Caradoc of the North Wind - By Allan Frewin Jones Page 0,69
aisles were formed. Nausea filled Branwen’s throat. Her legs weakened under her and had she not been held to the pillar, she might have fallen to her knees.
The long ropes hung slack between her limbs and the four horses. The animals now faced outwards to where the four passages had been cleared in the crowd.
Blood pounded in Branwen’s head, louder even than the growing noise of the excited Saxon audience. A chant grew among them, swelling and swelling till it sounded like thunder.
Ironfist swung round to face her again, his face exultant. ‘They call for you to be destroyed, shaman girl,’ he shouted over the howling of the crowds. ‘Would you beg for clemency, Branwen? Even now, if you give yourself to Ragnar, you will be spared.’
Branwen swallowed hard. ‘Let it be over!’ she shouted, her voice sounding frail and weak against the tumult of the crowd and the beating of blood in her temples. ‘I die for Powys! I die defiant! Brython will never be yours, Ironfist! Never!’
‘So be it!’ howled Ironfist, lifting his arm. Four men stood holding the bridles of the horses. Four others stood at their rumps, armed with thick wooden staves, holding them ready to be brought down hard on the animal’s backsides to spur them forwards.
On Ironfist’s command, the struck horses would gallop away from Branwen. The ropes would tighten, thrumming as they became taut. There would be a torment of utter agony as Branwen’s limbs were jerked from her body.
She would be torn apart.
‘Caw!’ She stared up in pure terror. Ragnar was glaring down at her, and in the raven’s fiery eyes she saw her fate revealed.
Not to die. To be ripped to pieces, but to survive.
To be a trophy of the Saxon armies.
To live for ever in agony and despair.
To see Brython overrun.
To witness everything she had ever loved be destroyed.
To never know peace.
Ironfist’s voice rang out. ‘Nu oa!’
Now!
The four rods came down hard on the horses’ rumps. The four animals sprang forwards, kicking up dust. The ropes hissed as they straightened out.
Branwen closed her eyes and filled her mind with the image of her dear mother. A final shred of comfort as she prepared to meet her doom.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A sharp sound made her force her eyes open again in wide surprise. Thwick! It was a familiar sound. The sound of a speeding arrow. She felt a pulling and then a release of tension in her right arm.
And at exactly the same moment she heard a murmur of consternation rise in the crowd, while above her head she became aware of yet another noise – a humming, buzzing turbulence coming down to her from high in the air.
She saw a second arrow come whizzing over the heads of the crowd. Aimed sure and true, it cut the rope that led from her right leg. And even as the rope fell slack, she saw cloaked figures dart from the crowd, arms raised, shouting, standing in the way of the two horses that were still drawing out the ropes from her left side.
The horses came to a startled halt, one of them rearing so sharply that it lost balance and fell back on to its rump. It writhed on the ground, trying to find its feet. But before it was able to get up again, the cloaked and cowled figure leaped forward and slashed at the rope.
Meanwhile, the other figure had hold of the last horse’s bridle and was holding it steady while its sword stroke severed the final rope.
Branwen stood dumbfounded in her bonds.
Not ripped apart!
Not destroyed yet!
A raucous darkness swept down over her. She looked upwards. She was under a shadow cast by a great flock of owls. The birds came flooding in their hundreds over the top of the stone building, gathered together as dark and thick and threatening as thunderclouds scudding across the sun.
The raven demon gave a cry of fury and anger, taking to the air as the owls swarmed, but their great downy bodies surrounded and engulfed it.
A bellow of rage took her attention away from the upper airs. Ironfist had his sword in his hand. He was howling orders to his discomforted men. But a moment later a third arrow flew, striking Ironfist in the chest, glancing off his chain-mail, but sending him staggering backward with its force. He stumbled and fell, his golden helmet rolling in the dirt.
Scores and scores of owls descended upon the crowds, screaming now, reaching out with