A Blink of an Eye

by Troy A Hill

  Enid caught the second fighter's blow on her sword, slid her own blade down his, twisted, and grabbed his hilt with her off hand. The man paused a moment, suddenly disarmed and shocked, then snarled and lunged at Enid with open hands. Moments later, one of her swords emerged from his back, the other slid across his neck. Enid snarled back as she pulled the swords from his body. She had always seemed quiet and studious on the practice field. This was a different side of her than I was used to. Her attacker toppled, and her eyes darted about for another enemy.

  I nodded once and gave her a smile. There was neither time nor need to coach Enid. She had done well. I thrust the weaver girl at her.

  "Get inside," I yelled, then ran back towards the courtyard. Battle sounded from the front of the keep. My demon and I raced towards the sound.

  A fight blocked the stairs to the wide porch. Bleddyn and two villagers held the staircase against Fadog’s invaders.

  Despite his recent injuries, Lord Penllyn swung his blade with skill. The two villagers that fought at his side were hard pressed to keep up. About half a dozen of Fadog’s men pressed onto the stairs. I recognised the burly man who had cut down Tomi. With my demon, I zipped in behind him. My left hand grabbed his sword hilt on his backswing. With my right, I slid Soul through his mail. He released his blade and dropped to the stairs.

  I pulled him out of the way, then shouldered my way into the fight. I once again had two blades. Two more Fadog fighters fell to them. The last two I shoved off the edge of the porch. As they stumbled to their feet, I crouched on the top of the stairs, holding Soul and the other sword before me. Light from the blaze of the stables danced along the blades.

  “Run back to your master,” I said.

  As they stood trembling, I took in the scene of the courtyard from the corners of my eyes. Fadog’s men had spread the fire. Cottages and buildings on the hilltop were ablaze. Caer Penllyn was burning. Bleddyn whispered behind me.

  “Fire and death…”

  My mind flashed back to his first night awake after the shifter had attacked him. We had sat by the hearth and he had stared into the cracking logs and said those same words. Fire and death…

  Fadog’s two minions hadn’t moved, undecided. Beyond them, Tomi’s dead body lay in the mud. There was no love lost on him. But he was a son of Penllyn, and I had sworn to protect Penllyn with the last ounce of my being.

  “You waited too long,” I said and leapt into their midst. Soul and my other blade wove a pattern of death.

  But no sooner had I sent them to the hereafter than a dozen more attackers ran towards us. One of them rode on horseback, average size for a Cymry, but one who barely seemed to belong in a battle. His shield and chainmail armour were bloody, however, attesting to his taste for the sport. He pointed his sword, dripping crimson, at Bleddyn.

  “Penllyn,” he shouted. Lord Fadog’s voice was tiny but full of contempt.

  His men stood around him, blades bare, shields at the ready. Behind their lord, another four riders arrived on horseback.

  “Your swordmaster is gone to Nant Bywyd tonight, Penllyn,” Fadog said. “He’s had to train a woman to replace him? Your cantref is poor in fighters.”

  “How do you know where Emlyn is, Ffransis?” Bleddyn said behind me. “Did you arrange the other attack to draw my guardsmen away? Your fighters are far poorer if they fear to face us all at once.”

  Fadog scowled, snapping his teeth like a small, wet dog. His fighters spread out around me as I stood alone at the bottom of the stairs. Four more joined them. I counted a score now. This could get interesting.

  “Your time has come, Penllyn. Betrayal of old paid for.”

  Fadog let his eyes drift around the blazing hilltop and raised his arm, ready to signal what was clearly designed to be an execution. First of me. Then of Bleddyn. The two villagers on the porch would be no obstacle to Fadog’s teulu. The enemy fighters stood in a semi-circle around me, teeth showing through their eager smiles. I grinned an evil smile.

  “Only twenty for my blades, Fadog,” I said. “Would you like to add any more to even the odds?”

  Fadog spat in the ground. “Penllyn dies tonight!” He dropped his arm and his men surged forward. I sped to meet them. Neither Penllyn—the lord nor the fort—would fall as long as I stood.

  The night was my time.

  Penllyn was my home.

  I heard a shout “For Penllyn!” and two men dropped beside me from over the porch railing. I expected to find the two villagers—and to see them cut to the ground ere long. Instead, as I swung and spun, I barely registered Cadoc and Sawyl at my side. I smiled.

  Dodging axe and sword, I stuck Soul into vulnerable flesh time and again, dropping three for every opponent the others faced. Sawyl danced his large blade near me. Some of our lessons had gotten through to him. Cadoc had been trained by Emlyn, and flowed smoothly through the fight. His sword’s glow had faded. I assumed since our opponents were ordinary men, and not magical creatures like undead skeletons.

  The Fadog fighters had no skill or finesse. They dropped around us like flies.

  A tingle raised hairs on the back of my neck. I glanced around. Behind Fadog, I sensed another threat lurking. My preternatural eyes made out the vital details. One of the men on horseback held a bow down out of view and nocked an arrow. Bleddyn still stood unarmoured on the porch.

  I flipped my second sword in my hand. The blood on the blade made it slick, but I didn’t have time to worry. My fingers wrapped around the narrow guard between the handle and the blade. Awkard. Aemi and I practiced tossing with the swords he had designed. Longer blades, and wider, cross shaped guards. With those we were deadly accurate. No time to worry, though. I pulled back and launched it at the archer in the shadows.

  The blade soared true and fast. The archer didn’t even notice the inferior blade tumble once in the air. Instead of stabbing him, the heavy pommel It struck him in the face. He squeaked as the metal crunched into his cheek. He dropped from his saddle.

  My hand was covered in blood from the blade I’d just thrown. The smell, strengthened by the spreading pools of crimson around me, made my demon sing. She pulled my hand to my mouth. I ran the fingers across my lips and let the sweet taste of blood wet my tongue. The four guardsmen still standing watched in horror. One found his courage and, screaming, lead a final lunge at me.

  I shifted to a two-handed grip on Soul and whirled into action. More fell to my blade, until only a single fighter faced us—me, Cadoc, and Sawyl. He backed away and glanced at his lord.

  “Run, Ffransis,” Bleddyn said. “I give you your life if you run and never set foot in Penllyn again.”

  Lord Fadog, despite the four men at his back, paled as he glanced at the carnage that had been his Teulu.

  “We will expand a league into Fadog, too, in payment for your attack tonight,” Bleddyn pronounced. “If you have dreams of taking the crown of Powys, I suggest you forget them. Once word of this raid spreads, no lord in Powys or Gwynedd will trade with you. Go now, if you value your life.”

  Bleddyn was too kind, too forgiving. The scum deserved to die.

  “Or we can dance if you prefer.” I stepped towards him and dropped into a ready stance. Blood ran red down Soul’s length, giving her an eerie, rose-coloured sheen. Fadog needed to die tonight, or he’d continue to be a burr under our saddles. My new brother was wrong on this, but I had to respect his authority. Unless Fadog made a threat, a gesture. Any reason for me to attack him.

  Fadog stared at me. The long strands of his moustache, where he let it grow down the sides of his mouth, twitched several times. Come on, I thought. Give me a reason to run you through. Fadog was one of the few people I’d enjoy sliding a blade into.

  Lord Fadog turned his horse and kicked it to race down the hill and out the gate. His four remaining men followed. The last fighter on foot ran after them.

  32

  Aftermath

  Bleddyn and Cadoc rallied folks inside the keep to come out an
d fight the fires. About half the cottages, including Emlyn’s and the one I shared with Gwen, were ablaze. I bit my lip as I watched the final beam of our roof crack and fall. There was nothing of value in there—except my master’s cup. The one he’d given me when I crossed over and became a Child of the Night.

  I turned my back on the cottage. A single tear leaked from my eye as I walked. The tear wasn’t, I realised, for losing my cup. It was instead for the destruction on the hilltop. Invaders had ravaged the people and place I called home. I had just learned to embrace those concepts again, and now it was all ablaze. The warmth I felt here was replaced with a chill in my soul for Fadog and his teulu.

  Sawyl suggested we make a sweep for any Fadog fighters. We found none of them alive. A few of the townsfolk helped the wounded, but most folks manned the buckets.

  Sawyl told me that he and Cadoc, with a few others, had fought about a score of the ancient undead.

  “Haf was right there with me, Lady Mair. She helped protect the young girls,” he said. “She grabbed the first skeleton, ripped off his arm, and clubbed him with it.”

  Sawyl and Haf were clearly destined for many years of wedded bliss. But the appearance of a skeletal army, fighting side-by-side with Fadog, confirmed at least one of our fears. Fadog and the armies of the dead were working together. But whether Fadog was their master or merely their ally, we still didn’t know.

  Mikkel and Parry were at the head of a bucket brigade to save several smaller cottages near the now-decimated stables. Mikkel passed Parry empty buckets with his one good arm. Rhian and Enid joined the far end of the line and ran buckets to the well. Enid had the sword she had used slid through her belt.

  Sawyl and I pulled Tomi’s body from the mud and laid him on the keep’s porch with the other dead. I had a catch in my throat. Tomi didn’t deserve to die like that. With his cocksure attitude might not have survived his initiation into Penllyn’s guard. But he’d still walk out of the caer alive. Fortunately, most of the fallen were Fadog fighters, but several were faces of people I recognised from the caer. One of the grooms who sat with Parry and Mikkel. The smith’s apprentice, and a few others.

  As we made another sweep across the caer’s ground, I reached out to Gwen for an update.

  “We’re almost done with the clean up,” she replied. “Emlyn and his men turned the tide here. My guess is that we were the distraction to get forces out of Caer Penllyn. We’ve moved the dead, new and ancient, outside the fort’s walls. I’m not sure what to do to prevent our unseen enemy from raising them again. Seeing Dewi and the other local dead rise to fight again has unnerved even Emlyn.”

  “Cut off their heads?” I suggested. “That works to take the skeletal ones down.”

  “Emlyn had the men do so the old and new dead,” Gwen replied after a few beats. I could tell the talk of dead walking unnerved her. Even in our mental speech there was a quaver in her tone. “But I don’t recommend you do that at Caer Penllyn. The church, even our friendly abbot would frown on such practices. They smack too much of the very old druidic ways.”

  “I remember that Caesar, the first one, used their rituals and sacrifices as an excuse to exterminate the druids.” I paused for a moment to think again about the fight Emlyn had with dead Dewi. “Does Seren know about Dewi?”

  “Yes,” Gwen sent. “At first she seemed sad. But it was as The Lady said. One burden has lifted from her. She was a dutiful wife, but there was never any love between she and her husband.”

  “You knew he abused her?” I asked.

  “Only when I examined her after Osbert tortured her,” she sent. “I tried not to tell Emlyn yesterday. He discovered it on his own and pressed me on it. We do not need a war between Penllyn and Mechain right now. Our enemy, whoever it is, would love nothing more than to have us fighting each other.”

  “Surely the goddess didn’t make him do that…?” I shook my head to clear it. The ways of goddesses were confusing. “The Lady wouldn’t make Seren marry someone like Dewi…?”

  Gwen paused a second. “I doubt such is in her nature,” she said. “The Lady can see only paths into the future, and she never forces anyone into action. We make our own choices for good or ill. She must have seen Seren’s path going forward without a husband. That may be why Seren’s talent was hidden for so long. She was on the wrong path.”

  We were silent for a moment. We’d had the reminders tonight, both here and at Nant Bywyd, that our enemy was out there and talented in magical ways. How they staged undead attacks at two locations and get Fadog’s teulu past the guards at our gates was more than I wanted to fathom.

  “Now, how is Caer Penllyn?”

  I filled Gwen in on our fight and the fires. Rhian had stepped out of the bucket line, so I pulled her away to ask about the wounded. There was a haunted look to her eyes, but the Lady Penllyn stood straight as she kept watch on her people.

  “Too many wounded,” she said. “So far, we lost about a dozen townsfolk, two guards, and two of the new trainees.” I passed on her words to Gwen and Seren.

  “Give us an hour to finish here,” Gwen added. “I’ll bring Seren and Emlyn back. We can help with the wounded.”

  Rhian gave a faint, little smile when I relayed Gwen’s message. Things to smile at tonight were rare, but we did the best we could. The keep was sound as was the smithy and several other buildings. Penllyn still stood.

  “I’d hug you now,” she said. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears. “But I would go to pieces if I did. I have to be Lady Penllyn for a few more hours.”

  We held each other's gaze for a second. I could use a good cry right about now, too. But we had tasks to finish, people to protect and care for. Emotions would have to wait. With Soul in hand, I headed out to find Sawyl again.

  Enid was with the herb women, administering to the injured. The young heiress to Meirionnydd held hands with and comforted the injured while another woman sewed stitches into wounds. The smell of blood was thick here. Fortunately, my demon wasn’t stirring. I hoped, however, that Enid would be able to get through the night without her stomach rebelling.

  Sawyl checked in with Cadoc. Village men were at the wall, and the gates were barred. The villagers from below would spend the night in the fort, protected from any further Fadog raids—should Fadog be stupid enough to ask for a second taste of our steel.

  Most of the fires had been put out. Men used long pikes to pull the ruined stables down. Sawyl lent them his strength.

  I headed to the grove to meet Gwen and Seren. They should arrive soon. I rounded the path behind the keep, near the armoury building which stood untouched by fire. While I waited, I examined the strength of the rest of our defences in that part of the caer. All appeared sound. But as the moments dragged on, I began to wonder why Gwen and Seren hadn’t arrived yet. I wished I could open a slit in a tree and peek around for them.

  “Mair!” Seren’s frantic call invaded my thoughts. “Gwen has been struck down!”

  “What? How?” Damn! I swore mentally and verbally. My stomach dropped and a cold chill ran through me.

  “We think it was the wizard.” Panic surged in her mental voice. “Emlyn and she were doing a final sweep around the walls for any graves or fighters we might have missed. Emlyn said a bolt—a magical bolt, blacker than the night—hit her full in the chest and threw her back. She’s unconscious. I think I stopped the energy from spreading. It turned her skin dark and brittle.”

  My mind spun. Had we won two battles, here at Penllyn and at Nant Bywyd, only to lose Gwen to the wizard himself? Damn that wizard to all the hells, twice over!

  “Emlyn wants to know what you think we should do. He’ll help with whatever you say.”

  My only idea was a huge gamble, and I wasn’t sure if she was capable.

  “Can you tree walk?… Get Emlyn to carry her…” I paused. Could she even do this? Gwen had been trying to increase Seren’s range. To take three people—herself, Emlyn and Gwen—would tax her abilities.

&n
bsp; “I have to, don’t I? I will do it” Seren sent firmly. “Where should we go?”

  “Take her into The Lady’s realm in the Otherworld.” I had to make this up as I went. I tried to piece together enough details from all the talks Gwen and I had the last few months. “Take Gwen to the pool where you first met the Goddess. Bathe her wounds in the water of the well.”

  “Yes,” Seren sent. “Pools and wells are sacred in the old tales. That one would be special for the goddess.”

  “Gwen said she recovers quicker there.” I sighed. “I’m sorry, that’s the best I can think of.”

  Tears ran down my cheeks. They were in Nant Bywyd and I was here. I was The Lady’s warrior, and I couldn’t protect her other two special people. Emlyn trusted me to protect our people at Caer Penllyn. I’d have to trust him to help Gwen.

  “We’re going now,” Seren sent. “I’ll reach out to you when we get there.”

  “We’ve never been able to communicate from the Otherworld to our world,” I sent as I used my sleeve to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “But try to let me know. Rest up, then bring Emlyn here as soon as you can.”

  A moment later I sensed she had entered the mists between the worlds. I had to wait.

  33

  A Voice in the Dark

  The bones of the undead that Cadoc and others had battled stood out white against the grey of the moonlit hillside. My eyes drifted to the rock face where the catacombs entrance was. The glyph. It was probably scorched, useless. The bones piled on the practice field gave testimony to that.

  A glint of metal, like a knife in moonlight, drew my eye to the cleft in the rock. A figure, bulkier than an average person, entered the catacombs. No, it was two people. One cloaked and hooded figure held another up under the arms and pulled her into the small entrance cleft. Enid. She was unconscious.