“Can you hear me?” Hamnet Thyssen asked in a small voice. Odovacar the dire wolf was doubtless still old, but seemed much less decrepit than Odovacar the man. And he swung his fierce head towards Hamnet and nodded somewhat as a dog might nod, but also somewhat as a man might. Shapeshifters kept some of their human intelligence in beast form. How much? Hamnet wasn’t sure even they could answer that question once they returned to human shape.

“You know what you are to do?” Liv sounded far more respectful of the shaman as a dire wolf than she had of him as a man.

Odovacar nodded again. A sound that wasn’t a word but was agreement burst from his throat. Hamnet Thyssen had heard an owl that was also a wizard use human speech, but that was under the influence of the magic Liv used to capture it, not through the spell the wizard used to transform himself.

“Good,” Liv said. “Go, then, and God go with you.”

One more nod from Odovacar, who bounded out through the south-facing tent flap. He made another sound once he was out in the open air, a canine cry of joy pure and unalloyed. To a dire wolf’s senses, the inside of the tent had to be cramped and smelly. Unlike people, wolves weren’t made to be confined in such places. Hamnet Thyssen stuck his head out into the cold. Odovacar trotted purposefully off to the west, wagging his tail as he went. Yes, he was glad to get away.

“He seems happier as a dire wolf,” Hamnet said.

“I suppose he is,” Liv answered. “But he will die sooner if he keeps that hide and not the one he was born with. He knows that. Even as a wolf, he knows it. He will do what needs doing – what he can recall of it in beast shape. And we will see how much good it does us.”

“Quite a bit, I hope.” Hamnet Thyssen stuck his head out into the cold again. Like Odovacar, he was sometimes glad to get free of the Bizogot tents himself. Living through the long northern winters in the enforced close company of the mammoth-herders wasn’t easy for a man of his basically solitary temperament. If he weren’t in love with Liv, he wondered if he could have done it.