Battle of Mount Badon by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Author:Tracy Cooper-Posey [Cooper-Posey, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ancient History Romance, Arthurian Romance
Publisher: Stories Rule Press
Published: 2019-11-28T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

No one in the city slept that night.

It was not just the old houses closest to the wall which the Saxons put to flame. Because the houses were so close together, jostling for space in a city which had none to spare, the flames easily leapt from house to house, from wall to wall, and roof to roof.

Even the keep itself burned. When Cara reached the gates, she saw the astonishing sight of flames leaping inside the stone walls, painting the walls with red and orange.

People poured from the gates, staggering, coughing, helping each other along.

Cara saw Bevan helping Lowri walk. He was doing most of the walking for her, for her head lolled on his shoulder. Cara raced up to him. “The Cohort!” she cried.

Bevan shook his head. “No time. Report to my second. Owen. You know him?”

“Yes.”

“You can fight with my house, as you have no standing army,” Bevan said. He lifted Lowri up and resettled her on his shoulder. “Any fighters you see, tell them to report to their house commanders.”

“Where?”

“Behind the keep, the old orchard, where the rubbish heaps are. Go.”

Cara knew the place. She had dug for meat scraps there many times. She spared a thought for Cailleach and the eagle. They were in the heart of the city. Someone would make sure Cailleach was released from the stable. For now, the more pressing need was to broach the walls and clear a path for people to escape the city.

She ran for the back of the keep, moving right around the perimeter of the solid stone structure, which took long minutes. In the old orchard, on the other side of the smelly heaps, a dozen men chopped at the thick palisades with axes, while dozens more stood with their weapons drawn.

Because the stone keep made up part of the wall and surrounded the old orchard, no flames could reach here.

Cara saw Branwen and Eira holding each other. Beside them stood the short man, Owen, who served as Bevan’s second in command. Cara moved up to him. “King Bevan asked that I serve your house. How can I do that?”

Owen nodded. “Find a weapon. When the wall is breached, we fight our way to the forest.”

They were on the north side of the city here. The forest swung around and came down to the city walls to meet the river, only a dozen or more paces away. Once, the trees had crowded the wall but a generation ago, the trees had been cleared back to a long bowshot from the wall.

“The Saxons will be in the trees,” Cara pointed out. Now she understood why Miles had disappeared. He must have caught wind of the Saxon host approaching the city, and they caught him before he could warn them.

“Which is why the armed fighters go first, to clear the way through them,” Owen replied. “While you’re finding a weapon, tell everyone to come here. Tell them to tell everyone else. Pass the word.”

Cara turned and ran.

She

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