The Copse

The Witch's Daughter: Chapter 3. An army marches from Bannow Bay toward Duncormac. A rider returns with news of the nearby village. Hilde meets a goatherd and finds a shoe.

It was late afternoon, and darkening thunderheads gathered in the north, iron-grey shapes in the sky, as if ships hulls of a ghostly fleet floated high above the land. The army marched along a river from its mouth, the watercourse narrowing as the army headed inland. Their pack horses groaned under the weight of pillaged food and ale.

The river drove thr…