"There are more things in heaven and eath, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophies."
--Shakespeare Hamlet
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Dawn came swiftly, as it does in the spring, washing the bleak, awakening world in golden fire. Blue skies gave way to yellow. Dull colors leapt into the air, becoming bright and vibrant once again.
With the dawn, came a flurry of activity about the castle.
Breakfast was a hurried affair, eaten in an excited mood. Creatures chatted cheerily about the prospects of the upcoming adventure. Ah, adventure! How long had it been since any of them had tasted a good adventure? Sure and it was far too long.
Packs that had been laid out the previous night were hefted and slung on the backs of their owners (or in some cases, the owner's apprentice), weapons strapped on, cloaks fastened, and cheers of joy sent up into the sweet, warm air.
At the head of it all, as the mighty procession prepared to head out, was a somewhat worried, and more than a little perplexed Erin Ruadh. It seemed that there were even more creatures here than she had counted last night, and yet no one seemed to be worried about the safety of the castle while all the warriors were away. She still saw guards at the gates, looking terribly dissappointed, no doubt, but surely the absence of this huge retinue must have made some dent in the castle's defenses?
The main door was opened, and Erin, with a ceremonious flick of her tail, led the party outside.
All the way along the path from the castle to the outer wall-gate, creatures were standing and cheering. Erin recognized many of them as castle workers. But goodness, what a big deal they were making of this thing!
The gates were flung open (Erin noticed that the gatehouses were still adequately attended), and the whole band marched out into the city.
After awhile, Erin began to tire of watching the surprised and curious faces of the citizens as the warriors went by. She glanced over her shoulder at Apollo, Evvey, Reshat, and Tikkcik who were directly behind her. She couldn't wait until they were out of the city and she could fall back among her friends. Being a leader made her nervous.
Suddenly, as soon as she realized that she was nervous, Erin found herself assailed by a thousand little doubts which flitted about inside her head like shadowy bats made of pure thought.
First of all, there was this uncannily warm weather. What time of year was it? Her temporary madness had messed up her senses more than she had at first thought. When Bratis died, it had been the beginning of spring. Now it felt like early summer. Had she wandered that long? And there was another thing: since she didn't remember exactly how she got here, other than that she assumed she had come from the west, she couldn't be sure how far away and in which direction home (could you really call it home? Home is where your family is, and Erin had no family) lay. And if she had indeed wandered for a very long time, there was a distinct possibility that the threat, whatever it was, was nowhere near where it had been when she had not quite seen it.
And there again, how fast could it travel? The thing had come upon the village fairly quickly, what if it was too fast for them to catch up with? That left Erin wondering about the nature of the thing itself.
She had never gotten a real glimpse of it, besides sensations in the air and such, so that left much to her imagination. Was this thing some kind of natural phenomena? A freak storm perhaps? In that case, they were chasing the wind, literally. A storm dissipates, eventually. But no. Bratis' wounds had been made by weapons. It was obvious that he'd been fighting.
Perhaps, then, it was some kind of monster? A dragon, or a griffin, or something like that. Maybe. But to Erin it didn't seem at all likely. She had never seen any such creatures, nor knew of anyone who had. If large creatures capable of that much destruction existed, they would be extremely rare. And surely other reports of such a creature would have come. And that theory certainly didn't explain the premonitory feeling that came before the attack.
Maybe it was a great army of creatures, a great war machine. Perhaps magic had been used to create that eerie feeling beforehand... Or maybe...
Or maybe it was a malevolent spirit wreaking havoc. Erin shivered a little at the thought. Some creatures might have scoffed at the idea, but to Erin it was a very real possiblity. All her life she had known that spirits existed, perhaps not in a recognizable form, but any child of the woods knew that such things were real. You can't grow up in the forest and not believe in spirits. But then again, Erin wasn't sure that spirits were capable of physical damage to this extent.
Well, if it was none of those things, what was it? What could be more sinister than the things she had thought of? Perhaps a combination of those things? For once Erin's thoughts had led her to a blank wall. But it wasn't merely that she had run out of things to think about, it was some kind of mental roadblock, which was signaling madly for her to change her direction of thought. Some things are too terrible to think about. And Erin's already beleaguered mind didn't need to think about terrible things right now. Besides, they were almost out of the city, here were the last few houses. And a few minutes later they were in open country. Nothing but the sky above them, the road before the, and the fields around them. With a sigh of relief Erin dropped back into the midst of her friends. Leading was not an easy job for a vixen with a troubled mind.