V
Terrae Mortuae
‘The Dying Lands’
They left the final remnants of Rome’s boot print far behind them, their mounts taking them over downs, across heathland, and around bogs and marshes, the land climbing and falling away intermittently. The lands through which they plodded, soaked and alert, grew more and more desolate and hostile.
The rough beauty of the place was not lost on Lucius, but it was hard to imagine this land sunlit and lively from beneath the dripping hem of his cloak’s hood.
As ever, Einion rode in front, with Lucius and Dagon following side by side behind him.
They had long-ago exceeded the reach of Rome’s roads, and so they now followed ancient trackways that seemed as old as the Gods themselves. At night they camped in the open, or beneath titanic, weathered rock for
