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forever. Below her, dark and forested mountains wheeled slowly away, cut by canyons and chasms, threaded by racing rivers and falls, punctuated by jutting peaks and crests and pinnacles of stone.
    She turned toward the rising sun. Instinctively, she tried to draw her gaze away from that shimmering white light, but could not. Then she found she could look into the sun—into its very burning heart—and be neither dazzled nor blinded.
    The mountains fell away beneath her, descending into foothills cloaked in oak and ash and elm. She swooped down, following the plunge of the land. Ahead, a rugged, wild countryside stretched away in heaths and moorlands into a distant landscape ofcliffs and bluffs and hazy blue distances.
    She knew what she was seeing. She was flying over her homeland—over the long, narrow cantref of Cyffin Tir. There, in the east where the horizon blurred, lay the Saxon stronghold of Chester—no more than a dark smudge on the very edge of sight.
    Herewulf Ironfist was camped there with his army—a Saxon serpent preparing to uncoil and fall upon the ancient kingdom of Powys, its iron fangs filled with venom.
    The ground rushed up. Smoke was rising, thin and pale in the morning light. A tumulus thrust up out of the flat grasslands—a lone hump of hill with a blackened crown burning on its brow.
    Centuries upon centuries ago—so long ago that Branwen could not hold the span of years in her mind—ancient peoples had labored to build that lonely mound. The ground occasionally offered up curious treasures: flints cut into arrowheads, delicate as dragonfly wings, sharp as thorns. Rounded stones etched with strange markings. Beads of green or blue or yellow. Puzzling glimpses of a people who had lived once on this land, who had built the hill that later became the fortified village of Garth Milain.
    But the lofty citadel was no more. Its tall fence of wooden stakes was burned and broken, its huts and houses were destroyed—even the Great Hall with its high walls of seasoned timber and its long, thatched roof was now no more than a smoldering,broken-backed hulk.
    People were coming and going along the steep ramp that led to the hilltop, salvaging what goods they could from the ruin, bringing down the bodies of the dead. And even from such a height, Branwen could see her mother striding through the mayhem of the battle’s aftermath—striving to bring order to the chaos, marshaling her warriors, and organizing the burial of the dead. It was clear that she was preparing what defenses she could against further attack.
    Tears fell from Branwen’s eyes, spinning and shining like jewels in the treacherous sunlight.
    But she was not allowed to linger over her heartbreak. She flew onward into the east, passing beyond the bounds of her homeland, winging into the dark land of Mercia where the Saxons held sway.
    And here she saw wonders…and horrors.
    The town of Chester sprawled beneath her, teeming with people, far more people than lived in Garth Milain, more even than dwelt in the great hill-fort of Doeth Palas, largest of the fortified villages in the kingdom of Powys. The people swarmed like ants among the houses, forging iron for swords and axes, training horses for battle, baking bread to fill the bellies of their savage warriors.
    There, like a black stain on the land, she saw the great encampment of Horsa Herewulf Ironfist, the bane of Brython, the hammer of the east.
    She dreaded seeing Saxon warriors pouringwestward from the palisaded camp—new forces sent to annihilate what was left of the army of Cyffin Tir. But the way west was clear of movement. Branwen gave a gasp of relief—Ironfist was not sending a second force to crush her homeland. Instead, a long line of soldiers and horsemen were wending their way northwest, their spearheads and axes and helmets glinting cold in the morning light.
    You see? A low, husky voice whispered close to her ear. The