High summer had arrived with a vengeance, and a shimmering haze hung in the sweltering air above the parched dirt road. Lumpy was huffing and heaving with every step, and he’d lost so much hair he had large bald spots on his rump and sides which Hood had to treat with a herbal oil to prevent sunburn. Fortunately there were a lot of streams and rivers flowing through this part of the country for Lumpy to drink from and splash around in, because without them the corpulent horse might have given up by now. Not that Hood was doing much better. She was bred from hardy northern stock just as much as her horse, and since she refused to remove her leathers she was practically boiling in her own sweat inside her armour. Only Ulrik seemed unbothered by the relentless heat. He was a lowlander, after all, and was no stranger to warm summers. He walked at the front of the group with a slight spring in his step, practically shining with vitality as his tanned, sweat-dampened skin gleamed like bronze in the midday sun. Hood tried not to hate him for that, but the developing heat rash around her unmentionables made it very difficult. Every so often the group would run across signs that a wolf had passed the same way, but they were all week-old at the least, and usually older still. The sheer amount of tracks and traces they found seemed to confirm that the wolves were indeed headed to the capital, but Hood had little doubt that most of the wolves would make it there long before she did, which wasn’t exactly an encouraging thought. Still, there wasn’t much they could do to hasten their journey, not with both Hood and Lumpy suffering from the heat, so they simply kept wandering down the dusty road. As evening started to fall, the group passed by a small farmstead. Hood frowned as she saw wolf tracks around the building, maybe two weeks old at most. “That’s odd…” Ulrik looked up, studying the abandoned steading with a critical eye. “Wolf attack?” “Well, yes. But it’s too neat. We’re staying here tonight. Set up camp while I look into this.” He shrugged and led Lumpy around the back of a small copse of trees, out of sight of the main road. The horse was obviously less than thrilled to stay around the site of a wolf attack, even an old one like this, but in the end being able to rest in the shade of the trees won out over his nervousness. Ulrik gave him a friendly pat and started laying out a thick woollen blanket on the dry grass. Once that was in place he carefully put up a leather canopy over it, in case of rain. Hood refused to sleep in a proper tent, and Ulrik had to admit it was hardly necessary in this heat. After unloading the rest of their packs from Lumpy’s back, he set out to find some firewood. Ulrik had started boiling up some dried meat and vegetables over the open fire by the time Hood finally returned. She didn’t say anything as she sat down, but there was a clearly troubled frown on her face. Ulrik added a small pinch of salt to his soup before turning to her. “So, what did you find?” “I found the remains of a man up at the farmhouse, mutilated and partially eaten. It was a real gruesome business, almost like a display.” “Well, some demons do that, don’t they?” “Oh, certainly, but there were beds enough for at least eight people in the house, and they all seemed to have seen relatively recent use. But there was only the one corpse.” “The others must have fled, then.” “That’s just the thing. I found the tracks of a large group of people fleeing down the back road. The wolf seems to have followed them, but it only kept up the chase a few hundred yards. Judging by its tracks, it should have been fast enough to chase these people down easily. And another thing, look at this place! Other than the mess around the main house, it’s practically untouched. The demon didn’t even kill the cows out back, although if they don’t get a new pasture to graze at in the next few weeks they’ll probably break down the fence and escape.” “So, what, the demon just came here to chase people off?” “That’s what bothers me. It’s like it just wanted to make sure the farm was abandoned and didn’t care at all past that. I’ve never seen a wolf act like this before.” Ulrik looked around with a frown. “Well, it couldn’t have picked a worse time for it. The rye is about ready to harvest, and there’s some stuff in the vegetable patch that won’t make it more than a few weeks longer before it starts going into bloom.” “Hmmm…” Hood frowned thoughtfully, pouring herself a bowlful of soup. A dour silence fell between the two as they ate. As much as they had been depending on one another lately, Ulrik couldn’t help but feel that there was still a palpable sense of distance between them. Perhaps it was just the sheer gulf of experience that separated them, or perhaps… After finishing his meal, Ulrik cleared his throat a little awkwardly. “Say, Hood… About that ruby brooch, the one you used to pay Brynjar for his work…” Ulrik could practically feel Hood’s hackles rise the moment he mentioned it. “What about it?” She almost growled. “Where did you get it?” Hood looked like she was about to snap at him… But then she forced herself to settle down with a deep sigh. “Pass me something to drink. Something strong.” Ulrik rooted around in the packs until he found a bottle of some amber liquid that smelled faintly of peaches and very, very strongly of alcohol and handed it to Hood. The girl took a deep swig of the stuff, some of the tension leaving her body as she did so. Hood just sat there for a few minutes, taking occasional swigs from the bottle as she stared into the dancing flames. “She was… Well, a mentor of some sort, I suppose.” Hood said at last. “She called herself Red, never gave me any other name. I met her after I lost my family. She taught me how to hunt. How to kill. She taught me how to take all my anger and hate and make it cold and sharp. I’d have been dead a long time ago if not for her.” “And the brooch was hers? Seems like a strange thing for a demon hunter to own.” “She was a rough sort at the best of times. Sharp, angry. Never had a kind word for anyone or anything. But sometimes, when she was drunk or tired enough to forget herself, she carried herself like a noble.” “And she gave you that brooch?” Hood’s frown turned into an ugly grimace. “She never gave it to me. I took it from her pack after she got herself killed protecting me. Losing her… It was like losing my family all over again.” “My father passed away when I was just a child.” Ulrik said. “But my mother and sister lived down in the village. You know, until…” Hood nodded, remembering the mound of mangled human remains she found by the well in Ulrik’s village. His mother and sister had no doubt been somewhere in that pile. What remained of them, anyway. “She was about your age, or, well, the age you look to be, anyway. A year or two older…” “Is that why you brought me home to your cottage when you found me passed out on the ground? Because I reminded you of your sister?” “Hardly.” Ulrik replied with a shake of his head. “My sister was an earthy sort, stocky and broad-shouldered even as young as she was. Besides, you hardly looked like a little girl in need. Lying there in the street covered in blood and gore, demon script glowing in your eyes as you stared blankly into nothing. You looked more like some kind of monster than anything else.” “So why did you help me?” “Because monster or not, you killed the thing that killed my family. For that, I owe you a debt I can’t ever really repay.” Hood frowned thoughtfully. “No, you’ve repaid that debt in full.” “How so?” “Remember the wolf Carrion?” “The massive beast that held me captive?” “He’s the demon who killed Red. And you were the one to slay him.” Ulrik shook his head. “Even if I landed the final blow, I could never have done it alone.” “If that’s how you feel, I suppose you’ll just have to help me slay the demon that killed my family as well. Does that sound fair?” “I suppose. Do you know which demon it was that did it?” “I do.” Hood replied, turning to gaze into the fire with a look of hatred burning in her eyes. “It was Old Fenris, the Demon King.”