Gaelen sat up and yawned. ‘It’s chilly,’ he whispered. Gwalchmai rolled himself swiftly into his blanket, laying his head on his pack. Within seconds he was asleep. Gaelen stretched, then crept to the fire, easing himself past Lennox. Taking a dry stick he poked around the embers of the dying fire, gently blowing it to life. Adding more sticks, he watched the flames flicker and billow. Then he looked away. Caswallon had told him never to stare into a fire, for the brightness made the pupils contract, and when you looked away into darkness you would be blind.
Gaelen wrapped his blanket round his shoulders and leaned back against the granite boulder. An owl hooted and the boy’s fingers curled around the hilt of his hunting-knife. You fool, he told himself. You’ve never been afraid of the dark. Calm down. These are your mountains, there is nothing to harm you.
Except wolves, bears, lions and whatever made that bestial howling. ..
Gaelen shuddered, and fed more sticks to the fire. The supply was growing short and he didn’t relish the prospect of entering the menacing darkness of the surrounding trees to replenish the store.
Slowly the fire died and Gaelen cursed softly. He had hoped it would last until first light, when the woods would become merely trees and not the frightening sentinels they now appeared. He stood up, loosening the dagger in its sheath, and walked carefully toward a fallen elm at the edge of the woods. Swiftly he collected dead wood and thicker branches. Back at the fire, relief washed over him. He
was comforted by the sound of Lennox snoring and the sight of his other two friends sleeping soundly.
It was ridiculous. If danger was upon them they would be no use to him, sleeping as they were. And yet he felt at ease.
Layne muttered in his sleep and turned onto his back. Gaelen gazed down at his square, honest face. He looked so much younger asleep, his mouth half-open and childlike.
Gaelen turned his gaze to Lennox. Where Layne was clean-cut and athletic, Lennox was all bulk, with sloping shoulders of tremendous power, barrel-chested, thick-waisted. His hands were huge and the strength in them awesome. A year before he had straightened a horseshoe at the Games, having seen it done in the Strength Test. Too young to be entered, he had shamed several of the contestants and caused great merriment among the Farlain clan.
Later that day a dozen youths of the Haesten clan, having seen their man shamed, lay in wait for Lennox as he strode home. They came at him out of the darkness bearing cudgels and thick branches. As the first blow rapped home against his thick skull Lennox had bellowed in anger and lashed out, sending one luckless youngster through a bush. Two others followed him as Lennox charged amongst them; the rest fled.
Gaelen had heard the story and chuckled. He believed it. He wished he had seen it.
To the east the sky was brightening and Gaelen stood and wandered through the trees, on and up, scrambling over the lip of the hollow to stare at the distant mountains. In the trees around him birds began to sing, and the eldritch menace of the night disappeared. The boy watched as the snow-capped peaks to the west began to burn like glowing coals, as the sun cleared the eastern horizon. Fields below were bathed in glorious colours as blooms opened to the golden light.
Gaelen breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the sweet mountain air. He slid back down the slope and burrowed into Lennox’s large pack, more than twice the weight of his own, and produced a copper bowl. Stoking up the fire, he placed the bowl upon it, filling it with water and adding the dry oats Maeg had wrapped for him.
Layne was the first to wake. He grinned at Gaelen. ‘No monsters of the night, then?’
Gaelen grinned back and shook his head. Had he remained on the rim of the hollow for a minute more he would have seen a Farlain hunter racing back towards Cambil’s village, his cloak streaming behind him.
Badraig was a skilful huntsman whose task it was to set the trails for those of the boys travelling towards Vallon. He enjoyed his role. It was good to see tomorrow’s generation of clansmen testing their mettle, and his son Draig and foster-son Gwalchmai were among them.