Chapter 17: Renewed Resolve

The fire, spewing a flurry of golden embers as it consumed another mossy log that had been thrust into its seductive flames. There was a popping and hissing that burst forth that accompanied the conversation of the people who had been drawn to surround its heat. Their faces illuminated by the flames that sprung up from the pit, they cast grim shadows upon the wearied complexions of the strangers as they spoke.

Their tales full of the tragedy and anguish, which had led them to inhabit this remote part of the woods, Tilla listened stoically from where she sat. Sequestered to the less occupied perimeter of the communal fire, where only a vague fragment of its light could reach her. Stories of the atrocities the Red Witch and her soldiers had committed, were carried towards her on an amicable breeze. Whilst some unpleasant memories of the bloodshed and wreckage they had witnessed were recounted tearfully; there were others who expressed a hot anger towards the world’s injustice and the vi