“The nerve of the lot of you to partake in such a foolish endeavour,” Wulfnoth complained at some length as they travelled down the road, tugging as always at his moustache when frustration gripped him. He sounded less akin to the friendly, curmudgeon druid he so often carried himself as, and appeared then the very image of a bitter, old priestly grandfather. Leading them down the road without so much as a single bite of breakfast, at the tavern for fear of reprisal from the humiliated laird, he refused to show them the slightest quarter. “What could have possessed the lot of you to behave so impulsively? Why, in my time we listened to our elders, we trusted in their wisdom and sought not to glorify ourselves at such times, but to do what was best at all times!”

  Such was the force of his anger that more than one farmer or shepherd they encountered, preferred not to tarry near them or to approach. Their bewilderment at the harshness of the cleric’s tone and his puffy face was so hilarious to observe that Cormac found his attraction drawn to them. The prettiness of the day, contrasted quite nicely with Wulfnoth’s ill-temper and served to help dry their wet clothes, with the morning breeze having begun to give way to the heat of the suns.

  Only Daegan appeared willing to pay the druid’s many complaints and harsh words any mind, other than Indulf that is. This last part annoyed Cormac, as a part of him felt a sense of possessiveness with regards to his friend’s admiration. It had always been he who was his mother’s pupil’s hero, yet now he had to share him with wise old Wulfnoth.

  Trygve though, was the one who had undergone the greatest metamorphosis. No longer carrying the Blood-Gem, he had regained some of his good-cheer and had even begun to sing. Never a particularly talented singer (as demonstrated in the Feywoods), he was nevertheless the sort to never give up trying.

  Much as he was amused and pleased to have his friend back, Cormac regardless of this sentiment felt a touch of consternation at the fact that Daegan had apparently reclaimed the gem. She had not explained quite why she had suddenly desired to have the gem nearer to her. Nor did she need to.

  Drawn to the chain about her slender neck, Cormac’s gaze hardened at the thought that it was responsible for Trygve’s temper going crooked in the days since they had begun their journey.

  They stopped by a stout Centaur shepherdess who agreed to for the cost of ten bronze thistles to slaughter and cook one of her lambs. This breakfast was so pleasant and warm, though it took a few hours to prepare, it served to instantly thaw the ice between them. The ice was thawed notably around Wulfnoth and Daegan, much to Cormac’s relief, with it being him who saw to bartering with the she-Centaur.

  “I would have expected a druid to guard his tongue better,” She said pointedly, a blonde brow arched at the man in question.

  Suppressing a smile Cormac thanked her once more, and hurried back to his companions who were on their feet in an instant, the picnic by the road at an end.

  The journey went on for another number of hours, with the fields shifting from farmland to simple fields, to cedar, birch, ash and oak-tree laden forests until at last many felt certain that the lands of Ardrannaig were firmly at an end. Where the Feywoods had been a place of suffocating, terrifying darkness, this one did not possess the same sort of suffocating atmosphere. Nor did it contain the same ancientness that the Feywoods possessed. The trees were younger, fresher and sang a more joyful song. They were no less thick though, as here and there, everywhere there lay and stood countless birch and cedar trees, their fine red, white and grey bark shone with the fullness visible only in the spring. A season that signified warmth, awakening and life after the hibernation and coldness of winter, a season that only Wulfnoth out of all of them had much affection for. Due to his penchant for study, and sitting by a warm fire quill in hand or a book in hand, to read and pass the months in prolonged study or in the noting down of historical details, others might not have held as much interest in.

  For this reason his misery on the road, was rather queer, yet he insisted upon it regardless of the chirping of birds in the various trees, the squeak of the chipmunks and sound of a thousand animals waking up, barking, growling and racing about once more. His younger companions raced about, slowed their pace or cracked many a jests, overtaken as they were by the sunny, warm weather they had not seen in months. Only Indulf remained firmly of a less than thrilled disposition, for his gaze often lingered upon some of the trees that almost gleamed, dark brown in the light of the suns, his thoughts likely overtaken by ones of Inga.

  This change in mood was not wholly wrong as Wulfnoth informed them, as the Kirkfiodh served as a dividing line between the Ardrannaig lands and those of Rothmore, which were actually directly under the ownership of MacDuibh.

  “But the clan rarely ventures here, with the actual stewardship of the lands under the supervision of my good friend Rohnald MacNeal, a cousin of the MacDuibhs.” The druid clarified as they entered the vicinity of the forest.

  “Is he a friend from fifty years ago?” Cormac asked distractedly swinging a stick he had picked up and waving it at a nearby tree branch, where a nearby squirrel squealed furiously as it leapt to another, safer branch. He frowned.

  “Of course not, why it was not very long ago that I had visited Rohnald,” Wulfnoth admitted loudly as he always was.

  “When was this?” Indulf wondered as he studied a small hill to the left of them that rose far above their heads, was lined with hundreds of red, orange and green trees. Some had fallen since long ago a few had only recently done so where still others remained tall and strong.

  Following his gaze with equal fascination, it came into the mind of Cormac that mayhap Alette might once have seen these trees. Mayhap, this forest contained some of her folk, who may have felt more timid, less willing to speak with and sing and dance with ordinary mortals.

  Trygve hardly paid any of their surroundings any mind, having given over his salt-filled pack to Cormac to carry, he had hurried wither into the forest in search of a deer he claimed to have seen racing by. Though not as skilled a hunter, he had nonetheless as in the case of Cormac and Daegan spent some time in the forest hours away to the north of Glasvhail, hunting under the supervision of Corin.

  Wulfnoth answered with a glance towards some blue-winged pigeons that flapped by, followed by a group of blue-jays that chirped merrily at the wanderers. “It must have been nearer to thirty-five years ago.”

  This information pulled a laugh from Daegan and Cormac, with even Indulf unable to resist a small smile. Sensing their mirth at his expense, the druid frowned at them irritably, before he sought to square his shoulders, and walk with a touch more dignity. Though he appeared more than ever before akin in appearance to an overgrown weasel with a thick moustache, he succeeded beyond question in this endeavour.

  “There is quite the difference between thirty-five years and fifty years,” He insisted heatedly.

  Differences that were as wide and different as the colours red and greed that appeared to be everywhere, the green lay in the land as the thaw had given way to life. The suns shot out their golden rays over the land of the island of Bretwealda, with such warmth and a beauty that lit the forest up with a thousand smaller suns.

  Long was the walk over the hills, past the trees, then down the hills, past the trees. There eventually came a time when the suns that had reigned over them all so brightly, began to dip. Their light gave way to darkened clouds, gave way to an ominous sense of foreboding.

  It was as they walked that Indulf came to ask Cormac, as perturbed by the silence that had come between each of them as thief might in the night, penetrating the safety of their homes. Blackening the land all the more, turning the warm red and green trees into blackened monoliths that loomed over them. The once friendly squirrels and chipmunks, and other rodents were replaced by the movement of bears, of other shadow-creatures or large predators who had little love for men.

  “Cormac, how is it you knew the wood of the temple, was soft and brittle?” He queried keen to at last hear of this particular subject, and to ward off the unease that had begun to settle into his stomach.

  His own stomach felt strangely hollow, as did his mind at that moment as he eyed the lumbering figures that appeared to his mind to glower down at them. Trees that, were once as warm as parents, now appeared little more than glaring towers at war with the forest itself or so Cormac thought with many a nervous glances all around them.

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  Only Daegan appeared blind to the air of menace that surrounded them, wandering through the forest blissfully unaware of the change in the air. A tune which sounded rather akin to the hymn of the red-sword of Ziu the war-god, on her full-lips as she all but bounced forward with her long hair trailing after her. Shaking his head at this folly on her part, as the shadows lengthened over her and the rest of them, as the wind blew through each of the tree-branches which had begun to re-grow the leaves they had lost in autumn.

  “There is a hole in the rear of the temple of Fufluns, in Glasvhail,” Cormac revealed with a shrug of his shoulders, “The hole was an accident, one dug by Trygve and I when I was either four or five. This was after the long-winter you remember?” Indulf nodded his head in response, “Well after that winter, it took weeks for the snow to completely melt with the water pressing against the wood of the temple whereupon it left the wood brittle and soft as what happened with that temple of Turan.”

  “But how did you know the wood, in Ardrannaig would be as weakened as that from years ago?” Indulf persisted as he continued to be intrigued by how they had cut through the cedar with which the temple of Turan was built.

  Pleased by this interest, as he revelled in the attention and admiration that was shown so rarely towards him over the course of his life, the past week or so included. Cormac took his time to answer his reddened face regaining its original colour as nervousness returned to the fore as they passed beneath one dark tree that appeared bent over them with its arms stretched out all around them. “Because as we passed the temple on the road, I noticed that the wood was still wet near the front of the temple and along its sides. It was a guess that the back of the temple would be much the same.”

  “A worthy accomplishment, it is impressive you thought of such a thing,” Wulfnoth approved quietly.

  “I had thought that you disapproved of their rescue of me?” Daegan growled back, still a little irritated by his displeasure towards their rescue of her. She maintained the belief that he might well have abandoned her, something that he had categorically over the course of hours of walking, argued vehemently against.

  “Oh do give me some rest from the endless argumentativeness,” The druid groaned as he ran a hand over his forehead, only to frown when he found it slick with sweat.

  He was not alone in noticing how the heat of the day had only worsened as the suns dipped above them. Darkness reigned where sun and light had once been, long would be the humid, too-warm night that followed one that already saw all of them begin to loosen their cloaks. With Wulfnoth’s sleeves soaked because of the number of times he had wiped at his balding head. Daegan for her part whined at some length about the heat now, in between her innumerable complaints about Wulfnoth and Cormac. One for wishing to abandon her, and the other for not defending her then, or during earlier arguments of the druid and against his preference to leave her to be married against her wishes to the laird of Ardrannaig.

  Shaking his head, Cormac in spite of his adoration for her, could not help but feel exasperated by her delusion regarding Ardrannaig and Wulfnoth. “Daegan, could you please not speak so of Wulfnoth.”

  After this seemingly simple explanation there was another long silence, and the ensuing bickering between the young woman and the miserable druid. This silence though was worsened by a series of coughs, of curses and of more wiping of their brows.

  The heat was such that the thought came into Cormac’s mind as he glanced all about them that they may not have to cook their mutton, for the humid air might serve well enough for cooking it. His eyes traced the outline of the trees everywhere he looked, as his eyes studied every individual tree with growing disconcertment and interest.

  It was as he studied the path behind them, after having lost interest in the cliff to the left of them, the unevenness of the two different sorts of terrains having gripped him for hours that he almost froze. Instead though, not paying any attention to the path before them, relying upon his friends to guide him Cormac gaped at the silhouette of the hundreds of trees that crowded so densely the path they had journeyed over.

  They had long since left behind the road proper, as it had abruptly passed away as one’s elderly relatives were inevitably to do, and ought to do in their sleep surrounded by warmth and love. The trouble was that there was little love to be found, he mused as he studied the herd of trees that appeared to now guard the route they had cut through the forest. So thickly did the trees cling together that one could well have mistaken them, for a close-knitted family who could no more release one another than twins in the womb.

  A surreptitious glance to the right of them showed that the trees there had thickened and appeared to have begun to cling together also. This detail frightened and worried him considerably it also purged him of proper thoughts to be replaced by a shiver of fear. It could not be all in his mind, he told himself utterly convinced that the convergence of the shadows that wore bark for raiment was gathering together.

  “I understand that we are headed south,” Cormac began lamely, his apprehension hardly noticed by those around him.

  “Aye,” Daegan replied shortly.

  “We moved from the road hours ago, is that not correct?”

  “What of it, Cormac?” Wulfnoth demanded with equal exasperation to the red-haired lass, wiping as always at his brow and then his chin.

  “It is just that the path behind us, no longer bears any resemblance to the path I remember us taking,” Cormac warned, his sense of unease at last verbalised.

  His hope to warn them, and relief to have at last uttered what it was that haunted his mind did not survive over-long as his feet caught themselves on a nearby root sending him crashing, painfully to the ground. Eyes rarely upon his feet, as he was too busy with keeping his gaze upon what was around and above him in life, this nonetheless was a surprise for Cormac who spat out every curse he knew in Gallian and Caled. It was a very lengthy list of words.

  Wiglaf might well have been proud of the depths of his memory, but Wulfnoth being a druid had no great love for this form of expression. A frown upon his lips, his moustache having long dipped down over its corners not that Cormac could see this sight as he was more concerned about his bruised knees.

  “Language lad! Less I should strike you, with my rod as the Saviour once said, ‘spare not the child the rod, whensoever he comport himself poorly!’” The druid growled furiously, threatening the youth with his staff, though his companion had his back to him.

  “I’faith by the bones of the Saviour, did you see that root move? It crawled on over and tripped me!” Cormac cried out too outraged to truly give thought to how absurd his words appeared to anyone with a touch of reason.

  This point was one that Daegan was quick to point out, “Oh do be quiet, and cease with the whining Cormac. See reason, how can a tree-root move or crawl along the earth?”

  “That is precisely what they want us to think, but I have seen them! They have enclosed the route behind us, look!” Cormac shouted back, rubbing at his bruised knees with a pained expression on his face, removing his left hand from his knees to point back down the road they had traversed.

  His attempt to illuminate what it was that he had noticed in the past several hours, won him little support. Doubt was the order of the day, as he was to discover as darkness had fallen not only physically between them.

  The trees waved in the wind, the brush-noise appeared to his ears suddenly akin to laughter. Hardly amused by this, Cormac at last regained his feet with Indulf’s aid with a glower in his friends’ directions, grateful to the stars and the moon for the light that was so necessary to be able to see his friends. His face reddened by the humiliation of the trees’ ‘laughter’, the youth chewed on his lower lip in frustration.

  “Trees moving and crawling, tell me if they should decide to speak or laugh,” Wulfnoth mocked with a small snort of laughter.

  “But they just did!”

  “But of course,” He and Daegan snorted as one, both rolling their eyes and trailing along on the route that they had chosen for all of them.

  “Do listen to the words, which you just uttered Cormac,” Indulf advised him with a hint of amusement in his voice.

  Cormac gritted his teeth in response, convinced that the tree-root had not originally been in front of his feet. Grumbling beneath his breath he hurried after his companions, who were to ignore his many complaints and repeated oaths that the trees had most definitely moved.

  There were several more hours of walking involved, before Daegan began to complain of the ache in her legs. She was not the only one to complain, as Indulf added his voice to her own so that Wulfnoth sagged to the ground with visible relief.

  Quick to assign the task of searching for firewood to Cormac, before he delegated the task of finding a water-source to the weary Indulf, he wasted no time in falling onto his back. From there it was an even shorter journey to the realm of dreams, with the swiftness with which he drifted off something of a surprise for Cormac. Ordinarily, the druid refused to sleep until he had eaten a hearty supper, drunken his share of their ale, wine or watered wine (as water was rarely trusted in those days, due to the fear of dysentery). Yet to-night he was utterly prepared to forego any thoughts of food and drink.

  Daegan who had been in poor spirits all day, notably since she had taken up the duty of carrying the Blood-Gem, also soon fell asleep. Her breathing not at all easy, just as Trygve’s was whenever he rested, when he had carried the cursed-gem. This aroused Cormac’s curiosity in two regards; one was the nature of the cursed jewel, for he wondered if mayhap it made the bearer ill. This worried him a great deal. The second thing that he was curious about, all of a sudden was; where in the name of all that was sacred had Trygve wandered off to? He had wandered off hours ago.

  This last thought was interrupted by the waving of the trees’ branches waved and the leaves fluttered, with the night sky lit up as the stars and leaves took on the appearance it almost seemed of falling pollen. It was with a start that Cormac caught himself mid-yawn, all sense of wakefulness evaporated as he sat himself down next to Daegan, who had fallen asleep with a tree-root wrapped over her.

  The same he noticed if distantly, was the case with Wulfnoth. With Indulf already in the midst of falling asleep himself with a small laugh, that was weary and easy. It was a laugh that Cormac soon found poured forth from his own slack lips. It was impossible not to relax, he mused dreamily with a warm branch now wrapped over his waist, eyes upon the glittering stars. It almost appeared as though there were small dark eyes that had joined the stars, and were glittering at them, just above hungry long-fanged mouths that drooled and quaked with gluttonous desire.

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