghost wolves, but sometimes the ghost wolves got in anyway, especially if the storm was fierce.

  ‘How soon?’ said Clave, also downing his drink.

  ‘It’s already crested the mountains,’ said Andreyez, his lilting voice musical even when bearing bad news.

  ‘But the warning bells haven’t rung,’ said Annie.

  ‘All the bell towers along the northern border have been destroyed,’ said Andreyez, standing up, ‘Tell yer folks what I saw so they can get ready. I propose, Clave, that we go an’ ring Fort Town’s bell.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Clave, dropping the coins on the table before striding towards the door. Annie watched Andreyez pull on his coat and hat before he stepped out of the tavern’s cozy warmth into the cold snow covered streets of Fort Town.

  She picked up the coins and walked as fast as she could through the tables to the bar where her Pa was cleaning glasses in preparation for the evening rush.

  ‘They sure up an’ left in a hurry,’ he said in his slow drawl as she arrived at the bar.

  She put the coins down. ‘Mister Andreyez was riding the winds. He said the bell towers up in the mountains have all been destroyed and that a northern storm is coming. He said it was the biggest he’s seen for a long while and that the ghost wolves are running with it and are howling something fierce. They’re going to sound the Fort Town bell.’

  Her Pa nodded and put the glass down. ‘Go tell yer Ma, and then I want yer to go upstairs to the top floor and start closin’ all the shutters. Work your way downwards. Yer Ma and I’ll do the ground floor ones. Remember when yer get to the guest rooms to knock before yer enter an’ tell them yer comin’ in. Gives them a chance to get their stuff in order, yer don’t ever wanna walk in on anyone doin’ somethin’ personal.’

  ‘Yes Pa,’ she said, leaving her tray on the bar and disappearing through the door that led into the kitchens where Ma and her sisters were cooking. A northern storm could mean that she wouldn’t be going to Gramma’s tonight after the tavern closed. She wasn’t sure what she felt about that.