Chapter 11: Ashgate

The first arrow took the man riding in front of Seren through the throat.

He fell sideways off his horse without a sound, and the horse kept walking.

They were halfway up the Ashgate pass, where the road narrowed to a shelf between a cliff and a long slope of loose grey stone.

Above them, on the cliff, an old watchtower stood with its roof fallen in.

Below them there was nothing but scree and a drop.

"Down!" Garrow roared. "Shields!"

The second volley came off the slope above the road.

It sounded like a flock of birds getting up all at once.

Horses screamed. A man beside Seren took one in the thigh and swore and kept his saddle.

Corvus was already off his horse.

He came down the line on foot, dragging men out of saddles and behind their horses, his shield up over his head.

He got to Seren and pulled him off the mare by his belt and put him against the cliff.

"Stay," he said.

"I'm not a dog."

"Then stay like a prince."

Corvus put his shield over both of them.

An arrow hit it so hard that the point came through the wood an inch from Seren's eye.

He looked at the fletching.

Green goose feathers, trimmed short.

He had watched the Highcourt fletchers trim them like that every autumn of his life.

"Caerwen," he said. "That's my brother's."

"I know whose it is."

On the slope above, men were coming down the scree now, sliding, swords out.

They wore no colours at all.

But Seren could see their boots, and the boots were green.

Corvus went up to meet them.

Seren had heard men call him the man who broke three armies.

He had thought it was a way of talking.

Corvus went into the first two with his shield and his sword and they came apart in front of him, and he didn't slow down.

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