Even the woods are burning. I plunge past the torched cow barn and hard into the shoulder-deep growth of brambles between the trees, but there's fire ahead of me as well as behind. The hall on the hill's top where I thought I'd find shelter is already blazing. I can hear men's voices baying like hounds on a scent, the hooves of horses on the winter earth like drums. (p. 3)

I found my clothes and crawled into them and felt no warmer. I lay down on the damp stone behind the waterfall and hugged myself and shuddered, and my teeth rattled, rattled, rattled. (p. 33)

Here's a story Myrddin told that year, while we sat around the hall fires, me and Bedwyr reunited, and the other boys and men of Arthur's band. He'd been talking to the Irishman's kin, and he'd got from them a tale their grandfathers had...