“Manannan MacLir,” he murmured.

And then his teeth clamped, hard, for the ship was dashed against the offshore rocks of another isle and wind-rammed up an unknown beach, and Wolfsail had her death therefrom, in a terrible scraping and tearing and splintering of wood.

Strong men flew like dolls clad in glittering steel onto that nameless shore, and were still.

The wind relented and returned to whatever dark lair housed it between the times it drove howling forth to express contempt and hatred for the sons of men.

Like new gold a summer sun burst its cloud-bonds. Sand sparkled on the strand of an unknown island well off the southwestern coast of abandoned Britain. Wind-driven water vanished in vapourous shimmers and the sand paled as it dried. The airy shimmer hovered, too, above the forms of nine prostrate men. Prone or supine or pitifully curled, they lay strewn along the shore where they’d been flung.

The scales and links of battle-scarred armour dried, and heated in the sun. Prostrate men sent back a steely scintillance.

Nine men, lying still.

All were flaxen or red of hair, save the one whose dark mane tumbled from beneath his scarred helmet. All wore armour of good scale mail, save only that one, whose chainmail was forged and linked in the way of Eirrin and Alba to the northeast. All were believers in and followers of One-eyed Odin and his hammer-wielding son Thor or Thunor-save only that one, whose superstitions lay with those of the Druids: The Sidhe of green-cloaked Eirrin, and Agron and Scathach, Grannus and Morrigu the Battle Crow and cu Roi mac Dairi, and Behl of the sun for whom burned the Behl-fires… and great Crom, god of an Eirrin older even that Behl’s power.

All, too, were of the cold land of the Danes, save only that one, and he of Eirrin-and an exile.

It was he who first awoke.