The pledge-raid had been, as Cerrynt heard it, equal parts force and stealth. They had avoided notice, and bloodshed, as much as possible, but had also terrorized a farm-family and killed their guard dog. Cerrynt had been meant to be part of it, though she had never learned what her part would be; at that time, she'd hardly ever seen a horse, had never been near one. Had never seen a forgoil, either. But due to a misunderstanding about days and times, she hadn't been there. Which meant now she had to do the same raid, alone, and while the forgoil were on alert.
The same approach couldn't hope to work; even were the forgoil not on alert, she, alone, couldn't overpower an entire family before anyone could shout for help. Nor was she especially eager to such a strategem, for she had no hate for the forgoil boiling in her blood. Her only reason to complete the raid was that she had sworn to do so, and she would not go back on her word. So she had spent many lonely nights running and thinking of how best to fulfill her vow.
Though she was a capable warrior, trained by the champion of her tribe and gifted with an unusual technique that their enemies had not learned how to defend against, she was also unproven, having never defeated anyone in a life-or-death battle as yet. In any case, any attack that depended on her axe was doomed. But she was keen of senses, and fleet of foot, and nimble at climbing. Over the course of several nights, she had fashioned a plan that would depend on these strengths to catch the forgoil, even those on alert, unaware.
The Gap itself was often watched; there was no avoiding this. But there were places along the Isen where its banks were steep and rocky, seemingly impassable. Under cover of night she had several times been able to climb down such a bank and slip unnoticed into the chill waters, then swim upstream to a sheltered overhang, a rocky bluff so imposing the forgoil would not bother to watch anywhere near it. From there she could climb up from the river, scale the rocks, and emerge high above the farms of the westernmost reaches of the Westfold. She had found one farm that she could make her way, climbing slowly and carefully across chaotic terrain of boulder and scree, to just above. Several nights she had made this journey, then clung to the rock above this farm, watching it, measuring the mark of the farmer and his wife, noting their everyday routines.
Then she would return the same way she'd come, slip into Danhadlen's roundhouse, and speak nothing of her outings, nor her plan, to anyone in Tros Hynt. They, apart from Danhadlen herself (who had taught her how to manage and ride horses), seemed little interested in her. But perhaps if she completed the pledge she doubted anyone expected her to, the one they likely thought impossible, they would take her seriously. All the more so if they knew nothing of her plans until she returned in triumph.
The night of the bonfire, where she sat in stony silence, ignoring the disapproval of the son of the brenin and the witch of the Gravenwood, she thought of her plan. Every rock, every handhold, every fallen branch along her route; in her mind she marked them, she passed them in silence, she put them behind her. Then the part she had not yet carried out -- slipping down into the fenced-in yard, mounting the swifter of their two horses, and a gallop around the bluff and over the eyot, taking the forgoil there by surprise (they were not watching for threats from behind) and rushing past them before they could do anything. In her thoughts, as she galloped through the spray of the river, she laughed. They would take her seriously after that.
* * * * *
The stones of the bluff were like familiar friends as she clambered down to the river. The current was swift and cold, bracing, and she swam through it as swiftly and silently as the namesake of her clan, the otter. On the far side, the climb up the overhang was slow, her hands too chilled for a swift ascent, but she was in no hurry. When she crested the escarpment, the farm awaited, seemingly asleep under starlight. She crept around the cliffs above it until she was just over the house. Just a bit farther and she would be in position to drop down into the pen.
There was no moon yet, and but little starlight, but if her eyesight availed her little, so much the better. The Eryr-lûth, so proud of the eye of the eagle, seeing what is distant, but missing what was right before them. So much for them. She made her way by sound and feel, and it was a sound that drew her up short.
She frowned. She held still and focused. At first, she thought it the sounds of labor; the farm-wife, out in the stable-yard, doing some hard, exhausting, energetic work, far past the time when she and her husband were usually abed. But no, there was another voice. A man's voice, but not the farmer; someone younger. Also hard at work, perhaps helping--
Even in the darkness, her eyes went wide as she suddenly realized what was actually happening. She crept a bit farther along the bluff to where she could see a little. A third horse was present in the pen, standing listlessly to one side. There, against one of the beams that held up the roof, the farmwife, barely visible as she was obscured by a young man, flame-haired, dressed in the manner of a forgoil scout, save of course that his trousers were around his ankles.
I'm fairly certain the farmer would not be happy to see what I'm seeing, she thought wryly.
She watched a few moments. She had heard these sounds before, but had never actually seen what a husband and wife do, being done. Or in this case, a wife and someone other than her husband. As the surprise wore off she started to think whether this ruined her plan, or if she could use it. She could still return unseen and try the next night, but was this a moment she could take advantage of somehow?
The sounds from below started to grow louder and more intense. Not that the forgoil were shouting; clearly no one wanted to awaken the farmer. But from their muffled grunts, what they were doing was clearly nearing its conclusion. She had to act now, or not at all. Every stone beneath her hands and feet was known to her; she dropped into the back side of the farmyard silently, counting on the forgoil to be too busy to notice her, though she was within their sight. It would only take a moment for her to mount a horse and be off.
The flame-haired man's head spun. His hips did not cease their motion until his eyes fixed on Cerrynt's, and hers on his. For a moment their gazes were locked to one another. Nothing moved.
The farmwife made a soft mew of protest at the sudden cessation of movement, and that moment of stillness broke instantly. Swiftly, so swiftly that she could not help for a moment admiring the man (how like her he was, both keen of senses and graceful in motion), he jumped back and tugged his trousers roughly up, and was already running towards his horse, a much leaner one than those the farmers kept, a dun nearly as handsome as his rider.
Had there been time to think, Cerrynt might have decided to do what her instincts drove her to do anyway. If he could mount it he would be away, and the alert would be called, and she would be cut off with no way to return over the river. She raced towards the horse.
He arrived first, if only because the horse knew its rider and stepped towards him. He leaped smoothly into the saddle.
But he was only a few steps ahead of her, and her axe was already in her hand, moving, swinging in a great circle, its weight enough to lift her off the ground just as it was nearing the middle of its swing -- or she leaped at that moment -- when she and her axe danced, all the motion was of a piece. At the last moment, heeding Gryffudd's call to avoid bloodshed, she spun it so it was the flat of the blade that struck the man's chest and carried him head over heels to land behind the horse, dazed, while Cerrynt landed on her feet just before the beast.
The horse stared at her. It was a swift horse, and well-trained, but in all, it was still a horse. Dull and docile, obedient. Remembering what Danhadlen had taught her, she stepped around it while speaking soft soothing sounds. By time the scout had pulled himself to his feet and tugged his trousers back up, she was already in the saddle. The farmwife, her back still pressed against the stable-post, her hair tousled and sticky with sweat, stared in gape-mouthed astonishment, but she still did not cry out. After all, she would not want to awaken the farmer. At least not until she'd pulled her nightgown back on.
The scout's horse turned out to be a far better choice for the hurried dash across the Isen past startled guards than would have been the farmer's draught horse. A few arrows flew. One bounced off her axe; another did not, and lodged shallowly in her lower back. She did not slow when the river was behind her but continued on, not to Tros Hynt, for if there were pursuit she did not wish to bring it to the village, but into the hills, the twisting ways of which she knew as well as her own fingers. The wind of the horse's gallop rushed past her; she did not look back to see if she was pursued, but continued headlong. At last she stopped the horse and listened. If there were pursuers, they had been left behind long before.
She whispered some gentle thanks to the horse, then urged it on towards the village, tending her shallow arrow-wound as the horse trotted. There was more yet to the pledge; the horse would have to be returned, to Wulf's banner, at Fréasburg, and that would be well-guarded. But she had already achieved the impossible. Surely they would recognize that.
