Caradoc of the North Wind - By Allan Frewin Jones Page 0,20
walls – soldiers watching them from above.
‘Keep the gates open!’ she shouted, but her words were lost in the clamour of their frantic ride.
‘They shut us out!’ howled Aberfa. ‘We are abandoned!’
They were on the causeway now, the plunging ditch falling away on either side. The earthen bridge was no wider than would allow six horsemen to ride abreast, and there were twin towers on either side of the gates, from which defenders could shoot arrows and hurl rocks upon any attacking force.
The gates thudded shut. Branwen heard the boom of the timber bars being thrown across.
She brought Terrwyn up sharp, heaving back on the reins, feeling him buck and shy beneath her. Around her, the other horses were brought to a chaotic halt under the looming gates of Pengwern.
Branwen turned Terrwyn to face the oncoming enemy. She drew her sword and pulled her shield around on to her arm as the Saxon riders galloped on.
Aberfa was right. They had been abandoned. They would have to fight alone – six against forty.
‘Gwyn Braw!’ Branwen shouted. ‘Gwyn Braw to the death!’
And around her she heard the voices of her comrades raised in the same wild cry.
‘Gwyn Braw to the death!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Had Branwen been given time to despair, she might have despaired.
Had she been given time to wonder why the gates of Pengwern had been thrown shut in their faces, she might have wondered.
But she was not given the time.
She had time only to act on instinct.
‘Iwan, keep Linette safe!’ she shouted, kicking her heels in Terrwyn’s sweating flanks and cantering back along the causeway towards the ranks of the Saxon horsemen. ‘All others – follow!’
The Saxons had slowed, gathering at the end of the causeway, spears ready to strike, swords and shields up, their exhausted horses blowing smoke about them so that they seemed wreathed in the fumes and steams of Annwn.
Branwen came in among them like a thunderbolt, her sword whirling like striking lightning, her shield beating back their blows. They roared and hacked at her, taken off guard by the ferocity of her assault. And before they had time to regroup to surround and destroy her, Aberfa and Banon and Rhodri and Blodwedd came hammering down on them like the Furies of the Underworld.
For a time of madness and chaos, all Branwen could do was stab and parry, lunge and duck, as spears grazed her and swords rang on her shield. There was a noise like a raging ocean in her head, and over her vision came a veil of red fire. An axe scythed past her shoulder. She turned and stabbed for a throat. Blood sprayed.
Horses crowded together, barging and bumping, turning and wheeling as they neighed and struggled in the mêlée. She heard Aberfa shouting. She saw Banon rip a Saxon from his saddle and leap into his place, snatching up the reins as her sword sang. Blodwedd was on the ground, tumbling over and over as she fought a Saxon soldier, teeth and claws against a stabbing seax knife.
A heavy blow hammered down hard on Branwen’s shield, numbing her arm and throwing her from the saddle. She crashed on to her back, pounding hooves all around her. She was on her feet in an instant, the taste of blood in her mouth where she had bitten her lip. The horses crowded her, buffeting her, making it hard for her to keep to her feet.
She slashed at a man’s thigh and stabbed up into an unguarded stomach, sick with the pain of her fall, spinning and turning with her shield as blows rained down on her from all sides.
She saw Rhodri tumble from his horse. She saw Aberfa tall in the saddle like a mighty bear, a spear thrusting in one hand and a sword hacking in the other.
And then she felt the ground trembling under her feet and she heard war cries in the distance, growing rapidly louder.
Half blinded by the red veil of her wrath, it was a moment before Branwen realized that the Saxons were drawing off. She stood gasping, staring after them as they galloped away – those who still could. Some of the Saxon horses ran riderless, their reins flying. And even as Branwen watched, she was aware of horses streaming by on either side of her. Horses bearing soldiers who wore the king’s standard – the red dragon of Powys on a field of white.
One horse came to a rearing halt at her side. ‘Are you hurt, Branwen?’