"NATTON!"

Leogh had good hunter's eyes; he would have seen something of their coming, some movement before they halted, but they were just there where nothing was but white a moment before.

Again the woman called. "NATTON!"

For all his summoned courage, Leogh began to shake. The elder should never have insulted the Faerie queen with the iron; Leogh said as much that night at the fire. You don't trust Faerie; you don't back down from them, but you don't bait them, either. Iron-magic was strong, but if their next crops were blighted or newborn bairn deformed, one needn't look far for the cause. The Faerie girl had the unsettling look of a weird about her. Did she not stop that fool boy in his tracks when he tried to badger her with his arrow? With a mere look, like an invisible arm holding him back. Leogh remembered that as she pointed at him again. He narrowed his eyes; there was something in her hand.

"NATTON!"

Somewhere in the village, a door opened and then another. Leogh gripped his charm so hard he felt it cutting into his fingers. Three times the Faerie woman called; three times could be the beginning of magic. Nine could be fatal, if so she meant. Leogh hurried down the log steps, pounding across the enclosure toward the

longhouse. She called for Naiton, not himself, and Leogh was very glad of that.

Sitting her pony in the white dusk, Dorelei felt her own power sheathed in the magic of the Jesu-water. Its icy memory yet tingled over her skin beneath her clothes. For a moment at the brook she'd quailed at touching the iron; then her courage took hold and she grasped it, broke its power for all time. Changed now, changed forever, reborn, renamed, for doing that which the first Mabh never dreamed. From her own courage was seeded the courage and hope of Salmon fhain. Each of them challenged the iron and proved stronger. Let Wolf warn of the end; where was there fhain like hers, even Gawse's? Nae, they were a wolf pack now. Let tallfolk step aside when they grazed in good lowland pasture. There would be increase and child-wealth, the tightness would go from Cru's infrequent smile, and Padrec, whose magic did it all—who would think it?— would wear the marks of fhain and a Prydn name beside his own. As he renamed her, so she would return it. Padrec Raven, for truly only a gift from the gods could so defy them.