The West Rises (High King Book 1) by Davies S.M

Author:Davies, S.M. [Davies, S.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sylfa Press
Published: 2022-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

15

The breakers of a rising evening tide roared on the shingle beach at the mouth of the valley. A light wind was blowing in off the sea, raising fine spindrift from the crests of the rolling waves and shivering the grass on the sand dunes above the tide mark. The long beach was quiet, except for a handful of men fishing in the choppy water where the river ran into the sea. Sounds drifted from the settlement in the valley; a smith hammering at his anvil, cattle lowing in the stock pens, the steady clack of the weavers’ looms.

Down on the dunes Kerin lay on his back amongst the sea grass, watching the movement of clouds and the soundless passage of gulls overhead. For a long time he lay perfectly still, enjoying the pleasant warmth of the sand beneath his body and the elusive valley smell which came and went with the wind. How he had missed that smell; the sweet, mingled scent of bracken, salt and gorse blossom. The narrow streets and palatial buildings of Londinium seemed of another world. Kerin sat up and flexed his shoulder. It was still painful, although Marcellus’s ointment had helped. His young grey horse, hitched to a driftwood log nearby, was watching him attentively. Blaidd, the wolf, four years old, warhorse in training. Kerin whistled softly and the horse blew through his nostrils in reply. If a man came over that sand dune and grabbed me, you’d kill him stone dead, Kerin thought.

Out on the beach Rufus’s brothers were racing their mares in the surf, just rounding the foot of Penrhyn Fawr, the towering headland which separated the valley and its sheltered bay from the vast expanse of firm beach to the west. The two riders came flying up over the soft sand and jumped off, leaving their sweating animals to nibble at the bramble bushes. Paschent, the younger of the two, withdrew to a sun-bleached log further along the tide mark and started whittling a piece of driftwood. Katigern, his older brother, flung himself down on the sand beside Kerin. He resembled Vortigern in build, broad-shouldered, supple and powerful; but from somewhere far back in his ancestry he had inherited light brown curly hair and a pair of sparkling pale blue eyes. Unfortunately, the progenitors who had given him his amiable disposition had not provided a lightning intelligence to illuminate it.

‘Where have you hidden that cook, then?’ he asked.

‘He’s asleep in my house,’ Kerin said. ‘Poor Cheldric, it’s probably the longest journey he’s ever been on in his life. He’s cooking a goose for me tonight, though.’

‘For you?’ Katigern hooted. ‘Just for you?’

‘Well,’ Kerin said, ‘for us.’

‘I should think so, too,’ Katigern said, beaming. ‘And I hope you’re not running off back to Londinium too soon, either. Life has been rather dull around here lately.’

Kerin could see that it might have been, for a young man whose greatest pleasures were riding, hunting and feasting, and who had been deprived of most of his usual companions-in-arms.

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