Bane laughed. 'Now you can ride back to the king and tell him his old hunter is still the best there ever was. He found the Wolfshead when no-one else could.'

'I shall tell him the truth – and I shall hunt no more.'

'Well,' said Bane quietly, 'if you're going to tell him the truth, tell him that I have always hated him, and that one day I shall cut his vile heart out for what he did to my mother.'

'You would have to be very, very good to defeat Fiallach,' said Parax. 'But to kill Connavar you would have to be the best there ever was. And you are not that, boy. Not by a damn sight.'

'Perhaps I will be when next we meet,' said Bane softly.

Parax climbed wearily into the saddle. 'I don't think so,' he said. 'I may be old, Bane, and my physical skills faded and gone. But my mind is still sharp, and it hunts the truth as well as it ever did. Why did you not wait for the trial, and walk free? And once you decided to run why did you remain in these hills playing catch-as-catch-can with the hunters?'

'Because I am a free man, and I live as I please.'

'No, it is because you want it to end,' said Parax. 'Grief-stricken at the loss of your mother, and hurting from a life of rejection and denial, you are waiting for death. Longing for it perhaps. So I hope you are right, boy. I hope you will ride from here and spend time developing your skills. For, like Connavar, you have it in you to be a great man. And, like him, I don't want to see you dead.'

With that Parax heeled the pony forward and rode from the clearing.

Most people felt the years had been kind to Vorna the Midwife. Now in her fifties, her long hair was still predominantly black, though streaked with silver, her skin smooth. She looked like a woman ten years younger as she sat on the porch of her house, watching the last of the sunshine bathing the settlement of Three Streams.

Such is the power of Wicca, she thought. The earth magic ran in her blood, slowing down the ageing process. Once she had been widely known as Vorna the Witch, respected and feared by the populace. Now, with them believing her powers to be gone, she had found popularity, and treasured it. It was pleasant that people waved and smiled when they saw her. It was good when they invited her into their homes.

Yes, she thought, the years have been kind to Vorna.