Warriors took it in turns to carry the younger children. These tasks were done in good heart, for they were all clan. All one in the spirit of the Farlain.
‘You saved the clan, Caswallon,’ said Maeg, slipping her arm around her husband’s waist and smiling up at him, noting the lines of tension on his face, the dark circles beneath his green eyes.
He kissed her hair. ‘I don’t need lifting, lovely lady, but thank you for saying it. I seem to be clinging by my fingertips to an icy cliff. There are so many problems. A messenger from Badraig says there is a force in the east. We know the Aenir are also following in the south. I am frightened by all of it. There is no room for a wrong decision now.’
‘You will do what is best,’ she said. ‘I have faith in you.’
‘Oh, I have faith in myself, Maeg. But all men make mistakes.’
‘Maggrig always said you were as cunning as a fox, and trying to out-think you was like catching wood-smoke with your fingers.’
He grinned and the tension fell from him, though the fatigue remained.
‘I will feel better when the clan women and children are safe and my thoughts can turn once more to simple tasks – like killing the Aenir.”
‘You think that will be more simple?’
‘Indeed it will. They think they have won, they see us running and believe us broken. But we will turn and they will find themselves staring into the tawny eye of the killing wolf.’
She turned to him, staring up into his angry eyes. ‘You will not let hate enter your soul?’
‘No. Do not fear for me in that way. I do not hate the Aenir; they are what they are. No more do I hate the mountain lion who hunts my cattle. And yet I will fight and kill the lion.’
‘Good. Hate would not sit well with you, Caswallon of the Farlain.’
‘How could I hold you in my heart and find room for hate?’ he said, kissing her lips. ‘Now you must go, for I have much to do.’
Hitching up her skirt she ran along the column, found the warrior holding Donal and thanked him for his help. The child was still sleeping and she took him back in her arms and walked on.
Caswallon wandered to the rear of the column where Leofas walked with the rearguard. Surrounded by younger men the burly warrior seemed grizzled and ancient, but his eyes shone as Caswallon approached.
‘Well, we made it without incident,’ he said.
‘It looks that way,’ Caswallon agreed.
Leofas scratched his beard. There was more grey than red in the hair, and Caswallon thought it had the look of rust on iron. Leofas was old, but he was tough and canny, and the day had not dawned when an enemy could take him lightly. He wore a glistening mail-shirt of iron rings sewn to a leather base with silver thread. By his side were two short swords and in his hand an iron-capped quarterstaff.
‘Did you mean what you said, Caswallon? About sending out people through the Druid’s Gate?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will they be safe?’
‘Safer than here, my friend, believe me. A hundred of the older men will go with them, to help with the hunting and building.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then you and I will hunt a different game.’
The older man’s eyes gleamed and he grinned wolfishly. ‘It’s about time. I do not feel right heading away from the devils. My legs keep turning me about. I never thought the day would come when I’d care about what happened to the Pallides,’ Leofas went on, ‘but I hope that old wolf Maggrig is safe.’
‘He’s not a man to be surprised by a sudden attack. He would have had scouts out.’
‘Yes, but so did we, Caswallon.’
Forty miles to the south and east Maggrig’s anger was mounting. He was tired of being herded towards the west, tired of skulking away from the enemy, and filled with a sense of dread. The Aenir had caught up with them on the afternoon of the day following the attack, but Pallides scouts had hit them with a storm of arrows and slowed their pursuit. Since then they had outflanked the clan to the east and the two groups were seemingly engaged in a deadly race, the Aenir endeavouring to outrun them and prevent the northward exodus. Rare cunning and an intimate knowledge of the land enabled Maggrig to stay ahead, but always the angle of the march was being shifted and the wily Pallides Hunt Lord had begun to suspect they were being herded west for a reason other than the obvious. It had seemed at first that the Aenir commander wanted to force a direct battle by cutting off their flight, but he had spurned two opportunities so to do. Once could have been put down to ignorance, or lack of thought.