Her muscles bunched under the ragged shift. She rose on to the balls of her feet. She would not be taken like this! She would not be led meekly to her death!
With a scream of rage, she flung herself headlong at her enemies.
She would die on her own terms.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It had been a futile effort – Branwen’s attempt to force the Saxon guards to kill her in her cell. They knew too well the price they would pay if they failed to deliver her alive and in one piece to the marketplace in the town of Chester on that bright and cloudless morning.
As she rushed at them, so they beat her to the ground, kicking her and stamping on her arms and legs to subdue her, then hauling her upright again, so she hung breathless between them, gasping and spitting blood.
But she refused to be dragged along by them. At the very least she would go to her death on her own two feet. Surrounded by the guards, she climbed an uneven stone stair and came into daylight. She blinked in the unfamiliar sunshine as they passed through a high arched doorway of cut and shaped stone and stepped into a wide, open area where an expectant crowd was gathered. Most were on foot, but behind the throng she could see warriors on horseback, chatting among themselves or straining forward to get a better view.
She knew where she was. She had seen this open space before in daylight, when she and Blodwedd had infiltrated the Saxon town of Chester in search of the casket-prison of Caradoc of the North Wind.
The cell in which Ironfist had incarcerated her for the last month was in the bowels of a huge old Roman structure, long ruinous and decayed.
A susurrus murmur rose from the gathered townsfolk and soldiery as Branwen appeared in front of them. She stumbled but balanced herself quickly, refusing to show weakness. Above her, the cracked shell of the Roman building lifted to the clear sky, its impossibly tall walls rounded, and circled with broken stone pillars as thick as forest oaks.
General Ironfist was there, decked out in his finest clothes, his cloak as red as fresh blood, spilling down off his broad shoulders and foaming at his feet. A golden helmet was on his head, etched with coiling serpent shapes, their scales of inlaid silver, their eyes green jewels that flashed and sparkled as he moved under the burning morning sun.
‘Welcome, Branwen of the Petty Gods,’ he called, spreading his arms to her as she walked forward in the ring of armed men. ‘The sun shines down upon us on this most blessed of days.’
‘I see I’ve drawn quite a crowd,’ Branwen called to him, staring unafraid at the multitudes with their eager faces, greedy for bloodshed. Women were there as well as men, their expressions choked with blood lust even as they gathered their children close to watch the evil shaman girl meet her doom. Further off, the helmets and spear tips and chain-mail of the mounted warriors flashed in the sunlight.
Branwen eyed them all with a stony face, determined to show Ironfist and the gawping Saxons no hint of the fear that clenched so hard and fierce in her stomach.
‘Indeed you have,’ said Ironfist. He turned to the gathered people and shouted something in his own language. The congregation let out cheers and catcalls and jeers of laughter.
Ironfist turned back to her. ‘I would not have you die alone and friendless, Branwen,’ he told her, his single blue eye glinting in his ugly face. ‘Call upon your gods, shaman girl. Beg the Shining Ones to save you.’
Branwen lifted her chin and stared challengingly at him, saying nothing.
She knew better than to cry out for help from Rhiannon or Govannon or Merion or Caradoc. They would not come, and her pleas would only serve to amuse the Saxon spectators. She would not perform for them like that! She would show them what fortitude a child of Powys could present as death took her.
‘No?’ Ironfist said, thrusting out his lower lip in pretence of disappointment. ‘Well, if you will not, you will not.’ He walked over to her. The guards stepped aside to let him through. He put his hand on Branwen’s shoulder and turned her, pointing upwards with his other hand.
She followed the line of his finger. Upon the head of one of the stone pillars perched a large raven, watching her with baleful eyes that flickered with an unhallowed red fire.
‘To tell you the truth,’ Ironfist murmured in her ear, as though passing on some amusing secret, ‘had they come, they would have been unable to do anything but watch you suffer. In this place, Branwen, in this land, Ragnar reigns supreme.’
Such a horror came into Branwen’s heart as she looked up at the hideous raven that she didn’t dare to speak in case her voice broke and let her down.
Ironfist stepped back and said something to her guards in his own language.
Branwen was held by the arms as four horses were led forward. Branwen watched them with growing apprehension. Was she to be trampled to death? It would be a horrible way to die, but it was hardly the dreadful new manner of death that Ragnor had threatened her with.
Four Saxon guards began unravelling coiled ropes. They brought them to Branwen and each tied a rope around her elbows and knees, knotting them excruciatingly tightly.
Biting her lip to prevent herself from crying out with the pain, Branwen saw the four ropes being fed out to where the horses stood, stamping their hooves and tossing their heads.
Four ropes and four horses.
Branwen shuddered as an inkling of what Ironfist had planned for her came into her mind.
The other ends of the ropes were knotted to the horses’ saddles. Ironfist shouted instructions and the four horses were led away from one another, two to points at Branwen’s left, two to her right.
More soldiers moved through the crowds, parting them so that four wide aisles were formed. Nausea filled Branwen’s throat. Her legs weakened under her and had she not been held to the pillar, she might have fallen to her knees.
The long ropes hung slack between her limbs and the four horses. The animals now faced outwards to where the four passages had been cleared in the crowd.
Blood pounded in Branwen’s head, louder even than the growing noise of the excited Saxon audience. A chant grew among them, swelling and swelling till it sounded like thunder.
‘Waelisc abreatan! Waelisc abreatan! Waelisc abreatan!’
Ironfist swung round to face her again, his face exultant. ‘They call for you to be destroyed, shaman girl,’ he shouted over the howling of the crowds. ‘Would you beg for clemency, Branwen? Even now, if you give yourself to Ragnar, you will be spared.’
Branwen swallowed hard. ‘Let it be over!’ she shouted, her voice sounding frail and weak against the tumult of the crowd and the beating of blood in her temples. ‘I die for Powys! I die defiant! Brython will never be yours, Ironfist! Never!’
‘So be it!’ howled Ironfist, lifting his arm. Four men stood holding the bridles of the horses. Four others stood at their rumps, armed with thick wooden staves, holding them ready to be brought down hard on the animal’s backsides to spur them forwards.
On Ironfist’s command, the struck horses would gallop away from Branwen. The ropes would tighten, thrumming as they became taut. There would be a torment of utter agony as Branwen’s limbs were jerked from her body.
She would be torn apart.
‘Caw!’ She stared up in pure terror. Ragnar was glaring down at her, and in the raven’s fiery eyes she saw her fate revealed.
Not to die. To be ripped to pieces, but to survive.
To be a trophy of the Saxon armies.
To live for ever in agony and despair.
To see Brython overrun.
To witness everything she had ever loved be destroyed.
To never know peace.
Ironfist’s voice rang out. ‘Nu oa!’
Now!
The four rods came down hard on the horses’ rumps. The four animals sprang forwards, kicking up dust. The ropes hissed as they straightened out.
Branwen closed her eyes and filled her mind with the image of her dear mother. A final shred of comfort as she prepared to meet her doo
m.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A sharp sound made her force her eyes open again in wide surprise. Thwick! It was a familiar sound. The sound of a speeding arrow. She felt a pulling and then a release of tension in her right arm.
And at exactly the same moment she heard a murmur of consternation rise in the crowd, while above her head she became aware of yet another noise – a humming, buzzing turbulence coming down to her from high in the air.
She saw a second arrow come whizzing over the heads of the crowd. Aimed sure and true, it cut the rope that led from her right leg. And even as the rope fell slack, she saw cloaked figures dart from the crowd, arms raised, shouting, standing in the way of the two horses that were still drawing out the ropes from her left side.
The horses came to a startled halt, one of them rearing so sharply that it lost balance and fell back on to its rump. It writhed on the ground, trying to find its feet. But before it was able to get up again, the cloaked and cowled figure leaped forward and slashed at the rope.
Meanwhile, the other figure had hold of the last horse’s bridle and was holding it steady while its sword stroke severed the final rope.
Branwen stood dumbfounded in her bonds.
Not ripped apart!
Not destroyed yet!
A raucous darkness swept down over her. She looked upwards. She was under a shadow cast by a great flock of owls. The birds came flooding in their hundreds over the top of the stone building, gathered together as dark and thick and threatening as thunderclouds scudding across the sun.
The raven demon gave a cry of fury and anger, taking to the air as the owls swarmed, but their great downy bodies surrounded and engulfed it.
A bellow of rage took her attention away from the upper airs. Ironfist had his sword in his hand. He was howling orders to his discomforted men. But a moment later a third arrow flew, striking Ironfist in the chest, glancing off his chain-mail, but sending him staggering backward with its force. He stumbled and fell, his golden helmet rolling in the dirt.
Scores and scores of owls descended upon the crowds, screaming now, reaching out with their huge claws, raking the air so that the terrified people cowered and fell, or fled in panic, trampling one another in their desperation.
But in all the chaos, Branwen saw two horses riding towards her, ignored by the owls, buffeting their way through the milling throng.
One of the horses bore two cloaked and cowled riders, the other, slightly in the lead, carried just the one figure, his cowl stripped back, a bow across his shoulders and a bright sword flashing in his hand.
‘Iwan!’ Branwen’s voice escaped involuntarily from her throat.
It was Iwan, beyond all hope, beyond all delusion, beyond all reason – it was Iwan! Iwan ap Madoc come to save her!
One or two soldiers, rallying themselves in all the mayhem, blocked Iwan’s path. He cut them down like dry grass as he urged his horse out through the mêlée and galloped towards her, his bloodied sword spinning in his fist.
‘Gwyn Braw!’ he shouted. ‘Gwyn Braw to Branwen!’
Gasping in wonder and disbelief, Branwen now saw who rode the other horse. It was Banon, with Blodwedd clinging on behind. And the two figures that had stalled the wild gallop of the roped horses were Dera and Aberfa.
The Gwyn Braw had come to her rescue!
Sweet gods of water, wood and stone! Am I to be saved?
Bringing his horse up short, Iwan leaped down from the saddle. His sword flashed in front of Branwen’s eyes – once, twice, three times. The ropes fell away from her and she lurched forward into his arms.
‘Do exactly as I say,’ he panted, pulling her after him as he ran to one side. ‘Say nothing. Trust me.’
He drew her into the space between two of the stone pillars, pressing himself up against the ancient stone wall, holding her tight against him in both arms. She was shaking so much that she could hardly stand. She felt him press something small and hard and cold to the side of her neck.
‘Be silent!’ he hissed.
Too shocked and stunned to disobey, she leaned against him, breathing hard, her face up close to his, her eyes staring into his eyes. He grinned a fierce grin and winked, lifting his mouth to kiss her forehead, then bringing his lips close to her ears.
‘I have two of Merion’s crystals,’ he whispered. ‘Blodwedd brought them to us. If we keep still and make no sound, we may go unseen in all this uproar. Do not fear – we have a plan.’
Merion’s crystals. Six small white stones that the Mountain Crone had imbued with a part of her powers, so that anyone wearing one of the stones against their flesh would be able to move unnoticed among their enemies. Not invisible as such – but unobserved so long as the eye of a foe was not drawn to them by a sudden word or action.
Branwen huddled against Iwan, feeling the heat of his body seeping into her through the thin rag that covered her, feeling his breath warm and sweet on her cheek, feeling his arms enclosing her.
‘Give me your sword,’ she hissed. ‘I must fight!’
‘No!’ he insisted, his arms tightening around her. ‘Let others do it – they are better equipped to escape alive! Be calm and still, for pity’s sake, Branwen! I know what I’m doing.’
A terrible conflict was taking place in the airs above Branwen’s head. She could hear screaming and hooting and croaking from the mass of owls that had mobbed the raven. But Ragnar was no easy prey. Every few moments, the body of an owl would come tumbling down from the affray, bloodied and torn and bereft of life, to thud pitifully on to the ground. A few of the injured creatures tried to move, but most lay stiff and still, their feathers clogged with gore.
But the remainder of the great flock was still causing disorder and pandemonium among the Saxons, tearing flesh, pecking eyes, beating at faces and limbs with their wide, sturdy wings. The occasional soldier stood his ground, swinging blindly with a sword, or thrusting into the air with a spear, his other arm flung up to protect his face. But most had scattered or lay writhing under the ferocious weight of the attacking birds.
The passage of events was too swift for Branwen to take in. It seemed to her that only a few beats of her heart ago she had been on the brink of a horrible fate – but now, in the blink of an eye almost, it seemed – the turn of a head, the time it might take to draw in a breath – the world had come alive again around her and she was filled with new hope and new anxiety and new life.
She watched in a daze as the owls rose and gathered, leaving blood and dread and disorder in their wake. She saw them flocking above Blodwedd and the others of the Gwyn Brawn. She saw that Dera and Aberfa were horsed now. She saw Banon turn her steed away and go riding hard and fast towards the gate of the city, Aberfa and Dera close behind.
Ironfist staggered to his feet, roaring orders to the remnants of his soldiery, running after the fleeing horses. And through the power of the white crystals, Branwen could now understand his words, even though he was speaking his own tongue.
‘Stop them!’ he howled. ‘To horse! They must not get away! They have the shaman girl with them! A bag of gold to the man who brings down the waelisc witch!’
Iwan whispered in Branwen’s ear again. ‘See now what we had planned? Dera will lead the others to the bridge and over the River Dee while you and I slip quietly away in the opposite direction.’
‘They will be run down and killed!’
‘With good fortune, they will not. The owls will do all they can to cover their escape! They are loyal birds and brave fighters, and they will do Blodwedd’s bidding, even to the death. While the owls keep Ironfist’s men busy on the bridge, Dera will lead the others north and around in a wide circle. If they outrun the Saxons we will meet with them in a place we have already chosen. The two of us shall approach it from the south, and there will be no Saxons on our trail.’
‘And if they do not outrun the Saxons?’
‘Then you at least shall be saved,’ Iwan replied. ‘The Chosen One of the Old Gods will not be lost,
and neither shall the great destiny that she is meant to fulfil.’
Branwen stared into Iwan’s dancing eyes. ‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘That’s a tale for a less precarious time and place,’ said Iwan. ‘Are you able to walk?’ His eyes were anxious. ‘You are grown so thin,’ he said under his breath, a catch coming into his voice. ‘I’ve fretted for this day for a month and more!’ He touched his forehead against hers. ‘I feared you were dead, Branwen. Truly, I did!’
She lifted her hand to touch his lips. ‘Hush, now!’ she said. ‘I’m alive, Iwan. And I can walk, barefoot though I am and half naked in such cruel weather!’
‘In that at least, I can help you.’ Iwan undid the clasp that held his cloak and threw it around her shoulders, pulling it tight around her and clipping it at her throat. He looked into her face again, and for a moment the longing in his eyes took her breath away. But then he lifted the hood to cover her head and leaned forward, peering out over her shoulder.
‘The plan goes well,’ he said. ‘Let’s slip away now. Remember – move as quietly as possible and say nothing. We will need to pass close by the army camp, and I’d not count much on our survival if they get wind of us!’ She shivered. ‘Have you seen their numbers, Branwen? I’d say Ironfist has mustered six or seven thousand.’
‘I’ve seen them,’ Branwen replied. ‘Come, Iwan. Give me the crystal.’
He opened his palm and she took the small, cold crystal and closed her fist around it. She looked up. The sky was clear now, but she had noticed that there were no black feathers among the tawny bodies of the slaughtered owls. It seemed that the raven had fled. But where might he have gone, that was the question.
Ragnar was not a demon to be defeated by owls, no matter how thick they flocked around him.
So where was the dark god of the Saxons?
Where was Ragnar?
Branwen and Iwan made their stealthy way to the south gate of the town. On the way, they were often forced to step aside or to dart into cover as warriors came running past them in the opposite direction. From the centre of Chester, battle horns were blowing a strident call as Ironfist gathered his troops to hurl them in pursuit of Dera and the escaping Gwyn Braw.
Caradoc of the North Wind Page 17
