Rise of the Pendragon (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 6) by Woodbury Sarah

Author:Woodbury, Sarah [Woodbury, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The Morgan-Stanwood Publishing Group
Published: 2016-02-14T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Rhiann

The Saxon torches sputtered and spit in the pouring rain, barely penetrating the cloak of darkness that had descended on Caer Fawr. Rhiann gazed over the rampart. Dafydd stood beside her, extreme tension in his shoulders. For Rhiann’s part, she felt a strange sense of dislocation—as if what she was seeing wasn’t real—and if it was, she was watching the scene from the point of view of someone else. The Saxons outnumbered them at least four to one. Maybe more. The defenders didn’t have enough arrows. It was as simple as that.

Cade had told Rhiann about his argument with Dafydd. What Cade hadn’t told Dafydd was that he’d listened, and the end result was that he’d insisted to Rhiann herself that she keep as safe as possible. Whether or not Dafydd knew it, Cade was punishing him just a little by making him stay with her. They stood on a raised platform behind a palisade, overlooking the southwestern gate. By splitting their force to directly assault both gates at the same time, the Saxons had forced Cade to split his as well.

Rhiann was torn between horror at what was coming at them and an absolute refusal to believe that they were all going to die. If they couldn’t hold the Saxons off long enough to prompt Penda to rethink this action, it would be hand-to-hand along the ramparts soon enough and there was no way the Welsh were going to win that battle.

“Aim for the neck or heart,” Dafydd said.

Rhiann glanced at him. “I’m glad you’ve found Angharad.”

“Can we not talk about it?” Dafydd said—and then proceeded to talk about it. “She’s smart, and she doesn’t talk too much, and she says she loves me. I have no idea why.”

“Don’t be foolish, Dafydd,” Rhiann said. “I loved Cade before I met you. It doesn’t mean you weren’t worthy of love. Such modesty doesn’t become you.” She elbowed him in the ribs to take the sting out of her words.

“Remember Caersws?” Dafydd said.

“How could I forget?” Rhiann said. “I’m staring down at an overwhelming force where the odds don’t favor us.”

“And yet we won the day. Just the two of us.”

“We did, didn’t we?” Rhiann found courage at the memory, though that had been a different situation. These weren’t mindless demons, chasing confused villagers across Powys. These men followed a commander who knew what he was doing and had won more battles in the last thirty years than any Mercian king before him.

“We have King Cadwaladr,” Dafydd said. “Maybe they don’t understand what that means.”

“According to Hywel, they hadn’t realized my father was dead. They are truly behind the times.”

“Here they come.” Dafydd raised his bow.

Because of the rain, they’d waited to tie their bowstrings until the last moment. As it was, the strings would soon be soaked and unusable. Rhiann had two spares. Like the arrows, she could only pray that they would be enough.

“They’re coming!” The shout came from below them.

“Why didn’t Taliesin save his explosion for now?” Dafydd said.

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