Dreaming the Hound by Manda Scott

and would not have left them now without good cause. Cygfa said, ‘Is it the legions?’
    ‘Who else? The Coritani scouts lost your trail yesterday and they never had Breaca’s, but Rome has a tracker of the Ordovices and she is of a different stamp.’
    Cygfa was of the Ordovices. Her mother had ruled them before she, too, was taken prisoner by Rome. White-eyed, she said, ‘No warrior of the Ordovices would take coin from Rome. No gold could buy them.’
    ‘No. They know that. They have not offered gold, but have taken her children captive and threaten to kill one at each old moon if she does not find the Boudica for them. Already one is dead. Two are living. She would not see them hanged.’
    Always the children. One could ask of the gods why they allow such things to happen, but to do so would lose time and would bring no more answers than had already been given. Breaca said, ‘Have you spoken to her?’
    ‘No. I listened at their camp at dawn this morning. She spoke over-loudly to the Coritani scouts. I believe she knew I was there.’
    Ardacos said, ‘How much of Rome does she bring?’
    ‘Four centuries of the Twentieth plus eighteen Coritani hunters and’ - he bowed to Cygfa - ‘one warrior of the Ordovices who is worth twenty of them.’
    ‘How far—’ Breaca began and then, on a wash of bile and a flood of battle-scald, ‘They’re here.’

A low wind soughed softly down a valley, except that there were no valleys here and the legions had never understood that a guise which worked well in one part of the land would not necessarily do so in another. That sound, heard in woodland, was only ever the horn call of one Roman century to another.
    There was such solace in battle. Almost, in that frozen moment, Airmid was forgotten. Breaca reached for her war hound and found Stone ready at her side. The hair stood erect on his spine and his body trembled with the need to fight. Her blade lay on the ground where Ardacos had left it. She reached for it and found that Airmid had already lifted it, and was holding it forward, hilt first.
    Airmid said, ‘They have come for you, only you, with three centuries of men. If you wish to die cleanly, this may be the night. If you wish your children to live, you will not fight, but will guide them to safety. You cannot do both.’
    Breaca shook her head. ‘I can’t take you west. They will be guarding all the routes to Mona.’
    ‘Of course. So you must take us east, at least for now.’ Airmid smiled wryly. ‘I did not ask for this, or make it happen, I swear it.’
    ‘I know. I will not lose you like this.’ All her life, Breaca had trained to think clearly in the crisis of war when others could not. It was her gift, and she cherished it, even now, when the certainties of the ancestor’s clarity were crumbling and could not be made whole. To Dubornos, she said, ‘Your horses, are they far?’
    ‘We can reach them in time.’
    ‘Good. I have the messenger’s mount. It will make a diversion. And if we put my cloak on it, which is marked with the serpent spear, perhaps the woman of the Ordovices can prove that she led them to the Boudica. Ardacos?’
    The small warrior was already running. ‘I’ll take it, and Graine’s pony. Give my horse to Graine. He’s better than hers.’
    He would have gone alone, and if he had died they would not have known how or when. Breaca said, ‘Cygfa. Go with him. Fight as do the she-bear.’
    The she-bear abjured the honour of warriors, attacking from behind if needful - and they would kill those of their own who were too injured to run rather than let them be captured living by the legions. It was better that way.
    Cygfa, too, was already moving. She grinned, fleetingly. ‘Thank you. I will see him live through to morning. You do the same for the others.’
    Cygfa was gone and those left were gathering up their mounts; three adults, a child and Cunomar, who was neither and who
    wanted more than anything to fight as the