The air in Ailech was crisp with the first breath of spring, but the warmth of the crowd made it feel like midsummer.
Flags and pennants rippled from the wooden palisades, bright against the blue sky. The streets were lined three-deep with cheering folk, their voices tumbling together into a single roar.
Hermes followed the tide of people, the smell of woodsmoke, roasted meat, and damp rushes mingling in the air.
He scanned the crowd out of habit, catching glimpses of traders, children perched on their fathers' shoulders, and a few cloaked figures standing back from the main throng
At the head of the procession rode Glasán, taller now in presence if not much in height.
Over the four or five months since Hermes last saw him, he had put on some muscle, his shoulders broader under his blue-dyed léine. But the boyish tilt to his smile remained, a softer contrast to the warrior's set of his jaw.
