What's worse? The pricking raw row of pain where Baine's stitches crawl between ear and skull, or the hammering headache I've got from having a full skin of uisge beatha poured into me? The bruise from Keu's knock-out punch is naught but honey on this throbbing bannock of pain. What's the worst? Hard to tell. Or was it the nightmares I rode all night? I thought I was Daideo to a spawning of half-toads. I can still see their mother herding them into the cave, her brood and herself all with those monstrous blinky toad eyes peering at me. Every time I'd try to wake, their ribbity voices would taunt me. "Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort" over and over again, lulling me back into more dreamings.

A strange thought flies into me pounding head. If I'd only waited till they paused and then sung out "agus Da Cadine" they'd have taken off the hump I've carried on me shoulders since birth!

Then a cold kenning comes. With my luck, they'd not take it off but clap another atop this one.

I lie still and try to sort out what is real from what is enchantment or dream. From time to time, methinks I hear a toad chuckling in the dark. Curse the uisge beatha, it's made me mad as a spring cuckoo! Shapes weave back and forth in the ember glow. Baine and 'Daig love-talking, as always, and they'd be restless penned up in these stone walls. A toad sounds a polite "ahem!" and then another. My eyes pop open. I must be surrounded by them! Something swishes past, leaving a pretty trail of cool, glowing mist. Winter Mist! It must be the toad-witch scattering her sidhe-stuff over us as we sleep. I clamp me eyes shut tight and beg to be passed over.

When I scry again into the ember glow, what do I see but my wooly-witted son, bare as an oak in winter and just as hard, slinking 'cross the room crouched low and sly, like he's stalking something. Hunting his mist-strewin' wife, no doubt! A groan escapes me. By the looks of it, there'll be more little grandtoads spawning soon. Sure enough, it isn't long after that I hear the sounds of happy frogmakings.

As I lay there wondering what it must be like, more rustlings and whisperings move in the shadows. Silver beams play in the path of Sean's stalkery. I thought I smelled hound. Then there's the screech.

"It's attacking her!"

I am stampled underfoot by a herd of bellowing kine. A heavy hoof kicks me in the head, another steps on me face, a third lightly bounces off me belly. I curl into a ball. Then I feel a weird clutch at the back of me neck, a leathery lump clings on and sings right into the ear Baine fixed. "Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort!"

Leaping up, I roar "Agus Da Cadine!"

A torch flares to light. There's my son a-sprawl, pinned down by a huge hound sitting on his chest. 'Daig holds a torch in one hand, his axe in the other, looking murderous. Baine is cackling like a loon, while the bevy of bratlings gathers 'round, bug-eyed. One of them chatters apologies. And there is the toad-witch herself, bent double in spasms - birth pangs already?

I can make no sense of this. There is a toad or a sidhe-child, perched on the crook of my neck, still singing merrily.

"Agus Da Cadine," I mutter hopefully and wait.

Baine finally stops cackling and takes my hand. "Go back to sleep, Nion," she says sweetly. She reaches over and takes the toad off. "It was only a dream."

The little ones are being tucked into their wraps by the fire. I glance around but there is no giant hound. Sean's witch-wife is soothing him from his fit of temper with the tenderest of hugs and caresses. Hadaig has a smirk on his face as he turns to go back outside. Completely muddled, I surrender all my senses and let Baine lead me to the nest of blankets. "Only a dream," she repeats and kisses my aching brow.