But Odovacar had it right. “I can do it,” he said in that loud, cracked, quavering old man’s voice. He began to sway back and forth, chanting a song that sounded as if it was in the Bizogot language but that Hamnet couldn’t follow. Liv’s nod said she could.

He slowly rose and started to dance, there inside his tent. At first, the dance seemed little more than swaying back and forth while on his feet, more or less in rhythm to the song he chanted. But it got more vigorous as the song went on. The chant grew more vigorous, too. Hamnet still couldn’t understand it, but growls and snarls began replacing some of the sounds that seemed like Bizogot words. The tune, though, stayed the same.

Odovacar’s fringes shook. His long white beard whipped back and forth. In the lamplight, his eyes blazed yellow.

Yellow? Hamnet Thyssen rubbed at his own eyes. Like almost all Bizogots, Odovacar had ice-blue eyes. But was this still Odovacar the man? Hamnet shook his head. No, not wholly, not any more.

Liv was nodding in understanding and, Hamnet thought, in admiration as she watched the change sweep over the other shaman. She was used to seeing such things. She’d probably shifted shape herself, though Count Hamnet didn’t think she’d done it since he’d known her. She might take it for granted, but it raised the Raumsdalians hackles.

Odovacar dropped down onto all fours. His wolfskin jacket and trousers and his own beard all seemed to turn into pelt. His teeth, already long and white, grew whiter and much longer while his tongue lolled from his mouth. His nose lengthened into a snout. His ears grew pointed and stood away from his head. He wore a wolf’s tail attached to the seat of his trousers. As the spell took hold, it was still a wolf’s tail – it was his tail, attached to him as any beast s tail was attached to it. As if to prove as much, it lashed back and forth.