The Pendragon's Blade (The Last Pendragon Saga Book 2) by Woodbury Sarah

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

Chapter Five

Rhiann

“How long has it been since anyone’s seen him?”

“I spoke with him at the ford,” Rhun said. Taliesin and Rhiann had gone to him when they realized that Cade was nowhere in sight and none of the men, either at the ford or in the tent, had seen him. “He said he would walk in the forest and clean up some of the remaining Saxons who might have retreated there.”

Rhiann knew what that meant. The image of Cade wrapping his arms around the shoulders of that first Saxon rose unbidden in her mind and her stomach threatened to revolt again. And yet, Rhun had given orders that none of them were to succor the wounded Saxons. They were to leave them as they lay, and by those lights, one could construe Cade’s behavior as merciful.

Taliesin gazed east and then turned west, unseeing, or perhaps seeing in a way that only he could. “He’s alive. That I know. But we’ve been most negligent. We’ve assumed that because he appears invincible, he, in fact, is.”

“Do you know where he’s got to?” Rhun said.

“Oh!” Taliesin said, his seriousness lifting for the first time in hours. “Of course!”

“Of course, what?” Goronwy said.

Taliesin was still staring, tracing the outlines of the western mountains with his eyes. “Caer Ddu.”

Goronwy and Rhun swung around to look west too, trying to see what Taliesin saw. “There’s no such place. Or rather,” Rhun qualified, “it’s a place from a bard’s tale.”

“Oh, it’s real all right,” Taliesin said. “You just have to know where to look.”

“And the fact that you are no longer worried implies that you can find this fort?” Goronwy said.

“Yes,” Taliesin said happily, “I can. I’ve been there before.”

“Can you lead us there?” Rhiann said.

“It isn’t far,” Taliesin said, still humming his own internal tune.

“We need to eat and sleep,” Rhun said, turning practical. “None of us will be fit to walk, much less fight, if we do not see to our human needs.”

“Will Cade be all right if we wait?” Dafydd said. “Wales cannot lose him.”

Rhiann nodded. Like Dafydd, she wanted to find Cade right now, but as Rhun had pointed out, she was so tired from the battle and lack of sleep that if the sun weren’t shining right on her face, she wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes open.

“I don’t like it any more than you.” Taliesin stared into the distance again. “I cannot promise you he is uninjured, but he is still himself. He has not suffered any permanent damage.”

“Well, that’s good,” Rhun said. “I wonder if his captor realizes he has a sidhe on his hands?” He turned away and headed towards Geraint, who was directing men bearing stretchers. The able-bodied were carrying more and more wounded away from the battlefield and into the tent.

“How many of our men are dead?” Rhiann asked Goronwy.

“Perhaps thirty in all,” he said. “The number of injured men is much greater. We lost a third of the cavalry and a quarter of the foot soldiers.

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