The big surprise of day two was hitting a village. Nice and early, while the sun was only halfway to its zenith, we wandered straight into Yuban in time for a late breakfast.

This, I found incredibly jarring.

“All my life, I had no idea we have neighbours,” I said, shaking my head to signal my disbelief.

“Did you think Braxus was the only village in Tythia?” Alicia grinned as she unburdened Hinny to give her little back a rest.

“Well, no. I knew there was life out there somewhere.” I watched the residents of Yuban — already dubbed ‘Braxus, Version Two’ in my mind — mill about as aimlessly as they did back home. “I just didn’t expect it to be a day’s slow plod away.”

These people could have been my friends. I could have been making this journey all my life; it really wasn’t a tough one. Maybe Carrie, Tabatha and I could have wandered over, taken a picnic, and then stayed with a pal in one of their farmsteads. Maybe I could have been dancing and singing with locals. Maybe I could have had a choice of more than eight guys!

Maybe there was evem another Mel here, with her own joys and quips, hopes and insecurities. Why shouldn’t there be? Watching these newfound neighbours of mine I saw a Gretz, a Josef, a Dane, an Elzbeth, even a Gracie McGail. It wasn’t hard to believe that there was a Mel. What if she was a druid too? Maybe I needn’t have been alone all this time.

“People might start to take offence if you keep staring at them like they’re stew without a dumpling,” Alicia said, nudging me with an elbow.

“It just feels like I’ve been missing out, that’s all. I can’t believe I didn’t think to leave Braxus before.” I couldn’t help but wonder at how alien, yet familiar this little mirror of my dinky village was. “I never realised my world was so small.

Of course, I would later discover that Yuban — with its identical wattle and daub houses, and it’s three mud-brick buildings compared to our two — was a pretty poor benchmark for measuring how vast and varied the world is outside of Braxus, but it was a big deal at the time.

Despite my infatuation, we didn’t dwell in Yuban for long. After a bite of hard bread and harder cheese, washed down with a slightly paler ale than our own and accompanied by preserves that could have been plucked straight out of my mum’s pantry, we hit the road again.

Leaving Yuban felt more like leaving Braxus than leaving Braxus had. This was the first time I got the impression that I had come from somewhere, and that I was going somewhere. What’s more, there was going to be a whole lot of change along the way. It was exciting, in many ways, and I even felt a little proud of myself — which is new for me. Still, I won’t pretend that I didn’t feel a pang of regret when I set down that last bit of almost indelibly dry crust.

Naturally, Yuban wasn’t the only village we passed. It turns out that arable countries are littered with small villages and hamlets, tucked between hills like the seams of that great big quilt I kept picturing draped over the landscape. The houses, farms and, even the smithies, were stitched into the landscape so expertly that sometimes I would realise I had been staring at a whole community in the distance without ever having thought it peculiar amongst the trees and fields. I wondered how the Anvil must feel about all that. Yes, we had tamed nature in many ways: crops grew at our behest, animals were herded and reared at our bidding. When the whole world looks like a perpetual green stain, though, it’s hard to believe we are doing enough to beat back the Glade.

There were two more days like the previous, with little to separate them from one another.

By now my ankles were starting to ache in a way that no amount of rest or massage would sooth. The soles of my feet had seen blisters come and go, including one massive one which drenched my sock when it popped — I have never felt less like an eligible bachelorette. Most irritating was a ropey knot down the left side of my back that just wouldn’t quit. Backache wasn’t a new experience for me, but damn this one was stubborn. I spent a ludicrous amount of time each morning trying to balance my packs, yet I still walked like a hunchback.

As tiresome as walking without end can be, the nights were where I really started to feel the toll. Camping outside was fine, but it was only fine. I never really felt like I was rested and recovered before starting the next day’s big march. My bed back home is not exactly soft, but believe me when I tell you that bare ground really is hard. I deeply regretted smacking Larry with my nice feather pillow as well. Its replacement felt like it had been stuffed with porcupine quills, and only a dozen or so at that.

Perhaps most irritating was the cold. The days were pleasant and warm — nice at the bookends of the day but a bit too toasty when you’ve been walking for hours on end. The nights still had a touch of winter bite to them, though. We weren’t without blankets, and we did set a fire — which Mirra assured us was safe, and I chose not to question, given my vested interest — but it never warmed you through. Frequently I would lie facing the fire, scrunching my cheeks and forehead to endure the heat, and wonder how it could be a totally different season at my back. Flip over and the cold tongue of the night air would quickly lick any warmth off you, then you’d be back at square one. It was miserable.

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It all started to add up, and I could feel myself getting snippy and unpleasant. I kept my own counsel from then on. There was no need to burden Alicia and Mirra with my grouchiness.

Sometime after midnight on the third night, I had a dream.

I was naked, running through the woods.

I was surrounded on all sides. A cloud of yellow pollen. Deep and dense like fog.

A presence behind me, pushing me on. Urging me deeper into the miasma.

Little motes in the cloud. Billions of motes.

Everywhere that damn cloud.

Being pushed away. Chased out.

Or drawn in?

There was something in there.

Something everywhere.

Whatever it was, it meant me harm.

I was being hunted. I had to run.

My legs had no feeling. They carried me, but they weren’t mine.

These legs were chicken legs. They were cooked drumsticks, dripping in gravy.

I ran.

I had to get away from my chicken legs. I can’t run on chicken legs. Don’t they know I need human legs?

Pollen in the air.

Terrible for hay fever. I hate sneezing.

Through the thornbushes is a way out. Through the thorns I go.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

The thorns are tearing at my face.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

My arms are too tired to shield me.

It hurts.

It really, really hurts.

It’s a dream. Dreams shouldn’t hurt.

“For Hattiiiie!”

I woke up with trickles of blood burning my face. I must have instinctively swatted the crazed rooster, which was probably why I still had a nose.

There he was, in the feathered flesh, standing proud at the foot of my bedroll: Clive the Mad. “I told you to sleep with one eye open, murderer.”

Not many people have been mauled by their dinner’s lovers — I hope. Let me tell you, it is a harrowing affair. There’s nothing funny about squatting face-to-face with two foot of enraged rooster. Its beak hungry for your vulnerable eyes. Its talons painted with your blood and feathered with your lashes. I’m not afraid to say, I was terrified.

“What is wrong with you?” I would like to say I yelled that, but I kind of squealed it.

“You’ve taken everything from me. I’m all alone in the world. Now there’s nothing left for me, but vengeance.”

“All alone? You’ve got, like, twelve other wives!”

“You think the likes of Lettie are any replacement for my Hattie?”

Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes. “Well, yeah.” Moron.

“I’ll kill you!”

Clive lunged again. I dodged it with a massively unnecessary roll, that would have got me out of range of an avalanche.

“Stay still,” he roared.

His swipes were tiny low arcs, meant for the squishy bellies of cats and foxes, not the robust, clothed body of a human. It took me a decent pirouette and some strafing — plus one swan-leap ending in a forward roll, that would have looked glorious had it not also ended in a wickerberry shrub — to remember that the little guy wasn’t exactly equipped to disembowel me.

It’s hard to convey just how embarrassing it is to realise you’ve been needlessly fighting for your life against poultry. I still didn’t want him scratching me though.

“Knock it off!”

“Never!”

Mirra grabbed Clive by the throat. She had a meat cleaver in the other hand. “Dinner?” she said. Her expression suggested this was a very normal way for her to wake up.

Clive couldn’t understand Mirra, but he did have intimate knowledge of the uses and effects of cleavers. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? How poetic. Send me to the pot to boil like my Hattie. You’re a sick one, Mel. A special kind of evil.”

I’m not sure why the spiteful words of a deranged cockerel hurt me, but, Anvil, they did.

“Meat is not so soft as a hen’s, but still boils nicely,” Mirra said, perhaps wondering if I was hesitating because I hadn’t seen a menu yet.

“Go on, Mel. Do it,” Clive goaded. “I’ll get caught in your throat and choke you. I’ll unsettle your belly and turn your stomach. I’ll give you the sh—”

“Would you shut up? I’m thinking.” But I already knew how I was going to answer. Why delay the inevitable? “Let him go. I’ve gone right off chicken,” I said to Mirra.

If Mirra thought I was nuts, she didn’t show it. She set the rooster down carefully, and made the cleaver disappear.

Clive looked from the housekeeper to me. “So, it’s to be a one-on-one duel to the death, is it? I suppose I admire your courage.” His claws massaged the earth in anticipation. “Best you prepare to visit your Forge.”

Despite his bluster, I could tell Clive was flagging. Maybe it had finally dawned on him that I was five times his size. Maybe a three-day march for humans is a flipping exhausting ordeal for a chicken… At any rate, I sensed the time was right to negotiate.

“Alright, look.” I smoothed out my clothes to near-presentable. “You want me dead, right?”

“Damn right I do.”

“Well then we don’t have a problem.”

“We don’t?”

“I’m walking to my grave anyway. I’m going to Magalat. I’m going to Magalat as a druid. Do you have any idea what that means?”

Clive clearly did not.

“It means they will hang me the first time I slip up and reveal what I actually am.”

There was a little bit of grumbling. “I’m supposed to just let some humans take you away and kill you? Where’s the satisfaction in that?”

“It will be really distastefully public.”

He clucked. “So I can still watch?”

“You are literally encouraged to,” I said, a pit forming in my belly. I’d been actively avoiding thinking about how likely it was this trip would end with my feet treading air.

He sheathed his talons — not literally, but his intent was clear. “I guess that will have to do. That’s some just for Hattie, I suppose.”

“What by the Anvil is going on?” Alicia asked, her hair so impressively bedraggled that it actually looked styled.

“Clive, here” —I indicated the chicken, and felt precisely as daft as I looked— “will be accompanying us to Magalat.”

Alicia watched Clive peck the blood from his talons. “Are you insane?” she asked me.

Marris just went back to bed.

Hinny hadn’t stirred to begin with.

“Legitimate question, A.A. Wish I had a good answer for you.” Clive settled on the spot and tucked his neck into his feathers, ready for a snooze. “It’ll probably be fine,” I said to no one in particular.

Just like that, I had the very first spectator to my upcoming execution: a chicken.