It was several hours after she had gone to sleep that Kenna, struggled her way out of her recurrent dream of the sea, to find herself pressed near to the fire with Eillidh to one side of her, and Helga the other. Rhona was of course, nowhere to be seen. This did not greatly worry her, as the lass had wandered off to go sleep near her father Tormod. Likely the lass felt safer near him, after the night the phantom had attacked them.

  Full of pity for her, and groggy still from sleep Kenna was to climb up to her feet with deliberate care. Not wishing to wake up either of Conn’s daughters, she stretched herself only a little. Glancing about she could see from the line of torches and still burning flames, where those still on guard-duty were located.

  Pleased, the seamstress repressed the nervousness that entered into her belly at the thought that mayhaps their best efforts, were hardly enough. Since the phantom had woven his way, past them with minimal difficulty and cut through Tormod’s sword and shield as though they were little else than pieces of wood.

  Certain that their best efforts could hardly stop such a terror from slaying them, Kenna wondered why it had come after her. She prayed that Cormac had not fallen to the phantom and that that was why it had come after her. Better to perish herself than to outlive her son for there could be no greater agony than that.

  The guards were careful and eyed all that moved. Such was the caution that they showed that Kenna understood then, why most felt safe enough to rest. It was a comfort to know that the Gormcruach and the men of Glasvhail took their duties so seriously. This seriousness was commendable, though at the moment Kenna would have preferred that they might look elsewhere from where she strode.

  Walking between the majority of those resting, as best she could. Not an easy feat to accomplish, given that most of those asleep were pressed against one another. Marching thither across the fields towards the center of the gamp where she had last seen Tormod.

  Kenna paused part of the way there, when she heard a familiar voice call out to her. It was Thormvrain.

  “Kenna?” He called as he neared her, torch in hand. His golden eyes met he dark brown one, as he smiled at her with visible puzzlement. “What are you doing there? I would have thought that you would still be asleep, at this time.”

  For several minutes Kenna was at a loss to how best to answer him, thinking fast she forced herself to speak lest he should become suspicious. “I just woke, and was off to see if there was any food cooking over one of the fires.”

  Thormvrain studied her face briefly, shrugging he gave her a warm smile ere he turned away saying over his shoulder, “Come this way, in that case as I think we are of one mind in that case.”

  It occurred to her to object, with Kenna cursing her own lack of imagination, as she followed him over to one of the isolated fires of the Gormcruach. The group he took her to, had been placed to the west of the encampment and had almost eight men encircled around the fire. Most of them were fast asleep, with only one of the men still awake, brown haired and dark-blue eyed he was muscled, bearded and with a heavily scarred face. Dressed in his hauberk and trousers he hardly appeared very conscious of his surroundings, having apparently only woken up a short time ago.

  Thormvrain did not pay him any mind, more interested in the roasting deer-meat which he smelt closely. Unsatisfied he apologised with a grimace, “Apologies headwoman, it will require a bit more cooking, before we could indulge ourselves.”

  “Not at all, I really do think that I could use a bit more rest,” Kenna stumbled prepared to regain her feet and hurry off thither to Tormod’s side, to free him.

  She was stopped before she could go very far, by the Dwarf who said to her, “A moment longer of your time, Kenna I would speak with you. And the meat will not require too much more cooking.”

  Trapped, Kenna could have struck him over the head with a log, at the same time that she felt certain that if she had the choice she would have the earth swallow her whole. Why in the name of the gods, had she said she was hungry, and not off to the toilet?

  It was times such as these that she remembered, how skilled she was at bartering, and yet could not for the life of her understand, why she never seemed to be able to translate that into an ability to sneak past men or to lie better. She could tell falsehoods plenty well, if she prepared herself quite some time, ahead of the actual deed, yet could not seem to string together the thoughts necessary for it when startled.

  Handed some mulled wine by the Dwarf, she took a small gulp, before she passed on the tankard covered with deer-fur over to the man seated next to her. Younger than her by a decade, he appeared more grizzled and aged than even she did, with his scarred face and cynical seeming eyes. She did not mislike him though, for he was not unpleasant in his mannerisms nor did he appear rude.

  “Thank you, milady,” He uttered the very image of politeness, still sounding drowsy and as though he would like naught else but to return to his rest.

  Dipping her head a little at him, Kenna continued to wait for Thormvrain to speak up about what it was that he wished to speak to her about. This he did, but only after he had heated the hunk of meat to his satisfaction.

  Waiting if reluctantly so for it to cool, the non-human took his time when he did at last give voice to his errant thoughts, doing so with visible reluctance. As no man not even Arran and his favourites were excused from this crucial duty, Thormvrain addressed her in a voice hoarse with exhaustion and hunger. “Kenna if I may ask and I do hope this is not too intrusive on my part, you were not thinking of communicating once more with Tormod Macáed?”

  Alarmed, Kenna forced herself not to panic. Keeping her breathing even and heart-rate as steady as possible for fear that he might discern the lie hidden behind her following words. “I do not take your meaning, Thormvrain.”

  “I have observed how the two of you appear to have formed a friendship of sorts,” The Dwarf replied hoarsely sniffing once more at the meat tied to the stick that he had spread across his legs as he sat upon the ground to her right. “I am merely concerned regarding how this friendship, has begun to affect you.”

  Certain that he was attempting to espy into her affairs, the offended seamstress could feel her temper begin to get the better of her. “Just what are you implying, Thormvrain? I have followed you hither, for food rather than to hear you make disturbing statement impugning my honour.

  And while I may not be a man, and am incapable of wielding a sword as you are able to. I have my own honour, and good name to care for and hold both in high regard, having spent a number of years maintaining them both scrupulously. Therefore, I would prefer that you avoid repeating any such statement in the future.”

  Her sharp rebuke pulled not scorn but rather laughter from the Dwarf, who studied her with a puzzled gaze, “Why then were you headed to the center of the encampment if such is the case? And I meant no disrespect to you dear lady, only that you have formed a bond of sorts with a man who took you from your people, so that he may enjoy your company exclusively for himself. It is for this reason that I am puzzled by the friendship that has been born between the two of you.”

  “What difference does it makewho she is friends with, Thormvrain? So long as she remembers that he is our enemy, and the only means by which we may be kept safe.” The man to her left asked with another yawn.

  “I ask out of mere curiosity,” Thormvrain defended with a roll of his eyes, seeing the doubt upon their faces he let out a sigh. “I do not wish to spread division betwixt you and I Kenna. I only worry for you, as you are special to Arran, who is my closest friend.”

  Kenna felt her earlier hostility soften a little. Running a hand through her long tresses, she could not keep from pondering about how he had come to be friends with Arran? What was more was that she wondered as to the nature, of Arran’s concern for her. He was a sell-sword doubtlessly, he had met countless women therefore why worry over one who had defied him and all but humiliated him?

  There was little to fear from his interest, this she knew in spite of her inherent mistrust of a great many of his men and sense that the profession which they plied, was vile by nature. Quite why she trusted him so blindly, she did not know. She only knew that deep in her bones, she knew Arran to have no ill-intent towards her, though she could see how violent he could be.

  “How did you come to be friends?” Kenna asked of him, part of her feeling more alert than ever before. In truth she was intrigued by the question of how it had happened, but would have preferred to not become engaged in a proper conversation with him. Not when she still had yet to free Tormod and Rhona.

  Seemingly unaware of her true frustration, the man to her left snorted, “That is a tale many of us Gormcruach have heard several times too many.”

  “Tush Ronain, the lady has asked me a question, and I am obliged to answer,” The Dwarf snapped with a good-natured smile that might well have charmed the skin from a snake. “I was not always the grand, mighty warrior you see before you, milady. The truth is that I fell upon difficult times nigh on twenty-nine years ago, after the death of my wife and children to the dark-pox that swept through the Northern-Marches near Norwend. A guard responsible with the duty of guarding the entrances to our mountains from the Norwendians clans, I was laid low with my losses. Maddened by the loss of all I was bereft of, I was loath to continue living as I previously had I was to advance north to perish in battle.

  It was in the fields by the river Wend that I fell wounded. It was there amidst the bodies of my foes, those who had raided our homes in the Highlands that I lay.

  I thought a great deal of my life, of all that had gone awry, it was then that Arran found me. He had met with my brother; Tharvin who was a baker who was offering up all he had saved over the past years to pay for my safe return. Arran found me, and when he did he nursed me back to full health wherefore he would hear my plight and take me not back to the mountains I came from. But rather, he offered me the choice to go back or to join him, claiming that we were now ‘brothers united under the blueness of steel itself.’

  He told me of how he had nowhere left to go, no more family and that if I wished it, he would be my father, my brother, my son if I were to fight for him and whoever paid us. It was after this, and after he had saved me in the wars against the Northman Bj?rn and his son Thorsteinn the Raven that ours became a bond as solid as that of any true brothers.”

  There was more to the tale, but Kenna found her attention drifting by this time, with the tale likely she suspected already shortened, to a large extent. Filled with pity though, for his losses as she had never suspected that he had lost his family to the black-pox, Kenna murmured her condolences. Her thoughts elsewhere, namely with her own child, for she wondered if she might not simply throw herself from a ledge were she to lose him.

  As to the illness known as the black-pox, it was one that was said to have swept down from the north, sundering the populations of all the kingdoms of Bretwealda. It had also swept across ériu, and was said to have come from some of Thorsteinn’s barbarous raiders, after they had finished raiding in Antillia.

  It was with a shudder, at the memory of some of those who had passed when it had swept through Glasvhail, laying low a number of the people there, which included her master’s wife, Salmon’s wife along with three of his sons. There were also a number of others such as all of Ida’s four sisters and three brothers, with the village one of the more fortunate ones to have survived the pox. For it was said that there were villages elsewhere that had been utterly emptied, due entirely to the fast-moving pox, which had vanished as swiftly as it had swept through the kingdoms. Devastating as it went, Brittia it was said along with Cymru far more than it had the northern kingdoms.

  “No need to apologise, milady, ‘twas a long time ago.” Thormvrain murmured a little sleepily, blinking his eyes which appeared more wet and sad than any others she had ever seen in all her life. “Besides, it is not as though they are gone forever; we will meet again when it is my turn to perish. But always remember lass, it was Arran who restored me to life, and though ye may disagree with him, never doubt that he is at his core a good man.”

  Once again confused by his words and the urgency with which he sought to mollify, her feelings of displeasure towards the old sell-sword, Kenna gave him a brief nod.

  *****

  Noticing some time after this statement how he fell quiet, and how distracted Ronain appeared to be, Kenna could see that now was her best opportunity to slip away.

  It was an opportunity that she sensed at once that she would never again see. Her heart was pounding forcefully against her chest, with such force that it could have knocked over even one as strong, and fierceness as Thormvrain. It pounded against her ears so loudly that it seemed to her as though it might tear itself free from behind her flesh.

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  The memory of just how frightened Rhona was of the wraith when it had sought, to slay her along with Tormod’s courage when he had battled the phantom, was what decided it for her. She could not remain there, by the snoring Thormvrain and Somhairie, trembling for fear of being shamed by the likes of Ronain.

  The position of headwoman carried with it a certain duty, a duty that she would not have tolerated Cormac or Daegan shirking.

  Forcing herself to her feet, if slowly and hesitantly so after she had crawled backwards a little to avoid capturing Ronain’s attention.

  She need not have worried, she thought to herself when she noticed just how disinterested he was in her, distracted as he was with watching some unknown point near one of the more southern fires. One which she felt certain if memory served was where Sorcha the elder sister of Inga was located.

  The young woman was a mother of two, and a recent widow due to the fire in the temple of Fufluns in Glasvhail. She was a fine lass, one whom she knew was sharing her fire with several of her cousins and brother, along with her children.

  She would have to warn her that Ronain may in fact be glancing a little too often in her direction, Kenna mused to herself disapproving of the sell-sword’s interest in the poor widow.

  Once on her feet, she banished this feet and slowly turned away to begin her journey thither to the center of the collection of fires.

  Holding her breath in, the seamstress was to reach the next fire when she was to hear Ronain suddenly speak out her name.

  Freezing in place, Kenna could feel her heart once again begin to pound at her rib-cage. At the same time that it dropped from her chest, and shattered at her feet. Why, oh gods she wondered to herself, could she not have been blessed with the luck of Cesarius the Conqueror of Gallia?

  “A-aye?” She asked nervously, feeling as though she might fall over in a fatal swoon, at his addressing her so suddenly, just as she was seeking to escape from his campfire.

  The reason for his calling out to her was not at all what she expected it to be. Rather than suspecting anything at all, he held up a small cooked piece of mutton, saying to her, “You forgot your mid-night snack.”

  “O-oh yes, how foolish of me,” Kenna murmured feeling both utterly foolish, and relieved.

  Grateful that her mistake had not been graver than that, she thanked him for the piece of mutton wherefore she beat a hasty retreat from the small campfire.

  Though she was not particularly hungry, she took a small bite from the piece of meat so as to assuage the concerns of Ronain. Glancing over her shoulder, she was reassured when she noticed that he had turned away from her, to tear into his own hunk of mutton.

  Swallowing the mutton with some difficulty, the seamstress was to advance on shaky legs towards the campfire where Tormod and his daughter lay. Walking with far more purpose than she had before, Kenna strove to make it appear as though she belonged and as though there was naught out of the ordinary.

  *****

  Reaching Tormod, who was surrounded by a group of snoring guards and men, as he had remained mistrusted by the vast majority of the fugitives, Kenna was to find that there was still one of the guards awake. It was Caileann who sat with one eye upon Tormod and the other upon the fire before him.

  Hardly stupid, the Wolfram was however trusting in some ways, or so she had observed. She only hoped that this might give her the advantage needed so to speak, to trick him.

  “Hail Cailean, it is I Kenna, the headwoman of Glasvhail,” She called nearing his fire noticing how his eyes had darkened and his sword-hand had drifted to the pommel of his dagger.

  Swift as he was deadly in battle, the non-human was ever quick to receive her respectfully with some amount of relief in his voice. “Ah, lady Kenna how good it is to see you. I had thought for a moment that you were someone else.”

  “Who did you think I was?” She asked as she deliberately circled about the small campfire stepping upon Tormod’s ankle, whereupon she pressed down upon the aforementioned ankle, with all her weight.

  “I do not know, it is just that… I have noticed the shadows all the more, than before,” He admitted more than a little anxious, shivering as he spoke.

  Kenna shivered now herself.

  Swallowing the widow coughed to clear her throat all the more, adding if reluctantly for the mutton was quite good, she thought. “Here, Thormvrain wanted me to give you this piece of mutton- oh nay! I have dropped it!”

  Dropping down just as she dropped the mutton upon Tormod, Kenna bent down to hurriedly pick it back up.

  When she rose back up, it was to find Caileann having leapt forward to assist her, ere he wiped away at the dirt on the mutton with his sleeve. “Never fear Kenna, I shall eat it nonetheless for I was just wondering when my next meal might be.”

  Stepping over the sleeping man by placing her feet indifferently upon him, to be sure that he might awaken, Kenna hoped that Caileann would not notice the lack of noise her girdle made. Drawing his attention in the direction opposite of Tormod by seating in the opposite direction of that of the nobleman, she was to broach the topic of Thormvrain’s tragic life.

  “I joined the Gormcruach some time after him; in fact I did so but three years ago.” Caileann explained adding with a small laugh, “Most do not last very long in companies of our sort, though our members stay on for life.”

  “Why is that?” Kenna asked her eyes upon his own, and occasionally drifting past him to focus upon a figure just behind him.

  Tormod rose slowly to his knees with his daughter still asleep in his arms. As a shadow he arose, one without darkness as he moved to escape from the chains that bound him and the campfire that held him nigh on as firmly as they.

  Never fearing for her own safety, Kenna her heart beating as fast and as forcefully as a man might strike a drum, or an Ogre might an enemy of theirs in war urged Caileann on with his tale. Prayers upon her lips and in her heart as she urged him to go on.

  The Wolfram had much in common culturally in many ways to the Tigruns, Minotaurs and Ratvians in that they could never resist a good tale. This was the same for a Highland raised wolf such as Caileann. Some things run deeper as they say, than blood itself.

  “How came I to be a Gormcruach? Are you certain that wee Eillidh did not tell you this tale?” He asked of her, a hint of humour in his voice.

  “Nay, she did not, do carry on with it,” Kenna encouraged him, by this time Tormod had crawled almost directly behind the Wolfram and nearer to the sleeping Pàdair the Tigrun.

  “It is hardly that fantastical a story, why when I was a wee lad I longed for adventure as many youths do, I imagine your lad was no different.” Caileann said with a small wink in her direction, with the seamstress smiling weakly unable to deny it.

  Cormac had indeed desired adventure, though not battle or glory as she had tried to on occasion encourage him to desire. Rather, he had longed to meet Elves, to hear their songs and to see more of the sea, as his father had before him.

  Caileann did not stop there, “Though in time I grew to serve among those that were despatched to serve with Mael Bethad in the battle of Daertean, when he slew Donnchad. After that it was back to my da’s carptenter-shop and work of building homes for folks. I must confess that it was for this reason that I first, made friends with Fionn one of the Gormcruach, who passed through Bhalkeld for the lands of F?reyar. It was he who was to later bring my cause to Arran’s attention, though at the time I was too preoccupied with carpentry. Glory in battle, being little more than a distant dream at the time.”

  “Noble work that,” Kenna muttered quietly.

  “Aye but it was not warrior’s work,” Caileann grunted impatiently, only to add when he saw her jump a little in surprise, fearing that he had offended her.

  “I apologise, it is that though I say I was to join along with some of my tribe-brothers to support the rightful High-King, I never saw the battle. This disappointed and shamed me, and so when the time came when the local Mormaer called for us Wolframs to contribute more of our yields and goods to him, than the humans and my father objected, and was slain I sought to avenge him. It was at this time that I became an outlaw, was captured and imprisoned to be starved in a cage outside the monastery of Ziu, called the Abbey of Markirk.

  Likely I would have perished shortly thereafter were it not for Arran, coming to my rescue. It was he who had heard of my plight, from several of my tribesmen and him it was who had vowed to save me, when he heard of the injustice inflicted upon me.”

  It was a sad tale, one that bespoke to how the north was prey to the same abuses of power, and injustices that haunted the south.

  Mayhaps, Kenna thought in a sudden burst of trepidation they were not hurrying from their doom, by going north to plead with the King but to that which they most feared? Because, was the High-King not formerly a Mormaer of the north himself? This thought and the fear that he was hardly any different, from his chief-most vassals was one that struck Kenna with the force of a battering-ram.

  She knew all too well, from having observed the fall into degeneracy on the part of Badrách that when one group was hunted as cattle, as in the case of Wolframs. The rest of the people would soon be treated in much the same manner. This was the way of things, with those who achieved power she brooded morosely.

  “I am sorry for your sad tale,” She said sorrowfully, full of sympathy for him.

  “I am not alone, in having been exiled some in our midst rightfully so, others not so.” Caileann admitted sheepishly.

  “I see, and what of your brethren did they remain in the lands of Bhalkeld?”

  “Nay, most were made to leave for the west, with most resentful of his having interfered in our tribe to make it banish me and others who had rebelled.” Caileann informed her, ere he added with some venom as his eyes fell upon his hunk of mutton. “I loved my father, since I was a wee pup he was the finest friend and hero I ever knew. One day I will slay, the monster who took him from me.”

  Kenna could not answer him.

  Moved by his tale she swallowed audibly after a moment of discomfited silence, “What of your mother?”

  “She fled west into the March-lands with my sisters,” Caileann told her, adding forcefully, “It as much for her that I will avenge father, as it is for his.”

  *****

  It was about this time that he finished the piece of mutton she had delivered for him. His reasons for what he wished to do being noble in nature, impressed her.

  Kenna wished she could have said that then, though she was not to share many more words with him that night, as it was then that he took notice of the absence of Tormod to his left. At first he only glanced out of the corner of his eyes, wherefore he blinked thrice in that direction gaped and was upon his feet in an instant.

  “To me! To me! Tormod Macáed has escaped!” He shouted in the next heartbeat, “Quite how I do not know…” It was at that moment that realization struck. His eyes went wide, ere he turned to stare in the seamstress’ direction.

  An expression of utmost betrayal painted itself upon his long-snouted face. One that was as a knife through Kenna’s heart, so great was the guilt that overcame her then.

  Rather than make excuses though, she was upon her own feet, in an instant also.

  By this time Tormod, had moved to free his father’s messenger, who once freed joined him in a dead-run for the horses to the east of them.

  Racing after them, dashing past and over awakening warriors and villagers, who blinked stupidly at the world around them, while those on watch gaped, Kenna was to reach the horses first. Being closer to them, and hardly a target for their suspicion, they did not move to stop her. Nor did they take notice at first, of her untying of the reins of two of the horses from a nearby sycamore-tree.

  “The prisoners are escaping! Lo! They are escaping, all men to me!” One of the guards shouted to the rest of them, with the two men in question racing thither past one man after another as swift as hares.

  Struggling a little, Kenna soon had the loose knot undone. For it had not been a tightly woven one, for the guards had feared another attack by the wraiths, and had wished to have the horses ready. Though they were no Gallian knights, even the Gormcruach recognised that one of the best means to fight knights was with one’s own mounted warriors.

  The first to reach her was the messenger, who was soon mounted a-top the brown horse she had freed. The guards nearest the horses hardly taking notice of her, moved to stop Tormod, who rolled between two, and leapt with all his strength onto the second of the horses that Kenna had untied.

  His head high, and his bearing noble as his blood was, Tormod Macáed was for the first time in days free. It was a welcome sight, Kenna thought and one that she would take to her grave for it warmed her insides to see him for the first time in a long time; free. No man of his nature, of so rich a laugh and so warm a heart, ought to be imprisoned or enchained she told herself, proud of what she had done.

  In the flurry of the chaos he reached out to her, with his free arm, his daughter held tightly in front of him as he seated himself upon the saddle. “Kenna! To me! Let us fly together to the land of Nordleia!”

  For a moment, Kenna reached out her arm. She truly wished to with all her heart, to join him a-horse and flee south to rally the men of Nordleia, to enjoy once again that bliss she had known with Murcahdh. It was a fantasy that she felt heat her blood, and fill her spirit with joy she had not known in nine years.

  But it was just that; a dream.

  It could not be, so long as she had her duties and her son remained lost to her.

  “Nay! Get! Fly away from this place Tormod, be free for ‘twas the freedom and wildness of your laugh that claimed my heart if only for a brief moment!” Kenna confessed to him, striking the hindquarters of his horse.

  A moment of radiant joy and gratitude climb up to his face, ere it vanished to be replaced with disappointment then resoluteness when she struck his horse.

  As he departed with the Gormcruach in hot-pursuit, she heard him shout over his shoulder, “I will return for thee! Kenna Flame-Hearted I will claim thee!”

  Noble and faithful as his words were, they could not hide the ugliness of what she had done in the eyes of those around her.

  The first to look upon her in that manner, was he who caught her; Thormvrain.

  Appearing from nowhere, just as she turned away from the fleeing Tormod, her heart beating rapidly as it had not done in a decade, she was to find herself face to face with the Dwarf. His eyes were dark with fury and disappointment, “I knew it… I knew you would be the one to free him,” he said to her, voice mournful.

  Then he seized her by the wrists, and bound her hands as one would a prisoner.

  *****

  The betrayal that filled every pair of eyes when she was discovered was numbing. But still the satisfaction, the knowledge that she had done right remained in her heart. So that though she was dragged away from the east of the camp by her wrists, she held her head high and proud. Refusing to give a single inch to those around her, in regards to the nobility of her actions.

  Right was on her side, and this she would remind them all, with every step she took and breath she drew in.

  The only doubt that entered her did so when she saw the looks of betrayal in the eyes of Ida and Salmon. The latter did not look at all surprised when she was pulled past him, rather he looked upon her with visible disappointment and mournfulness.

  “Kenna, you fool,” He uttered.

  His voice carried in spite of the quiet way in which he addressed her, due to the silence that overcame the camp once the realisation of who it was that had betrayed them was. A great many others near the edges of the camp continued to shout in the distance though. Mostly it was those, who were still involved in the attempt to give chase and to hunt after the two escapees.

  The fury of some such as Mairead and Freygil when they caught sight of her was frightening, with the satisfaction of Ealar or Elspet visible a little ways past them as she stood a short distance behind them. It was clear to any who dared to look her way that she was already convinced that, this was the end of Kenna’s time in the position of Headwoman.

  Kenna was of the same opinion.

  But it was not the other woman who would be Headwoman or Freygil, Headman of Glasvhail. For the position had been devalued with the usurpation of authority, by Arran.

  And it was his fury that was the most terrifying to behold, when the time came for Kenna to be dragged before him. Previously asleep in the middle of the southern part of the camp, he leapt to his feet at the sound of the great shouts from all around the camp.

  “Who did this? Who freed Tormod and that messenger of his good-sister?” Arran shouted in such a rage that all shrunk from him.

  “It was Kenna,” Thormvrain informed him, when others would not.

  Though she made a show of courage hitherto this moment, the sight of the stunned, enraged face of Arran undid her. Now, as he shook and glowered and withdrew his sword from its scabbard she knew fear.

  Frozen where she was, Kenna was wholly unprepared for the hewing blow that followed Arran’s stony silence.

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