When she awoke in the haunted ring of trees by the ashes of a great fire, she was alone. The air felt somehow empty, as if the spirits themselves had left; and their absence left a void which drained away reality itself, leaving everything feeling as but a dream. Had Ysbrydnos itself been a spirit-vision, something from the other world that the derudh sometimes spoke of? It surely felt that way; the people she had met might not even be living people, just shapes the spirits took to speak with.
Merely physical things answered Cerrynt's uncertainty. Her nose, still swollen; her body, still bruised. Neatly fileted boar, smoked and roasted. The ashes themselves, remnants of the bonfire. The rich metallic smell of cow-blood rising from a dark spot in the soil. But of the others she'd met, there was no sign. Nor did she know where they might have gone. She knew the name of but one of them, and that one was not even of Dunland. She knew what tribe a few came from, Eryr-lûth, but not where their homes were. She had not even told them her own name.
Where to go next? She had never thought beyond finding the blessing of the spirits at Ysbrydnos, then using the newfound strength and cunning to go back to her clan and put Trindân in his place. She felt no stronger, and no wiser. Well, perhaps a little wiser, but enough to defeat him? Surely not. She had thought the spirits had guided her to people who would help her become stronger and wiser, but now, she had no way to find them.
For a day, she meandered indecisively back in the direction of Trum Dreng but soon realized she could not return to her tribe yet. Instead, she spent a night at the top of the watchtower hill with the biggest fire she could make on her own, chanting what little she had heard the derudh chanting, hoping for another vision. She chanted until she was hoarse, and chanted more, and was still chanting as sleep took her.
And was no wiser when she woke up. People as far as Lhan Tarren and Galtrev probably heard her frustrated cries. When she'd made herself hoarse again, she took her oilcloth bag and made for the Gap of Rohan. After all, the one thing she knew is she had sworn a pledge to steal a horse from the forgoil and bring it to some banner in a place called Fréasburg she'd never heard of. It might seem impossible; she'd never handled a horse, for one thing. But what else could she do but try?
And thus did the spirits finally put her feet on the right path, for, nearly a week later, her supplies of smoked boar running low and her body weary from the stones of Gravenwood's paths, she came to a small settlement called Tros Hynt, and before she even found whom within to beseech for a place to sleep in safety, who did she see smoking meat but the woman she'd met at Ysbrydnos who'd showed her better ways to filet boar. She'd stumbled, literally, into the home of the Eryr-lûth, right near the Gap.
Soon she'd gotten to trade names with that woman, called Danhadlen, and with two of the men she'd met at the Hall of Sanctuary, the priest Canwr and the sharp-tongued Gruffydd who turned out to be son of the brenin (and Danhadlen's brother). They even offered her that she could stay amongst them, as long as she could do her share of the clan's work -- she started with skinning and cooking some rabbits brought by another she met only as Stag (presumably one of the Caru-lûth, her own tribe's closest allies, though she herself had met few of them).
The discussion around the cook-fire went into the night, speaking of finding husbands for the women, and of the Trev Gallorg, a people of a distant northern land far beyond anything she knew of, and of what it would take to steal horses (she was much relieved to learn they intended to do this as a group, though she wondered what her role might be, as the intent was not to spill blood, and she knew not horses; perhaps a scout?), and of what work there was in Tros Hynt to ready for the winter as well as the raid. People came and went from the fire and the talk, and weariness waxed and waned, and when she finally dropped into a deep sleep in a niche tucked away in Danhadlen's roundhouse (as spacious a niche as she'd ever had in her father's, if not more so), her fog-filled thoughts were of thanks to the spirits. Oft she had not been able to see her path before her, but even at those times, the spirits had been guiding her every step. Surely, that path must lead to victory, for victory is what would be best for her clan.
