They rode from Chester as if the hounds of Arawn themselves were at their heels. Ranulf sent Dafydd with them, as emissary to his men, were they to meet them on the way. The company that Ranulf had given to Cadwaladr had left Chester by the western road, which was why Godfrid’s company had missed them on their way into Chester.
Ahead of them, the sun was sinking below the Clwyd Mountains. They’d come halfway from Chester, ten miles, but with perhaps another hour at least until they’d reach Hywel and Rhun. The knowledge that Ranulf had not only listened to him but agreed to a treaty burned like a warm fire in Gareth’s belly. If Ranulf stayed true to his word, the princes only needed to give him two days to clear out of Mold, and then it would be theirs.
Victory, true victory, and an end to this war before Christmas.
“What is that noise?” Godfrid, who’d been riding beside Gareth at the head of the company, put out a hand and slowed.
Gareth hadn’t heard the first shout, but as the thunder of hooves from the company’s horses lessened, the words came clearly through the air—a dozen voices intermingled with his own name unmistakable as it was shouted to the skies: “Kill him! Kill Gareth! Kill the traitor!”
Gareth pulled on Braith’s reins, and she danced around so he could see the faces of Godfrid, Gwen, and the other men. Everyone was looking around, straining to see where the enemy force was coming from. But nothing stirred the air except a slight breeze and a few birds, swooping from one tree to another.
“What’s going on?” Dafydd urged his horse closer.
“I don’t know,” Gareth said.
“I don’t care,” Godfrid said. “I only know I heard your name.”
“It can’t be directed at me,” Gareth said. “We aren’t under attack. The shouts are coming from up ahead.”
“Someone is under attack,” Godfrid said. “Let’s find out who it is.”
They spurred their horses, thundering up a rise and then down the other side. They’d reached a valley through which the road ran in a straight line until the ford of the Terrig River. Fields, ditches, and stands of trees lined the road on either side—and right below them, a hundred yards ahead, a pitched battle was taking place.
It didn’t seem possible for so many men to be fighting in such a small space. The fighters nearest to Gareth wore surcoats indicating their allegiance to the Earl of Chester, and these were set against an equal number of men showing the crest of Gwynedd.
Gwen, riding beside Gareth, opened her mouth in horror. “Do you see? It’s Rhun!”
Gareth looked again, and there in the middle of the fight was the prince—distinguishable from his men by Gareth’s own helmet.
Godfrid didn’t wait to confer but raised his sword above his head. “Forward!”
Gareth flung out a hand to Gwen. “Get off the road!”
Gwen obeyed, and as Gareth urged Braith into a gallop, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her horse leap a stone wall and canter into a neighboring field to the south of the road.
“Ride!” Gareth said, as if Godfrid’s men needed any more urging.
With nothing more than a jerk of his head, Godfrid organized his men into two tight columns. They had only twenty men, but they were mounted and their sword arms were rested. They would drive right into the back of Ranulf’s men. Side by side, Gareth and Godfrid directed their horses straight down the center of the road.
Forty yards. Twenty yards.
And then they were upon them. A large Englishman with a broad back lifted his axe above his head to strike the final blow to a Welshman on the ground at his feet. Gareth swept the edge of his sword across the back of the man’s neck, one of the few places he wasn’t protected by armor.
The man dropped to the ground, and Gareth didn’t stay to watch him die, already moving on to the next fighter. Braith danced among the downed men, picking her way with a sureness that far exceeded Gareth’s capacity to guide her—were he even paying attention to anything but the English he intended to kill.
Then Alfred, Godfrid’s captain, gave a ululating cry that sent shivers down Gareth’s spine, and with an accompanying roar, the rest of the Danes surged into the fight. Gareth hadn’t thought they’d been particularly silent in their approach, and to his mind, hours had already passed between sighting the battle and launching the attack. But it had been fewer than a hundred heartbeats, even if Gareth’s heart was beating out of his chest at twice its normal pace.
A hundred English soldiers versus twenty Danish cavalry might not be considered a fair fight to anyone but the Danish, but their arrival gave life to the Welsh defenders. They fought with renewed vigor in defense of their prince, and there were more of them still alive than Gareth had thought at first. He even saw one man rise, hale and whole, from within a pile of fallen men to rejoin the fight.
Gareth continued to urge Braith with his knees, pressing towards the far side of the battle. His arm rose and fell, hacking at one man after another, completely devoid of finesse. A detachment filled him, and it was as if time slowed down. He could see the outlines of the fight with complete clarity.
There was Gwen, flitting into a stand of trees at the base of a hill.
There was Godfrid, his expression a rictus of hate, bringing his sword smashing down on the head of an Englishman who’d lost his helmet.
There, finally, was Prince Rhun, hard pressed, fighting two Englishmen at once, but standing back to back with Gruffydd, his captain, and Gareth’s friend, Evan.
And at the sight of the prince, time resumed its normal speed. Gareth urged Braith through the press of men, slashing at one after another, almost heedless of whom he might be hurting in his haste. Prince Rhun had dispensed with one of his opponents, but the effort had left him unbalanced, and he went down on one knee to steady himself.
As the prince surged upward to face the second man, that soldier raised his sword, aiming to finish him off. Gareth switched his sword to his left hand in anticipation of blocking the blow, but Braith was struggling to reach the attacker, stymied by the many obstacles on the ground.
So Gareth did what he could.
Loosening his feet from his stirrups, he launched himself off Braith, over the heads of two soldiers between him and Rhun’s attacker. He caught the English soldier around the neck and shoulders, falling into him and riding him to the ground. They hit the earth with a sickening crunch. Gareth lay gasping for a moment, trying to regain the breath that had been crushed out of him. The man beneath him moaned.
Gareth lifted up, easing onto his knees, and looked down at the fallen man. His right arm was bent at a terrible angle, and one of the bones in his forearm was sticking through the skin.
Gareth would have been nauseated by the sight if he allowed himself to think about it. Instead, he looked around for the prince. Neither he nor Gruffydd were anywhere in evidence, having moved back into the midst of the battle. So Gareth grasped Evan’s hand and levered himself to his feet. Their eyes met for a moment in shared acknowledgement of what they faced, and then they returned to the fray too, standing back to back, ready to take on all comers to this part of the road.
At the start of the battle, Gareth had put hope away, even as the desire for it rose in his chest. The English soldiers had thought themselves the stronger when they’d attacked Rhun’s company. In turn, the arrival of Godfrid’s men had sent them into a frenzy. It wasn’t Prince Rhun’s habit to put those who surrendered to the sword, but these men fought as if they believed that would be their fate.
Another man came at Gareth at the same moment Evan grunted with exertion behind him. A ditch protected Gareth’s right side, as if a third defender were standing there, and Gareth had already used the slippery soil to distract one soldier he’d faced. This man, however, had an intensity to him that was hard to counter. Their swords clashed again as each tried to gain the advantage.
Gareth had initially focused on the man’s sword, but he knew that it was often a man’s eyes that foretold where the next blow would come. He looked into them, and then looked for a heartbeat longer than he should have because he knew the man—and he wasn’t Saxon, for all that he was wearing Earl Ranulf’s colors.
The man—his name was Aeron—had played a role in Gareth’s past, just as Morein had. He served in Cadwaladr’s company, and even though Gareth had known that Cadwaladr had conspired with Ranulf, he still couldn’t quite believe that Cadwaladr’s men were fighting in the livery of the Earl of Chester.
Gareth’s surprise was almost his undoing, because he brought up his sword to counter Aeron’s a heartbeat too late. Aeron’s sword slid along his blade, allowing Aeron to get close, and it was only at the last instant that Gareth saw the knife in Aeron’s other hand.
Gareth twisted away, heedless of the uneven ground, and instead of driving his knife into Gareth’s gut, Aeron managed only to slide the blade along Gareth’s right ribcage. Gareth rolled, his head tucked to his chin and his left shoulder taking the brunt of the fall, and came up five paces away from Aeron, breathing hard but alive.
And then Evan swung around and skewered Aeron right through his mail.
It was enough.
The Welsh defenders had taken heavy casualties, but the attackers hadn’t been able to finish the job before Godfrid’s company arrived, and that had been their undoing.
Gareth had killed at least four men by himself, and some of Godfrid’s men had done the same, taking advantage of the element of surprise and their greater strength and wind. As Gareth surveyed the road, the bright helmets of all eighteen of Godfrid’s men reflected the last rays of the setting sun. Not many were still mounted, but all were alive.
Aeron had been one of the last of the enemy to fall.
“You’re bleeding.” Evan pulled aside Gareth’s cloak to reveal a burgeoning red stain. The narrow blade of the knife had gone right through the links of his mail, and the protective padding Gareth wore beneath it, into his skin.
Gareth looked down, puzzled. “I can’t feel it.”
Evan pressed a hand to the wound, trying to stop the flow of blood, though it immediately began to seep through his fingers. “You will. Where’s Gwen?”
Gareth looked across the road to the other side, towards the stand of trees into which he’d seen her go. He gestured to it. “Over there.”
Together they crossed over to it, reaching the stone wall that demarcated the field. Thankfully, before Gareth could panic because he didn’t see her, Gwen appeared, leading her horse. “I’m here.”
“Gwen.” Gareth put out his hand to help her over the wall, but as he did so, a shout came from the center of the road. They all turned to look at who’d cried out. It was Gruffydd, Prince Rhun’s captain. He was only a hundred feet away to the east, and Gareth could see the horror written in every line of his body.
Evan took off towards Gruffydd at a shambling run, and Gareth followed immediately after. A litany of no, no, no starting in his head, anticipating what he didn’t yet know for sure. Evan reached Gruffydd first and gave a cry of such pain that Gareth’s heart split in two. He came to a halt where Evan had fallen to his knees. A man lay on the ground face up, and while his features were obscured by his helmet, the helmet itself was unmistakable.
Evan threw himself across the body, his wailing grief rising into the air and sending shivers down the spine of every man listening. Gruffydd passed a trembling hand across his brow even as tears streamed down his cheeks. He left a smear of blood that was not his own across his forehead, and then he stared down at his hands. Gareth didn’t think he was really seeing them, and it was easier to think about Gruffydd’s grief than Gareth’s own.
Edging Evan aside, Gareth crouched beside Rhun’s body, his hands on his prince’s shoulders. “My lord,” Gareth said, trying wake him, even though he knew the prince would never wake again.
Gareth couldn’t see an obvious wound on the front of Rhun’s body, but the blood on the ground told him that he would find it if he turned him over. It was too late to save him, but the rational part of Gareth told him he had to be sure. He put two fingers to Rhun’s neck. No pulse beat in it.
Gareth bowed his head as Evan’s mournful cry was joined by others. Prince Rhun, beloved son and brother, the edling of Gwynedd, was dead.