They walked as far as the Dyrkwoods, where they came to a halt on Wulfnoth’s orders. It was there that taking notice of the apprehension of his friends, he asked of them with an exasperated expression upon his face. “Why the reticence, the swiftest route south lies through these woods.”

  “This is the Dyrkwoods,” Trygve informed him fearfully, being one of those who had never much liked the woods.

  “What of it?” Asked the druid ignorantly, unfamiliar with the local fairy-stories and the dread with which the people of Glasvhail felt in regards to these very woods.

  “It is said that a man by the name of Ciaran, once rejected a fairy-queen who slew him for spurning her and that the spot where he fell was where a great oak grew- that one to be exact.” He pointed to the tree in question, which was to the right of them, “Due to the fairy-magic imbued inside of the dagger she stabbed him with.”

  “What nonsense,” Wulfnoth exclaimed before he was shushed by all of them, anxious as they were to avoid being noticed by those departing from the tavern that was within sight of where they stood now. “How can you believe such nonsense? Does no one approach this forest?”

  “I do,” Cormac said stoutly, a hint of pride in his voice.

  “Because you’re more fool than man,” Trygve grumbled beneath his breath.

  “Hardly, the oak of Ciaran has never appeared to me to be full of evil,” The youngest of the lads said. “Quite to the contrary, it always appeared peaceful to me.”

  “And to myself as well, some of us lasses once danced about the tree singing,” Daegan added keenly, sucking in a breath to begin singing she was halted from doing so by the druid.

  “Careful lass, we must tread lightly and there may be another time for song,” Wulfnoth reminded her gently, before he appeared to recall something of some distinct importance. “Ah yes, who has the gemstone now that I think of it?”

  “I have it,” Cormac answered startled, pulling the locket from where it was hidden by his tunic.

  Staring at it for a long time, Wulfnoth appeared to be drawn in by the sight of it, just as Daegan always felt herself to be. With a shudder, the druid tore his gaze away from it forcefully, telling him as he did so, “Hand it to another- Trygve you are to take it up.”

  “Me? But why?”

  “Because, we will need to move it between each of us, I am not familiar with the heretical stone however I do know that I can already feel drawn to it. Cormac seems to be of a mightier mind than even myself, therefore we shall have need of it further along the road we are bound for.” The wise old man’s moustache twitched and waved up and down.

  Taking his words to heart, there was an instant when Cormac appeared reluctant to give over the Blood-Gem. Daegan for her own part eyed the gem as it switched hands, shuddering just as Indulf and the druid also did. It took all that she had to tear away her gaze, just as the gem was at last seized by Trygve who went to put it about his neck wherefore he was stopped by Indulf.

  “Wait! Trygve, maybe it ought to be put in your spare satchel, where you keep your flint,” Recommended his elder brother.

  “Stout counsel as always, I can see that you are a reliable fellow Indulf, in spite of that there righteous fury I oft see in your eyes,” Wulfnoth approved at once as he waved for them to follow him.

  Indulf reddened, his brother snickered as Cormac gave a great striking clap to the blonder of the two sons of Ida’s back. This gesture drew a short-lived smile from Kenna’s pupil, who followed if reluctantly thither into the Dyrkwoods. Still angry with one another Daegan and Cormac did not walk side to side, preferring in his case to walk by the druid’s left-side, whereas she favored walking between him and the two brothers.

  Though she had long been fond of the great oak of Ciaran, for the songs and dances that had been carried about it in her youth, and the good times she had passed near it with Cormac. Daegan could not repress a certain shiver at the memory of all the horrid tales, Ida and Kenna had once told her, when she was still little more than five seasons.

  “You must never enter the woods, for within its foliage lives terrible fairies and beasts who predate our own age of men and for whom the flesh of lasses and lads, is the sweetest of meals.” Ida had warned many of the lasses and some lads, a decade prior after she had caught them in the midst of singing the ‘fairy-song’ as they had often termed it.

  It was a song that Murchadh had passed down to them, and that he had claimed that Olith loved to sing wherever she went, in particular when it was just her and Corin by Ciaran’s oak. The song was one Daegan had always loved. It was one that she had occasionally heard Cormac singing also. Inga had likewise loved it, and had in their youth pulled Indulf over to sing it with her by the tree. The memory of which brought tears to her eyes, if only she told herself as she walked through the dark-woods, Inga had lived. She had had her whole life ahead of her!

  The woods which had long appeared dark from the outside, especially to those to the north of it, however now that she was walking through the woods for the first time in her life Daegan could not help but notice just how much grimmer the forest was from inside of it. The trees that she had never truly paid much mind to, in her childhood and even in the days before their departure from Glasvhail, appeared all of a sudden to her eyes, to be twisting and twining all about her. A great lover of trees, Daegan had never thought consciously of how frightful, they could be. The great oak was grey with a great deal of warmth to it that had always drawn her to it and Cormac also. These trees though were of a dark-green colour that appeared more foul, more darkened than even the phantom-rider had appeared the night prior.

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  Not a sound was heard for several hours, with Cormac’s head turned away from Wulfnoth, evidently losing himself in his own thoughts, once their whispered conversation came to an end. Trygve fidgeted and scratched at his left arm nervously as his brother kept his gaze firmly on either side of them. Following his example, as she fell back between him and his brother, the two of them did not exchange a single word as they strained their gazes and glanced from side to side.

  In time Wulfnoth fussed at his pack which he had brought with him from Carreyrn, to pull out of it several slices of cheese they had stuffed into it, just before they had left Kenna’s home behind them. Passing the hunks to each of them, not a single one of them refusing as they chewed on the cheese hungrily if anxiously, the only one who attacked his meal with relish being the druid himself.

  “I always feel better, after I eat,” He said in a conspiratorial voice. It was evident that the silence had made him nervous also, and that he wished for some sort of noise.

  “Aye,” Indulf agreed quietly, but did not say anymore.

  A gusty sigh was torn from the plump cleric’s chest as he sagged enormously in disappointment. Observing this with her mouth full of cheese, Daegan could barely choke it down as she continued to also glance about them. Their small break over, the lot of them continued onwards as though naught had changed.

  Annoyed, Wulfnoth in time complained, “For the love of all the gods, what sort of trees are these to block out the twin-suns?”

  When all they did was shrug, without any enthusiasm with it being Cormac who replied his own mouth half-full with the last bit of his hunk of cheese, “Fairy-woods.”

  “Then why was it named ‘Dyrkwoods’?”

  “Because, Ciaran the warrior was slain by a fairy’s dirk.” Answered the blue-eyed youth with another shrug of his shoulders, only to ponder, “I wonder if the dirk was crafted from iron or steel.”

  “Hmmm,” Wulfnoth murmured tugging as always at his moustache, “A question for any other man, save myself, for I care not which it was only that it be kept away from me.”

  “Do you not have the protection of the gods?” Trygve asked peevishly.

  “Do be quiet Trygve,” Daegan snapped.

  He opened his mouth to argue back, the Brittian was swifter though, “Aye but it is no true protection from iron and steel, only against evil.”

  “How is that different?” Cormac wondered confused, speaking for all of them at that moment as they stared at the old man, who bit at his lower-lip.

  “Steel and iron are the providence of men my faith shields me from that which is not the providence of mere mortals.” Was the simple explanation uttered by Wulfnoth, as he swallowed the last of his cheese (that which was not in his pack or satchels), his clarification though satisfactory for the red-haired lass and the brothers was apparently not enough for Kenna’s son.

  “Why is that? Is it because sorcery is what protects against those things?” He persisted only to add a further question with a small grunt, “What of dragons? Do their claws and swords made from their flesh and bones count towards being the providence of mortals, or those of mystics and gods?”

  “I-I’faith,” For a moment Wulfnoth sounded almost akin to a Caled, as he spluttered out in exasperation, “How am I supposed to answer one question, if you conjure forth another three? As to each of them, I do not know. Reserve it either for one of the wise or the Grand Divan, rather than torture me with this endless hailstorm of questions!”

  Cormac subsided into an irritated silence. Good, thought Daegan a little meanly, of a mind that his continuous need to know everything and impatience, had grown irritating. Still angry with him over his not having wished to bring her on this quest, especially since it was apparent to her that all her traveling companions would be lost without her.

  Shivering a little, much of her anger bled out from her, due in no small part to the cold of winter. The snow crunching beneath her deer-skin boots as she drew her cloak more tightly, just as Trygve did much the same next to her.

  “It is just too cold,” He grumbled miserably.

  Daegan nodded her head a little, eyes ferreting throughout the forest to either side of them, as they stumbled on the road. The only one that cut through the Dyrkwoods, this road was one that she had never known anyone to have traveled upon, nor heard of anyone doing so. An idle question drifted into her thoughts, about which had come first; the forest or the unpaved road?

  All about her, she noted with a frown to herself the little light shed by the suns began to fade from the forest. This left all cast in darkness, with those who walked next to her and ahead of her became barely visible.

  For a time this did not appear to be noticed by Cormac who was lost in his own thoughts, irritated by this, she prayed to Scota for him or for the druid to take notice of just how cold the weather was. It was Wulfnoth who at last declared, “I think this is far enough, let us find some tree-branches to start a fire.”

  Organizing themselves quickly, with the druid setting Cormac to the task of starting the fire (not trusting him to wander off to gather tree branches and roots), the gathering of wood was left to Daegan and Indulf. Trygve was set to clearing the snow with a large tree branch that had fallen from a nearby tree some time before. Wulfnoth himself aided with his feet in sweeping away the snow, to make a small clearing on the road.

  This done, with the wood that had been gathered, Cormac wasted little time in the striking of two pieces of flint and making of a fire. Once it grew large enough to cook a bit of salted meat they had carried with them, they ate a swift supper.

  “We should take turns with to-night’s watch,” the druid declared wearily, “I shall take the first third of the night, and then it shall be left to-”

  “Me,” Daegan volunteered at once.

  “I think not, you hardly slept the previous night,” He objected at once, only to pat her on the hand in a fatherly manner.

  “But, I wish to stand watch,” She said stiffly, aggravated by his refusal to permit her stand watch.

  “Stand down Dae, you could do so tomorrow night,” Suggested Indulf genially, before he offered, “I will take up the next watch then Trygve will.”

  This agreed amongst them, with each of them nodding to one another they burrowed closer to the fire. Reluctantly Daegan did the same, outvoted she would have liked to object once more to their not permitting her to stand watch. All too aware that they would not listen to her, and of her own fatigue though she claimed she was not so wearied she knew in truth that she was. Muttering beneath her breath, she promised herself she would stay awake as long as possible.

  No sooner had this thought crossed her mind, than she found herself drifting away to sleep.

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