by Anna Elliott
But when Madoc had offered him the choice of remaining at Dinas Emrys, Kian had refused, insisting he was well enough to ride. And now, riding beside Isolde, though he held himself still a little stiffly, the bruises on his face were fading to yellow and green, his single eye alert as he turned his head, scanning the path on either side before urging his horse on.
The gelding, though, refused to move, nervously shifting and stamping in place, ears twitching.
“What—” Kian began. And then, from up ahead, Isolde heard a high-pitched whine and then a solid, meaty thud, saw one of the men before her topple back in his saddle, hands clawing at the shaft of an arrow lodged in his throat. Before she could react, before she had even time to be afraid, a long, drawn-out howl sounded from somewhere in the trees to her right, and men erupted onto the path.
“Down!”
In an instant, Kian had dismounted, dragged Isolde from her saddle, and handed her both the reins of her own mount and his, even as he drew the sword from his belt.
“Stay back!”
And then he was gone, plunging ahead to where men had charged from the trees, swinging swords and great double-bladed axes in whistling arcs. Saxon foot soldiers, wearing dirty gray wolf pelts over leather war gear, matted flaxen hair loose on their shoulders as they charged.
The path was suddenly filled with the clash of swords, with terrified screams of the horses and shouts and grunts and angry cries as the line of mounted men turned to meet the Saxons’ attack. She saw Kian square and settle his shoulders, sword at the ready, before launching himself into the fight, and even in the midst of fear, Isolde felt a burst of astonishment at the breathtaking, self-sacrificing, fearless stupidity of his entering battle in his current condition.
But then, she thought, Kian would almost certainly as soon fall on his sword as stand back from a fight. And nor could she have held him back—not without offering his pride an insult he’d never forgive.
Her heart beating hard, Isolde dragged the horses backwards, away from where the fighting was going on. From around the animals’ broad backs, she could catch glimpses of the battle: Madoc, his scarred face set, exchanging ringing sword blows with two of the attacking men. Cynlas and Bedwyr, fighting back to back, swords flashing as three or four of the Saxons circled them and delivered vicious, hacking blows with their own axe blades.
All at once, one of the attackers was before her, sword upraised. Time seemed to hang suspended, as, for an endless, heart-stopping moment, the Saxon man’s eyes, clear and pale as winter ice, held Isolde’s, and his muscles bunched, preparing to strike. And then seemingly from nowhere a great brown-and-white war hound launched itself at the Saxon man, knocking him off balance so that he lurched and took a staggering step to the side.
Cabal stood between Isolde and the attacker, head lowered and front legs spread wide, the fur on his neck bristling and his teeth bared in a growl. The Saxon man shouted and raised his sword again, and Isolde’s breath froze as she waited for the whistling blade to come down on Cabal’s neck. But the blow never landed. A sword point burst through the Saxon’s stomach, parting the leather of his war shirt in a bubbling spurt of crimson, and he toppled to the ground.
Behind him, Kian set a foot on the man’s back, bracing himself to pull his blade free. His chest was heaving, his scarred face streaked with blood from a cut above the brow.
He caught hold of Isolde’s arm. “Are you all right?”
Isolde stood frozen, staring down at the body before them, her blood drumming in her ears as the waves of shock rippled through her from head to foot. Cabal was beside her, whining, butting his head against her hand, and she put a hand on the big dog’s back. Then she shook her head, eyes still on the dead Saxon at their feet. “I’m not hurt.” And then to Cabal, “It’s all right. Good fellow, Cabal. Good dog.”
Kian wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand, then said, “We’ve three men down. Two dead, but one could do with a healer’s care.”
Isolde looked up. Her vision seemed dizzyingly bright, each separate detail of the woods around them piercing her gaze like shards of ice. But the fight was over. Three or four more of the attacking Saxons lay dead at the edges of the path. One man—the closest—lay faceup, an arrow in his bloodied throat and his braided blond hair spread out on the ground. One of the horses, too, was down, lying in a pool of blood from its cut throat. Isolde could hear distant crashing in the underbrush, as the rest of the attackers fled—doubtless pursued by whichever of the men Madoc had given the command to hunt them down.
Madoc himself was kneeling in the churned, muddy earth a little distance up ahead, beside the body of another man. Seeing Isolde, he jerked his head, motioning for her to come. She approached, Cabal padding along at her side. Seeing them, Madoc shook his head, some of the grim lines etched into his face momentarily loosening their hold.
“Why I bother giving that hound orders I don’t know. He was off towards you like an arrow from a bow the moment the fighting began.”
Isolde rested her hand on Cabal’s neck, then said to him again, “Good dog, Cabal. Go and lie down now.”
Cabal moved to obey, and Isolde turned back to the group about the wounded man. Cynlas of Rhos, too, hung over the prostrate body, his chest still heaving with the recent fight, and only when he moved slightly aside to let her through did she recognize the man on the ground. Bedwyr, Cynlas’s son.
“Still alive,” Madoc said briefly as Isolde kilted her skirts and dropped to her knees beside him. “And the only one of the wounded to be so.”
Isolde nodded. Bedwyr’s hair was wet with sweat, his eyes clenched tight and his lips drawn back in a grimace of pain. Isolde’s heart was still racing, her whole body turning cold as the sweat on her ribs prickled and dried, but she started to take stock of the wounded man’s injuries. Her hands were shaking, though, and she had to close her eyes, force herself to draw two or three deep breaths, then begin again.
He’d taken a wound in his upper arm; Isolde could see the muscle and sinew laid open, nearly to the bone. Someone—Madoc or Cynlas—had tied a roughly torn length of cloth just above the wound, slowing the bleeding. Even still, though, the blood was coming in bright crimson spurts with every beat of Bedwyr’s heart.
“Lady.” Bedwyr’s voice was a whispering gasp, and Isolde looked up to find his eyes, pain-filled and pleading, fixed on hers. Both the restless energy and belligerence were gone, and he looked simply young and terrified. His chest heaved as he fought for breath. “Lady. Don’t let me die. Please. Don’t let me die.”
And then a spasm shook him, making him arch his back and groan through clenched teeth. “Hurts. Oh, God.” The muscles of his neck stood out like cords.
“I know.” Isolde scarcely knew Bedwyr. But she had sat this way beside countless men like him, these last seven years. “I know it hurts. Here.” She slipped her hand into his on the uninjured side. “Take my hand. Squeeze as hard as the pain grips you.”
Bedwyr’s eyes closed again, and his fingers, sticky with blood and dirt, closed over hers, hard enough to grind the bones together. Isolde scarcely noticed, though, as she turned back to finish taking stock of the wounded man’s hurts. The arm could be cauterized. And if the cut doesn’t turn to poison, Isolde thought, he might even survive. Though he would likely never raise a sword again. But the rest—
Her gaze moved to the pair of feathered arrow shafts that protruded from the middle of his tunic. One bolt had caught him in the pit of his belly and penetrated deeply, leaving only perhaps a hand’s breadth of wood visible above the surrounding blood-soaked leather tunic. The other had struck him higher, penetrating the cage of his ribs.
Another spasm shook Bedwyr, his heels digging into the muddied ground, his fingers clenching hard on Isolde’s once again. His breath came in short, whistling gasps, his lips were faintly tinged with blue, and when Isolde felt for his pulse, it was thready and fast like the frantic beating wings of a bird. Isolde thought, I could cauter
ize the wound in his arm. I could even pull the arrows free—though I’d need the help of at least one of the other men. And Bedwyr, she thought, would still die.
He might not die today. Nor yet even the next. But she’d seen injuries like these too many times before not to know the inevitable end. Bedwyr would linger in slow, ever-increasing agony as the wounds festered and bled inside him and his breath grew shorter and ever harder to draw.
“Can you do anything for him?” It was Madoc who spoke.
Isolde took her hand away from the hectic pulse in the wounded man’s neck. For the space of several of Bedwyr’s harsh, whistling breaths, she watched the rise and fall of his chest. Then, without speaking, she drew her own knife from the girdle of her gown, slid the blade under the length of cloth above the arm wound, and with a rending tear, cut the strip of fabric free. Cynlas made a quick, jerky movement, then stopped. He was a soldier, Isolde thought, as well as a king. He’d have seen arrow wounds like this one before, would know the inevitable end as well as she.
Isolde sheathed the knife, then reached to take Bedwyr’s hand again, smoothing the russet hair back from his brow. “Squeeze my hand as hard when it hurts. It will be better soon. I promise.”
Chapter Four
OUR FATHER, THAT ART IN heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” Madoc’s voice sounded harsh with weariness, cutting across the damp forest stillness and the soft trills of birdsong from the trees overhead.
Madoc had ordered them wait for the return of the guardsmen he had sent in pursuit of the fleeing Saxons before moving on, though he had posted his men in a defensive ring, on guard for fresh attack. And now, surrounded by Cynlas and a handful of his men, his face still spattered with blood from the recent fight, Madoc was praying over Bedwyr’s lifeless body.
Isolde sat on a fallen log a little distance away down the path, trying to focus on Madoc’s words, though she kept hearing Bedwyr’s voice instead. Lady, please. Don’t let me die.
She glanced up to see that Kian had come to stand beside her. He was silent a moment, watching her, and then asked, “Did you know him?”
“No.” Isolde shook her head. “I don’t think I’d even spoken to him before today.”
Kian nodded. “A good death.”
“A good death?” Isolde could smell, still, the stench of Bedwyr’s bowels breaking at the moment of death, could still feel in her own mind the echo of Bedwyr’s pain. She managed to choke back the words that rose to her lips, though, and instead drew in her breath. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Me? Oh, aye. I’m well enough.” Kian lowered himself with a grunt onto the log beside her and rubbed his sword arm. “Stiff, of course, but aren’t we all?”
He drew from his scrip one of the little wooden carvings he worked at in moments of rest. A thrush this time, Isolde saw, plump body balanced on fragile, delicate legs, small head cocked as though listening.
Kian pulled the knife from his belt, then started to work at the feathers of the thrush’s tail, the carving balanced against one knee—though she saw he also lifted his head from time to time, scanning the trees around them for any sign of alarm, and he kept his sword out, laid ready on the ground by his side.
The way of the world, Isolde thought, with a brief twist of bitterness, or maybe just the way of men, that a bloody ambush and sword fight to the death can do more to heal Kian than any skill or power of mine.
Still, watching him chisel at the thrush carving, Isolde felt some of the bitterness ebb away. His hands were steady, the line of his mouth relaxed. And this was the first she’d seen him take out his carving since his return to Dinas Emrys with Madoc, four days since.
Kian was a warrior, first and last. And knowing that he could still fight, one-eyed or no, would of course have done much to banish the lingering ghosts of torture from his mind.
Isolde was silent a time, watching the shavings of wood drift down to form a little pile at Kian’s feet, and then she asked, “Do you think it was only chance the Saxon party happened upon us when they did?”
“Just a stray war band? Out scouting and happened to see our campfire’s light?” Kian looked up, rubbing his chin with the back of his hand. “Could be, I suppose.”
“But you don’t think it was?”
Kian shook his head, for the moment letting the knife rest idly against his knee. “Doesn’t feel right. Besides, war bands don’t do their scouting at night—not without they’ve good cause.” He paused, then bent to flick another tiny sliver of wood from the thrush’s tail. “We were lucky to get away with only three men down. Likely lost a lot more, but for the drink.”
“Drink?” Isolde repeated.
Kian gave a snort and nodded. “Christ, yes. Could smell the ale on ’em from forty paces away.” He paused and tucked his chin, staring down at the ground as though searching for words before glancing up at Isolde. “Takes a lot for a man to attack an enemy he knows is armed, you understand,” he said at last. “No matter how many times he’s done it before.”
He shifted position, his gaze suddenly distant as he stared into the spring-green trees. “I remember my first battle—first time I saw a shield wall of Saxons standing there across a field. Screaming curses. Beating those drums of theirs. I was standing there, sweating like a hog and praying like I’d never prayed in my life. That if God just got me through this, I’d take the cowl and become a monk. That I’d never take His name in vain again as long as I lived.”
Kian paused and glanced at her again, one corner of his mouth twisting in a crooked smile. “There’s few that don’t believe in God before a battle. And even fewer that do believe in Him after the fighting’s done. Still—” He shook his head. “Thought I’d die before I took a single step towards the Saxons.”
It was almost the longest speech Isolde had ever heard Kian make in all the five months she’d known him. “And what did you do?” she asked.
Kian’s shoulder jerked in a shrug and he took up his knife again. “Knew if I turned tail and ran I’d only be cut down from behind. And I thought, Well, if I’m to die, I’d rather know who killed me. So I charged. Fought. Lived through it to see another battle, another day, and another year.”
He was silent, thumb moving idly along the blade of his knife, his face remote once more. “You’d think it’d get easier—but it doesn’t. It’s the same for every battle—every time. There’s that moment just before when you’d give anything you’ve got to be able to turn around and run like hell.”
Kian shook his head. “So you get yourself stinking drunk, if you can. Nothing like ale to make a man feel—well, if not like God Himself, at least like His first cousin once removed.” He laughed shortly. “And if you can stay drunk enough after the battle’s over, you’ve a chance of keeping the nightmares away.”
They were both quiet, listening to the murmur of voices from up ahead. Madoc’s prayer was ended, and they were checking the horses, preparing to move on. Isolde thought of Marcia—Marcia, who would almost certainly be dead as well by the time they returned to Dinas Emrys. There was treason before, Marcia had said. And there’ll be treason again.
“And you think this was an ambush and not just a chance attack?” Isolde asked.
Kian was silent again, squinting down at the tip of the thrush’s wing, then he shrugged again, his single eye meeting Isolde’s. “Could be I’m wrong. And come to that, I hope I am, because I don’t like the look of things if it’s true. But that’s what I’d have said. Someone knew what day and which direction we’d be taking back from Ynys Mon.”
TRYSTAN STRETCHED OUT ON THE THICK carpet of fallen leaves beneath an oak tree, his back propped against the gnarled trunk. Not as comfortable a bed as the old hermit—a white-haired Christian holy man, not a god—had offered him the night before. But since he’d tried to kill the poor bloody fellow, he couldn’t in all conscience have stayed.
Trystan grimaced, recalling how he’d come awake to find that the man he’d got by the throat was not one of his
Saxon captors but his host, plump, elderly, and gasping with terror. The old man had been almost comically relieved when Trystan took himself off.
Trystan closed his eyes. Satan’s hairy ass. All he had to do was let himself think about Isolde and that time, and the nightmares started up again.
Which was, after all, why he’d left five months before. His mind might be a bloody charnel pit with the memory of all he’d seen and done. But he could live with himself, more or less. If he got through each day as it came, allowed neither past nor future to creep in. Seeing Isolde again, though …knowing why he wasn’t even worth her spitting on—
Trystan looked down at the mutilated fingers of his left hand. He ought to be a goddamned expert at getting through torture by now.
Come to that, it had been torture to leave as well. At least he’d known Kian would be with her. Kian, who, the gods be thanked for his straightforward soldier’s disposition, had honestly believed it his own idea that he should pledge himself to Madoc and so stay near Isolde.
Trystan allowed himself an hour or so’s half-waking doze, then dragged himself to his feet. His eyes felt gritty with tiredness. But if he hadn’t slept, at least the old hermit had offered him a salve and clean bandages for the cut in his side, and the fever seemed to be gone. And apart from that, he felt all right. Well enough to go on. Which was lucky, because it wasn’t as though he had a choice.
He nearly tripped over the thing lying in his path before he’d seen it. A wolf-skin cloak. Matted blond hair. Bloodied war axe lying alongside. The hilt of a dagger sticking up from his chest.
All about, the ground was churned and muddied, and as his eyes swept the path ahead, he picked out another body sprawled under a tree on the opposite side. Must have been a fight here.
He shook his head. Brilliant. A dead Saxon with a dagger in his heart, and you conclude there must have been a fight. Maybe that fever isn’t gone after all.