They talked for a while, bit not about anything in particular. What to cook for dinner from their meagre supplies. Whether the path they were on might traverse the mountains, or whether it might end abruptly, and what to do in either case.
As the darkness flowed down over the mountains, and crept across the landscape, a dozen harsh tiny splodges of red light appeared, marking out the scatterings of cookfires and war-camps. But then, the boy saw something else, something quite different. He pointed and said, “Look. There.”
It was in amongst a circlet of steep hills and woods. The angle just happened to be exactly right, or else they’d have never seen it. A handful of beautiful lights, like orange gemstones afire in the darkness. “It looks like a little village. Maybe Fleat was right, and there are still same fane-folk living secretly in the wilderness?”
Caewen smiled. She eased back on her elbows and said, “I don’t know. But It would be nice to think that some of them survived the wars. It would be nice to think that there is still some life and quiet hope in amongst the ruins.”