It took Conlaodh six days to cross the terrain that brought him to within striking distance of the group of trees that were his target; six days during which the bruises and cuts on his body slowly mended and his aches and pains subsided. At the same time, the fear that had clawed at his insides every time he thought about what lay behind him and how he had come to be in these barren lands was gradually replaced by growing apprehension about what lay ahead. He knew nothing about that but could only think that as an outsider he would not be welcome.

On the first evening he had not dared to stop long or allow himself the comfort of building a proper camp and a fire. He wanted to put distance between himself and his past as quickly as possible. He had risked moving out into the open only once, to take himself down to the ocean’s edge for an unsatisfactory attempt to splash the mud, smoke dust and dried blood from his arms and face. Later, he had found a place where the water came close in to the dunes forming a slightly enclosed pool and here he had stripped his clothes from his body placing them in a neat pile together with his bag in a hollow beneath some undergrowth where the vegetation on the dune ridge started. He was not confident in the water but once he had forced himself into the sheltered pool and found that it was never more than chest deep he relaxed and allowed the salty water, warmed by the sun’s heat through the day, to ease his aches and pains. Carefully, he rubbed his body with his hands, helping the loose matter that clung to his skin to detach and float away. In places his movements caused cuts to re-open and the sudden stinging sensation as the salt entered his wounds made him wince and close his body up in discomfort. Finally, placing one hand over his nose and mouth and screwing his eyes shut he bent his legs to plunge his head under the water, holding it there for as long as he dared before bursting up again to gasp for breath. Once out of the pool he used his hands to scrape as much of the water from his body as he could and to smooth his hair away from his face. Then he stood with arms outstretched and allowed the sun’s rays to drive the remaining droplets from his skin, cooling him gently as they departed.

He made his way back to his pack and began to dress. He had a soothing ointment that his mother had made to ease burns and he gently massaged a small amount of this into the tender area on his temple. His ankle was swollen and he knew that he needed to strap it but he had nothing suitable for the job so that would have to wait. He would just have to be extra careful with it. Looking around, he could see that a little further inland the open grassy vegetation of the dune gave way to larger shrubby plants and small trees. That could mean berries and it would certainly offer some shelter so he decided to head that way, but once he arrived he found nothing that offered any sustenance. He was tired. He was hungry, He was disheartened. And he was alone.

There was a clump of small trees on a slight rise and in the midst of these the ground hollowed slightly to form a natural bowl. This would have to be his resting place for the night. It offered him a little shelter, a natural place to lie down and a reasonable view of the land immediately around. He sat with his back to one of the trees looking back towards the dune ridge not far away and the forest from which he had emerged further back. Digging into his pack he pulled out his remaining provisions. He still had a handful of dried fruit and tree nuts and he had one piece, about the size of his palm, of his mother’s seed cake, freshly baked at the start of the day but now squashed, dry and rather battered. He took one of his remaining pieces of dried fruit and counted out six nuts and as he didn’t know when he would next find food he carefully broke the cake apart into three approximately equal pieces and after re-wrapping two he replaced them and the rest of the fruit and nuts back into his pack. One small piece of seed cake, one piece of dried fruit and six nuts – it wasn’t exactly a feast but it would have to do, and anyway it wasn’t so much his lack of food that worried him but his lack of water. He wanted to shove the food straight into his mouth and savour the feeling of energy flowing into his body but he had grown up with little and so he knew how to make the most of things. He laid the food out on the ground to his side and forced himself to take things slowly, picking up each individual morsel, examining its form carefully with his fingers, raising it to his nose to draw in its smell, turning it every way before his eyes and then placing it gently onto his tongue. He allowed the taste to spread through his mouth, chewing slowly to prolong the sensation before swallowing. He managed to turn his scrap of cake into six mouthfuls, alternating these with the fruit and nuts. When everything was gone and he had methodically licked the crumbs and fragments from his fingers he sipped just enough water to rinse around his mouth before tipping his head back and allowing the liquid to disappear inside him.

By now the sun was slipping over the dune horizon and the sky was darkening rapidly. He would allow himself to sleep soon but first he needed to think. If he was where he wanted to be he would be thinking first about locating the best spot for building a shelter close to a source of water and with food accessible, but he wasn’t far enough away from danger yet so he pushed these thoughts out of his mind. In any case, the area immediately around him was not exactly blessed with water or food. Movement was what he needed and for that he needed to fuel himself, so tomorrow he would start to head towards those four distant trees and he would just have to search out food and water as he went. He might need a bit of divine intervention for that, if such a thing existed. He sat looking back towards the forest for a few minutes. The air was still and apart from the muffled sound of the waves lapping against the shore on the far side of the dune it was quiet. The light had gone and he began to see stars appearing, but back towards the forest the star light was struggling to emerge as the smoke from the fire continued to drift in front of them. In other directions the small points of light were like beacons lit to guide night-time travellers and it occurred to Conlaodh that he was a traveller now, a traveller who knew nothing about his destination or the length of his journey. With that thought he patted his pack into as smooth a shape as he could and lay down to let sleep take him.

He woke with a start. It was half-light and a little misty and he could only see dim shapes around him. There was a noise and whatever was making it was close by. His body tensed and slowly he lifted his head and slipped his pack quietly over his shoulder. If he needed to run he would be ready; he had his knife. He listened intently. Whatever was making the noise was behind him and as far as he could tell it just below the hollow, and, he realised with relief, it was not human. Even his brother didn’t make snuffling noises like that. Slowly, he turned himself onto his front and edged forward cautiously before raising his head a few inches to peer over the rim of his sleeping bowl and immediately he found himself looking into another set of eyes. It was a young deer. Their eyes remained locked for a few seconds and then with a sudden kick of its legs the deer had turned and was away. Conlaodh sprang up and was immediately into a sprint, following the animal as it twisted and turned through the bushes. It was fast and he was struggling to keep up but he knew that an animal like that could not survive without water and water was the thing that he needed above anything else at that moment. He was able to keep the deer in view for perhaps five minutes but then he lost sight of it and shortly afterwards he stopped hearing the sound of it running too. He would have to continue the search by following its tracks. That turned out to be easy, for the soft sandy ground clearly showed the deer’s path. Calming himself he began to follow the trail and it was not long before he discovered what he was looking for. As he breasted a slight ridge he found himself looking down on a small lake, well really hardly a lake at all, and at its edge was a group of about ten deer, some lapping at the water with their tongues. In theory the deer could be food but this was not his priority and, anyway, he was not really equipped to bring down and prepare such a large animal so he did not need to approach with caution.

Before dropping down from his vantage point he gave himself time to survey the land and he could see that he had come further away from the forest and somewhat inland from the main dunes. As he looked ahead, beyond the lake, he could see that the terrain continued in much the same form, ocean, dune ridge, scrubby undergrowth and then, in line with his present position, a series of small lakes dotted at fairly regular intervals for as far as he could see. This was perfect, well almost perfect – a possible food source at the oceans edge, a clear path and direction along the dune ridge, cover from the low plants and trees of the scrubland and water from the lakes, all stretching towards that distant clump of four trees. Filled with renewed confidence he trotted down to the lake, scattering the deer as he approached. He made his way further around to the far side of the lake away from where the deer had been gathered and cupping his hands he ladled the cool water into his mouth to quench his thirst. There was, of course, a chance that the water might be foul, but it tasted clean and refreshing and that was just a chance he would have to take. After all, the deer seemed perfectly healthy. He removed his bottle from his pack, filled it to the brim, stowed it safely away before scouting around the lakeside and was overjoyed to find whortleberry bushes. It only took him moments to gather two large handfuls of the sharply-flavoured berries and he deposited these into a square of cloth, tying the corners carefully and looping it onto the outside of his bag.

The next five days passed smoothly and all the while Conlaodh’s body mended. Most of the time he remained on or close to the dune ridge, moving purposefully towards his target using the ridge as his guide. It was tough going on the sandy ground but what he lost in effort he gained in direction. In the hottest part of the day he would drop down from the ridge into the more sheltered scrubland pushing further inland to the small lakes to replenish his supplies of water and berries each evening and towards the middle of each day. Sometimes, when he came inland he would find no lake and although the dense vegetation in this area made progress more difficult he knew that if he pushed a little further on, parallel to the shore, he would always find the next one – they had glistened like a string of pearls stretching away into the distance when he had first seen them after his chance encounter with the deer. At night he had stayed close to the dune. There was good shelter behind it for his camps and he had found shellfish readily abundant in the muddy sediments close to the ocean’s edge. On the third night he allowed himself to light a small fire using the driest sticks he could find to limit the inevitable trace of smoke and he found that if he warmed the shells in the embers they were easier to crack open and the soft flesh inside became less chewy and easier to eat. It was not exactly his favourite food, but there was plenty of it and in the undergrowth near the ridge he found fragrant plants, the leaves of which he gathered to sprinkle onto each morsel.

Initially, he had been worried about his ankle, but he gave it a relaxing soak in the water each day and found that, although sore, it was soon bothering him less. Each night he sat on the ridge watching the sun slip below the horizon and the stars blink to life in the sky and thought about what had happened to him since he had set out with his brother and the men that fateful morning. So much could have gone wrong – the fire or the dogs could have caught him, his ankle, shoulder or head could have been seriously damaged, he could have struggled to find food and water, the water he found could have been foul – but miraculously nothing had.

It was about mid-morning of the seventh day when he realised that the ground around him was changing. He had just refilled his water and stocked up with berries and as he made his way back towards the dune ridge he found himself veering more towards the right and up a broad tree-covered rise that culminated in the bluff he had first seen some days before. The four trees were really clear now and he decided then to cut across straight for them. It was a nervy moment, not because he felt any threat or danger but because reaching those trees had been his singular objective since he had broken from the clutches of the fire chase and once achieved he had no idea what he would do next. He felt an inner temptation to stop or to slow his progress and prolong his journey. Perhaps he should make a camp and rest for a few days. Perhaps he should turn inland and battle his way through the vegetation beyond the lakes. Perhaps he should just lie down for a bit and see what happened. He pressed on.

He arrived at the bluff about an hour before sundown and almost immediately he realised his mistake. Up here he was away from the ocean’s edge and the lakes and that left him without fresh food and a supply of water. The position was relatively exposed, at least in terms of lighting a fire. Smoke from this location would be seen for miles around. He made his way across the bluff. It was a high vantage point considering the lie of the land around. The four trees, pines, stood tall, not on the ocean end of the bluff but perhaps halfway along its extent and the ground around them was clear. He placed his pack down beside the nearest of the four trees and wandered over to stand between two of the others. For the first time he saw the new land below him and it was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Ribbons of water stretched as far as he could see, interspersed by small green islands, if they could be called that. Straining his eyes, Conlaodh peered further, as much as he could, and yes, there were huts. He could see what looked like tracks or pathways, bridges perhaps, linking some of the islands and he could see tiny dots moving around on the larger areas of water. This land was not like his land, a dry, smoke-filled land, blackened by the fires that were set to clear the ground. This was a land of water. He gave a long breath out, almost a sigh, and realised that things were about to get really difficult. But he had survived so far and he was in a good place to decide his next move.

He turned back to retrace his steps towards his pack and realised with horror that it was not there. He had definitely placed it next to that first tree and, in any case, it wasn’t next to the other one either. It couldn’t have been taken by an animal. Apart from the fact that he hadn’t seen one for two days, he hadn’t heard a sound and the trees were only yards apart. Fear spread through his mind and terror consumed his body. Where had his pack gone? Rooted to the spot he moved his eyes side to side scanning for a clue. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And then a crunch; from behind him; not loud, but unmistakably the crunch of a foot on the pine needles scattered beneath the trees. He froze, half expecting a violent explosion of movement and a sudden stab of pain, but nothing came. Instead, words, a strange voice, but words nevertheless and the first he had heard for days…

“You took your time”

He span around and standing before him, right between the two trees where he had been looking out at the watery land beyond just moments before, was a girl with dark skin and jet black hair. She was holding his pack in her hands and she was smiling.

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Next: Chapter 4 – The Meeting
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