"The 6.9 earthquake that hit the northern coast of Britain, off the coast of Scotland, has been called 'unprecedented' by geologists. The previous strongest earthquake, recorded in 1931, sat at 6.1 on the Richter scale, but the latest one dwarfed it in strength and proximity to Britain.

Reports of houses collapsing, roads bearing cracks as wide as six feet and wide-scale disruption have jammed emergency services. Power outages, mobile phone disruption and panic are still being attended to on a massive scale throughout the country."

-+-

3

The storm hadn't disappeared completely. Instead, as Runa ushered Hertha and Stigr back to the cottage, the old man following behind on his quad bike, she could see it, at the northern side of the island, lightning striking the wind turbines that span so fast in the accompanying winds, the veins blurred.

Upon reaching the cottage, she felt grateful that the earthquake had done little more damage than collapsing a nearby wall. The cottage itself appeared solid and she could hardly wait to return to its warmth and comfort. All the while, Stigr had kept up a constant stream of excited chatter. Hertha, however held her silence.

"And when we got down to the beach, it wasn't a cave at all, just like a bit has been cut away. And then the earthquake began to shake and things came falling down and the cave was open! A real pirate cave! And it was really dark and then the storm came and we hid in the cave." He hardly seemed to pause for breath, each word following the other in a stream. "And when it got really bad, we started being scared, even Hertha! But, then, the big dog appeared, huge and black, and cuddled us between its paws and it sang songs, of warriors and gods and trees until the storm stopped and then we came and found you. And ..."

"I wasn't that scared." Now Hertha joined in, dismissing the slur from her brother, but Runa could still see the shake in Hertha's hands. "Mummy doesn't want to hear all that, anyway. She only wants to know we are safe."

"We are safe! She can see we're safe!" Stigr had run in front and began walking backwards, his hands reaching high into the air. "We're safe because of the big dog."

"Stigr! You promised!" Hertha snapped at her brother and then made a furtive, guilty look towards her mother. "You promised not to make up stories."

"But ..." He started to protest, but Hertha gave him a look so sharp, he clamped his mouth closed.

Runa didn't know what to make of it. At least they both seemed unharmed. She ushered them both through the door before turning back to the old man. She assumed that he was her neighbour, Mr McAreavey, and he leaned upon the handlebars of his quad bike as he watched the storm to the north.

He shook his head, running fingers through the mutton-chop whiskers that adorned his cheeks, the rest of his face bare of any other facial hair. In his thick, waxed coat, he didn't look as old as she knew him to be, until he turned and she saw the weather-worn features and those kind eyes that had seen many decades of life.

"Thank you for coming to help." She gripped her coat closed, feeling the soaked material squelching against her fingers. "I'm sorry it was a wasted journey."

"Not wasted at all. I've never seen anything like it, if I'm honest. And you just arriving and all." The storm distracted him. It looked as though it moved around the island, heading towards his farm. "Storms don't act like that. And that earthquake? We've had 'em, of course, but nothing like that. I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

Runa could see that the old man was eager to head back home. That storm had almost reached the eastern side of the island and, no doubt, Mr McAreavey would need to secure his own belongings before it struck his farm. Still, he didn't seem in a hurry to leave.

"Well, thanks anyway. I do appreciate it." She held out a hand for him to shake and he glanced at it before smothering that hand with his own, calloused fingers. "If I see your dog, I'll see if I can coax it out of the weather until morning."

"It's not my dog, lassie." His eyes caught hers before looking over his shoulder towards the beach where they had found the children. "Mine's only a little thing I use to hunt rabbits. Little pests they are. No, old Murty is sat at home in front of the fire, no doubt."

He practically itched to leave, but he still didn't move. Something appeared to bother him. His eyes kept a constant movement and Runa could see his already wrinkled brow furrow even more. Looks passed from the cottage, where Runa could see Hertha and Stigr drying in front of the fire, through the window, back towards the storm and his farm, then back towards the beach.

It began to feel more than a little awkward and Runa began to feel an itch, herself. She needed to get inside to dry off and change her clothes. To check every inch of Hertha and Stigr to make sure they weren't injured. And she needed a bath, to sooth the pain in her shoulder where the stone had landed upon her.

"I wonder whose dog it is, then?" She began to step towards the door of the cottage. "If there is a dog, after all. Stigr has a bit of an imagination about him. I think he might become an author, in the future."

"Aye, well, I'll come back in the morning. If there's a dog wild on the island, it'll need catching." He switched on the ignition of the quad bike and the engine roared into life. "Best lock your doors and windows. That storm ... never seen it's like. I don't think it's done with us yet."

With a nod, he pulled up the hood of his coat and twisted the throttle, sending the quad bike turning in a circle and heading back, over the heathland, towards his farm. Soon, the darkness swallowed him, but she still heard the throaty rumbling of the quad bike until even that noise disappeared.

Before entering her cottage, she took one last look at the thick, black clouds that now blanketed the eastern side of the island, lightning smashing down towards the ground. Rain so thick, she could see it from here, like waves rippling and crashing in the air. Back towards the beach, she could see little of the fury that had battered her as she searched for her children. As though the storm circled the island, searching for something.

Inside, she locked and bolted the door, even though she doubted McAreavey, the only other person on the island, would even think of entering without invitation. As she took off her coat, she moved around all the windows, checking that they were secure. Then the back door. She laid her drenched coat over the back of a high, wooden chair, in front of the aga, knowing the constant heat would soon have it dry.

Upstairs, she heard Hertha and Stigr talking in hushed whispers. Children, in all their youthful seriousness, failing to talk quietly enough to keep their secrets. She heard Stigr talk, once again about the big dog. Excited and effusive, he talked of going to see the animal again, in the morning, while Hertha urged caution. Yet, even she seemed more than a little excited about their new animal friend.

Runa couldn't let them go back to that cave, of course. Especially not to see that dog. Without knowing that she could hear them, the children all-but confirmed that they had, indeed, spent the storm with a dog. The way they talked, they were completely convinced. But the only way a dog could come to this island, aside from catching a ride in one of the infrequent boats, was to swim. Any animal that could swim all this way must be a formidable creature.

She let the children continue their discussion as she ran the bath for them and then made them something to eat. She decided to allow them a treat, after their exciting night, making sausages and beans, with extra hot dog sausages to add to the cheap, but tasty meal. They both loved sausages and beans and hot dogs.

They ate in silence, the children exchanging knowing glances. Hertha flickering her eyes towards Runa, checking to see if their mother knew what they thought they had hidden from her, but Runa gave nothing away. She would stop them from going back to the cave in the morning. For tonight, she allowed them that sense of adventure and, as she put them both to bed, she could hear them whispering to each other from their bedrooms across the hall from each other.

Runa soaked, for what seemed like hours, in the bath. The heat bringing blessed relief to the pain in her shoulder, where a large bruise had already started to form. Outside, she could hear the winds begin to rise once more as the storm continued its strange circling of the island. It appeared that Mr McAreavey knew well how the storm would act, even though he said he had never seen anything like it.

She heard, again, the howling noise caused by the wind. Rising and falling, the howl sounded mournful and filled with pain and despair. It felt as though the howl spoke of the suffering of ages and Runa saw, in her mind, leather and fur covered warriors, long hair braided and fastened in careful twists, held in place by gold and silver threads intertwining with lush, blonde locks. Swords and spears and axes infiltrated that vision. And blood and thunder and lightning.

Water slopped over the side of the bath as she jerked upright, wiping excess water from her face with her fingers. The lightning had not only flashed in her dream, but outside, also. Reaching for the large, soft towel, she lifted herself from the bath, wrapping the towel about her and looked out of the window, that rattled as the returning storm raged outside.

She could hardly see a thing outside. Clouds so thick and dark covered the entire sky, as far as Runa could see. She saw another flash of lightning, the fork smashing down to the Earth close to the beach and she heard that howl once more. But it didn't seem like the wind, now. It sounded too real, too deep.

Runa squinted out through the window, thinking she could see a shape to the beach she had not seen before. A mound of some kind that she could not remember from earlier that day. And that howl seemed to come from that direction, despite the wind raging a fury worthy of the gods outside the cottage. Another flash brought the mound into focus and Runa almost fell back into the bath as she jumped backwards.

The mound was not a mound at all, but a dog. An enormous dog that howled towards the skies as lightning crashed about it.