The boy lay in the silence of the great battlefield, gazing at his own hand spread on the ground beside him. The hand moved and he realized, with something like surprise, that he was not dead.
His name was Owain and he was fourteen years old. Further up the hillside lay his father, a British farmer, and his brother Ossian, both killed by Saxon warriors in that last great battle of Aquae Sulis. It seemed to Owain that nobody but himself had been left alive, until the lean shape of Dog slid towards him from the shadows and licked his hand. Together the boy and the hound turned away from the battlefield and the Saxon campfires, and started the long journey northwards.
What that journey led to, Rosemary Sutcliff has made into a story as powerful, exciting and moving as any she has yet written. The story covers the twelve years that followed Aquae Sulis; for Owain they were hard and difficult years, many of them spent in thrall to a Saxon farmer. Yet he found kindness and happiness where he least expected it; he found Regina, hidden and half-starved among the ruins of Viroconium; and perhaps most important of all, he felt the first breath of the 'dawn wind' that old Einon Hên had talked about, and he knew that for Britain as well as for himself, the time of darkness was nearing its end, and there was light ahead.
—from the dust jacket
Rosemary Sutcliff is one of the greatest writers of historical fiction and Dawn Wind is an acclaimed and much-loved classic tale which will enthrall readers old and new. This stunning edition features the evocative original black and white illustrations by award-winning artist, Charles Keeping, which bring the story vividly to life.
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