Chapter Ten
The mist hung low over the forest floor in the morning as Morag’s son Mochta went about his care for the horses. At once he knew something was wrong. The animals usually huddled to the paddock rails as soon as they heard him coming, eager for their feed, but this morning there was no movement. He looked to the paddock and saw the reason — the gate was open and there were no horses in there at all. Mochta ran to the gate and inspected the wood and saw it had been cracked and bent from the inside.
He looked around cursing them, knowing one of them had been rough in the night and let them all out. Thankfully, he saw them only barley fifty paces away, chewing on the long birch grass by the forest edge — they had used one of the new bridges to get there. How clever of them. Where
