Daughter of Time (Prequel to The After Cilmeri Series)

Daughter of Time (Chapter Twenty-two)

Llywleyn

The standing stones that peppered the countryside in Wales had always drawn my interest. Gwynedd had its share. Some of my people were afraid of them, but when I touched them, felt the stone underneath my fingers, I remembered my ancestors who'd placed them there, for reasons they'd not passed down to us. Only one standing stone stood on the hill at Bwlch, a forlorn thing, left to itself in a meadow, half way up a hill that was hidden by trees on every side.

Goronwy and I bent over a map, spread out on the table in the hall at our borrowed castle. The sun hadn't yet risen, but he'd already sent out scouts to quarter the area. Tretower Castle was another ten miles on, and that was the direction, we presumed, from which Clare would come.

"It's the mountains behind that worry me," Goronwy said. "His men could hide in the miles of forest and rock up there."

"Which will make the going rough," I said. "We will take the proper precautions, listen to what Clare has to say, and be on our way."

Goronwy grunted. "We can always take to the river," he said. "The Usk is just on the other side of the road. We can follow it all the way home if need be."

"So be it," I said. "We've done what we can. I can hear Meg's warnings in my ears, but this is a chance I feel we must take."

We rode out an hour later at the head of a column of men, just as the sun peered over the tops of the peaks behind us. The trees grew more thickly on both sides of the road the further south and west we progressed. At Bwlch, we would leave the road, though it continued ahead to an old fort the Romans abandoned long ago another mile on. I hoped that my men had not been afraid to enter it, because it would be a perfect place to hide, if Clare had betrayal on his mind. Too late to tell them now.

As we approached the field in which Clare had indicated we would meet, Goronwy reined in. Together we looked through the trees, up the slope to the meadow where the stone stood sentinel, guarding its meadow since before Christ was born.

"I don't like it," he said.

"You never do." I spurred Glewdra up the hill. The thirty men behind us followed, milling around the stone uncertainly when we realized we were all alone.

Goronwy urged his horse closer. "What now?"

I shrugged. "We wait, I guess. I don't—"

"My lord!" One of my men shrieked the words, an instant before a hail of arrows poured out of the trees above us. I flung up my shield instinctively and an arrow hit it, just in the place my head had been a moment before. I spun Glewdra around to call to my men but they'd already broken apart and reformed around me, protecting me at the same time they made to charge towards the line of archers. Goronwy rode on my left, cursing steadily as he struggled to keep close to my side.

Another hail of arrows hit us and three horses went down, causing the men behind them to swerve out of the way. Then a third barrage. By that time, however, we'd reached the crest of the hill and the archers broke ranks at our approach. I urged Glewdra to leap over the stakes they'd placed in front of their lines, intending to run the archers down, but as the fastest of them disappeared behind a thick screen of trees, a company of cavalry took their place, charging out of the woods directly at us.

"May God protect us!" Hywel said. He too had an arrow in his shield. He spurred his horse to the side and wove between the men, determined to position himself properly to stave off the first assault.

Then I lost sight of him as our enemies hit us, as unstoppable a force as a boulder rolling down hill. They tore into our lines—tore them apart—with their momentum and numbers. Goronwy disappeared in the roiling mass of men and horses and I yanked Glewdra sideways to avoid a fallen log that blocked my retreat. Another horse fell in front of me and a pike caught Glewdra's leg. She stumbled and couldn't right herself. I tugged my feet out of the stirrups and jumped free before she crushed me beneath her. She struggled and twisted, but her legs had failed her, probably forever.