The Vale's mist hadn't lifted yet.
It clung to the Enchanted Grove in soft, grey ribbons, curling around the bare trunks of the hemlocks and pooling in the hollows where the frost hadn't melted. The sun had been up for more than an hour, but it was only a pale smudge of light somewhere above the treetops, too weak to burn the mist away.
Ollie crouched beside the campfire and fed it another split log of cedar.
The flames crackled and leapt. He swung the iron hanging arm out over the fire and hooked his big porridge pot onto it, already half full of oats and water and a good pinch of salt. Beside it, on a three-legged trivet, a smaller pot of cider was beginning to steam.
Behind him, from the larger of the two pavilions, came a sound like a rockslide.
It rumbled and rolled until it rose to a long, gravelly crescendo that made the canvas walls shiver on their poles, and then it subsided into a wet, contented snuffle before beginning all over again.
