Frost Against the Hilt (The Lion of Wales Book 5) Read online

  Frost Against the Hilt

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Book Five in the Lion of Wales series

  Frost Against the Hilt

  by

  Sarah Woodbury

  Copyright © 2016 by Sarah Woodbury

  Cover image by Christine D. Reiss

  Frost Against the Hilt

  Love, magic, faith. All roads lead to Camlann as Arthur gathers his men for a single battle—a final great contest against the full might of Modred and his Saxon army. Wales will win all or lose all in one last throw of the dice.

  Frost Against the Hilt is the fifth and final installment in the Lion of Wales series.

  The Lion of Wales Series:

  Cold My Heart

  The Oaken Door

  Of Men and Dragons

  A Long Cloud

  Frost Against the Hilt

  Books in the After Cilmeri Series:

  Daughter of Time (prequel)

  Footsteps in Time (Book One)

  Winds of Time

  Prince of Time (Book Two)

  Crossroads in Time (Book Three)

  Children of Time (Book Four)

  Exiles in Time

  Castaways in Time

  Ashes of Time

  Warden of Time

  Guardians of Time

  Masters of Time

  The Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mysteries:

  The Bard’s Daughter

  The Good Knight

  The Uninvited Guest

  The Fourth Horseman

  The Fallen Princess

  The Unlikely Spy

  The Lost Brother

  The Renegade Merchant

  The Last Pendragon Saga:

  The Last Pendragon

  The Pendragon’s Blade

  Song of the Pendragon

  The Pendragon’s Quest

  The Pendragon’s Champions

  Rise of the Pendragon

  The Paradisi Chronicles:

  Erase Me Not

  To Dan

  (as always)

  Cast of Characters

  The Welsh

  King Arthur ap Uther

  Ambrosius—King of Wales (deceased 501 AD)

  Uther—Arthur’s father (deceased 501 AD), Ambrosius’s brother

  Myrddin ap Ambrosius—Ambrosius’s son (born 501 AD)

  Nell—Myrddin’s wife

  Huw—Myrddin’s son

  Ifan—Myrddin’s friend

  Geraint—Knight

  Gawain—Knight, Gareth’s brother

  Gareth—Knight, Gawain’s brother

  Bedwyr—Knight, Arthur’s seneschal

  Cai—Arthur’s half-brother (deceased)

  Dafydd—Archbishop of Wales

  The Saxons

  Modred—Arthur’s nephew

  Cedric—Lord of Brecon

  Edgar—Arthur’s nephew, Lord of Wigmore

  Agravaine—Lord of Oswestry (deceased)

  Godric – Cedric’s captain

  Chapter One

  There drew he forth the brand [Caledfwlch],

  And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon,

  Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth

  And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt …

  ─Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Nell crouched in the ditch, twenty feet from the nearest sentry posted on the outskirts of Modred’s encampment, and trembled. Her own army lay a quarter-mile to the west behind the safety of Caer Fawr, the hillfort that had served her people for hundreds of years. For the last few days, Nell’s dreams and thoughts, awake or asleep, had been full of nothing but Arthur’s death by Modred’s hand on the field of battle. A death that, if she did nothing, would come tomorrow.

  Nell bent her head in the darkness and breathed deeply, focusing on the task before her. It was no coincidence that Modred had constructed his encampment over the top of Roman ruins, which centuries ago Caer Fawr had opposed. By choosing the ruins rather than the high ground, Modred was—as at Wroxeter—basing his right to rule in historic victories. He was telling the Welsh that his kingdom was the rightful heir of the Roman Empire, just as he was King Arthur’s rightful heir, and for the Britons to defy him from Caer Fawr would be as ineffective now as it had been then.

  Modred’s men were in the process of throwing up a palisade that would protect their forces from a surprise attack from the Welsh, proving Modred had learned from the disaster of Buellt. They’d cut down a great number of trees already, first to make room for the army of men at Modred’s disposal and then to provide posts for the palisade. With each tree felled, the woods receded farther from the camp. If Nell had waited any longer to approach, she would have had hardly any trees to hide in.

  The nearest sentry was well forward of the torches, almost to the tree line, which made sense because the fort was lit up like day. If he were closer, he’d have no night vision at all. As it was, he was squinting towards the forest, and the stiffness in his shoulders told Nell that he was afraid. The notion gave Nell courage, because she was afraid too.

  Bracing herself for the endeavor, Nell rose out of the shadows, already having pulled off the headdress that marked her as a married woman. She sauntered onto the road that led to the main entrance to the fort and strolled past the guard, who merely eyed her for a moment before waving her through. He knew her kind—or so he thought. She’d been watching the fort for some hours now. The camp followers of Modred’s great army nearly outnumbered the soldiers. It seemed as if the whole of Mercia had come to watch tomorrow’s battle—not to participate in the way that the women of Wales, many of whom would fight beside their men tomorrow, would participate—but to gawk and cheer the final triumph of Modred’s forces over Arthur’s.

  And a final triumph it would be. Even without her sight, she could have foretold that. Never mind that the lords of Wales had come at Arthur’s call, the Welsh were outnumbered, as they always would be, by the great Saxon horde that filled the fields and valleys of what had once been British land—all the way to the English Channel. Their numbers were ten times greater than the population of native Britons; thus the army Modred could call upon was also ten times greater.

  The moment Myrddin had told Nell that Modred’s army had arrived, and in such numbers, Nell’s decision had been made for her. The only way to win this war, the only way to ensure the survival of Wales and everyone Nell loved, was to do what she’d set out to do weeks ago. That day, she’d been waylaid by a stray party of marauding Saxon warriors, led by the now deceased Agravaine. Myrddin had rescued her from them and then been horrified when she’d finally told him her plan: she’d intended to infiltrate Modred’s castle at Denbigh, disguised as a serving maid or a whore, and when the opportunity arose, put a knife into Modred’s heart.

  She hadn’t killed Modred that night, thwarted as she’d been by Myrddin. At the time, she’d tried to shake him off, but he hadn’t taken no for an answer, and she hadn’t had the will to fight him. Since that day, she and Myrddin had done everything in their power to ensure Arthur’s survival. They’d averted his death, which they’d dreamed of for two lifetimes. And still, King Arthur was back to exactly where he’d started: facing certain death on
the battlefield. And this time it really would be at Modred’s hands.

  As if the loss of Arthur wasn’t bad enough, it was what she knew would come afterwards that had made the decision to sacrifice herself an easy one. Although Myrddin would take Arthur’s place, he would have no choice but to call a retreat. Secure in his victory, Modred would then pursue the Welsh army through Wales, scattering the other Welsh lords and sending their armies into disarray. Sadly, even once they eventually regrouped, the lords of Wales would descend into bickering, and Myrddin wouldn’t be able to hold them together to face the Saxons when they came again. If Nell didn’t act, not only would Wales be overrun before Easter, but Myrddin and Huw would fall in battle alongside their countrymen.

  That Myrddin couldn’t fill King Arthur’s shoes wasn’t a slight on Myrddin, but an indictment of the men Arthur ruled. Each one saw himself as having the potential to be high king and cared not how he achieved the throne. If nothing else, Nell understood two things. The first was that respect came with battle. Even if Arthur’s immediate allies acknowledged Myrddin’s worth, without Arthur’s guiding hand, Myrddin would not be given the time to win the support of the rest of the barons.

  The second thing was that her life was a small price to pay for peace. Arthur would live. Myrddin and Huw would live. Once she killed Modred, as she should have done weeks ago, the greatest threat to Wales’ sovereignty for a generation would be eliminated.

  More confident now, Nell passed the guards on either side of the not quite finished gate and entered the camp. Ahead, in the exact center, lay Modred’s tent, and Nell decided not to put this off any longer. As unconcernedly and as casually as possible, she strolled over to the open-air kitchen. There was a slight chance that someone would recognize her, since it was only a few days ago that she’d been among them at Wroxeter, but Nell’s attire and attitude were a far cry from what they had been there. She’d been a companion to King Arthur himself and the wife of Myrddin. Here, she was a serving wench at best, a whore at worst. Even if recognition of her face niggled at the back of someone’s mind, it would be difficult to place her so far out of the context in which they’d last seen her.

  “I have been sent to bring food to Lord Modred,” she said in English to the cook. Nell had been raised in the borderlands between England and Wales, and her first husband had been Saxon, so she spoke the language fluently.

  The head cook gave her the once-over and apparently didn’t find her wanting; his accompanying grimace was not for her. “We’re late with his meal, I know.”

  “Perhaps a carafe of wine will ease him until the meat is ready,” she said.

  The cook lifted his chin to point to where barrels of mead and beer waited to be tapped. “Over there. Tell Osric I sent you.”

  Nell went where she was bid. In short order, she held a carafe in one hand and a tray with three goblets in the other. Somehow, she was certain that Modred would not be sleeping alone tonight. With sure steps, she weaved in and out among the fires until she approached the two men who guarded Modred’s pavilion. Twenty feet on a side, it was twice as big as those around it.

  “I was sent to bring wine.”

  “He’s been waiting.” The man jerked his head to indicate that Nell should enter immediately.

  Now was the tricky part. Modred had stared into her face not five days ago at Wroxeter. As with the guards and kitchen staff, she was counting on her loosened hair, coarse gown, and the low light inside the pavilion to confuse him. With breath held, she ducked through the doorway. As it turned out, Modred was alone, bent over a table on which a map had been laid. Nell’s feet stuck to the bent grass that formed the floor of his quarters.

  But Modred barely glanced at her. “Put it over there.” He gestured with one hand to indicate a second table near his sleeping furs.

  She moved to obey, but before she could set down the tray, she found herself caught around the middle, swung around such that the carafe and goblets went flying, and thrown to the ground. As she lay on her back on the bed, Modred leapt on top of her, his expression utterly gleeful.

  “I never forget a face, my dear.”

  Even as Nell reached for the knife in her boot with which she’d intended to kill Modred, he pulled his own knife from the sheath at his waist and thrust it downwards towards her throat—

  Chapter Two

  14 December 537

  Myrddin

  Myrddin fell to his knees, gripping the post in front of him and hanging on for dear life. His breath came in choking gasps at the horror of what he’d just seen.

  Huw’s hand came down on his shoulder. “What is it, Father?”

  Myrddin opened his eyes, gazing blindly around the barn in which they’d taken temporary shelter. His male companions gaped at him, but Nell knelt on the ground near one of the stalls, her arms wrapped around her belly and her face as pale as a new linen sheet.

  “Did you see?” Nell and Myrddin said to each other at the same time.

  He swallowed. “What did you see?” He realized in that instant that some of Godric’s men were still coming through the open doorway to the barn. It had taken no more than the space between breaths to dream as he and Nell had.

  The barn belonged to a minor Saxon lord, who had not yet ridden to Wroxeter at Modred’s call. King Arthur had stood before the thane and demanded his horses. With only two warriors at his back—one his own daughter, who wore breeches like a man and carried a bow—against King Arthur’s dozen, he’d had no choice but to give way. The thane had been angry at losing his horses but delighted at the gold he’d been given in return. “If Modred learns that I helped you—”

  “We won’t tell him, if that’s what worries you,” King Arthur had said in a rare moment of levity. “I suggest you run—as far and as fast as you can away from here. Come back in a few days.”

  The man had departed for a neighboring manor rather than help them further.

  Nell put a trembling hand to her mouth. “I saw Modred’s camp before Caer Fawr. And you?”

  “The same.” He staggered over to her and fell to his knees at her side. “You—you—I can’t believe you would do such a thing.”

  She stared into his face, her eyes wide and unseeing, and then her eyes came back into focus, and she looked over his shoulder to where King Arthur stood. “Modred is gathering an army ten times larger than we have. We cannot overcome such a force, no matter how many men come to meet us at Caer Fawr.”

  “Then we don’t go to Caer Fawr.” Gareth’s dark hair was plastered to his head from sweat and snow, which had started falling again in the last hour. “That seems obvious enough.”

  King Arthur put out a hand to stay the younger man. “Let her speak.”

  But Nell had transferred her gaze back to Myrddin. “What do we do?”

  “What we always do: adapt. Gareth’s suggestion is probably a good one, but I’d like to think we can do more than that.” Myrddin pushed to his feet and looked at the men who surrounded him: Gareth and Edgar, two great lords in their own right, one Welsh, one Saxon; Godric, Lord Cedric’s Saxon captain; Huw, Myrddin’s son; and nine Saxon men-at-arms, who served under Godric, all that was left of the twenty men who’d left Buellt with him two days ago.

  A lifetime ago.

  “Gareth may be right that we would be wise to carefully consider the place where we make our stand, but our path is laid before our feet. The battle that is coming is a fact that we cannot change. It looms over me even after the dream has ended, and it is all I can see.”

  “It is all I see as well.” Nell grasped Myrddin’s hand for assistance in rising to her feet.

  “One final stand?” King Arthur said.

  Myrddin bowed his head to Arthur. “Yes. And whether it is in the field before Caer Fawr or on different ground, Modred not only will come, but he is coming.”

  “I still don’t see why this battle is inevitable.” Gareth stabbed a finger towards the door. “No Saxon lord seeks a fight in the middle of winter.
”

  Edgar scoffed. “Did we not just suffer through a battle at Buellt? Did we not just leave Wroxeter under great duress and even now are fleeing the forces of Modred? He has hundreds of fighting men—thousands—all craving war. More importantly, they all need to be fed. I may not be able to see as Myrddin does, but he is right that Modred is coming and will bring everything and everyone he has to bear against us. The next time we face him, he will have all his might behind him. I suggest we be the ones to choose the ground.”

  Gareth was not to be persuaded. “I disagree. The Saxons have not forgotten Mt. Badon. Why do you think they have engaged us in skirmish after skirmish but Buellt was the closest they’ve come to committing to a definitive fight? They fear to lose again as they lost then.”

  “Other lords might fear to lose, Gareth,” Nell said, “but Modred was a child when King Arthur fought that battle. He doesn’t believe that fate will be his.”

  The heavy weight of the vision pressed on the space behind Myrddin’s eyes. Gareth could think what he liked; it was Arthur whom Myrddin and Nell had to convince. He turned to the king. “You must face him, my lord. But unless we—” He broke off to stare at the loose hay scattered at his feet.

  “Unless we what?” Arthur said.

  Nell’s eyes were bright as if she had a fever. “Unless we change the future in some way, do things differently from what Myrddin and I have seen, you will die in that engagement. We will all die.”

  “Thus, as I said, we don’t meet him.” Gareth grumbled under his breath and paced away to the door to look out at the snow, which was coming down harder than before—or seemed like it was, now that they were sheltered from the worst of it. “Maybe our more immediate concern should be who it is that chases us and how many come. Why have they not caught us? We’re lucky to have come this far without being stopped. The dogs can’t be far behind.”