Sixth Century Britain. Rome is gone, Arthur is a fading memory, and Owain, who is little more than a boy is almost the last survivor of a British force defeated in battle against the Saxons. The other survivor is a young British warhound, which he names Dog. In the ruins of abandoned Viruconium, he meets a girl, Regina, who was left behind by the fleeing population of the city when they fled. They try to leave Britain for Brittany, but Regina gets ill, and Owain ends up selling himself as a slave to the Saxons to get help for her, because that's all that he has left to sell.

I didn't like this book all that much when I first read it as a kid. But something has kept me revisiting it periodically ever since and I now think it's one of her cleverer and more complex books. It's about... responsibility, and aging, and promises, and getting the job done, and never giving up hope.

And I have a great deal more to say but that will do for now. :-D