'Perhaps I didn't choose it, child.' Wearily she pushed herself to her feet. 'Perhaps what you see is the very essence of the Morrigu.' Her voice tailed away. 'You have much to learn. And the first lesson is approaching. Understand this: you cannot conquer fear by running away from it.'

The crow flapped its wings and soared towards the sky. Momentarily distracted, Banouin swung back to where the Morrigu had been.

She had vanished.

The dawn sun cleared the eastern mountains.

The battlefield was deserted now. With a deep sigh Banouin sat down by the dying fire. Bane awoke and yawned. He looked up at Banouin through bleary eyes. 'Have you been sitting there all night?'

'Aye.'

Bane grinned. 'Thought the ghosties would come for you, did you?'

'And they did,' said Banouin.

By noon the riders had passed far beyond the Field of Cogden, and were climbing low wooded hills overlooking the eastern coast. In the far distance they could see merchant ships, hugging the shoreline, heading north. 'I have been thinking of Forvar, and his death,' said Banouin, as they rode.

'Oh no, not that again.'

Banouin ignored the protest. 'I often wonder if he might have changed as he grew older. He was very young, and the death of his father blinded him with hate.'

'You think too much,' Bane told him. 'You always have. He was a brute, and he died because he was a brute. End of story, my friend. What he might have been is irrelevant. He's dead and gone.'

'Perhaps he isn't gone,' said Banouin. He told Bane of the ghostly battle, and the arrival of the Morrigu. His friend listened in silence.

'Are you sure you didn't dream this?' he asked, as Banouin concluded his tale.

'I am sure.'

'And Valanus thought you were the ghost?'

'Yes.'

'So why did the Old Woman appear to you? What did she want?'

'I don't know, Bane. But the whole scene was so irredeemably sad. To spend eternity endlessly reliving scenes of carnage and death. Valanus still believes he can win the battle.'

'Well, there is nothing you can do about it. So let's concentrate on more important matters. I am hungry, and I need a woman.' With that Bane swung his horse and rode off towards the highest hill, to scan the countryside for signs of a settlement or village. Banouin watched him go, and wondered if his friend truly had no feelings for the tormented spirits of Cogden Field.

An hour later Bane rejoined him.

'There is a large, stockaded town around five miles to the south-west. Maybe two hundred dwellings, with two long halls.' Banouin nodded, but did not reply. Bane leaned across and thumped his friend on the shoulder. 'You are a strange one,' he said. 'When will you learn?'