A dark shape was moving towards them above the tumble of the wildlands. It looked at first like a low cloud, but it was moving against the wind, and it did not have the form of any cloud that Branwen had ever seen.
‘It is birds!’ cried Aberfa. ‘A whole host of birds!’
‘Owls!’ gasped Branwen as the flock came closer.
The legion of owls came sweeping up the hillside, flying low so that all but Branwen ducked as they passed over them. Branwen guessed there must be a hundred or more of the great majestic creatures. They wheeled about her, their eyes burning, their wings hardly moving, their voices stilled.
And then, as though acting with some powerful instinct beyond human understanding, the wings cupped, the eyes shifted and the whole congregation of huge birds descended to the ground where Blodwedd lay. The greater part of the hill disappeared under their tawny bodies. Branwen stood her ground, but her companions drew back, silent in awe, their eyes wide.
Then the owls gave voice.
Their melancholy hooting filled the air, a lament at the passing of a beloved kinswoman, a sound to break the heart.
Branwen dropped to her knees, tears flooding her face.
While the hilltop still reverberated to the dirge of sad hooting, the owls took again to the air. They swarmed and wheeled and then flowed away into the west.
And where Blodwedd had lain, there was just a scattering of tawny feathers.
Branwen wiped the tears off her cheeks. She got to her feet, her heart clamouring in her chest, her blood flowing strongly through her veins.
‘I asked for a sure sign,’ she called to the others, all doubt and confusion gone from her mind. ‘We have been given it! Come, gather the horses, we ride into the south! We ride to Pengwern!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They rode until night took the land. Rhodri did not recover, and they had to tie him to his horse, one rope around his waist to hold him in the saddle, and another under the animal’s belly, linking his ankles. In that manner, he rode safe enough, slumped low over his horse’s neck, while Aberfa took the trailing reins.
Fain had an injured wing – he could fly, but only for short distances, clumsily and with evident discomfort. Branwen rode with him perched upon her shoulder, grieving that she would never again know what his shrill cries meant. She had lost that advantage when she had rammed sharp metal into Blodwedd’s body.
No! Don’t think of it. It’s done. It is past.
Don’t think of it?
As though that were an option.
In the dark of night, they made camp in woodland by a thin stream of clear cold water. Banon gathered wood and lit a fire. They lay Rhodri close to the warming flames then clustered around it like tiny insects drawn to a candle. Although the long and bitter winter was relenting at last, the air was still deathly chill, and they sat shrouded in their cloaks, their faces ruddy in the welcome heat.
‘I did not think to ask,’ said Branwen as they gnawed dried meat and tore stale bread apart for their meagre supper. ‘Are Drustan and Meredith wed now?’
‘Not when we left Pengwern,’ said Aberfa.
‘Is it the prince’s doing?’ asked Branwen.
‘Nay, it is the king who forces the delay,’ said Iwan. ‘He has a serpent’s wisdom in this, I think. Once the marriage is sealed, Prince Llew will have all that he wishes. Why then should he obey King Cynon’s commands? No, the king desires to keep the prince on a tight leash, so he makes Llew wait for his prize, like a dog kept hungry and keen for the fight while food is dangled out of reach.’
Dera nodded. ‘The king’s no fool in this,’ she agreed. ‘Knowing Llew ap Gelert’s dark turn of mind, it would not come as a surprise to find Cynon struck down by some unknown ailment on the night following the wedding!’
‘You think he’d kill the king?’ asked Aberfa.
‘If it made his own daughter queen of Powys?’ said Dera. ‘Why not?’
Branwen winced. ‘Is there to be no end to treachery in Powys?’ she groaned. ‘Sometimes I think the Shining Ones have chosen a poor race of folk to champion.’
Iwan looked at her. ‘Do you really think the Shining Ones were given a choice in the matter?’ he asked. ‘Is that not like questioning the wisdom of a river that runs through a barren valley or a tree that grows on a windswept hill? The Shining Ones are surely part of the land – they cannot pick and choose the realms they protect.’
Branwen gazed at him. ‘You have come a long way since we first met, my friend,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine those words coming from the mouth of Iwan the merry prankster of Doeth Palas?’
He laughed ruefully. ‘We have all travelled far,’ he said.
‘Those of us who survived the journey,’ added Dera, glancing at Rhodri as he lay under a cloak close by. ‘Survived with our wits intact, I should say.’
‘What has happened to Rhodri?’ asked Banon, looking at Branwen. ‘What spirit possesses him, do you think?’
‘A Druid forebear, perhaps,’ said Branwen.
‘Hush!’ said Aberfa, leaning close to Rhodri’s head. ‘He is saying something. I can’t make it out. A word. Repeated over and over.’
Branwen scrambled around the fire and knelt at Rhodri’s side, bringing her ear down close to his moving lips.
‘… Caliburn … Caliburn … Caliburn …’
‘Rhodri? Can you hear me?’
‘Call in greatest need … and Caliburn shall come to you …’
‘Rhodri? I don’t know what you mean.’ She pressed her hand against the side of his face, turning his head towards her. ‘Who is Caliburn? What are you saying?’
‘… remember Rhiannon’s words … call for Caliburn when all is lost …’
‘Rhodri! Rhiannon has never spoken of Caliburn.’ She patted his cheek, hoping to rouse him. ‘You must tell me more.’
But the lips ceased moving and Rhodri said nothing more.
‘A troubling oracle, he may turn out to be, if he cannot make his meanings more clear,’ said Iwan. ‘Ride to Pengwern and deal with what you find there, he told us. But with no hint of what we might find nor of how to deal with it.’ He shook his head. ‘This half-Saxon and half-Druid may well be the death of us all!’
They struck camp at dawn, heading south-west, looking to come across the Great South Way as it wound through Powys. The ancient earthen track traversed the length of the entire kingdom, stretching from the northern sea-shore to the deep southern cantrefs, linking hamlet and citadel and farmstead as it made for Pengwern and beyond.
The sun was high in the eastern sky when they rode to a cliff edge and saw at last the long-awaited sight in the valley below. The road lay like a brown ribbon beneath them, cutting through the wild lands, pointing the way to their destination.
Branwen would have had them travel at the gallop if she had been given the option. But they needed to take care of Rhodri, and even at the trot, there was the risk of him falling and being injured.
As they rode, she puzzled over his cryptic words. Banon had been right to ask the question – who or what had taken hold of her wise, kind, gentle friend? It had come from Blodwedd, she believed, and so she had trusted it – but what if she was wrong? What if something of Ragnar had been put into Rhodri’s mind? What if he was leading them to their doom?
An inner debate occupied her mind as they followed the road.
No. If this was evil, it would make itself clearer, I think. The riddling nature of his words makes it more likely to be something to our benefit – if we have the wit to untangle the message! Oh, why is it always so hard?
Because to strive is part of the purpose.
Perhaps. But to strive and to fail is my fear!
You have not failed so far.
Indeed not? Tell that to the ghosts of Geraint and Griffith ap Rhys and Gavan ap Huw and Linette and Blodwedd …
Have you not learned the lesson yet, you fool?
‘Smoke rises over Pengwern!’ cried Dera. ‘I fear we come too
late!’
Branwen had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she had not realized they were approaching the long hill that rose to the west of the king’s citadel. Here, little more than a month ago, the Gwyn Braw had ridden hard out of the snowy mountains, bearing Meredith and Romney along with them, pursued by Saxon war bands.
She stared into the eastern sky. Dera was right. A veil of smoke hung in the air beyond the crest of the hill.
Branwen slapped the reins, kicking her heels into Terrwyn’s flanks to urge him on. Dera was also riding hard for the hill, Iwan at her side and Banon close behind. Only Aberfa had not joined the wild gallop to the hill – but even she had brought her horse to a brisk trot, riding alongside Rhodri’s horse, one strong hand holding him by the collar so he would not fall.
As they rode up the flank of the hill, Branwen began to hear strange and disturbing sounds faintly from beyond the fast-closing horizon. Dark smoke drifted high, staining the pale clouds.
Branwen was the first to come to the crest of the hill. She rode between thickets of woodland, reining Terrwyn up hard, staring down with horrified eyes into the long valley that lay between them and the king’s citadel.
A dreadful sight met her eyes.
The valley swarmed with Saxons. As thick as bees in a hive, they gathered below her shrinking gaze and her heart withered in her chest to see their numbers.
Even as she reeled in the saddle, the noise of warfare came bursting in her ears, loud and confused and horrible.
Shouts and battle cries filled the air, howls of anger and pain, the neighing and screaming of frightened and dying horses. The jarring scrape of metal on metal, the thud of swords striking shields. The horrible sound of iron slashing and piercing flesh. The hiss of arrows, the thwack of spearheads driving into living bodies.
The army of General Herewulf Ironfist was attacking the citadel from west, north and south, the savage Saxon warriors raging across the open lands in their multitudes. But this was no rabble – the great general had taught them well the art of slaughter. The bulk of the Saxon warriors were divided into blocks of men who moved with the slow weight of mountains, beating the defenders back and back towards the defensive ditch of the citadel. Worse still were the arrowhead wedges of soldiers, hemmed all about with shields, barbed with spears and swords, crashing headlong into the Powys lines, ripping them apart and killing without mercy all who stood in their way. Saxon banners cracked in the air, the white dragon on the red field, pressing forward from all sides as the warriors of Powys were beaten back.
Branwen scanned the hideous battlefield, seeking any sign of Ironfist or of the king of Powys. But the mayhem defeated her eyes – there were too many Saxon banners for her to find the general, and what few red dragons still flew were pressed all about by the enemy.
Rather than have their fortress burned around their ears, the defenders of Pengwern must have chosen to meet their enemy on the field. A more noble option, but surely a doomed one against such numbers? Even as she sat stunned and horrified on the hilltop, Branwen saw a standard fall – the red dragon of Powys fluttering to the ground to be trampled and torn under Saxon feet.
‘Oh, by the sweet saints!’ Iwan’s voice at her side was barely audible over the clamour of the battlefield. ‘We have come too late!’
Too late.
Too late to do anything other than watch Pengwern burn. The gates were thrown down, the towers ablaze on either side. The causeway to the citadel was clogged with warriors, Saxons hacking and slashing their way forward, the guards and soldiers of King Cynon falling back to the inner ramparts.
Now the others had come to the edge of the hill at her side. Branwen heard their cries of woe and dismay. Too late!
‘Pengwern is lost!’ shouted Dera. ‘Powys is lost!’
Branwen’s eyes were drawn from the carnage of the battlefield to the burning towers of Pengwern – and there she saw a sight that crushed her soul. A sight that had come to her as an omen when she had looked into the fire in Merion’s cave.
Perched high among the flames was a mighty raven – a huge creature, far larger than the monster that had attacked them before. Vast it was, its black wings outspread, its neck stretched and its head thrown back as it screamed its triumph, its eyes smouldering and its tongue of fire.
Ragnar loomed above the bloody battlefield, encompassed by roaring fire, fanning the flames with his sable wings as the smoke billowed thick and ugly into the sky, shrouding the sun and polluting the air.
‘I am no coward, Branwen,’ Iwan called to her. ‘But it would be madness to throw ourselves into this butchery!’
‘What would you have us do, Iwan?’ shouted Dera. ‘Turn tail and run? Hide ourselves in the mountains until Ironfist’s men dig us out like fox cubs in the den?’
‘No, of course not!’ spat Iwan. ‘But neither would I have us throw our lives away uselessly. Pengwern is lost – but we can spread the word – rally warriors – create a force to harry Ironfist’s army every step of their way.’ He looked urgently at Branwen. ‘We could do this – make them pay for every valley they pass through. Attack them in every forest. Ambush them in every mountain pass. Fortify every citadel against them.’ He stared out over the furious and bloody turmoil of the battlefield. ‘That, or ride down into the world’s end.’
‘Rhodri said to come here and deal with what we found,’ Branwen replied, slipping her shield on to her arm and drawing her sword.
‘I did!’ called Rhodri’s voice from behind her. ‘But I’m in my better senses now!’
Branwen swung around. Aberfa and Rhodri were approaching fast, and now Rhodri was sitting up in the saddle and his eyes were clear.
‘And what does wisdom tell you now?’ Branwen asked him, searching his face for some sign that he was still the boy she knew.
‘To escape this battle, and to live to fight on.’ Rhodri rode up to her. ‘I am myself again,’ he said, looking into her eyes. ‘I am changed, but I am not possessed. Say rather, I have grown into something … older. Deeper. I see many things. I do not understand them. They rush in my head like …’ He frowned. ‘… like salmon come to spawn in the rivers of their birth … like the evening flocking of starlings …’
‘Can the poetry wait?’ interrupted Iwan. ‘If we are to go, we should go now – before we are seen. I would not wish for a hundred horsemen on our trail!’
‘I fear the time for flight is past,’ said Dera. She pointed down the hill. A group of Saxon horsemen were gathered there, captains or favoured lords under Ironfist’s generalship, clearly holding back from the affray while the men under their command ran headlong into battle.
Branwen saw that one was pointing up towards them and shouting. The other horsemen turned, drawing their swords.
Orders were bellowed. Some of the horsemen rode in among the foot soldiers, howling commands. In no more time than it took to draw three breaths, Branwen saw wedges of horsemen and warriors go streaming around either side of the hill, running fast, their swords and spears and iron helmets glinting.
‘They will cut us off from retreat!’ shouted Aberfa. ‘If we are to depart in safety, we must ride like the wind!’
‘It is too late for that,’ Branwen called. ‘We will be pursued and cut down.’
Even as she spoke, more soldiers and horsemen began to swarm up the hillside towards them. An arrow sang, skidding past Iwan’s shoulder.
‘Form a circle!’ Branwen howled, her eyes filled with the fearsome sight of the onrushing Saxon warriors. ‘Back to back! Let them see how the Gwyn Braw meet their end!’
‘And let us take as many of them as we can to the halls of Annwn!’ shouted Dera, her sword ringing as she drew it.
They pulled their horses back from the brow of the hill, gathering together in a gap between two clusters of trees. Branwen stroked Fain’s feathers.
‘Fly to the trees, my brave one,’ she murmured to him. ‘You cannot aid me here – you are too badly hurt.’
The falc
on cawed once and then sprang from her shoulder, flying clumsily over their heads. Twice more he cried, as though wishing them well – or wishing them farewell – then he sped to the trees and Branwen lost sight of him in among the bare branches.
She looked for the last time into the faces of her companions. Iwan, smiling a little, as though ready to laugh in death’s face. Dera, grim and dark, her eyes burning. Banon, testing her bow-string with her thumb, her red hair blowing about her cheeks. Aberfa with her great limbs and her brow like a boulder, hefting a spear in her hand and watching for the first target to come within range.
And Rhodri, at her side now as they formed a defensive circle with their horses’ heads facing outwards. At her side, as he had always been since that first day of mist in the mountains when Rhiannon’s goraig-goblins had led her to him and she had knocked him off a cliff edge with a tree branch.
‘You were a fool ever to ride with me, Rhodri,’ she called to him – not for the first time. ‘And now your folly reaps its reward.’
‘Perhaps so,’ he replied. ‘But something within me says you are not destined to die here.’
‘Is that so?’ She could almost have smiled. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Although if you knew the doom that Ragnar has planned for me, you might think death less of a burden.’
He frowned, then a look of alarm came into his face, as though he had somehow understood what she meant. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The Shining Ones would never let that happen to you. Ragnar will not take you. Have no fear of that.’
‘The Shining Ones?’ said Branwen. ‘They cannot save us, Rhodri. I know what they said to Blodwedd – they have no power here. Rhiannon said it herself … they are bound to the land and can do nothing to alter the course of the battle that is to come. She was speaking of this battle, Rhodri.’
‘They are upon us!’ hissed Aberfa. ‘Farewell, friends, we will meet again in Annwn!’
Branwen turned her face outwards, bringing her shield rim up to her eyes, tightening her fist around her sword hilt, gripping hard with her knees around Terrwyn’s sturdy body.