“Even the wind now held its breath. A hush of anticipation swept through the trees, causing forest creatures to hesitate in their scratchings and birds to falter in their songs. The woods grew still as everything was pressed under a deep, vast silence. It came from the east, from the mountain wilderness of DinEilan. It was like a swelling of the air, a flexing of the ground, as if some enormous power had been hurled into the earth hundreds of miles away sending tremors throughout the land.

Directly over a country lane, a young squirrel was clamped to the limb of an ancient walnut tree. Tawny hair all over its body now rose and quivered as moss began to prickle underfoot. The deep, shuddering stillness flowed through the woods. In and amongst the trees, fur and feather trembled in a vice-grip. The squirrel may have lacked the words for what stole into its mind, but in the same way that it knew the terror of jackal teeth and the lure of high branches, a vague yet frightening awareness was taking shape. Somewhere, many miles distant, something was stirring, changing … wakening.

Then the feeling passed as swiftly as it had arrived and the squirrel let out its breath and looked around. It lifted a paw and examined the mossy bark, sniffed, and turned quick eyes to the ground, to the leaves, to the sky – all in vain. As before, there were no answers to be found. It was the second time since winter that this alarming thrill had surged through the air, departing without a trace.

But something else now caused little eyes to dart and ears to twitch, something quite different. The leaves strewn across the forest lane were beginning to quake and shiver. Several pigeons that had been huddling on the ground burst away in all directions with a wild clapping of wings. For the squirrel this was warning enough. It fled across the branch, disappearing up the walnut trunk and into a knot hole as if drawn by a string.

Before it had a chance to push its head out, a horse and rider hurtled around the bend, apparently unaware of the recent quieting of their surrounds. Hooves slipped on the moist surface, flinging up dark clods, but there was no slowing of pace – wide eyes and foamy flecks suggested that the pace had not slackened for many miles. The tall rider’s green military coat whipped and snapped around him as he leaned forward in the stirrups, head close to the horse’s plunging neck. In his fist, crushed against the reins, was a rolled sheet of paper. The speed, the foam, the clutched paper… Anyone he passed by would have instantly read the look on his face: Please, let me not be too late!”

- Jonathan Renshaw, Dawn of Wonder