The Sword of Wayland

by Gavin Chappell

  * * * * *

  Panting, his face slick with blood from a gash across his scalp, Edwin staggered round an outcrop of rock, and saw another valley opening out ahead of him. He turned to Hywel, Llewellyn, and the two surviving warriors, who were hurrying up the pass towards him.

  ‘Almost there!’ he cried.

  Hywel darted a glance over his shoulder. ‘The wild men are still following,’ he replied. The warriors quickened their pace, and finally halted beside the Englishman.

  Mountains rose around the valley beyond the pass like the walls of a bowl, plunging steeply into the woods that flanked a deep lake. At the far end of the lake rose a large wooded outlier of the foothills of Snowdon.

  ‘There is Dinas Emrys,’ Hywel gasped. ‘Hurry!’

  They began their descent into the valley.