Wake up!” said the voice. Lowa was already awake, adrenaline fizzing though her limbs. The attempt to approach the hut stealthily had woken her as surely as an avalanche of bronze cowbells down an iron mountain might have woken others. “Is that you, Spring?” said Dug, thick-voiced. He sat up, wafting a mushroomy musk. Lowa stayed down. The footsteps were heavier than Spring’s. The girl probably wouldn’t be back for a day or two anyway, judging by the intensity of the sulk she’d thrown on waking the previous morning to find Lowa in Dug’s bed. Lowa slipped her hand under the straw mattress and pulled out her knife. She held it ready to flick into the intruder’s chest. Assassins didn’t wake you first as a rule, but neither had she ever been woken just after dawn for a welcome reason. “It’s Channa!” whispered a voice at the door, more loudly than most people spoke. “The retting guy,”
