It was a decision that proved popular amongst the villagers only once Freygil had accomplished the deed itself. Not that it was carried out at once, with nary any doubt or naysayers speaking out against him. A number of men volunteered to return only after they had been assured that Badrách must have already returned to the castle.

  The herds had to their shock, as they later reported to those who remained in the forest were found to still be in the fenced fields of the village. Half of which had been burnt down, with some homes such as those of Salmon and Kenna the principal targets of the local laird. This demonstrated that wealth was not his goal, with the razing of the village having been performed in the view of Freygil rather clumsily.

  The sheep were escorted back, with a few of the local dogs who slept in the fields with them, used to guide the herds along on the road with the villagers unaware of the intentions of the council only then informed of their intention to head north.

  It was Freygil who once more announced for all of them, from where he stood on the road as the rest of the villagers sat or stood by the side of the road. “We intend to head north, to find safety therein Sgain!”

  “Why Sgain?” Shouted Elspet, the widow bewildered by the decision to leave for the coronation-city of Caledonia.

  “It is there that we shall find succour with the King, who is the only one who may bring Badrách to justice,” Kenna shouted back at her climbing up the small ravine to stand by the side of Freygil with Ida just a little ahead of her.

  “But with who’s coin?” This question came from another fisherman, Drogo a young man approximately Indulf’s age.

  “Mine,” Kenna volunteered to the amazement of all present, “I have the resources from my time in Sgain, therefore if you wish to live and see Badrách laid low you may travel with us.”

  Not a single soul spoke out against them now. Swept up by the anger that their losses within the temple and at the attempt to burn them all to death, there was not a soul present, not even amongst the children who did not wish to see Badrách punished.

  Muttering amongst themselves, about the sort of fate they hoped to inflict upon their brute of a laird. Some even proposed attempting to break into the castle-keep of Thernkirk to bring the man to justice themselves. The trouble, lay in that they had neither the arms nor the means by which to accomplish this incredible feat, as Ida was swift to remind them.

  Anger bubbling amongst them, they soon decreed amongst themselves that they should continue along the northern road, and avoid the village of Thernhallow in its entirety.

  There were some, such as Elspet who feared that Badrách might trail after them that very day, but it was Kenna who informed them rather helpfully. “Even Badrách necessitates sleep therefore I highly doubt he or his men shall trail after us immediately if at all. This is why we must hurry wither from here, with all due haste.”

  *****

  The journey northwards was easy to speak of, but far less so to accomplish. The fact that it was on foot more than a week and a half if one pressed forward as swiftly as possible, was to darken the mood of only one or two individuals. Their mood was soured all the more, by the added knowledge that that was for one individual to travel. Groups traveled much slower than singular individuals tended to.

  It was for this reason that the villagers, wholly unprepared for the world and with considerable uncertainty abandoned the north-woods, with its dense logs, forests and thickening branches and leaves in favour of the open road.

  This they followed for but a few hours, the long fields that stretched out to the village of Thernhallow to the east of them, while to the west lay more woods. This route took some bullying on the part of Kenna and the rest of the council, to persuade the fugitives to take this risk.

  The risk they knew lay in the exposure of the wide fields and narrow Thistle-Road with the large string of eighty or so individuals trailing after Ainsley, who along with Freygil were fast becoming the council’s representatives to the people.

  The safety of the trees, of the looming birches that seemed to call out to them, the cedars who had offered such shelter that they was almost home to them. The beauty of the ash and oak-trees which loomed high as high castle walls, serving as a bulwark against the sorrows of the world or so it appeared to the fleeing people of Glasvhail.

  The fields they discovered around them were to the west covered mostly by wheat. These fields stretched out for whole leagues, with most of the western fields managed by a dozen farmers who owed their fields in their entirety to Badrách, who was their landlord. The fields were almost entirely yellow, with the suns bouncing off of them magnificently.

  To the east lay the green fields that were more often fed to the sheep, with these fields high and covered by sheep, cows and ponies that chewed, devoured and otherwise chomped upon as much of the grass that divided the first half of the north woods and the second half from one another. Past the fields of cattle, of tall grass lay the village of Glavhail which had more sheep and more fishermen, akin to those who had lived in Thernhallow.

  The village also had a number of artisans, far more than those who lived in Glasvhail. The village of Thernhallow had what was also a considerably larger population than the village of Glasvhail, so that it was almost double or triple its size.

  Little went wrong as they traveled so early in the morn’ that they attracted little attention, from those in the fields.

  Too preoccupied by their wn sheep and other cattle, with their heads bowed in concentration upon the wheat or dragging their cattle from one corner to another of the fields. It was only towards the end of the second hour as they passed along the road that the fugitives were sighted.

  This Kenna knew, by the manner in which several of the shepherds in the fields to the east of the road, stopped to call out to one another and to point at the passing caravan of people.

  Paying little heed to them, the majority of the travelers hurried along to the forest with Kenna, maintaining one eye upon the local folk and the other upon the forest ahead of them all.

  As he passed by her, Mairead remarked with a glance east of her own, “It appears that we have been sighted.”

  “Aye.”

  “Do you think that they will go to warn, the laird?” the daughter of the Salmon asked worriedly, scratching at the back of her left hand in what was then a nervous gesture.

  Humming a little, Kenna shrugged her shoulders helplessly, answering honestly as she did so, “I do not know. We can only hope that no one else with us notices their cries.”

  “Why is that?” Mairead queried confused.

  “Because, the last thing we truly need is Elspet whipping people up into another frenzy, only to convince them to join her in her newest folly.”

  *****

  The northern section of the north-woods they reached lacked a proper name. It was called the north-woods simply for lack of a better term by those who lived to the south of them. To those who lived farther north, it was at times dubbed the ‘south-woods’. This fact was known to Kenna, only by virtue of what her father had taught her over the course of the brief time she was with him.

  The trees herein the forest, were of a slightly smaller stature to those farther south it seemed to her mind. Notably in comparison to the great oaks, ash and alders that populated the Dyrkwoods. These trees were thinner, shorter with a few appearing to be hardly any older than the Salmon himself, with less than a few hundred seeming to her eyes to be older than the wars of the great paragon High-King Causantín II.

  This was not to say that the forest lacked for life in any way, to the contrary; they were leagues long and wide in diameter. With hundreds of brigands said to have made their living in this place, during the reign of Donnchad the Foul.

  What was more was that there more than ten times that number of rodents, boars, wolves and bears who populated the forests. Weasels traversed from one tree to the next or from one bush to another chased in some cases by foxes or otherwise hunting after squirrels and rats. Hares raced away at the sight of the fugitives, in some cases running blindly towards awaiting foxes, wolves, coyotes and in some cases wild dogs or lynxes.

  In all, it was a large forest that served almost to cut MacDuibh’s lands from those to the north of them. In reality it was a branch of the river Thern that cut the Mormaer’s lands from those of the monarchy.

  The Thistle-Road cut through the forest, and connected a portion of MacDuibh’s lands to those of the High-Kings, with the roads north and south of the river connected thanks to the great stone bridge of Achaius. The Achaian bridge was constructed by the great Pech-King who was an ancestor of the current monarch, by virtue of his mother Doada, who was herself daughter to Mael-Martin II.

  The thought of this forest that Corin and her had passed through on their journey to and from Sgain, was one that she did not feel near as nervous about, as she was in regards the thought of what was south of the forest. Badrách could still lurch into action after them, at any given moment she mused, with a slight shiver of mortal terror.

  There were also the lands of Nordleia that lay to the north of the north-woods. The laird there was one of the border lairds between MacDuibh and the monarch, from an ancient family who had provided a number of stewards for the sons’ of Achaius.

  It was as she walked at the head of the fugitives, staring at one tree after another that her mind drifted for a time, to the question of what to do in the event of Badrách giving chase after them. This in turn made her think back, on what her father used to tell her about war, the geography of Caledonia and his experiences.

  A forty-year old man by the time he had abandoned her, he had travelled all throughout the Lairdly-Isle. Born in the Highlands, the son of a former servant of the house of Noroak turned brigand, he had after a quarrel with his own father been cast out from the circle of bandits the man had united against the house of Noroak.

  After this, Kenna’s father had to her knowledge taken to traveling all throughout the isle in search of work as a mercenary. This he did for more than two decades, ere he met her mother and fell in love at first sight with her. The question of who she was, what her rank was, was a mystery to her daughter. So little did the mercenary speak of the woman he loved that Kenna had long since resigned herself bitterly to the knowledge that she had near to no past.

  All she knew was that her mother had loved to sing. She had shared that quality in common with Daegan, and had taught her daughter a handful of songs before she died when Kenna’s was hardly older than three years of age.

  It was almost half a decade before she was abandoned by her father, who had kept her with him throughout his military campaigns on the northern Marches as long as he could. The reason he claimed for having abandoned her in Glasvhail, was something of a mystery to her.

  Quite why the memory of him had begun to pick away at her was a mystery especially when she had not thought of him in nigh on thirty years. It had to be the flight from Glasvhail, which reminded her of when she was five years of age, and fleeing from the burning village of Aon-Adhbeinn. Raiders from Norwend had crossed the Wend river, with her father having broken rank to come to her rescue and to carry her away from the village which had been in the middle of being sacked.

  Kenna could still taste the desperation and fear that had gripped her that night, as the all-consuming flames devoured all within sight, as they later did Glasvhail’s temple.

  A shudder ran through her as she walked through the forest, she prayed that they might reach Nordleia soon. Though it was only a few hours since they had entered the forest, and she knew there still remained almost a whole day of walking involved before they reached it, a part of her felt impatient then. She also felt rather more anxious than she might previously have been, the fact that they had traveled past some of the more faithful tenants of Badrách.

  “Kenna?” The voice of Helga shook her from her thoughts and memories.

  “Yes, lass?” Kenna asked jumping a little, surprised to see Ainsley’s third daughter by her side near the head of the group of fugitives rather than with the other children. Most of whom, were closer to the middle, of their band of travelers. “Is there something that the children might otherwise have had need of?”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “No, there was naught that they had need of, I only wished to speak to you regarding our destination,” Helga said with a hint of doubt in her voice.

  “What about it, has you curious?”

  “Would it not have been wiser to circle about further west, rather than cross directly through the fields where most of the farmers could see us? What is to stop Badrách from following us?” She inquired with a cautious glance over her shoulder, doubtful of the wisdom of the decision taken by those who had command of the village for the moment.

  Her caution and pragmatism, was something that at that moment amazed and impressed Kenna, who felt a spark of fondness for the lass come to life within her. It was the sort of doubt that she herself might otherwise have expressed and if she was honest, had brooded over the past hours about. It was also the kind of sentiment she never imagined, simple and na?ve Cormac might have been capable of.

  “We are completely and entirely certain that he will not send his men after us quite so soon.” Kenna answered confidently, “He will need time to gather his warriors and by then we will be safe and in the laird áed’s lands.”

  The laird in question was a man renowned for his participation in dozens of battles, fought in the name of Mael-Martin II. Known as the ‘Hatchet’ for his strong-axe arm, and willingness to comport himself brutally against those he considered his master’s enemies. It was unlikely that Badrách might intrude upon the lands of such a formidable man, one who had fought alongside his father several decades prior.

  “This laird… is he formidable?” Helga asked likely still worried about the possibility of Badrách sending his men in pursuit of them.

  “Aye, very much so,” Kenna answered at once.

  She was startled though when it was not Helga who piped up to ask more of her, but rather another of the young people, the daughter of Bungo the fisherman. Coming upon them as they walked past a series of birch trees to either sides of the marble-covered road, she asked of the seamstress, “Is this laird áed young and magnificent?”

  The romantic question was overshadowed by an admiration in her eyes, this particular lass was a blonde haired youth with brown eyes and a slight figure. At fourteen she was Helga’s junior by two almost three years, and was dressed in a grey linen dress that Kenna knew at once to be her own needlework. It was solid though, no longer up to the quality of work that she liked to work.

  The question made her snort derisively, “But of course not, he is old and violent. It is said he has only grown worse, since the death a decade ago of his youngest, favourite son Fingall.”

  “Who told you this?” This time it was another of the fishermen who asked this question. His name was Greig, and he was a brown haired man, with dark eyes and a friendly air about him though he had chosen to follow Elspet, the day prior. Dressed in green, he blended well with their surroundings and sported a short beard, looking to her from over his shoulder for he walked ahead of her, with an air of hero-worship and gratitude.

  “Corin, when we travelled through these lands,” Kenna answered avoiding their gazes, uncomfortable with the admiration in their eyes and with the memory of her own desire to stop in the nearby region of Nordleia. She had wished to exchange en route for Sgain, some of her dresses for some coin and food, with Corin unwilling to stop there. He had never stopped there since a decade ago, because of the madness that was said to have gripped áed the ‘Hatchet’, after the loss of Fingall. “áed is said to have buried his son a decade ago, when the youth had volunteered to aid Mael Bethad our current King, reclaim his traditional lands of Noroak far to the north. I am not certain how far the man made it on the quest, only that he perished before its conclusion.”

  It was a fate she prayed she would not share in common with áed. The notion of burying her son, Cormac was one that she would sooner perish than suffer through. With that said, she would see Badrách punished for his crimes ere Cormac has returned, with his friends.

  “You know so very much,” Helga commented with the same admiration, as before back in the village of Glasvhail.

  “I have one mouth, and two ears and oftentimes I prefer to use the latter,” She replied with a shrug wishing those that had begun to crowd her might go away and leave her be.

  Contrary to how much she hinted at them to leave her be, they refused to listen to her. It was the youngest of the three who spoke up next, “Lady Kenna-”

  “Kenna,” She rectified at once, disliking the title at once, for she was no lady but a seamstress with no true rank to speak of, things may have been different had she achieved her dream of becoming the Queen’s seamstress, but alas… Do stop being so maudlin lass! Kenna hissed at herself. Hating herself for feeling such self-pity, especially when there were some all around her who had better reason to feel sorry for themselves.

  “Thank you for saving me,” The young lass said shyly, with her pale cheeks turning bright red.

  For once Kenna had no sharp words to utter, she lost her stern disposition and simply gaped at the lass for some time. Staring from her, to Greig to Helga to many others, all around her it was suddenly dawned upon her just how much they admired her.

  Having never before been hero-worshipped save by Olith and later Daegan and Indulf, it was an uncomfortable, shocking sentiment for her to feel. Always, she had been the ‘spinster’ after Murchadh had been lost at sea, always too stern, too miserly and too strict to truly be admired.

  She was appreciated for her contributions and tolerance of certain irresponsible youths. But she was not truly admired or loved, she realized with a start. At least not until that very moment, with the admiration and reverence she was suddenly held in the sort of thing that might have made Daegan’s chest puff up, but not her ‘aunty’.

  “Ah, well, it was nothing,” Kenna stuttered gruffly, turning her head away to hide her own scarlet cheeks.

  *****

  The journey continued in this manner for another six hours, with many wishing to speak to Kenna which included some whom she had nary spoken to more than a few dozen words in the past nine years (or more).

  Her throat grew dry and weariness hardly affecting some, who now that they were wholly awake and seemingly out of danger, felt compelled to murmur their thanks for rescuing them from the fire, an act that only a few had seen. Yet they had informed all others who had once populated the whole of Glasvhail of her heroism.

  The fact that the word ‘heroism’ had been attached to Kenna’s name embarrassed her to no end, with the seamstress hardly appreciating the extent to which Ida took to teasing her about it. The other woman evidently found the whole notion funny, and was keen to alleviate her friend’s brooding mood. Yet brood Kenna still did, for she was so very, very worried about what awaited them in the lands of the ‘Hatchet-laird’.

  It was towards the end of the day though, as the skies darkened once more overhead with the clouds gathering all about them that she discovered just how limited admiration could be. For it was just as some began to complain of how sore their feet were that Freygil proclaimed that they would continue, through the night.

  “We are still within the domains of Badrách, and it would be wise to remember how vile he is,” The fisherman reminded those behind him.

  “But we are tired, and hungry,” Some called out to him.

  “I understand this, but we shan’t stop quite yet, not for a while.” He replied not unkindly to those all around him.

  This proved to be a mistake, as many of those behind him sensing weakness persisted, with Elspet the daft widow all but leapt forward to counter his point. “Have ye no heart, Freygil? A touch more kindness cannot hurt you, for we are all cold and miserable, and hungry. What is more is that it appears as though it may rain soon, and would it not be wiser to find shelter soon and to cook what food we have?”

  Freygil had no great desire to stop, not only because of how his wife had returned far ahead of their troupe amongst the shepherds and shepherdesses who could not simply stop and take their cattle off the roads.

  Her sons having taken up her tasks for a time, with the cattle sent on ahead in order to keep any of them from attempting to trail off as some of the sheep, cows and pigs had sought to do back in the fields of Thernhallow.

  His hesitation and uncertainty though, served only to inspire anger in Salmon who walked but a little ahead of him, snapping over his shoulder at Elspet with a snarl. “Have ye not done enough, Elspet? Is leading our people to the flames not enough tragedy, for one lifetime? Would you seek to lead our people now to the blades of any local bandits who haunt these woods?”

  The sharpness in his tone served to anger the woodcutter’s widow, who glowered foul murder at him with Kenna deciding to add a further reprimand. “We shan’t stop until we are in open fields, you would know this if you were to think for a single moment beyond the rumbling of your belly and if your mind was not numb, to the memories of what happened the previous time, you had command of the village.”

  The glare that the other woman threw in her direction, held such hatred that were she any other woman, or a less hardened one Kenna might have frozen in place. But between her stern exterior, the soreness of her feet and the cold wind on her face a part of her felt indifferent then, to the sentiments of those around her.

  In truth, she wished for little else but to stop, in order to rub her feet and start a fire to warm herself against. However, the promise of rain frightened her, due to the promise of the possible illness that it might bring on top of the coldness of night that loomed alongside it.

  For these reasons, she cared not for the hate the other woman held for her from then on. As to the rest of those around her, who bemoaned this decision and complained at length alongside Elspet, about the council’s decision, she tried to ignore them as best she could.

  “But we are hungry,” Cried one voice.

  “And my feet are sore!”

  “My son shan’t walk anymore, and my arms grow weary from carrying him,” Cried one last man in an accusing voice, as though his weariness and misery were somehow the newfound leaders of Glasvhail’s faults.

  This complaining might have continued, were it not for several villagers stopping, as they refused to continue on through the night as originally intended. They stated as they did so that they would not continue forward another step, with the leader of this disobedient group Ealar, the old rival of Kenna and the Salmon.

  Once they saw a portion of those at the rear halt, those in the middle followed their example with Freygil, ever quick to give into the desires of the group initially pleading with them to continue before he at last conceded. Enraged, Kenna sought to remind all of those who had gone ahead to guide the cattle and to scout out the lands of Nordleia. “What of those such as Ida? Would you forsake them simply because of a little discomfort?”

  “We are not all stone-hearted as you are,” Elspet accused full of triumph now, along with the hatred that had been born hours ago and that had only grown in the hours that passed.

  Exasperated by her constant barbs against her, Kenna fixed a stern glare upon her, not caring for how some were beginning to move away from the road to find themselves a place to stay to the left of the Thistle-Road. “Elspet think! If we are to move away from the road we must first inform Ida and the other shepherds and shepherdesses of this decision.”

  “We could send a volunteer, such as Freygil to warn them to look to their own needs and to wait for us later shortly before dawn.” Doada answered simply joining Elspet in countering the suggestions of the seamstress.

  “That seems a good compromise,” Helga said keen to avoid conflict with the other faction, only to whither a little at the stern glance the seamstress cast upon her for this betrayal. Seeing the disapproval on her face, the daughter of Ainsley and Conn hurried to add, “It is just that my legs are sore and I am not so certain how much longer I could walk for.”

  “Do not blame her Kenna, for she speaks for a great many of us,” Doada said with such smoothness that Kenna felt her heart harden all the more. She despised those who could speak in such honeyed tones. For they often in her experience, hid nefarious intentions or the utmost greed. “Even you must be tired and long for rest now.”

  “Regardless how weary we all are,” Salmon interceded with a growl, “We have sent our cattle on ahead, and those guarding them are even more weary than us, and have no hope for shelter as those of us in the woods do. Would you create division where there is none, simply because of a few weary feet and rumbling bellies?”

  The answer was that she indeed would. Insisting for another half-hour, with many of those from the rear now caught up to them, crossing their arms over their chests and swearing mighty oaths not to continue further, so that Freygil admitted defeat.

  Made to continue on ahead, he was joined by Salmon who would not stay, with those he claimed deserved their deaths if death was to indeed find them to-night.

  Pleased to have rid themselves of the two men, who had become as mayors to the village, Ealar and Elspet directed all off the roads and some to cut down some of the nearby trees to make fires to warm their meals and people with.

  This last order alarmed Kenna, for she knew far too well that Badrách if he were to look for them, would notice the damage done to the forest at once and would guess where they had taken to.

  What made the matter all the worst, was that Ainsley ordinarily a voice of reason appeared utterly convinced by the two fops. Saying as she followed them off the road with her youngest in her quivering arms, “This is for the best, Kenna. I am sure Badrách will not have heard of our traversing his lands, for he pays so little attention to the words of peasants, especially those in the fields.”

  “Bah, the first lesson my father taught me about war, was that those who underestimate others are always the first to perish.” Kenna growled without thinking, making to follow after Salmon and Freygil who had departed whither to join Ida and the rest of the cattle-herders.

  She was stopped by Helga who asked of her, having not yet departed with her mother as her good-brother had and most were doing. “Wait, where are you off to Kenna?”

  The roundness of Helga’s midnight onyx eyes, stared up at Kenna who replied at once, “To join the rest of those with good sense between their ears, lest I should be caught up in the folly of those who favoured the flames over life itself.”

  The cold wind did very little to ease her mood, nor did it appear to cool the mood of those around her who glowered resentfully. For they took her harshness to heart with their previous hero-worship dying little by little with every word she uttered and complaint she made against those they followed.

  They would likely have preferred it had she simply done as bidden, but that was never Kenna’s way. No, the easy road had never truly appealed to her, not since she had been left all alone in Eachann’s care.

  Furious with them in return, for they had disappointed her more than once in the past day or so, until she had become all the more disillusioned towards them, than they were with her. The dark protective trees of finest birch, cedar, alder and ash-wood waved and appeared to moan with the wind a chill warning to her mind, of what awaited all in the dark of the woods. It appeared as though the tall monoliths built up by nature, warned all who came near them.

  ‘I shan’t protect thee from the dangers that chase after thou, therefore look to thy own devices for protection.’ This visible warning and the lack of warmth to be found amongst the trees that the villagers took to noisily chopping down for fire-wood worsened the sense of doom that hung over Kenna then.

  “But you shan’t leave us,” Helga pleaded in a whisper, as the seamstress cast a dark glance at those men who had moments ago complained of how little they could continue to do, only to take to the trees with their axes. Exerting themselves far more in the cutting of trees, for their campfires than if they had continued to walk along the Thistle-Road, though she saw this her new apprentice, paid it little mind. “Kenna, we need you to speak sense if Ealar or Elspet think of some fresh new madness to inflict upon us!”

  “Beyond what they have done already, you mean.” Kenna muttered with a significant glance all about them.

  With a helpless look to her sister, Doada, Helga gave up the struggle, to keep her at their side. Doada though did not, and said to her, “Aye for without you, they will surely perish and you know that from the moment we left Glasvhail, you and the rest of those who argued to leave have taken up the role of village-council. If you leave us now, you will in effect be abandoning us to the proverbial wolves. Think at least of the children, of those too young to protect themselves and what should happen to them in the event of their parents’ deaths.”

  The usage of her sense of responsibility and guilt should the worst truly happen, was not a trick that Kenna was blind to. And though she despised Elspet for using such a dirty tactic in this argument, she could not deny its efficacy.

  As the second of Conn’s daughters spoke, Kenna could not help but think of what Badrách might do to the children, of how he might hoist their corpses upon spears or leave them to perish to the local brigands or wolves.

  The images of those dark fates, resonating in her mind the seamstress reluctantly conceded if with ill-grace. Glaring foul murder at the second of Conn’s daughters, whom she vowed to never again attempt to shield for using her sense of obligation against her, Kenna surrendered herself to the same fate as that of the followers of Elspet.