Merlin ran, his breath coming in harsh gasps as he took step after aching step. The forests were dark, the smoke wafting between the trees and darkening the already pitch black shadows. Behind him the screams still pierced the night and the sticky, cloying smell of burning flesh made him retch again and again as the cottages burnt fiercely, painting the darkness with a dancing orange glow in the distance, and a thick plume of smoke curling its way into the sky. He was bleeding heavily from a deep cut in his back, and his bare arms were getting scratched and torn on the brittle, sharp and bone like twigs of naked low branches and in his terror he imagined them reaching out to grab him in their cold clutches. Every footstep screamed at him in agony, but he dared not stop lest he couldn't get up again and then those terrible men with their blaring horns and horrible heavy axes, and razor sharp sword blades would come, and he knew they would take him without a thought.

Dawn arose in the east, the heavy darkness of the night slowly surrendering to the peach skies of the morning sun and lying on the narrow track that cut between the thick forests, just outside a town named Dyfed, lay Merlin. Exhaustion overcame him, and death was close. Crows called and settled in the surrounding trees, knowing an easy meal wasn't far off. Merlin had bled profusely, and lay curled up and filthy as passing horses had kicked dirt onto him, the riders dismissing him as already dead and helpless, and the soot and smoke from his burning village had settled on his face and hands.

Merlin woke slowly, his vision shifting in and out of focus as consciousness gradually returned to him. He was in an unfamiliar hut, with a small fire flickering in the corner and smoke drifting in a haze as it struggled to find a smoke hole to leave through. Dried herbs and various animal bones and skulls hung in bunches from the roof beams along with bunches of horsehair, a woollen cloak, a bow and quiver of arrows and an oil burning lamp. A shield displaying an image of a griffin-a half eagle half lion beast-was leant against the wattle and daub wall in the corner, along with a white-shafted spear wrapped with green leaves-usually carried by warriors travelling in peace. In another corner was a basket filled with what appeared to be an assortment of stones and iron amulets, and next to that the large bones of a bear-too heavy to hang from the rafters. He realised he lay under its pelt, and was bound at the wrists by an old leather strap. For a horrible moment he thought the Saxons had captured him and let out a low moan.

"Hey, you made it!" A low voice sounded and a face entered his vision. It was a face of a Saxon and Merlin moaned again. "Hush, its okay." she spoke again, in perfect British and Merlin just looked at her, confused.

"Where am I?" he managed to croak tiredly.

"Dyfed" the girl smiled. "I'm guessing you're from Aealdor?"

Merlin nodded. "I ran this far?"

Tyrell nodded. "Mmm-hmm. I'm sorry about that."

"They burnt it all." Merlin moaned. "They killed…they killed my mother. They killed my friends…" Tears welled in his eyes as he remembered the events. "They came and they were so fast and so terrible and so many of them. They didn't stand a chance!" he began to sob, and winced as his chest heaved, the tired muscles protesting painfully.

"Hush now, it's alright, you're safe here." Tyrell wiped at Merlin's still dirty face and eased him into a sitting position. She removed the leather strap from around his hands. "I put this here to stop you from lashing out" she explained. "People often do when coming out of poppy juice induced sleep." She stowed it away by securing it around a low beam.

"Who…who are you?"

"My name's Tyrell. You're tired, sleep some more." She smiled and got to her feet. "I'll be here when you wake up; you'll be safe"

Merlin closed his eyes and fell into a light sleep haunted by the screams and cries of his friends and family as his home, his life and everything he had ever known was destroyed and turned to nothing but a pile of ash and bones by the Saxons. Flames leapt behind his closed lids and the smell of the smoke and burning flesh wisped into his memory. He relived the moment they had come, how he had been woken from his sleep by the first of the screams and how his mother had screamed too as the door collapsed, and she begged with them in their tongue to leave them be, but they just laughed and kicked the burning logs in the fire so that they skittered across the floor and the fire grew to consume the cottage. Hunith screamed as the flames surrounded her and she looked at Merlin with eyes so bright and so full of fear it sent an ice cold shudder through him. Run, Merlin, run! Run, run run run! The last thing she had said to him resounded in his ears, haunting him and echoing over and over again until he screamed himself awake shivering and in a cold sweat despite the thick bear pelt he lay under. For a terrifying moment the flames still danced in his vision and he stumbled to his feet in the unfamiliar hut, desperate to escape. He had to run, he had to go.

"Merlin?" Tyrell's voice cut through his blind panic, and her felt her cool hands guide him back onto the low straw filled pallet he had been sleeping on.

"I'm sorry" he mumbled. "The dream…I…it was so real…the flames, I could see them…and my mother…" his voice trailed off. "I saw my mother, before they took her. Before she died…"

"Hush, it's okay, I understand" Tyrell moved away and squatted over the fire for a few minutes, and returned carrying a wooden bowl with a meaty smelling broth in it that she handed to him. "You need to drink this. It's been two days, you'll get ill if you don't eat."

"You don't understand" Merlin looked at the broth and sighed. "You don't understand! They took my mother! They killed her! They killed my friends and their families, they killed the livestock and took the harvest, they took the children and burnt them. They burnt everything, they took everything! You don't understand! You're a Saxon!"

Tyrell Looked at Merlin with so much pain in her deep set, brilliant blue eyes and sighed. "I do understand, Merlin. I was taken from my family as a slave when I was six years old. The men used me as their plaything, their pleasurer. The villagers here hate me because of the Saxon blood in my veins, and the Saxon words that lie dormant on my tongue. I'm only protected here because they fear for me" she gestured to the bones, herbs, stones and old weapons that littered her small hut. They come to me with their ailments because I learned how to fix broken things and broken people." She smiled weakly "and because they think I'm magic, but they daren't say lest I turn them into newts."

Merlin looked down, regretting the words that had flown from his mouth in his grief stricken anger. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, we all say things we regret when we're angry. And that's okay too, getting angry, because it shows you care."

Merlin looked at her and took in her features. She had a wide, friendly face with deep set bright blue eyes and long gold-blonde hair that cascaded down to her mid back. Her forehead was obscured by a straight fringe that accentuated her eyes and together they betrayed her Saxon bloodline. Her mouth was always hitched up at the corners in an inviting smile. "Was I asleep for two days?" he eventually asked and took a sip of the now lukewarm broth.

Tyrell nodded. "I didn't think you were going to live" she admitted. "I saw you by the road and thought you were already gone, but I lifted you and you were only just breathing, and I saved you."

Merlin stared at her. "I wish you hadn't" he sighed. "I don't deserve to survive."

Tyrell looked at him. "Don't say that. You survived for a reason, Merlin. You must have a great destiny upon your shoulders."

Merlin sighed and lay back down on the soft pallet, thinking about what the Saxon had just said. If he had a destiny, then it meant The Gods had something planned for him, and they had chosen him for something, but what?