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and John Rowlands, and the sick certainty thatsomething evil had taken control of everything that was happening now on Clwyd Farm. It was a recognition, like the sudden sensing of an overwhelming sound or smell.
    He came panting up to them, as Bran said, “. . . heard Pen bark, and thought he might have come this way, so we came running.”
    â€œAnd you saw nothing at all?” Owen Davies said. His face was tight with some deep concern. Looking at it, Will felt foreboding clutch at the pit of his stomach.
    John Rowlands said, his deep voice strained, “And you, Will? Did you see anyone, anything, on the path just now?”
    Will stared. “No. Only Cafall, before, and now we’ve lost him.”
    â€œNo creature came past you?”
    â€œNothing at all. Why? What’s wrong?”
    Owen Davies said, bleakly, “In the big pasture up the way, there are four dead sheep with their throats torn out, and there is no gate open or any sign of what can have attacked them.”
    Will looked in horror at John Rowlands. “Is it the same—?”
    â€œWho can tell?” said the shepherd bitterly. Like Davies, he seemed caught between distress and rage. “But it is not dogs, I do not see how it could be dogs. It looks more like the work of foxes, though how that can be, I do not know.”
    â€œThe milgwn, from the hills,” said Bran.
    â€œNonsense,” his father said.
    â€œThe what?” said Will.
    â€œThe milgwn,” Bran said. His eyes were still darting round in search of Cafall, and he spoke automatically. “Grey foxes. Some of the farmers say there are big grey foxes that live up in the mountains, bigger and faster than our red foxes down here.”
    Owen Davies said, “That is nonsense. There are no such things. I have told you before, I will not have you listening to those rubbishy old tales.”
    His tone was sharp. Bran shrugged.
    But across the front of Will’s mind there came suddenly a brilliant image, clear as a film thrown on a screen: he saw three great foxes trotting in line, enormous grey-white animals with thick coats growing to the broadness of a ruff round their necks, and full brushlike tails. They moved across a hillside, among rocks, and for an instant one of them turned its head and looked full at him, with bright unwinking eyes. For that instant he could see them as clearly as he could see Bran. Then the image was gone, they were vanished, and he was standing again in the sunshine, mute, dazed, knowing that in one of the brief communications that can come—very rarely, only very rarely—unguarded from one Old One to another, his masters had sent him a warning picture of the creatures of the Grey King, agents of the Dark.
    He said abruptly, “They aren’t tales. Bran is right.”
    Bran stared at him, shaken by the crisp certainty in his voice. But Owen Davies looked across in chilly reproof, the corners of his thin mouth turned down. “Don’t be foolish, boy,” he said coldly. “What can you know of our foxes?”
    Will never knew what he could have said in answer, for breaking into the tense stillness of the sunlit afternoon came a shout from John Rowlands, urgent, loud.
    â€œTân! Look over there! There is fire on the mountain! Fire!”

Fire on the Mountain
    T here was not much smoke, for so much fire. In a line along the lower slope of the mountain, which they could only just see above the hedge from where they stood, flames were blazing in the bracken. It was like a long wound, a gash in the peaceful brown slope, quivering with deadly, ominous life. Yet there was little colour in it, and they were too far away to hear any sound. For a moment Will was conscious only of wonder that John Rowlands should have caught sight of it at all.
    Then they were deep in instructions, and the urgency of Rowlands’s soft voice. “Off to the farm, both of you, quick. Call the fire from