Cadwy had seen
the black pall of smoke towering up into the morning sky, sheering and smearing
right as it found the prevailing wind in the heavens and it spoiled the pale
blue in the high east for miles. Bel’s sunrise had revealed the black
monstrosity, roiling into the clouds above and he needed no Uati to inform him
of its import or where it was coming from, as it was just as clear to all these
shocked men around him. His heart had fallen into his boots when he had first
spotted the towering symbol of his own ruin just moments ago, soundlessly
dividing the blue sky above Bidog like a black sword of doom and dividing his
heart in equal measure.
Hefin stood to
his left with Bleddyn to his right and both their stunned faces revealed the
tragedy that faced them all. All their fingers trembled as they hurriedly
strapped down their saddles and satchels and Cadwy could hardly contain his
frustration, as his thick fingers were not as awake yet as his furious mind,
and he growled as he forced them to obey.
Soldiers were
hurriedly breaking camp and throwing saddles onto horses but Cadwy and his
Gŵyrd were far ahead of those, but the Prince was the first to mount. Tywysog
reared mightily at this, clearly nervous at the explosion of terse excitement
in the camp but came to his hooves smartly and bolted for the trees. His cyfail
finally broke free from the spell cast by the black pall of doom rising behind
the hills ahead of them and they spurred their horses after him. The Gŵyrd of
Selgofa thundered off up the hillside and down the other side to enter the
great forest below, galloping after their distraught Prince and leaving their
men to follow as best they could.
In the van, Hefin and Bleddyn were both yelling
at him to slow down but Cadwy was long-past the point where he was open to
advice. Dropping flat to the saddle, he just managed to duck under the great
Sycamore limb, which would have taken his head off at this reckless velocity.
The branches scoured his back as he crashed under the horizontal branch and he
tugged the reins sharply to the right. Tywysog jinked that way in an instant
and just brushed the next tree, snagging the left leg of Cadwy’s bracs. The
chequered wool tore open below the knee and scored his skin drawing blood, but
they thundered on through the dense northern sector of Coedwig Collen without check.
There was a
dead-man’s fist clutching his heart tightly, making it difficult to breathe and
the pain unbearable and it took every ounce of his warrior’s inner-strength to
stamp firmly on the icy up-swell of panic, which reared up inside him like a
black tidal wave. All possible causes of such a large column of smoke rising
above Draenwen had been explored at lightning speed in his furious mind,
regardless of its age-old, even iconic symbolism. An early ‘summer wild-fire’
his Gŵyr had concurred hurriedly and optimistically, as they frantically
prepared for the gallop home but an almost certain catastrophe.
Cadwy had drilled
his troops himself and had paid for all the leather aprons, gauntlets and
buckets, as it was a part of Brythonic life to watch and combat Bel’s earthly
spirits when they slipped their restraints. In a thatched town, ‘fire-fighting’
was as vital as gathering the harvest and the werrin of Bidog were well drilled
in the same. There was a stream in the northern part of the town, which ran
through the back orchard of Eirwen’s crèche and led to a nearby bow in the Afon
Clwyd and with Llŷn Fychan at the
foot of the hill near CaerCarbwyn, there could be very little excuse for
allowing a summer thatch-fire to get out of control to such an obviously
catastrophic extent. If incompetence was the cause of the fire getting out of
control, his Warden Bodfyca Mawr regardless
of his reputation and size was for the high-jump.
Yet Cadwy knew in
his captive struggling heart and in his shrivelling soul as he thundered south,
that what lay beyond those hills was not the result of a summer fire. He was
convinced that the age-old symbolism in that ominous tower of filthy and dense
smoke ahead, was as true this day as it had ever been, and it seared him to the
root. In the depths of his darkest fear now emerging in him like a bleak winter
sunrise, was that Bidog had been sacked, Draenwen put to the torch and his
beloved Eirwen killed or captured, which was the primary source of the upswell
of panic threatening to engulf him, as he clung desperately to Tywysog’s saddle
and reins.
There was no real
reason to suppose that his Caer and his wife were in any real danger, unless
Galedon or another great siege-capable army had invaded and to Cadwy, that was
just nonsense. CaerCarwyn should be invulnerable to anything but a major army
with engineers and if Master Iolo had carried-out his duty and given his people
enough warning, perhaps it was just their thatched roofs which were burning and
his Caer would be bursting to capacity but safe and undiminished with Bod
yelling at everybody, but it felt like a forlorn hope to Cadwy for some reason.
There had been no
real tribal animosities in Selgofa
for many decades, apart from the ubiquitous family feuds that go-on across Prydein
thirteen months of the year but as far as he was aware, the non-threatening
community of Bidog had no known enemies. Nothing made sense to him as he urged
Tywysog through the trees, gripped by this escalating panic and there was just
no reason in this world why anyone would attack Draenwen, so he steeled himself
to face some unforeseen calamity which had befallen his new Tumony. Now he was
barely minutes away, for some unknown reason the phrase ‘forlorn hope’ came
back to his reeling mind.
The forest began
to thin as the ground rose once more and Cadwy was forty reeds ahead of his
compatriots now, who galloped after him in his leaf-strewn and perilous wake.
He goaded Tywysog again and the great stallion responded, clearly enjoying
himself from the reckless charge through the trees and as they burst from the
tree line, big clods of snowy turf flew from his great hooves. With Cadwy
leaning forwards in the saddle, Tywysog galloped up the snowy slope of Bryn
Collen with hardly a check in his forward rush and in moments, they crested the
hill. Tywysog reared mightily on his hind legs on the white crown of Bryn Collen,
flailing his forelegs in the air at the sight of his new home below him, with
the star-spangled heavens behind him a stunning backdrop, throwing him and his
rider into sharp relief. They must have made a spectacular sight from the town
below, but the sight of that same town from the starry heights of Bryn Collen,
was a bleak and heart-stopping one for Cadwy.
As the great
stallion regained his forelegs, Cadwy stared down at the devastation in his
town and in Hefin’s Caer below it, with his mouth hanging open and hot tears
pricking at his eyes. The contrast between this dreadful scene of devastation
and the earlier, beautiful one of possession he had revelled-in those months
previously was a stark and painful one to behold. The dreadful condition of Draenwen
and CaerCarbwyn was so shocking, Cadwy had forgotten to breathe and he let out
a deep and mournful sigh at that sad, deeply distressing moment.
His Caer however
looked undamaged as expected and the fighting platforms seemed partially manned
at-least and so his panic faded, as Eirwen must surely be safe and well but
why? This was the question which raged in his mind now, as someone was
responsible for the carnage and the destruction below and he would know who, or
the very earth would tremble with his anger. His Gŵyrd thundered up the hill
behind him and their talk died, as they crested Bryn Collen and looked down
upon the blackened and smoking ruin which was Draenwen, their faces reflecting
Cadwy’s horror.
“My Gods we’ve
been attacked! Who in Lug’s name could have done this and why?” Hefin’s
horror-filled voice matched everyone’s urgent question as he drew alongside
Cadwy on the brow of the hill.
Their anger
swelled quickly as they descended the hill toward the Dun on the broad drover’s
road and as more of the town came into view. The desolation before them fuelled
the building rage in these Albion warriors, but no one as yet had fathomed a
motive for such a devastating attack on Draenwen of all places, nor could they
envisage anyone in their right minds who would carry out such a brazen
‘market-town raid’ these days, as those times were long gone. It hadn’t even
been market day and so what on earth could they have come for? These questions
flew between these morose men like tethered birds as they headed downhill,
until Cadwy stilled their discussion.
“It seems we’re
about to find out!” Cadwy told them grimly sitting up in his saddle, as three
riders had come clattering out of the horse-gate of his Caer and down the ramp,
where they slewed right onto the bottom of this road and galloped up toward
them.
Cadwy frowned
seeing his Warden was not among them and they were clearly beside themselves
with some great consternation and calamity, apart from the obvious perhaps and
the terror writ large across their pale faces unnerved Cadwy, making his heart
gallop faster than the horses approaching.
As a terrible,
sliding feeling of foreboding lurched sickeningly inside him, one word rang-out
over and over in his suddenly frantic mind like a bronze bell; Eirwen!
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