CHAPTER FOURTEEN #3
Her brave little warriors needed no further telling.
Sian, and Ifan stood up, pulled the strings of their bows back, lowered their arms until their aim was true, and loosed their arrows.
At the same time, Glyn got to his feet, drew back his arm, and flung one of his spears.
Tudor had told the children they must aim at the horses which provided easier targets and would either fall or run, taking the soldiers with them.
Rhiannon had known in her heart they would not be able to do this.
The first the Norman soldiers knew of the attack was when Sian’s arrow found its mark in the sword arm of the largest of them.
Shouts of anger and alarm cut through the quiet of the morning.
Orders were barked, horses reined in, swords drawn.
Rhiannon stood and drew the string on her own bow, her arrow slicing downwards but missing its target.
She gasped, silently admonishing herself for hurrying the shot.
Glyn’s first spear had fallen short. He tried with the second, striking the saddle of one rider at such an angle that it struck only a glancing blow, but had the effect of spooking the horse, which tried to run up the steep shale.
Its rider slid from its back, cursing and the horse scrambled along the loose, rubbly stone before reaching the end of the line and picking up the path, bolting for home.
De Chapelle screamed at his men to fire back.
Another soldier gave the order to dismount.
As one soldier did so, Brynach fired an arrow that pierced the shoulder of his horse.
The animal screamed and twisted, falling off the path.
It knocked the soldier over as it went, so that the two rolled over and over, a flailing of limbs and hooves and dislodged stones, tumbling down the impossibly steep bank into the valley below.
Rhiannon knew their first advantage was over; that of surprise.
The enemy no longer presented themselves as a neat row of slowly moving targets.
Now they were a tumultuous, frenetic knot of terrified horses and trapped men.
She also knew that every animal is at its most dangerous when it is trapped.
‘Stay low!’ she shouted to the children. She saw de Chapelle turn then. He heard her voice, and he turned towards it and he saw her, standing above him, bow in her hand, knife in her belt. The very knife that had so ruined him.
He gave a roar of rage. ‘Take her! Up there, you fools! Get up there!’ he commanded, waving his sword in fury.
He was the only one still mounted, and his horse wheeled about, using the unstable bank to do so, sending rocks skittering and bouncing down the hillside.
The Baron paid them no heed. He had his quarry in his sights now, and nothing else mattered.
Which was why this was the moment Rhiannon gave the signal to Tudor to attack. She stepped up onto the highest rock so that he could clearly see her and waved her bow. He signalled back and then he and the three men with him sprinted along the path.
They rounded the corner to meet most of de Chapelle’s soldiers still trying to send their horses back along the path without knocking anyone off whilst also trying to avoid the arrows that were being sent down upon them.
Dai was the youngest of the group and charged forwards, felling the nearest man with a practiced swing of his sword.
He had not, however, reckoned with the speed at which his victim’s fellow soldiers would retaliate.
With Tudor’s warning shouts ringing in his ears he tried to defend the two who sprang at him, but his battle was to be short lived, his head cleaved in two with a single blow, his body kicked from the path to slide down the mountainside.
Rhiannon watched with mounting horror. There remained ten fighting Normans still, and they were battle-hardened and skilled.
She saw two more rush forwards to protect their commander, putting themselves between his horse and the three men who sought to kill him.
Rhiannon loosed another arrow. This one struck one of the Baron’s protectors in the back, bringing him wailing to his knees.
Another leapt forwards to take his place.
To her horror she saw that four of the others were attempting to run up the hill towards their position on the rocks.
She turned her aim to them, loading and firing as swiftly as she was able, shouting at Sian and Ifan to do the same.
She noticed Glyn lift his last spear and saw that he was aiming at de Chapelle, who presented a difficult target as he wheeled his skidding and skittering horse about.
Brynach saw this too.
‘Glyn, aim for the horse. The horse, boy!’
Glyn hesitated. A fine, beautiful horse was not a wild boar he might feed the village with.
Nor was it a bloodthirsty Norman who would see his family dead.
It was that tender-heartedness, that hesitation, that was to cost him dearly.
For in it, Stew-face had time to scramble up the hill a few clumsy strides more, just enough to reach out and grab the boy’s ankle.
Glyn cried out as his foot was pulled from beneath him, his spear dropping, useless, from his hand, and he tumbled down the hill with his attacker, the pair coming to a stop on the path.
‘No!’ Rhiannon shouted, about to start down after him when Brynach jumped past her.
‘Stay, my Lady! I have him!’ he called back as he half ran half fell down the hill to join boy and man in a tangle of thrashing bodies. While he fought with Stew-face at close quarters, Rhiannon did not dare loose another arrow for fear of which one she might hit.
Two more soldiers had nearly reached the flat rocks.
The children showed their mettle, standing their ground, continuing to load and loose arrow after arrow as best they could.
Not only were the soldiers, swords in hands, almost upon them, but two Norman archers were now firing their powerful cross-bows up from the path below.
As she turned, Rhiannon glimpsed Tudor engaging the baron in a sword fight, the Norman still on his horse, even though it had been wounded and its dappled grey neck was stained red with its own blood.
Two other soldiers had engaged Dafydd and Euan in a desperate skirmish.
Euan had some talent with the sword, but Dafydd was no soldier and was in danger of being quickly out manoeuvred.
She could do nothing to help them or Brynach, as the children’s need for her was greater.
She turned her bow on the archers and quickly despatched one.
As she continued to fire, Taran leapt from behind her, meeting the first of the soldiers who had managed to reach the flat rock.
The man screamed as the great hound knocked him off balance and pinned him to the ground.
The close proximity and weight of the dog meant he could not swing the long sword he had sought to use on the children.
He was too slow to reposition the heavy weapon.
Taran’s fearsome jaws bit into his neck, bringing from him a gargling scream that was to be the last sound he would ever make.
Rhiannon dropped her bow, took out her knife, and fell to her knees.
Now she was below the children, so that they could continue to fire, but she was ready for the next solider who succeeded in scrambling up the escarpment.
As the young Norman tried to stand, breathless and staggering from the climb, she did not hesitate.
With a determined sweep of her arm, she sliced her dagger through the air and through their assailant’s neck, so that he fell, silently, the life ebbing from him on the grey, dusty ground.
She quickly returned her dagger to its sheath and got to her feet. An arrow grazed her hip as she rose, causing her to stumble. It was Ifan who grabbed her, preventing her from falling down the hill.
‘My Lady!’ he cried, pulling her to the safety of the rock. ‘I have no more arrows.’
Clearly the soldiers were better armed, as another arrow from the remaining archer punched into the ground beside them.
‘Sian!’ Rhiannon called to the girl. ‘Come away to safety now. You have done enough!’
But the child held her nerve, one dead soldier at her feet, her face impassive and determined as she drew back the string of her bow one last time and fired her final arrow.
It hit its mark. The scream of the horse echoed around the mountain pass, the cry of the soldier who fell with it fading as the two plummeted towards the valley floor.
Rhiannon swung round, desperate to see what was happening to Tudor and little Glyn.
The boy had been knocked unconscious from the fall and lay motionless on the path.
Brynach was struggling with Stew-face, locked in a fight to the death with the man who had been his torturer and tormentor for so many months.
Tudor was still fighting with de Chapelle.
The baron’s impeccably trained horse moved to his unspoken commands with such grace and speed it seemed impossible he could ever be unseated or defeated.