Nessa had no need to see, to know her people’s terror in those last moments, and their courage. She sat with eyes tight shut, and somewhere deep inside her, as she heard the screams, the clash of weapons, the roar of fire, was the small image of a lone warrior making a terrible, heroic stand, one man against fifty: a vision of Eyvind fighting and falling, just as an ancient voice had told her he would. As the sounds of slaughter came to her ears, as her home was laid waste not a hundred paces from where she hid, shivering, in this stark crevice above the tide-bared rock shelves, she bore within her the knowledge that she had sent her warrior before her to die in vain. How brave are you, Nessa? Do you have the courage to lose all that you have, and still go on?

After a while, not so very long, it grew quiet again. For a little, there still came sounds of men’s voices, not shouting now but speaking more levelly as if establishing order and issuing commands. She was glad she could not hear what they said. The dog, Guard was his name now, sat close by her, his dark eyes anxious. From time to time he licked her hand, and she laid her fingers on his head, drawing some slight comfort from his warmth. She had bid Guard be silent, and he was obedient, though the sounds from above made him lower his head and flatten his ears, trembling.

Nessa had learned long ago to read the subtleties of the tide. It was turning now. The voices were gone, the crackling had died down; a pall of smoke turned the morning light to sickly yellow. The water washed in gently over the rocks below her. It would not be easy to launch the curragh on her own, light as it was. In a little while, she would leave here. Her uncle had said she must go as soon as she might. “Don’t look back, Nessa,” Engus had said. “If we are attacked, we will fight to the end, as befits true warriors of the Folk. But the odds are not in our favor here. If we fight and fail, turn away and leave this place. Find Brother Tadhg; seek safe refuge on the outer islands, then passage to the land of the Caitt. Our kinsmen there will shelter you. You must not look back.”