Myrddion awoke with those first frail shafts of light, but on this particularly ominous day his eyes were gritty from too little sleep and soured after the haunting dreams that had pursued him during the night. Throughout the meagre hours of darkness that followed the burial of Willa Major, the young healer had dreamed disjointedly of burning crofts, butchered children and Willa Major’s strange green eyes. Wakefulness was a mercy compared with the black beast of his dreams. Finn Truthteller and Cadoc stirred with equal unwillingness, but what was left of the congealed stew must be heated and fed to a small cluster of elderly, confused peasants who were loath to return to the road that led to the northwest. While Brangaine heated the stew with the child Willa lying close by her, the men set to work dismantling the leather tent and preparing their horses for travel. Once the old ones were fed, they would be eased on their journey away from the town that had bled smoke on the previous day.
