Sacrifice: Book One of y Ddraig [The Dragons of Brython] by Gwendolyn Beynon

Author:Gwendolyn Beynon [Beynon, Gwendolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780994352705
Publisher: Dark Pages Publishing
Published: 2015-05-25T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

No doubt, every day until the new moon would be much as this one. Plodding spared the horses, but it didn’t spare her sinews.

They lumbered onward, until Ylfael called a halt to their little party. ‘This rise is treacherous, we walk the horses from here.’

All but one dismounted without comment, but Nerys was built for cooking, not climbing and gave voice to her opinion immediately. She did not stop until they were halfway up the steep slope and the rise stole the ability from her.

‘Perhaps the master-at-pot fit better ‘tween your stout thighs than I knew,’ Ylfael flung back to her between puffs of deep breath at his own climb. ‘It would be but a finger’s lift to have Guto return you to him.’

That silenced her well enough, but it also brought the fourteen remaining Mathrafal whores to mind. And the se’nnight delay before she could press for the release of another once they arrived at Crug Eryr.

Melangell trusted Nerys no better than her horse on the steep slopes, and so took the Creil in its bridle onto her own back and left Nerys to lead both their mounts up the crag’s rocky west face. Nothing like the bald scree slopes of Eryri; here, the tangled mass of tree roots seemed to hold the whole hillside together, and their thick trunks would provide a back-breaking stop should any of them lose foot.

As they forged upwards, woodland gave way to bracken and the deep cover of the trees opened up into the golden heath of the uplands. After the darkness of the valley forest, the sun’s light bouncing off the ferns and grey sedges pierced her eyes until they watered at the new light. Eifion led the way over the crest, around its unclimbable granite peak and out onto the home of the fair people.

Melangell pressed her hand against the granite peak, catching her breath, and closed her eyes to entreat the land’s ancient dwellers. For entry. For safe passage. For permission to pluck of their bounty. She got nothing but a warm, welcome feeling and so took that as consent. A glance showed Nerys doing much the same but the three Christians trudged unprotected—and uninvited—straight into the domain of the fair people.

‘I should go on foot, in front,’ she said, suddenly conscious of what they could do to Ylfael and his men. ‘To guard against treading in bog pits or the homes of the Drygioni.’

Needs not make them any angrier than they already would be.

She surrendered the Creil back to Nerys who strapped it securely onto her riderless horse.

‘We are highly skilled warriors,’ Ylfael said. ‘It is we who will do the guarding.’

He pressed on ahead, but Eifion glanced at him, then back at her and then dismounted. ‘To save our horses from broken foreleg,’ he murmured, setting off more carefully.

Perhaps they were not all as unconcerned as they would have her believe.

All around them, the uplands burst with season. The time between the Growing Moon and the Bright Moon was perhaps the most glorious of the entire year.

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