Alix was back home.
She walked past shattered walls, fallen gates, broken bows and swords and shields. She stumbled over fallen tribe brothers and sisters and dead Roman invaders. Ruined huts, burned tents with wreckage strewn everywhere. And then she saw it.
The great hall was in flames. Tongues of red, orange and yellow lapped at large timbers, consumed planking and roofing, and seared men alive. And now, she could barely hear the din of battle and the clashing of steel over the shouts of men, screaming of women and the cries of children.
Suddenly, the scene changed and now, she was holding her father in her arms.
"Father? Wake up. Wake up!"
She shook his lifeless body, and his crimson blood came off and stained her hand.
"Father! Father! No!" Alix screamed.
And then she woke with a start, sobbing for breath in the musty, damp hold of the ship.