There was little that Wiglaf reported to those who were kith and kin to Inga or Indulf. After that night, he appeared more stooped than before, with some such as Ida hurrying to apologise to him, for all knew he had borne a special fondness for the lass. For it was known by everyone, that she had long been fascinated by magic, and his many tales of the wonders that existed outside of Rothien.

  All had adored the lass with the bright smile, eyes aglow with eternal enthusiasm for love, joy and all about her. It was with considerable rancour that old Widow Dolag, who lived on the very edge of the locality, declared the murder a most foul misdeed and complained about, “-Her murderer being allowed to prance about as he pleased still!”

  Her sentiments directed against Cormac were as he was to discover, were shared by a great deal of those who lived there. A number of whom the day prior had rolled their eyes and muttered good-naturedly at his quirks now growled and spoke in anger, of his suspicious ways. Much as they now despised him though, they could not quite bring themselves to suspect his mother, as she was one of their own in their eyes.

  “But there is just something unnatural about Cormac, and wee Dae’s father also,” Grumbled a great many men and women down at the Trouncing Salmon, the local pub to the south of the seamstress’s home. It sat by the sea and was owned by old Seumas who was an old friend of Salmon.

  If most had abandoned Cormac at this time, Daegan certainly had not and had taken to growling at all those she crossed whom spoke poorly of him, or she suspected had. “Bah, what would you know of Cormac? Why should I not suspect you of the crime?”

  Affronted by her accusations, most had taken to shunning her also, much to Kenna’s distress. Pulling her aside part of the way through the day, she hissed at her, “Have some sense lass, I’faith why turn all against you?”

  “They are the ones who are in the wrong,” Said Olith’s daughter at her most heated, this hardly served to appease the older woman.

  “Aye,” Sighed the seamstress a great deal of sorrow in her voice, “Though, it does none any good to make enemies where there previously were none.”

  The exchange changed little between mother and son, as the former clung to her unhappiness with his attachment to the sorcerer. Whom Kenna firmly believed, to have committed the murder of which her son had been accused, with Cormac’s mother likely to have preferred if he were to simply avoid everything to do with Wiglaf. Her frustration was such that she was hardly, to forget in the days to come, the fact that Olith’s daughter had disagreed with her.

  Daegan had no argument to counter her words with at that moment, nor was she alone in her sentiments vis-à-vis the condemnation of Cormac. In this matter, she was to discover that her father had received his share of foul looks, for loudly stating that he was of a mind that the lad was innocent. In this he was countered by Conn, and his kin who felt very evidently relieved to have not linked their fate during the festival in any manner to the lad in question. The sole exception much to Daegan’s displeasure was to be Helga who still sought out the lad as she discovered three days after her disagreement with Kenna.

  In the midst on that day of wandering about, in search of the lad she bore so much affection for on behalf of her father. “Go find Cormac, I shall have need of him and yourself in the forge, Dae,” He had ordered shortly after he had awoken that morn’ to prepare food for the two of them and their guest. This took place shortly after she had dressed for the day, her silken dress safely tucked away in a box her father had gifted her long ago. That day she wore a worn crimson wool dress with a simple grey girdle, and her hair free.

  Trygve informed her at which time she stopped by the quay that Cormac had not been sighted there, whereupon he informed her the moment she grumbled about the tart looks she drew, for asking them after her friend. With a glance to the other fishermen who had yet, to pull out their boats to sea to begin the long hours of fishing, “Nay he has not been by, I might recommend over yonder by his oak, and never mind these fellows, they as we all do miss Inga.”

  His melancholy made her swallow her hot-words, offered up clumsy condolences and fighting back her own tears hurried away to where she was directed. The oak loomed high as always, its leaves orange, red and even yellow in some cases. Such was the eye-catching beauty of the contents of the branches that she could not but halt briefly, to eye them rather more thoroughly than she might otherwise have.

  It was this temporary halt that allowed her the opportunity to listen in upon the discussion that Cormac and Helga were in the midst of, on the other side of the oak. Or to be more exact, the young woman spake and the lad simply listened from where he sat by the side of Ciaran’s tree.

  “-I shan’t believe you could do such a thing to me, all simply because some cracked wizard had called you out for some discussion-“ Said she just before he interrupted with rather more impatience than even Daegan might have otherwise predicted him capable of.

  “Wizard is rather strong language, Helga,” He snapped testily, with all the vigour and heat that all Caleds possessed somewhere deep within their blood and souls.

  All too aware of her lapse with her slur against the wizened sorcerer who was absent, the daughter of the local druid hesitated before she spoke once more. She had many a false-starts, evidently distressed that she had somehow upset the lad on whom she held the same sort of affection. For her own part, Dae was full of joy at this error not because of any hard feelings, but due to her sense of possessiveness towards Cormac.

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  This she felt at the same moment that she debated with herself over what to do, if briefly so. At that moment, she longed to hide and hear more of what was to pass between them.

  And yet, that same sense of self-importance, of herself as the finest woman in all of Thernkirk after Kenna filled the young woman with the view she should not hide. This being the first real moment of arrogance since the death of her friend Inga to overtake her, she was thus wholly unprepared to resist it.

  “Cormac, you still ought to have thought of my feelings over the matter, of your departure with Wiglaf,” Helga persisted never one to lose sight of what it was that she desired.

  Quite what the soft-spoken youth might have otherwise thought was immaterial at that moment, as it was then that his friend strode forth a tune upon her lips, and a gleam in her eyes.

  “This be Cormac’s tale,

  Quiet in birth in that far vale,

  Black shores welcom’d Elves,

  Dark wore the foul ones,

  Slack found they the Lairdly-Isle,

  Hark sayeth they the most vile,

  Years uncount’d pass’d whilst war ruled,

  Corpses untold heap’d wither they annex’d,

  Flowers withered in all fields,

  Amongst both the corps and the reeds,

  Paint’d all scarlet didst they with steel,

  Vale to vale was red seen,

  Wails wert shed by clean and unclean,

  Short ran the plenty until famish’d,

  More cry’d all who bled,

  Vast travel’d was Neithan Oak-manstle,

  Father to he who never didst rankle,”

  The moment she heard Daegan’s voice and the crack of her deer-skin boots strike the earth, raven-haired Helga leapt what must have been no less than a hundred leagues into the air. The thought that she had frightened her sent a thrill, to the scarlet-haired lass’ belly. The feeling tripled, when she saw the annoyed glance that Conn’s daughter threw in her direction. Her gloating words died upon her lips in the next second though, when she saw to her own profound irritation the wearily tense glance from Cormac. A frown climbed up to her full-lips.

  “Daegan Fire-Mane, why did you follow us here?” Demanded the shorter lass, a knowing if angry glitter in her dark eyes. She had, her rival noticed at once, dressed rather more properly than she for the day, by donning a bright blue wool dress of finer quality than her own, and wore a silver girdle, with her hair properly braided into two braids that reached her breasts. “Cormac and I were in the middle of a discussion.”

  “Dae,” Cormac greeted politely with visible relief, if the lasses had put some thought into their dresses, he had hardly considered the matter, as he still wore the same wool-grey tunic and trousers that he had worn yesterday. “Is mother in need of assistance again?”

  “Nay, it is father and Wiglaf who desire your aid,” Replied Daegan with rather more disdain for the other lass than anyone else might otherwise have at that moment.

  A reprimand behind his gaze, Cormac nonetheless clambered up to his feet with a sigh; his displeasure with his oldest friend confused her. Too proud to see why the other lass’ feelings, was of the slightest concern. A part of her at once thought of turning about to march whither to the Salmon’s home, to complain at some length about Cormac’s thoughtlessness into Inga’s ear. Only for her to remember rather bleakly that her friend had passed recently, so that she felt tears mar her green eyes.

  Above them there was a clatter of noise, much to the consternation of the blonde youth, who pressed them to return home before the skies which had slowly darkened above them even more. Just before their departure, he turned to speak to Helga; Cormac stopped eyes upon the forest which pulled Corin’s daughter to a sudden stop herself.

  “Cormac, hurry,” She pressed which pulled him from his staring at the Dyrkwoods and after her.

  Helga departed with a harrumph, displeased by his snubbing of her a second time. Daegan for her own part, felt little to no pleasure the reminder of Inga’s death though it was by her own mind, had removed all joy from her life that day. The two returned to her home in silence, both entrapped by their own respective gloomy thoughts.

  Wiglaf welcomed them there, morbidly so, “Hail to the both of you, hurry lest I leave for Brunstheilm before either of you reach the smithy.”

  At the sight of him, Cormac who had walked a short distance behind Daegan with his head bowed in thought, spoke up suddenly, “Wiglaf, I have something I must speak to you about, before your departure.”

  “I am sure it is important if you deem it so, Cormac however I must be away to report the matter of Inga’s death.” Interrupted Wiglaf rather more distractedly than either of the two new arrivals might have expected, when prompted on the matter, he explained. “It is the manner in which she died that bedevils me therefore as I have failed to divine the slightest truth on the matter, I must consult with other magii.”

  “I shall pray for your safe departure and return, old friend,” Corin bade from where he stood a short distance behind the sorcerer who stood in the doorway to the house.

  “You understand what must be done, on how to care for the sword?” The sorcerer asked worriedly of the blacksmith who gave him a quiet nod.

  Without further ado, though Cormac was very clearly keen to speak with the magii, he allowed the old man to depart from the smith’s home, in the direction of the south. Unmindful of the darkening skies above his head, Wiglaf had it appeared none of the wisdom of other men, who might well have worried about the dark clouds above his head. His hat swayed from side to side as he walked staff well in hand and head bowed with sorrow, until he was out of sight.

  Reluctantly Corin, hurried them into the smithy, where he set them to work cleaning the black hunk of metal that lay upon the table. Daegan halted, her shock could hardly be faulted, for last she saw it, it had been a large chunk of black metal, the size of a man.

  “Father is that-” She began amazed by the sight of the long piece of black-steel, with it now her turn to leap several leagues into the air. “Who is that at the door? Wiglaf?”

  “Likely he forgot some handkerchief or ring of his,” Guessed Corin with a snort, determined to ignore the desperate knock that broke the silence of the smithy. He might well have done so, were it not for the second, third and fourth knocks. “Oh blast it, if it is Salmon or Kenna here again to shriek at me over Inga’s death, they will hear of it themselves.”

  The mention of Inga’s name darkened the mood in the smithy considerably, with neither youth glancing at one another. The wound dealt by her death, was still fresh in their minds and hearts. The greatest shock was yet to come; neither of them could have predicted quite what it was about. Not if they had had a thousand, thousand years of preparation or been told some time before that day what it was that awaited them.

  Corin gasped, only to exclaim in a yelping high-voice that was completely unlike him, with both the children by his side as quick as thunder itself, due to the name he shouted and the haggard man who had fallen panting weakly into his arms. “Murchadh!”

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