The flames chewed at the wood, hungry in the evil way which gluttony always shows itself to be. Such was the force of its hunger that there could be no stone, no sliver of bark and no corner no matter how remote it was left unturned. The brightness of those flames could have blotted out the suns, Kenna thought with horrid fascination.

  Kenna stared in utter revulsion, unable to believe that something so horrible, so evil, so gluttonous could possibly have stemmed from man’s own hands, her own plight momentarily forgotten. The brightness was a marked contrast to the darkness of twilight and of the darkened wood of Fufluns’s holy shrine.

  It was as she gaped up struck dumb with shock that Kenna, felt the sudden desire to run shrieking from there, to tear away the straps of her pack, and to run shrieking for someone to come save them all. Such was the wickedness of the midsdeed committed by Badrách upon his subjects. It had once been said by Corin, and it was a sentiment echoed by Waltigon once upon a time; ‘that the man who strikes down his own subjects without just cause, is no longer a laird but a devil.’

  Heart trembling with this fact, Kenna shook and could hardly force her legs to move. They were unlikely to ever obey her again, she thought morosely unable to believe what was happening though, there could be no denial of reality even were she to close her eyes.

  It was then that the sounds of the screams of those trapped within the temple made its way to her ears and she felt herself moving without thought. Those dreadful screams for mercy, pleas to the good laird of the harvest and to the laird of Thernkirk pierced her soul as surely, as they did all those of her friends and neighbours.

  Rounding upon Freygil who was but a short distance from her, she shouted at him as one possessed as he continued to gape himself up at the flames. His face likely resembled that of Kenna’s own from moments before.

  “Freygil! Your hatchet!” She shrieked at him, aware that every fisherman carried an axe for chopping down local trees, it was a possession that none of them could ever do without. No matter if they were to flee their homes as fugitives, if they wished for any chance to earn a living elsewhere, they would have need of such a tool, so as to fish out at sea again. “Give it to me!”

  Freygil did not move at once, whereupon she struck him. This caused him to go from gasping in horror at the temple, to staring at her without recognition. A hint of pain and anger lay behind his eyes, not that Kenna cared much for his reaction to her blow. Repeating her demand, he threw his pack from his shoulders to the ground, drew from deep inside of it after fumbling for almost half a minute, and extended the haft to her.

  The hatchet was still sheathed in leather straps, which Kenna wasted no time in the removal of. As she did so, Ida’s voice was heard from just a little behind the fisherman, “Kenna what do you have in mind?”

  “Run to the forest,” Kenna ordered sharply, only to add in defiance before she charged back into the domicile, “I shan’t leave those people to burn to death!”

  “Wait, Kenna!”

  Paying no further mind to her friend, as she traversed the kitchen stopping only once she stood before the door to the right of the kitchen, which barred the kitchen from the main temple hall. The door was taller than Kenna herself was, though this was no difficult accomplishment given how short she herself was. It had been locked and barred from the other side by the faithful followers of Elspet.

  The axe that Freygil had lifted easily with one hand necessitated Kenna to heft it with both of her own, with the axe not the largest she had seen. It was however sharpened and better maintained than some of Badrách’s own swords might have been.

  The first blow tore but a small sliver from the door. The second blow caught the hatchet with Kenna forced to pull upon it with all her might, to at last tear it free.

  Continuing to hew the door at the same spot, until at last a single hole in the shape of a small vertical line near to the right hand side of the door took shape, Kenna reached out to the other side of the door to lift the bar of wood that had served to lock it. Ignoring the slivers she gained along her arm, this done she threw the door open and raced down the hallway that separated domicile and temple.

  There was smoke there, worried over the thought of it being too late she hoped the fire had been contained in the right-hand corner of the temple and had only begun to spread to the main hall. There were several rooms in the right-most part where she had seen Badrách and his guards starting the fire.

  The next door was made of the same alder-wood as the previous one, refusing to hesitate for a single second Kenna struck the door. Her blood was aflame, so that she hewed and when the axe was stuck, pulled at it until it was freed before hewing at the door once more.

  Her heart in her throat, gagging as much on her own breath as some of the smoke that had begun to leak through the crack in the bottom of the door she found this time that when she opened up a vertical line in the door over the course of several minutes that the cacophony in the next room near overwhelmed her. The shrieks, pleas for mercy and prayers thundered throughout the whole of the temple with such passion that it could have wrenched tears from even the most hard-hearted.

  “Unbar the door!” She sought to scream at them, only to choke and cough upon those words, as more smoke leapt at her. The flames begun by Badrách she could see had reached the very top of the main hall, seeing this when she paused briefly to cry out to her neighbours.

  She repeated this cry once more, before she returned to her strikes against the door, with Freygil’s axe. The blows rained down upon the door, though her arm had begun to ache by this time, her muscles screaming at the exertion.

  Why did they refuse to listen? There were so many of them huddled around the altar and statue, having pulled away from the entrance of the hall, for fear of the flames. They had not long to live if the flames continued at the pace, at which they were devouring all before them.

  Praying to Scota, and Ziu to shield them all and to guide her arms, Kenna struck with all she had one final time. As though in defiance of her wishes the hatchet caught itself upon the thick wood of the bar that locked the door from her side so that she could no more extract the axe than she could fly. Pulling on it with all her might, Kenna shrieked and cursed, coughed and prayed all over again, her efforts proved themselves to be futile though. The axe as she discovered was well and truly caught.

  She could not believe her ill-fortune, or that of those inside of the main hall. A part of her heart shrivelled up at the thought that she might be made to watch those inside of the temple burn to death. The thought caused her to renew her efforts to pull the axe free, shrieking in a manner that might well have struck any who heard it as similar to the cry of a banshee.

  It was as she worked, slashed and cursed that a cry arose within the principal hall itself. Though she was not to know it, at that moment her efforts were to make her something of a legend amongst those who were to escape, the temple thanks to her efforts. The legend began thence; with one of the children who had been near to the door reported what it was that she was in the midst of doing to his parents.

  From there the reminder of the existence of the domicile was recalled, by those who were trapped within the temple hall. The moment of realisation struck each of those within, with the force of a club or falling stone upon one’s head.

  Once they realized this, those who were trapped inside of the hall threw themselves towards the door with such force that Kenna, who was unaware that they had become aware in turn of the door. So focused was she upon drawing away the trapped axe, from the alder-wood before her. No matter how much she pulled at it, she could not dislodge the sharp tool from where it had caught itself upon the wood.

  “Out of the way,” Someone shouted distracting her momentarily from her task, as she prepared herself for one final effort.

  The first hint that the situation had changed, occurred when the men trapped within lifted up the bar. Or at least sought to do so, with the bar trapping itself partway up the door, due to the hatchet that had carved a vertical hole in this second door.

  Stunned by this development, Kenna gaped as the bar lifted itself up part of the way up from the door. It was then with one of their numbers to hold it up that they pulled the door free, though it was no smooth gesture but rather required the pulling, tugging and straining of more than one pair of arms. Tearing away at it, they broke the bar with only the supreme-most effort with the snap of wood made a sound that was drowned out by the lapping flames that surrounded all.

  Once the door was thrown open, Kenna gasped in surprise at the sight of those gathered, for they bore not the appearance of men. What had become of them was that they had transfigured themselves into beasts, near trampled her as she was thrown against the wall by those very people she had rescued, so hungry were they to escape the burning ruin.

  In their fear they did not see her, nor did they pay heed to her presence. They cared only for their own survival, as she was thrust aside and crushed beneath the weight of their sides, arms and elbows the wind knocked out of her a half dozen times.

  Just as her sides began to bruise, she pushed herself as best she could, her mind having long since felt as though it had been crushed by their feet Kenna was terrified when she was carried along by the crowd.

  The crush of people dragged her as far as the domicile where she was thrown against the wall of the kitchen. Striking it and one of the chests that lay to the left of the other door, the table having long since been thrown against the wall near where she landed, Kenna felt a tongue of pain sear through her from her left shoulder.

  Gasping from the pain, she was grateful that most did not run anywhere near where she lay stunned. Head spinning, Kenna watched as dozens of people hurried out thither through the door she had entered the building through, feeling as though the whole of her body had been beaten down and stomped by the lot of them.

  “Kenna!” Someone cried, making her jump as Ida called out from some point outside.

  The sound of her voice incentivised Kenna, filled her with the same desire to live that had filled those pouring outside. The crash of fire and wood past them all, along with screams from farther within the temple her head spinning all the more, Kenna her bruised shoulder pounding alongside her head almost crawled out of the kitchen.

  Pushed, jostled and thrown out from before the doorway against the chest to the left of it, thrice she was pushed to regain her feet and seek out the doorway, and thrice was she pushed away. By the fourth time, she limped there feeling as though she might shatter into a thousand pieces, the mob of people pushing her along once more.

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  “Kenna this way,” This time it was Freygil who spoke, pulling her to safety from where he stood to one side of the door having been assisting in directing those fleeing the temple to the cemetery. “Are you alright, Kenna?”

  “I am,” She whispered allowing him and Ida to guide her away.

  The seamstress glanced behind her, to see if Badrách had taken notice of their escape from the temple, only to blink in surprise to find that his men were no longer by the doors. The question of where the laird and his men had gone remained a short-lived mystery.

  For it was in the next glance, just before Kenna was aided over the fence to the rear of the cemetery she took one last look in the direction of the village. The sight that greeted her, and that bade her farewell was that of the homes of the village smoking, with those within sight of the temple already aflame.

  Our homes! She might well have moaned in despair, unable to believe that the only true home she had ever known was in the midst of being burnt down.

  “Hurry Kenna,” Salmon pressed her appearing a short distance from the other side of the fence, pulling her down from the top of the fence only to thrust her pack into her arms along with her walking-stick, “To the forest.”

  “But our homes! They are gone!”

  “They were but sticks and thatch,” Salmon growled dismissively pulling her along behind him, with Freygil but a short distance behind them.

  The sight of the houses and temple in flames would remain forevermore with Kenna who the more she looked back the more she felt the sight carved into her soul.

  *****

  They spent the night in the woods they knew as the ‘north-woods’. It was deep in that forest that they at last found solace, the surviving children weeping into the arms of their parents or those kinsmen who had survived who could provide comfort.

  The elderly wept no less than they, with the young passing along what little food they had throughout the eighty or so survivors of the village. With almost twenty villagers having perished in the flames, they had reason to take heart in how many survived. But hope and joy were in sparse supply in the small camp.

  There were no guards posted, for none of them were warriors or had any thoughts about possible bandits within the woods, in place of this action they preferred to simply drift asleep. Only a small handful stayed awake through to the dawn, shaking from fright at the thought of those they had observed crushed to death by the fallen beams of the temple or burnt to death.

  The next day they were confronted by the sorrows of life, ranging from the difficulty of finding food, and what they should do next.

  The village council had never been a particularly regular group to assemble in the history of Glasvhail, due in no small part to the lax nature of the locality. In most cases the villagers had left one another alone, save for when they had need of the services of a fellow villager.

  Such as in the case when Kenna had need of mutton, she went to Ida, who in turn when desirous of a red dress visited her back in turn. The seamstress would in return, work to dye the dress in question which might be made from the wool sheared from one of Ida’s sheep.

  The area they had fallen asleep in, was to the west of the main-road which crossed through Thernhallow, was littered with fallen trees each of which were grey, red and green. There were a greater number of still healthy trees whose roots extended far beneath the soil beneath the feet of those who had fled into the forest.

  The alder, birch and cedar trees served as a buckler from the sight, of any wayfarers and were regarded with a mixture of gratitude and relief to find them looming high with their branches thrown protectively all about them. It was to their minds, as though the trees sought to hide the fugitives from the sight of all who traveled, past that part of the world.

  Some of the trees had the thick trunks that came with centuries of age, likely some had seen the crossing of Achaius’s armies as they journeyed south to meet the invading force of Gorthrax.

  One of the dark-magii officers of the Dark Elves, who had sought to establish dominion over the whole of Bretwealda, back during the age of the Second Wars of Darkness. Such had been the violence that a thousand sorrowful songs were sung of that age, all throughout the whole of the lands of North-Agenor and her attendant isles.

  These trees had in some cases seen those armies of Duibh march south, to war. Others had borne witness to when the Thistle-King Siomon had marched south on his first military campaign as High-King against Brittia.

  Other trees were so young that they were almost thin as some of the villagers felt then, with the tree-branches gesticulating protectively with the warm spring breeze. Barely able to recall past the dawn of Mael-Martin II’s coronation, so young were a great many of these trees.

  Seated upon a green log, opposite Ida and Freygil, with Salmon, Mairead and Ainsley to either side of her, Kenna observed as they seated themselves upon either logs or tree stumps, as they began what could have passed for the village-council. In effect it was, she supposed with little good humour, annoyed with how bruised her body felt and how soon the twin-suns had arisen overhead.

  “What is it you wished to speak of so early, Salmon?” Kenna asked of the man who had gathered them, a short distance from the encampment which had hardly begun to stir a short time ago. The old fisherman having shaken the majority of them awake (the seamstress included), in order to convene the meeting.

  Seated on the ground itself, with his back against a nearby fallen log, the bearded old man stared from a point high overhead, for some time ere he turned his gaze to stare at those around him. “We must determine where we must go, and what to do with ourselves, for we shan’t go back.”

  “But maybe, once Badrách leaves, we could return to the village to rebuild the buildings, I am sure that he has expended the great majority of his wroth,” Ainsley proposed, desperate to cling to what she knew, this they could see in her every movement and blink of her eyes.

  They all stared at her, doubt in the air alongside the warm wind that traveled through every corner of the forest, raising every small bush, passing through the tall grass and past every resting soul. The branches agitated all about them, as though seeking to take them all up and offer some sort of comfort to the weary souls present therewith them.

  Passing through their hair, against their skin and clothing, the wind served to remind each of those who composed the small village ‘council’ just how close they were, and how much they had need of one another. They were the sole hope Glasvhail had to survive, especially if Elspet was to attempt another mad plan such as that she had convinced the majority of the village to partake in.

  Seeing the judgement, the harshness in each of their gazes Conn’s wife pressed her hand to her eyes, thereupon the tree-stump she had taken for a seat, she shed a torrent of tears. Her grief not only for the loss of Conn, but the only home she had known for the majority of her life, made each of their hearts ache with sympathy.

  “Stifle your tears, Ainsley we have nary the time for tears or weakness, not when all around us rely upon each one of us at this moment for courage and wisdom.” Kenna scolded her friend sternly, her seemingly cruel words drawing a frown from some such as Ida and Freygil, wherefore Mairead nodded her head in reluctant approval. Seeing this show of approbation on their parts, she forced herself to repeat the suggestion she had made the night prior to Salmon. “I think we should seek out the King.”

  This idea was one that surprised the vast majority of those around her. From where he sat upon a log, Freygil gaped at her openly, his wife gasped seated atop the same fallen long-oak. Mairead for her own part grimaced a little, her arm around the shoulders of Ainsley who sought to wipe away the whole of the tears that had trod down the length of her face.

  “What? Why?” Freygil asked when next he could speak his mind blank as the cloudless heavens above them.

  “Because, he is the only one who could force MacDuibh to punish Badrách for his crimes against us,” Salmon explained quietly, adding rather more confidently warming up to the subject as he spoke. “He alone can we trust to take us in, given how many of the other lairds near here I suspect possesses some sort of connection to Badrách.”

  “But that would necessitate us to seek out the King, and pay for a court-hearing, such things are not cheap,” Ida reminded them all in a sceptical tone.

  She was right, the price of a King’s justice was one that few peasants could properly afford, and thus it was typically reserved only for those of the clerical or lordly castes.

  There were some merchants who have at times been able to afford such a luxury, but they were notably scarce in poor little Thernkirk. The principal local that had had the wealth to do so, was the wildly successful blacksmith Corin, who had churned out weapons of such quantity and quality that he was sought out throughout all the lands of the Caleds.

  Another, who had become recently wealthy enough to afford the king’s justice, was Kenna herself, though it might she suspected cost her all that she had left in the world. The silver thistle-pennies in her satchel were all she had left along with a few silk garments that could likely sell for another small fortune.

  The trouble lay in that, Badrách could likely stretch the court-case out for so long that they may never see justice done and during this time the peasant-fugitives might well starve.

  Swallowing audibly, Kenna spoke out about one small sliver of hope, “I may have the answer to your concerns regarding how to pay for the High-King’s justice.” Reaching down into her small pack, which she opened up and rummaged through over the course of several minutes, searching for only to when she found it, pulling out her satchel full to the brim with silver-pennies that she shook so that it jingled as it also did every time she walked. “I have herein this satchel near to a hundred silver-thistles.”

  As one, they all gasped and stared with round eyes at the small fortune that she had gathered together during her sojourn in Sgain. The fact that her dresses and robes had sold so well, had not been a fact that many were aware of. This was not due to them being ignorant, but rather how secretive Kenna was by nature, regarding how well she did as an artisan.

  This mistrust on her part had not been a trait her Master Eachann had possessed himself. Though a gruff man, he was however prone to immense acts of largesse and generosity when he was successful.

  This had won him the love, of all those who lived within Glasvhail so that when hard times came there was more than one person who came to share what extra they had of their farms or mutton or fish. This the village had done for gratitude to him for his generosity when famines, little coin and plague had struck others around hm.

  Kenna in turn was a miser by nature, one who was generous, but had always counted her pennies to the last one and been prone to hiding every thistle for fear that she may one day be left with naught. The lesson of miserliness had struck her as it often did many people in the world, in her childhood by observing the poverty that had struck her father at times before he had abandoned her in Glasvhail.

  Barely able to feed them, both after peace had come to Caledonia, and after he had quarrelled with his employer in the north near the Norwend Marches in the Highlands, her father had counted every single coin that passed through his hands. With his spending every single one with a caution that made her own appear mindless in comparison; teaching her to be miserly he had slapped her whenever she had wasted a single piece of their small fortune.

  He had had the habit of telling her, ‘There is but a little coin in this world therefore each coin that passes through our hands, is crucial and ought to be defended with your life.’

  “Brilliant! Why did you not say that you had met with such success in Sgain?” Ida asked of her, her face brightening at once, as did the rest of the faces around them.

  Awed they all took immediate heart and nodded their heads, in agreement with the shepherdess. Kenna could feel her insides warm up with not only hope, but with pleasure at the joy she had brought them, a smile spreading to her own face.

  This moment of enthusiasm on the parts of the council, was however stomped down by the mighty bear-skin boot of the Salmon. “Aye this is all well and good, but it is a long way from here to the city of Sgain. If this satchel of coins is supposed to be our war-chest against Badrách once we have reached the city, how are we to fund our journey there? We have near to a hundred people with us, and they all must eat.”

  “Why bring this up now, Salmon?” Ainsley demanded a little sourly, “We had hope for a moment, and you have already dashed it.”

  “If by hope you mean, a moment of denial of the present reality of our situation,” Salmon rectified with a small snarl, his face reddening a little with anger. He sucked in a breath so that when he next spoke, it was in a slightly calmer tone, “Know that even if you forgot how desperate our situation the world will not.”

  Kenna felt her own head dip a little, saddened by his words though she knew that there was wisdom behind his words. Chewing on her lower lip, the seamstress wrestled with this fact for several minutes. “What do you suggest we do? How are we to pay for the journey north?”

  “I do not know,” Salmon replied earnestly deflating with a long sigh that aged him by several decades it seemed to her gaze.

  It was Freygil who in the past had made one foolish suggestion after another, in prior days, came to the rescue. “We have a great deal of personal items, we have herds that we have left behind and can return to Glasvhail to reclaim and bring with us. Between the mutton, the wool we shear and sell, along with the coin gained by selling said personal items could pay the way from here to Sgain.”

  This was how they came to the decision to send a group of men back to Glasvhail, to reclaim their herds who had been left behind and scattered about the ruins of the village.