Footsteps in Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book 1)

Footsteps in Time (Chapter Ten)

David

The rain had poured down all night long, plunking on David's helmet until he thought he'd go mad at the constant noise. Fortunately, the rain was so loud, the English couldn't hear the unnatural sounds of rain on metal. All six thousand of Father's army had moved in the night and spread out along a ridge facing west, so as to overlook the Conwy Valley all along its length. The sun had begun to add a hint of light to what had been a very dark night, and would rise fully within the hour. Father had hoped to attack sooner, but no one—Welsh or English—had been able to see his hand in front of his face until five minutes ago.

In summer, the Valley had some of the richest farmland in north Wales. At the moment, it was a fifteen mile-long bog, in which seven thousand English soldiers camped. Father had assigned David's company to the southernmost end of the English lines. David peered at them from the trees, a tenth of a mile from where the English had camped.

Although the English soldiers didn't know it, they'd set up camp closer to the woods than they should have, further from their fellows than they should have, and with fewer men than they should have had, fewer than one hundred. The men huddled under blankets in the rain, with neither fire nor tents. They had to be praying that the rain would stop but also had to know in their hearts that it wouldn't. This was winter in Wales. The fishermen had been right about the weather, and in another minute the Welsh would begin to make the English pay for their hubris and conceit in attacking Castell y Bere, thinking they could conquer Wales while David's father lived to defend it.

With Anna's arrival in Dolwyddelan, what had started out as a strategy had turned into a mission. Two days ago, the snow had stopped falling. The morning had dawned bright, crisp and clear, unusual for Wales at any time. Taking it as a positive sign, Edward had marshaled his army and headed into the mountains in earnest, following the east bank of the Conwy River. By evening, however, the wind had begun to blow from the southwest and almost imperceptibly at first, the weather began to warm.

It's not uncommon in Wales to have an early thaw after a month of hard winter. Within six hours, the temperature had risen thirty degrees, rain began to fall, and snow to melt. Edward's advance slowed considerably. Having cleared the path of trees to minimize ambush, the army was forced to march through mud, all the while aware that the mountains, inside which the Welsh remained safe, loomed above them.

Edward then found himself in an even worse situation, because the rivers swelled with the rain and melting snow. Within a day and a half of setting out from Llansanffraid, his men were caught in a flood, the army stretched out nearly the entire distance to Conwy Falls with no way to go either forward or back. On one side was the ConwyRiver, preventing their advance to Dolwyddelan Castle, and on the other side, half a dozen other rivers, including the Clwyd, all in flood, blocking their retreat to Rhuddlan.

And now they were going to have to deal with the Welsh army. The men of Gwynedd were more than ready to launch an attack on their cold, miserable enemy. It wasn't the soldiers' fault they'd been born English and pressed into the service of the English king. But David couldn't afford to feel sorry for them. If his men were truly to send Edward packing, they would have to make him pay first.

"It's time, my lord," Bevyn said. "We must start the attack in a moment."

David nodded and followed him to where they'd staked the horses, well back in the trees. The English soldiers had sent out scouts of course, many of them, but the Welsh had ambushed and killed them all (they hoped) by an hour ago. Now the soldiers at every campsite in the valley would be wondering where their scouts were, and worrying.

David mounted Taranis and pulled his sword from its sheath. The plan was simple. Llywelyn had four hundred archers in the woods tonight, each with twenty arrows—more than enough to kill, within three minutes of shooting, every man that Edward had brought, though they'd never be that lucky. What they could surely do was sow panic.