Caradoc of the North Wind - By Allan Frewin Jones Page 0,9
spray blinded her. Her instinct was to run from cover and to help her comrades to safety, but even a single step from the cliff foot was impossible. The snow inundated her with a pounding, hammering, stunning force that drove her to her knees and sent her crawling back to safety.
Half blind, she felt Meredith’s hand reaching for her. The rush and torrent of falling snow was all around, clogging her eyes, caking on her body, making it hard to draw breath. She couldn’t think for the noise, she couldn’t move for the weight of snow piling over her.
She threw her arms around Meredith and the two girls clung desperately to one another as the whole world fell in on them and the howling abyss of Annwn swallowed them up.
CHAPTER FOUR
T his is wrong. This is not how I was meant to die. Not like this. Not in this place. Not at this time. No! No! No! I will not allow this! I am the Bright Blade! The Emerald Flame!
Fighting against the weight that bore down on her, Branwen pulled her shield round from her back and pressed upwards with it, forcing the snow away from her head and shoulders. She felt around blindly for Meredith, concerned that the girl had been crushed. But she found her alive and gasping for breath. With her free hand, she clawed the snow out of Meredith’s face. Now they had a pocket of clear air to breathe. Meredith coughed and choked, her breath warm on Branwen’s cheek. But Branwen could see nothing. They were in a place of utter blackness.
Annwn, surely? She was dead and did not realize it!
‘No!’ she snarled. ‘No!’
Using every ounce of strength, she heaved up against the burden of snow, teeth gritted, muscles straining until her ears rang.
With a cry of triumph and relief, she felt the pressure lift away from her shield arm. A crack of pale evening light broke through the carapace of snow. She struggled to her knees and then to her feet, pushing upwards, using the shield like a plough, heaving the snow back, widening the hole in which she was standing.
She dreaded to see a dead world all about her – a world of thick, suffocating snow in which nothing had survived.
But by some turn of fortune, the aftermath of the avalanche was not nearly so dire. She and Meredith had sought shelter under a low dip in the cliff face, and it was over them that the snow had fallen most thickly. All along the leaning line of the cliff, she saw horses and people alive and seemingly unhurt.
Even Terrwyn had lived through the onslaught of the mountain. He stood close by, head down, eyes wide, snorting white fog as he shook the snow from his mane.
The dazed survivors of the avalanche rallied themselves, slapping the snow off their clothes, picking possessions out of the ankle-deep drifts, comforting their horses. They were caught in a narrow furrow that hemmed them in between the cliff foot and a high wall of snow. Occasional rocks toppled off the cliff, arcing over their heads and plunging into the dense snow dyke.
Aberfa’s warning had saved them all. Had they tried to outpace the avalanche, they would have been swept away. Even the wrath of the winter-clad mountains could not harm them. The guardianship of the Shining Ones made them invincible! Branwen smiled despite the intense chill of the snow. With wet clothes, getting quickly to Cêl Crau was all the more urgent now.
An alarmed voice cut through her thoughts. Iwan’s voice.
‘Linette? Sweet saints, she’s hurt! Rhodri – quick. Come here.’
Her heart in her throat, Branwen heaved herself out of the snowdrift and ran to where Iwan was kneeling over Linette. Romney was nearby, pressed up against the cliff, wide-eyed and shivering.
Linette was half sitting, her back against the cliff. Her long pale hair was thick with snow, her face ashen and wracked with pain. Her hands were clutched to her abdomen.
Rhodri dropped to his knees at her side. ‘How were you hurt?’ he asked.
‘I was hit,’ Linette gasped. ‘A boulder, I think. My stomach.’ She grimaced. ‘Help me up. I will be all right in a moment.’
She lifted her arms and Iwan took her hands. She tried to stand, but fell back with a groan.
‘Wait!’ Rhodri said. ‘Let me check the injury first.’
Others were gathering around Linette. Romney began to weep, her hands over her face. Meredith folded her in her arms and held her close.