had been hurled in blind desperation up into the branches where the soldier had marked the arrow that killed the man beside him. By chance, the missile had caught Tomas in the soft place below the ribs on his left side. Tuck had been hiding in a crevice behind the tree and saw Tomas fall.
The archer landed hard among the roots of the tree, and Tuck heard the bone-rattling thump. Without a moment’s hesitation, Tuck rushed to the warrior’s aid and, with a shout to alert the others, hefted Tomas up onto his shoulders and started for home. He paused at the nearest stream to get some water and to assess the injury.
The spearhead had gone in straight and clean and, by the look of it, not too deep. There was plenty of blood, however, and Tuck wet one of the cloths he carried in his satchel and pressed it to Tomas’s side. “Can you hold that?” he asked.
Tomas, his face ashen, nodded. “How bad is it?” he asked between clenched teeth.
“Not so bad,” Tuck replied, “for all I can see. Angharad will be able to put it right. Is there much pain?”
Tomas shook his head. “I just feel sick.”
“Yes, well, that is to be expected, is it not?” replied the friar. He offered the archer another drink. “Get a little more water down you and we’ll move along.”
Tomas drank what he could, and Tuck hefted him onto his feet once more. Draping the injured man’s arm across his own round shoulders so as to bear him up, they continued on. The way was farther than he remembered, but Tuck kept up a ready pace, his short, sturdy legs churning steadily. As he walked, he said the Our Father over and over again, as much for himself as for the comfort of the man he carried.
After two more brief pauses to catch his breath, Tuck approached Cél Craidd. He could see the lightning-blasted oak that formed an archway through the hawthorn hedge which helped to hide the settlement. “Almost there,” Tuck said. “A few more steps and we can rest.”
There was a rush and rustle behind him. “Tuck! How is he?”
The friar half turned, bent low beneath the warrior whose weight he bore. “Iwan, thank God you’re here.” He glanced quickly around. “Is anyone else hurt?”
“No,” he replied. “Only Tomas here.” Tossing aside his bow, he helped ease the weight of the wounded man to the ground. Tomas, now only half-conscious, groaned gently as they stretched him out. “Let’s have a look.”
“I lost my bow,” moaned the injured warrior.
“No matter, Tomas,” replied Iwan. “We’ll get you another. Lie still while we have a look at you.”
Tuck loosened the young man’s belt and pulled up his shirt. The wound was a simple gash in the fleshy part of his side, no more than a thumb’s length. Blood oozed from the cut, and it ran clean. “Not too bad,” Iwan concluded. “You’ll be chasing Ffreinc again before you know it.” To Tuck, he said, “Let’s get him to a hut and have Angharad see to him.”
As the two lifted Tomas between them, the rest of the war band appeared. “We’re clean away,” reported Rhoddi, breathing hard from his run. “No one gave chase.”
Scarlet, Owain, and Bran were the last to arrive. Bran glanced around quickly, counting his men. “Was anyone else injured?”
“Only Tomas here,” said Iwan, “but he—”
Before the words were out of his mouth there arose a piercing shriek—the voice of a woman—from the settlement beyond the concealing hedge. The cry came again: a high-pitched, desperate wail.
“Noín!” shouted Scarlet, darting forward. He dived through the archway of the riven oak and disappeared down the path leading into Cél Craidd.
The men scrambled after him, flying down into the bowl of a valley that cradled their forest home. At first glance all appeared to be just as they had left it earlier that morning . . . but there were no people, none to greet their return as on all the other days when they had gone out to do battle with the Ffreinc.
“Where are they?” wondered Owain.
The shuddering wail came again.
“This way!” Scarlet raced off along one of the many pathways radiating out into Coed Cadw.
Only a few steps down the path he found his wife standing in the path, bent almost double, her shoulders shaking with the violence of her sobs.
“Noín!” Scarlet rushed to her side. “Noín, are you hurt?”
She turned, her face stricken and crumpled with pain, although she appeared