Chapter 41: Back from the Dead

“So it’s settled that he’ll stay there until he’s calmed down?” Relieved after hearing Herrwn’s report, Olyrrwd even managed something close to a smile at the news that Rhonnon’s fastidiously well-kept nursery would soon be jumping with a drove of hares.

“Yes, it is, though I had to promise Rhonnon—”

Herrwn was about to detail the conditions of his arrangement with the shrine’s chief midwife when Egwn, one of the two servants who’d been assigned to guard the upper gate, came running in, crying, “Back from the dead! Back from the dead!”

By the time Olyrrwd managed to calm the rattled man enough to get anything more out of him, a half dozen gaunt men riding wasted, stumbling horses could be seen through the classroom window. From their ravaged appearance and the severed heads strung from their saddles, Herrwn was ready to take Egwn’s assertion at face value. Olyrrwd, however, was a skilled physician who could tell live men from dead ones even from a distance. He ordered Egwn off to tell Moelwyn to prepare six beds and snapped, “I’ll need help,” at Herrwn as he grabbed his bag and dashed out the door.

Determined to be of any assistance he could, Herrwn followed on Olyrrwd’s heels and was the one to catch Madheran as he slid off his horse, gasping, “Rhedwyn … tell Rhedwyn … we have brought our trophies to hang with his …” before his eyes closed and he became a dead weight in Herrwn’s arms.

None of the other exhausted survivors were in any better shape than Madheran, and so it was the next day before any of them were recovered enough to tell their story.

Following Rhedwyn’s command, they’d split off from the main body of their force on what they’d understood to be a suicide mission—riding headlong into the Saxon’s mounted frontline to open the way for the rest.

Madheran had led the charge, crying out, “For the Goddess! For Llwddawanden! For Rhedwyn!”

As they careened down the slope, the phalanx of advancing riders spun around and thundered away. Caught up in the mindless rage of battle, they raced after their fleeing foes, over the next ridge and into the valley beyond, where the Saxons turned their mounts around, drew their swords, and jeered. Outnumbered two to one, Madheran’s men answered with catcalls of their own and plunged into battle.

Horses reared and men screamed in a confusion of thrusting spears and slashing swords. Then it was over.

As the dust cleared, they looked around at the fallen men and horses and realized that they’d won.

They hadn’t known it was a hollow victory—that the band of Saxons they routed was a decoy, a fraction of the actual forces that had been poised out of sight and closed in on Rhedwyn when he’d led his charge after Madheran’s.

Dazed but triumphant, they bandaged each other’s wounds, collected their trophies, remounted, and rode back, joking about how surprised the others would be to see them turn up alive.

When they reached the crest of the ridge and looked down at smoldering piles of burning bodies, they assumed they were seeing Saxon corpses and rode on disappointed that their comrades had left the battlefield without coming to look for them.

Neither the men nor their horses had come through the battle unscathed. With blood loss, festering wounds, and hunger taking their toll, the trek back turned into an arduous three-day ordeal. Still, sustained by the water they drank from streams and the berries that the least damaged of them were able to find along the path, the six had made their way home unaware they were the sole survivors of what was otherwise a total massacre.

Worried that learning the truth would be more than Madheran and the others could endure in their weakened condition, Olyrrwd would allow no one into the healing chamber except Herrwn, Moelwyn, and servants sworn to silence, and he would not leave it himself. When Herrwn asked him what to do with the pile of severed heads the stable workers had left behind when they’d come to collect the horses, he gave the shrug he reserved for those beyond healing and grunted, “They were brought back for Rhedwyn; take them to him.”