Caradoc of the North Wind - By Allan Frewin Jones Page 0,1
imagine going into battle without her.
‘Caw!’ Branwen smiled as Fain came scything through the trees, his wide wings the colour of rain-washed slate, his eyes like black beads, brimming with intelligence. He alighted on a branch above her head, dislodging a steeple of snow.
‘Keep watch, my friend, but keep back,’ Branwen told him. ‘There will be arrows, for sure, and I cannot afford to lose you.’ Fain’s eyes had led her safe through the deadliest jeopardy, scouting ahead, warning her of coming perils. Without him she would have blundered blind into many a trap set for her by her enemies.
And she had many enemies. As many from within as from without. The traitorous Prince Llew ap Gelert beating upon them from the west, and Herewulf Ironfist’s Saxon hordes swarming like rats in the east. And Powys in between, pressed like a trapped limb between two crushing rocks.
But it was not the time to dwell on the tribulations of this double-edged war. It was not even the time to ponder the implications of this latest desperate mission.
This was the time to fight.
‘This is most strange,’ murmured Blodwedd. ‘Where is our enemy?’
Where, indeed? thought Branwen.
The two young warriors had climbed up the snow-shrouded hills, almost to the very feet of the half-ruinous old stone tower. It loomed above them now, surrounded by the winter-scoured forest, ancient and ominous with its head bowed under a heavy cap of snow. As Fain had reported, the lower windows and square entrance way were blocked with rubble. From the little snow on the heaped stones, Branwen guessed they had been crammed there by the defenders, probably gathered from the remnants of some age-gnawed wall within.
They were at the edge of a forest clearing, in a place of boulders and rocks, keeping low behind humps and ridges blurred by snow as thick and soft as silken pillows. As they stared from cover, they saw ahead of them a wide, flat area in front of the tower, where the snow was churned up and tramped down by the passage of many feet. A few arrows lay in the snow, and others stabbed down into the earth.
But a curious silence wrapped the tower, and of the Saxon besiegers Fain had warned them about, there was no sign.
‘They would not have departed, if they knew who was within the tower,’ murmured Blodwedd.
‘Perhaps they did not know?’ mused Branwen. ‘Perhaps it was no more than bad fortune that brought them here. If so, they may have thought the siege not worth the effort.’ She glanced at her companion. ‘That’s rare good fortune, if it proves true.’
To gain their prize and return to the king’s court at Pengwern without bloodshed would be a rare treat. It would also remove from her mind an ominous shadow – the unshakeable fear that tragedy would accompany this mission.
‘Let us pray that the Shining Ones gift us with good fortune and an easy task,’ Branwen said, glancing at Blodwedd. The owl-girl made no comment. It was a long time since the Shining Ones had shown themselves to Branwen, for good or ill – not since she had turned her back on them in the high summer and ridden hard to King Cynon to offer him her fealty in the brewing conflict. It was a promise she had made to a dying man.
Unless, of course, this monster of a winter was Caradoc’s doing. Branwen half believed it might be so – some petty but deadly retribution meted out by the god of the North Wind to rebuke her for her temerity. Not that he had cause to be angry with her. She had rescued him from a hundred years of captivity.
All the same, he was a wild and a dangerous elemental; the reasons and actions of the Shining Ones were not easily understood, and defying gods was no small matter, as Branwen knew only too well.
Blodwedd’s slender arm jutted forward. ‘Look!’ she hissed.
Some thirty paces away across the disturbed and trampled snow, Branwen saw movement in the blocked entrance. The plug of rubble burst, spraying outwards, the stones rolling black in all the whiteness.
A figure emerged from the sudden dark hole. A Warrior of Brython, clad in chain-mail and with a red cloak and a face as lined and worn as old leather. There was grey in his heavy moustache, and grizzled hair showed under his helmet. He bore a sword and on his arm was a shield that displayed the red