Hero Risen. Andy Livingstone

then there was the tall slender stake not more than a score of paces from where he lay, a corpse with less than half its tissue remaining a third of the way from the top and a scattering of well-fed carrion birds close by. As they watched, a thin man clumsily speared one of the birds, pinning it to the ground while another threw rocks at the writhing creature until it eventually lay still.

      ‘That’s the way to do it,’ the rock man snickered. ‘Feed it till it trusts you, then it won’t suspect when you come looking for dinner. Beats hunting any day.’

      The first man jerked his spear free and jabbed it in the direction of his companion. ‘Don’t be thinking you get equal picks. It was my spear that did the business. It was me that pulled the bits of meat from her,’ the spear tip jerked in the direction of the impaled corpse, ‘to give to the bird. I get first pickings.’

      ‘All right, all right.’ The man held his hands up in acquiescence, and the other laid his spear close by his side as he knelt over the dead bird.

      But Brann noticed that a rock was still in the standing man’s hand, and that the first man never turned his back on him, feeling with his hands as he hacked chunks from the body, his eyes never dropping. With a squashed mass of dripping meat and feathers cradled in his arms and his spear awkwardly gripped in one hand, he scuttled towards the far side of the camp. As soon as he moved away, the other man seized the bird by the neck and made off with what remained, looking from one side to the other all the way as though expecting another to be attracted to his prize.

      ‘No time like the present,’ Brann muttered to Gerens once the pair were out of sight. At least there was none of the long waiting before action – time that bred nerves and ate at confidence.

      Winding a rag across his face to cover nose and mouth, he stood and walked calmly past the first hut, finding a broad-shouldered man crouched over a cooking pot. The man’s eyes widened and mouth opened to shout as he saw Brann, but in looking up he also left his throat exposed, and the keen edge of the black-bladed sword cut almost completely through his neck. Brann lifted a burning branch from the fire beneath the pot, and Gerens did likewise. He touched the flame to the man’s hut, the dry wood accepting the fire with fervour, and the pair split left and right, walking behind the next hovels in line and setting each one alight as they went.