through the roaring wind, or rather, an old sound that she had not expected to hear. It was a single voice shouting defiance, accompanied by the clang of iron on iron. Even in all this madness, someone was still fighting!
‘Aet ic cempas! Aet ic garhéap!’
She grinned a hard, fierce grin, baring her teeth. She knew that voice.
So, even in the very teeth of Caradoc’s rage, Ironfist fought on undaunted!
Good! So much the better!
Terrwyn was moving slowly now, lifting his hooves high over the fallen warriors, searching for some clear space to walk on. Dead faces stared up at Branwen as they waded through the slain, the bearded faces of Saxons and the faces of her own menfolk with their heavy moustaches and shaven chins. Some were hacked about and bloody, others lay with gaping mouths and empty, sky-seeking eyes, pale and peaceful, or ashen and twisted in some final agony. Enemies in life they might have been, but they were comrades now in death as the snow began to drift and heap, mantling them in its chill cerements, hiding for a time the brutal horrors of warfare.
Now she saw movement through the snow – dark shapes darting to and fro around a tall figure that blazed at the centre with a wheel of pure white light.
Terrwyn paused, shaking snow out of his mane. Branwen leaned forward, puzzled by the circle of light, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
And then it came to her, as though a veil had been drawn aside in her mind. The towering warrior at the heart of the action was Ironfist, and the white light that blossomed on his arm came from her own white shield! The mystic shield that had been gifted to her in the summer! The shield of the Worthy Champion.
Branwen knew from experience the protective powers of the white shield. It had saved her from certain death on Merion’s mountain, when rocks had rained down all around her and the ground had broken under her feet. No arrow could hold in it, no sword or axe bite it. And Ironfist had taken it for his own – little wonder then that he was able to stand and fight in Caradoc’s storm. The greater mystery to Branwen was how his opponents still had the courage and heart to throw themselves upon him.
But they would not fight on alone! She lifted her shield, gripping Terrwyn’s reins in her fist. Tightening her thighs about his broad body, she raised her sword high.
‘On!’ she shouted. ‘Onward to death or glory!’
Terrwyn burst forward, his head down, his great muscles knotting under her as he pounded towards Ironfist.
‘The Shining Ones! The Shining Ones!’ yelled Branwen as she bore down on her enemy. The warriors who had been surrounding Ironfist, split apart and ran, vanishing into the storm as she came careering through the teeming snow.
She saw Ironfist’s lone eye widen in surprise. Then his mouth opened in a roar of anger and delight. ‘The waelisc shaman girl!’ he shouted. ‘Beyond all hope you come to die by my hand!’
Branwen braced herself, her sword arm poised for a powerful downwards slash as she came up level with the great general. A single well-placed sweep of her sword and all would be over. His head would roll in the dirt.
But Ironfist was not so easily bested. He stepped aside as Terrwyn thundered forward, lifting his shield as Branwen brought her sword down.
The impact of her blade on the mystic shield numbed her to the shoulder. She had feared her blow would be turned aside, but she had not expected such agony to explode up her arm. It was as if she had struck at a block of iron.
She rocked in the saddle, almost falling as Terrwyn galloped on past the general. Gathering herself, she pulled on the reins and Terrwyn slowed, rearing and neighing.
She turned him, trying to ignore the pain in her arm, trying to think of some way of getting through the Saxon general’s guard.
He stood facing her, spread-legged, shouting, brandishing his sword while the shield burned on his arm like the winter sun.
Again Branwen urged Terrwyn on. Again she lifted her sword.
‘You have something of mine, Thain Herewulf!’ she shouted as Terrwyn gathered speed. ‘I would have it back!’
He laughed. ‘Then come and take it, witch girl! If you are able!’
‘I come!’ she cried. ‘Be patient – I come!’
She was more cautious now, her eyes pinned to the shield as he lifted it. She