Chapter 1 - The Mountain Stronghold

09 March 483

“Look out!” shouted Sara from the back of the wooden rowboat, where she stood fighting the tiller against the rushing waves.  “There’s a bloody great rock on your left!”

Gryff and I were paddling like mad at the front of the boat, trying desperately to steer clear of the danger as we plunged headlong down the raging river Wyre. 

“I see it!” I called over my shoulder from the front seat, not daring to take my eyes off the river even for a second.

Lightning flashed in the dark skies overhead, and torrential rains blotted out the land around us.  Water sloshed around my knees.  We were slowly being swamped by the rain and the river.  I leaned into the paddle, digging deep against the currents threatening to smash us against rocks looming out of the dark.  But the boat was heavy with water and sluggish to respond.

Instinctively, we ducked as massive volleys of flaming blue arrows shot out of the woods on both sides of the river, but they had not yet found the range, so the arrows fell short, their burning tips snuffed out in the cold water.

I lifted my head again just in time to see white water frothing around the rocks close ahead. 

“Come on, damned you!” I shouted at the boat and paddled even faster.  As if in response, the front of the boat slowly swung around as Gryff and I dug into the water with all our strength. 

A flash of lightning hit the water nearby with a resounding crack of thunder, sending a column of water shooting skyward and temporarily blinding me. I shook my head, blinking rapidly, and as my vision returned, the boat leaned hard over as Sara called out, “Hang on!”

The water cascaded down upon us just as a strong current caught us and whisked us around the rocks.  We had almost made it past when there was a sickening crunch, and the boat lurched over, almost tipping us into the river. 

I lost my balance and saw the water rushing up at me as I started to fall.  At the last moment, before I went over the edge, Gryff grabbed me and pulled me back into the boat.

Another volley of arrows lit up the sky from the shoreline.  This time, they fell into the river where the boat would have been if Sara had not turned sharply away.

“How much further?” shouted Gryff, paddling furiously in the middle seat.

“Around this next bend should do it,” answered Sara.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it.”  Something in the tone of Gryff’s voice made me glance back at him.  His face was pale as he pointed at a gap that had appeared in the bottom of the hull next to his feet.  Water gushed through the ragged hole, and I could already feel the boat settling lower in the water.

We all looked up at a whistling sound overhead.  There was a huge splash next to the boat, and a round patch of river boiled frothing white, then another column of water suddenly shot into the sky. 

Sara had a wild look in her eyes as she shouted, “Catapult!”

“Strewth!” said Gryff with a sour look on his face.  He had removed a boot and was using it to bail water out of the boat as fast as possible.  But the water was rushing in faster than he could bail.

“Use your pack,” I called.

Gryff’s eyes lit up.  He scrambled out of his travelsack and jammed it into the tear in the hull.  It did not completely stop the water, but the flow was slowed to a trickle.

He stood on his pack to hold it against the hull and resumed bailing with his boot.

Another geyser of water shot up in front of the boat.

“Pull!” called Sara.  She had taken Gryff’s paddle and was trying to move the boat out into a stronger current at the centre of the river.

Gryff seemed to be making headway with the bailing, so I dug in with the paddle and got the boat pointed in more or less the right direction.

There was a tremendous crack, and the next thing I knew, I was spinning wildly through the air with the paddle still gripped in my hands.

The breath was knocked from my lungs as I crashed into the river not far from shore and sank beneath the water.  Weighted down by my pack, I struggled to reach the surface.  After a few panicked moments, I felt myself pressed against a rock by the current.  By flailing about and pushing against the riverbed with the paddle, I managed to slide higher up the rock until I broke the surface, gasping for air.

A volley of flaming blue arrows shot overhead and landed somewhere behind me. 

As I struggled to keep my head above water and get air into my lungs, I looked around and realised the boat was gone.  It must have taken a direct hit from the catapult.  All that remained were just a few bits of debris bobbing along on the river currents.

It took a few moments to find my friends.  Sara was clinging to the rudder to stay afloat as she made her way to shore.  Gryff was swimming fast towards me, carried along on the swift current with his one boot still in his hand.  

I tried to swim towards him, but the onrushing water had me pinned against the rock with such force that it was difficult to breathe. 

Gryff paddled hard against the river to work his way over to me.  The current kept pulling him away, and he had to fight to get back on course.  An unexpected swirl of current threatened to sweep him past me out into the centre of the river, and then suddenly, he slipped beneath the surface as the current pulled him under.

“Gryff!” I shouted.  I tried to break free of the rock to reach him, but the force of the water pushing against me was too strong.  “Gryff!” I called again, half spluttering and gasping for breath as a wave of water surged over my head.

Long seconds passed with no sign of him.  With every agonising moment, I felt the panic building inside me.  I pushed against the river with all my strength until I screamed in frustration, but still, the current would not release its hold on me.  In desperation, I grabbed the paddle with both hands and shoved it out into the river towards the place where I thought Gryff might be, thinking he might find it and grab onto it.

But there was still no sign of him, and I was starting to despair.  He had been underwater for almost a minute.

My mind filled with any number of spells I could have cast to pluck Gryff from the river, but as we had discovered earlier, there was a strange negative energy in that place, unlike anything we had ever encountered before, which prevented the use of magic.

“Gryff!” I screamed again and waggled the paddle back and forth as best I could.  The rushing water almost ripped it from my hands, but somehow, I managed to hold on.  Then, I felt a sharp tug on the paddle, and Gryff’s head burst clear out of the water just long enough for him to take a quick breath before he sank below the surface again. 

Seconds later, there was another tug, and he bobbed up again, almost within arms reach, coughing and retching and looking thoroughly bedraggled.

I heaved on the paddle, dragging Gryff towards me as the current threatened to pull him under again.  Just as he was about to go down again, our hands touched, and he gripped me so tightly I thought my fingers might break.

The paddle slipped from my grasp and was instantly swept away downriver as I pulled Gryff towards me and took him into my arms.  The raging river pinned us against the rock as we clung together, surging around and over us with renewed intensity until we were soon as much underwater as above. 

Gryff grinned at me with the half-crazed look of those who have so closely cheated death.  “Hey, beautiful,” he spluttered between mouthfuls of water.  “Fancy a drink?”

“Anything but water,” I replied as I grinned back at him, glad beyond words that he had made it and was next to me.

“Hallooo!” shouted Sara from the riverbank through cupped hands.  “Are you two all right?”

Gryff waved feebly and called back, “We seem to be a little bit stuck at the moment.”

“So I see,” came the reply.  “Things seemed to have calmed down with our pursuers for the moment.  Can you hang on there another minute or two while I sort out some sort of rescue?”

Gryff gave a thumbs up.  “I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere.”

Sara waved and disappeared into the woods, leaving Gryff and me pinned face to face against the rock with the white frothing river rushing past on either side.

I felt Gryff shift his body against mine as he adjusted to the weight of water pushing against him.

He looked at me with a sudden sparkle in his eyes.  “This would almost be romantic if it weren’t for the freezing water and the constant threat of death,” he said. 

“Chance would be a fine thing,” I said. He shifted against my body again, this time not from the force of the river pounding against us. “You think of these things in the oddest moments.”

“I can’t help it,” he laughed. “I’m in love.”

He kissed me, then. We were half-drowned and continually overrun with water, so it was not the best kiss I had ever had, nor the longest. But at that moment, it was incredibly romantic and meant more to me than anything in the world. When it was over, I glanced past Gryff and saw movement along the river. “I love you too, you crazy, wonderful man. But I think our reprieve is just about over.”

He tried to turn to look, but the force of the water was too strong. “What is it?”

I nodded past him.  “Our friends seem to be gathering for another attack.”

“Let’s hope Sara hurries up.”

A renewed volley of flaming blue arrows arced into the sky behind Gryff.  As I watched their trajectory, it looked like they were coming right for us.  “Too late,” I said.  “Get ready for a quick dunk.” 

“Wait, what?” Gryff stammered in alarm.

I waited to time it right, and just before the arrows fell upon us, I took a deep breath and ducked beneath the water, pulling Gryff down beside me.  Blue flame flashed across the surface overhead as water thrummed in my ears and arrows zinged through the water around us.

After the last arrows struck, I waited a few more seconds before fighting my way back to the surface.  I had to lean on Gryff to manage it, then pulled him up by the scruff of his neck after me.

He shook his head to get the water from his face and mouth.  “How many bleedin’ arrows do you bastards have?” he raged.

We both turned our heads as Sara whistled from the shore.  She had found a long tree branch and was wading as far into the river as she dared to hold it out for us.  The leafy branches bent out of reach in the current, so she had to push upstream a few paces until it was within our grasp. 

Gryff went first.  It took both of us struggling against the water to get him into position to go, and the moment he grasped the branch, Sara stumbled and was almost pulled off her feet as the current tried to sweep him away downstream.  She dug in her heels and leaned back, putting all her weight on the branch.  Though the distance was short, several times Gryff bobbed below the surface as he pulled himself slowly towards shore, and once, the branch was almost ripped from Sara’s hands as the current surged. 

Finally, he reached the shore, hauling himself out of the water and collapsing on the stony ground, gasping for breath and looking done in.

Sara glanced back to see if he was all right, then floated the branch back to me.

It had taken the strength of both Gryff and me to get him off the rock, so I did not know how I was going to manage it on my own.  With the river continuing to batter me against the rock and the icy water slowly draining the warmth from my body, I was growing weaker by the minute.  By then, I was so cold that my teeth chattered, and I could hardly feel my limbs.

Though I could not cast any spells in that spot, there was far more to me than just magic.  I closed my eyes and centred myself as I summoned the powers of Qi, funnelling the water's natural energy into my chilled core.  The negative energy acted as a dampener, drawing off most of the Qi that I summoned, but enough found its way into my body that my life force was reinvigorated.

The transformed energy coursed through me, breathing renewed vitality into my body and spirit.  Before the surge of strength within me was lost to the power of the river, I channelled all of it into my limbs and felt the muscles in my arms and legs tingle with an excess of energy. 

Mustering all the Qi I could gather, I coiled up and pushed off from the rock with my legs, lunging at the branch and grabbing hold for dear life.  My head plunged below the surface, and when I came back up, Gryff was wading into the river to help Sara.  He waved at me and smiled.  I smiled back. 

Suddenly, the tree buckled and sagged, exploding into hundreds of splinters as a shot from the catapult blew it apart.  In an instant, Gryff and Sara disappeared behind a column of water shooting skyward.  Then everything went dark as I was pulled beneath the surface and whisked downstream. 

A white-hot stabbing pain gripped my shoulder as I tumbled end over end down the rapids, battering off boulders or scraping along the bottom as I went.

My arms and legs flailed about under the water, and I held my breath until I thought my lungs would burst.  Then – somehow - my head broke the surface, and I managed a quick gasp of air before being pulled back under. 

How long I spent like that, tumbling along underwater with the river’s flotsam and then bobbing to the surface now and then for a desperate breath of air, I cannot say.  There was only the water, and the cold, and that burning desire to breathe. 

Sometime later, I woke up on a sandy shore gasping in huge, great gulps of air.  The frigid waters had left me numb and trembling, but as the sun’s warmth began to spread over me and my blood slowly worked its way out to my extremities again, my skin and toes and fingers started to tingle in an exquisite agony. 

I tried to lift myself, but my arms trembled, and the strain was too much for my battered body, so I collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily and utterly spent. 

Soon after, I drifted out of consciousness and was still.

 ---------------

The next thing I remember was feeling hot air on my neck as I woke with a start and a sharp intake of breath.  I groaned and rolled onto my back, letting the sun’s rays gradually revive me from my slumber and basking in their warmth.

As I lay there with my eyes closed, I began to feel a strange awareness as though I were not alone.  Opening my eyes, I recoiled as I found myself looking up into a horse’s muzzle just inches from my face.

I rubbed the grit from my eyes and looked again.  It was still a horse. 

“Good afternoon,” said a gruff man’s voice.

I spun around, reaching for my dagger as I sprang to my feet., but my dagger was gone.  My hand went for the knife in my boot, but it, too, was missing.

My quick movements caused the horse to whinny and begin to step back, but the rider gripped the reins, and it stood fast.  There was a flurry of movement around me, and I suddenly realised dozens of riders surrounded me, all with their swords drawn and pointed in my direction.

“Careful, there, lass,” cautioned the rider as his eyes flared a warning.  “We don’t want to do anything hasty we might regret.”

I tried to summon Morning Star but discovered the negative energy was still preventing spells from working.  Without weapons or magic to defend myself, I was low on options and in a bad way.  I glanced back to the river so close behind me, but the way was blocked by two large and angry-looking men.

“Who are you?” I said as I examined the riders around me.  They were dressed in blackened leather from head to toe and rode atop large, heavy horses with burnished armour that gleamed in the sun.  I recognised them right away.  They were Dark Riders known as the Merthyrs - a vile race of horsemen with a reputation as robbers and killers of the worst kind.

Crossing paths with the Dark Riders was a dangerous thing at the best of times.  Doing so unprepared and unarmed was a sure path to an untimely end.  It was an ill omen indeed to have found them in that place.  They were not known to journey so far north. 

“You know already who we are,” growled the man.  He looked past me up the river.  “Where are the others?”

I did not like his question.  It revealed he had been looking for us.  I thought perhaps these had been our unseen pursuers, but as I glanced around, none of them carried either bow or quiver nor was there any sign of a catapult or other heavy weaponry.

“I am alone,” I said at last.

The Rider urged his horse forward until the point of his sword touched my chest.  He looked down at me from the saddle and leaned on the blade until it dug into my skin.  “You would do well not to test me.” 

Our eyes met, and I found in his gaze only violence and evil.

He seemed to know more than I would have expected of a stranger.  But I would not give up my friends while there was still a chance they were alive and free, so I decided to tell him a version of the truth that might throw him off their scent.  “We were attacked by forces unknown to us.  My companions were lost in the river when our boat was sunk.”

The Rider remained motionless for a long while as though trying to see through me to find the truth in my words.

Finally, he grunted and gave me a shove with the point of his sword.  “Bind her and bring her with us.” 

Strong hands gripped me from behind as the man swung his horse around and galloped into the woods.  Everything went dark as a hood was pulled over my head, then my hands were bound in front of me, and I was put on a horse and tied to the saddle.

My heart was heavy just then, for few had ever been known to escape the Riders, so my prospects appeared slim. 

It was also hot and hard to breathe beneath the hood, which was not helped by my intense dislike of confined spaces.  But after a short while, I discovered I could get a glimpse of the ground if I looked directly down past my nose, and though it did not alleviate my current circumstances, even that small victory gave me something to cling to and bolstered my spirits.

Soon, we were riding quickly along a hard, stony surface that I took to be a track of some sort.  Having nothing else to do, I spent the time listening intently for any bit of knowledge that might be of use, and in this way, I learned that I was accompanied by at least four Riders close at hand, with many more leading the way a short distance ahead.  Even with my heightened senses, I could not detect any Riders to the rear of my little group, and I put much thought into what that might mean for a possible escape.

The wound in my shoulder throbbed with every jolt from the horse.  I have long prided myself on my horsemanship, but until that moment, had never experienced just how difficult it was to ride without seeing the upcoming terrain.  Every dip or rise in the ground bounced me violently in the saddle until my thighs and buttocks ached, and I was weary of the journey.

It made me all the more determined to get away from my captors.  But the answer to how I might do that remained stubbornly elusive, so I continued to be battered by the saddle as we rode steadily higher along the track.

---------------

Many tedious hours later, we stopped close to what sounded like a small waterfall.  The spot smelled of pine needles and damp earth.  I leaned forward in the saddle to take the weight off my bruised backside and listened to everything around me.

Men I took to be Riders barked commands at someone, and by the sounds of it, the target of their outburst was none too happy.  I thought perhaps it was a gatekeeper or guard.  Whoever they were, they seemed to be giving back as good as they got, which, for some perverse reason, made me smile beneath the dark hood.

My thoughts drifted to Gryff and Sara, wondering where they were and if they were safe. 

Then, a loud ratcheting sound from up ahead woke me from my thoughts.  A coarse grating noise accompanied the sound, and I guessed a gate was being raised.

The noise stopped, and I fell back in the saddle as we started again.  The next moment, I sensed we were passing through a narrow opening into an enclosed space beyond it.  It was dank and cool, like a tunnel, and I shivered after riding in the warmth of the day for so long.

Sounds of the horses’ hooves echoed off the walls, making it difficult to listen to the Riders, but I caught a few words and phrases as they spoke from close behind me. 

“Dungeon,” I heard one of them say and did not like the sound of that at all.

“Put her with the others,” said another.  I hoped they did not mean Gryff and Sara, for I was still clinging to the hope of a rescue.

One of the escorts must have noticed me listening, for I was struck hard on the back of my head and felt myself falling from the horse before I slipped into unconsciousness.

When I awoke, I was lying on my side in the dark on a grimy stone floor.  I sat up gingerly, but my head still throbbed something fierce.  I rubbed the back of my neck, and only then did I realise my hands were free and I was no longer hooded.

“Well, hello,” said a familiar voice.  I swung around, instantly regretting it as my head spun and stars filled my eyes.  When the pain had subsided and my sight had adjusted enough to the dark that I could see a little of my surroundings, I found myself looking at Gryff.  He was sitting next to me with Sara by his side.

I looked at Sara and Gryff in turn and then glanced around at the small, bare dungeon we were imprisoned in.  The ceilings were too high to see in the dim light, but there was a solid-looking wood door on one wall with a small, barred window.  The stone walls glistened with dampness, and there was a soiled iron grate in one corner of the stone floor for necessities.  A thin patch of dirty straw marked the only sleeping arrangements.  My spirits sagged as the fullness of our predicament sank in. 

“Aw, hell,” I said as I leaned into Gryff for a hug.  “They got you too.”

Sara nodded.  “A host of Riders caught us on the shoreline minutes after the boat sank, and you disappeared into the river.  We were badly outnumbered and had lost our weapons, so it was not much of a fight.”

“It was much the same for me,” I said.

Gryff held me closer, his eyes wide and filled with concern.  “One moment, you were there on the boat, and the next, you had vanished beneath the water,” he said in a small voice.  “We did not know if you survived or the river had taken you.”

I snuggled into him.  “I’m sorry, luv” I whispered.

“We tried to search for you,” added Sara.  “But those blasted Rider’s showed up before we had a chance.  They made us drink some horrible concoction that made us sleepy, then covered our heads and bound our hands.   Before we knew it, we were out cold.  We were aware of nothing else until we woke up here with you.”

“Did they drug you as well?” asked Gryff.

“Sort of,” I said, and when he looked puzzled by my response, I added, “Somebody clipped me from behind and knocked me out.” 

“Bastards!” he spat, and the vehemence with which he said it made me smile. 

“Yes.”  I rubbed the back of my neck and felt a lump there.  “I would not mind meeting that Rider again in different circumstances.”

Sara looked grim, and her eyes flashed with anger.  “I have a few scores to settle of my own.”

I glanced between Gryff and Sara.  As relieved as I was to see them both alive and well, it was bitter news that they had also been captured.  We had lost our weapons and supplies, and even the packs containing our gear.  

Worse, without the use of spells, we could not heal ourselves, which was perhaps the most troubling news of all.  Although the splinter wound in my shoulder had stopped bleeding, without proper attention, it would soon become diseased in that filthy place.  I mentioned as much to Gryff and Sara and then looked on in dismay as Sara showed me a puncture in her lower leg where an arrow had struck her as she stood at the river’s edge, hauling Gryff ashore.

“It is deep,” I said minutes later as I examined the jagged hole the arrow had made in Sara’s calf muscle.  “And there is some remnant of the arrowhead wedged beneath the skin that I cannot get hold of with my fingers.” 

I tore a strip of cloth from her already-holed pant leg and used it to bind the wound tightly.  “We must get this cleaned soon before it becomes infected.  And as soon as possible, we must remove that arrowhead.  There is no telling what foulness it might possess.”

“At least it has stopped hurting,” she said.

I pursed my lips.  “That is not good.  A wound like that should be bloody sore, most especially after me having poked around looking at it.”

I put a hand on Gryff’s shoulder to heft myself to my feet and carefully examined our cell.  There was not much to see.  Without tools or magic, the door was impenetrable.  Which left the grate as our best option for escape.  It was narrow and smelled foul, and though I had a pretty good idea, there was no way of knowing for sure where it might lead.  If only we could find a way to lift the iron bars, I thought, we might just slip out.  

The stench made my eyes water and my stomach heave as I knelt to look at the grate more closely.  The sturdy iron bars were inset into the floor, mortared into place beneath a layer of stones at least a hand’s width thick.  I grabbed a bar with both hands and pulled, trying not to think of the slime that oozed around my fingers.  But the bars showed no signs of budging. 

Sara knelt beside me to grab the bar, and we both pulled together until our faces turned red from the strain.

Finally, she sat back and wiped her brow with her forearm.  “That’s not going anywhere.”

Gryff peered over my shoulder and into the grate.  “What do you think?”

“If it wasn’t for this damned place and its negative energy, I could have us out of here in a flash,” I replied, frustrated.  “But as it is… I’m not sure what to think.  There isn’t even any light or fire from which I can draw energy.” I stared into the grate, searching my memory for anything that might help our situation.

“Any idea why they’ve brought us here?” he asked.

I shook my head.  “I don’t even know where we are, never mind why we are here.”

Our heads whipped around as a deep, sinister voice rumbled from out of the darkness overhead, “You are in the Mountain Stronghold of Merthyrs,” said the voice.  “And you are here for the gold bounty on your heads.”

Sara shoved Gryff and me until we stood with our backs pressed into a corner against the wall.  Then she stood between us and the voice as we all looked up into the dark, straining to see.

I saw a quick, shadowy movement overhead as the voice continued, “You do not look worthy of such a bounty as has been posted.  Perhaps you are not who they seek?”

“Who are you?” called Sara sharply.  “And why do you hide in the darkness?”

There was a long silence, then dust fell from the ceiling, and the walls trembled slightly as the being moved directly above us.  We scrambled across to the opposite corner of the cell and crouched low.

“Who am I?” taunted the voice. 

Sara gasped as a long, dark shadow crawled down the wall across from us.  It reached the floor and stood at least six feet tall on two legs, stretching out what appeared in the dim light to be wings that reached from one wall to the other. 

The creature took two steps towards us, leaning forward until we could see its face.   This time, it was my turn to gasp.

The sinister voice rumbled again, “Are you sure you want to know?”